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Bound in Scale

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Bound in Scale is a fanfic set after the events of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, written by Dire Moose.

After an encounter with the Yiga that leaves Link fatally wounded, something inside Zelda breaks and unleashes a beast that was hidden within her, turning her into a half-dragon, half-hylian being. Now Zelda has to figure out what the Yiga are up to and what caused her transformation, while a mysterious sorcerer begins to cause trouble all around Hyrule while collecting mysterious crystals.

Unmarked spoilers for Tears of the Kingdom.


This fanfic provides examples of:

  • Admiring the Abomination: Zeed spoke of the Demon Dragon as if it was something wonderful, and wonders what kind of unholy terror it would have been had Ganondorf managed to keep his mind intact.
  • Always Chaotic Evil: Subverted: Zelda and Link encounter some non-hostile monsters, first a group of Lizalfos, then a pair of Lynels, then a King Gleeok. The Lizalfos later explain that monsters in general are Slave Mooks, and the same magic that brings them back to life during the Blood Moons also compels them to serve whatever evil is causing said Blood Moons.
  • Amazon Chaser: Link makes no effort to hide how much he likes Zelda's new body, and he can't stop himself from making goofy grins whenever he sees her showing off her Super-Strength.
  • Amazonian Beauty: Zelda's new body is close to seven foot in height and packed with muscle, which Link finds incredibly attractive.
  • Arrow Catch: The very first thing Zelda does post-transformation is to catch an arrow mid-flight shot by a Yiga archer before it could pierce her head.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When the King Gleeok in chapter 21 sniffs them, it claims that Zekda "smells of light and sky", Riju "smells of sparks" and Link "just smells".
  • Battle Couple:
    • Link and Zelda are a pair of adventuring heroes who are involved in a romantic relationship, and often fight together, something Link very much enjoys.
      Link: To be able to stand at your side is one thing. But to actually be able fight along with you as well, it’s a dream of mine come true.
    • Sidon and Yona also fought together (alongside Link and Zelda) against the corrupted Lynel in chapter 13.
  • BFS: In chapter 14, in order to thank her for her help during the Death Mountain arc, Yunobo gifts Zelda a massive sword made of obsidian steel.
  • Big Eater: Zelda's new form also comes with a ravenous appetite. She's mortified to learn that she ate herself into a coma at the end of the Death Mountain arc.
    Yunobo: Is... is she dead?
    Tulin: I think she’s still breathing.
  • Boxing Lessons for Superman: After witnessing her newly acquired immense strength, Link decides to train Zelda in proper combat.
  • The Corruption: Any living being that touches a dark crystal is mutated into a horrfying monster.
    • A Korok named Floro turns into a huge wolf made of timber that engulfs the area it's in in a dense fog that makes people insane. While Link is able to resist its influence thanks to his Heroic Willpower, Zelda's mind regresses to that of a savage beast.
    • A Lynel near Zora's Domain is covered in Gloom, its muscles swell so much they tore the skin from the inside, and its body was covered in many eyes and writhing tentacles.
    • But the absolute worst case is Patricia, who due to abosrbing multiple crystals it mutates into a titanic monster covered in eyes and red spikes, which is capable of one-hit killing Moldugas with ease.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Zelda may find her new form monstrous, but it comes with quite a wide array of abilities, such as Super-Strength, slight Super-Speed, an aura that grants herself and people close to her a Healing Factor (and with the number of scrapes she and Link get into, this is very useful), claws strong enough to tear through rock and resistance to heat. She also gains the ability to understand and talk to Lizalfos, which plays a big role in them pulling a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Dirty Coward: When a very angry Zelda is about to attack Kohga and some Yiga during chapter 20, the latter orders his minions to deal with her while he runs away.
  • Discard and Draw: Zelda loses her Secret Stone at the beginning of the story, meaning that her time magic is much less potent, but her half-dragon form grants her a whole new set of (mostly physical) abilities.
  • Distracted by the Sexy:
    • Purah has trouble keeping focus while examining Zelda's body post-transformation, as she keeps getting flustered by the princess' muscular physique.
    • Similarly, when the four of them are fishing together, Link and Yona can't help but stare in awe at their respective love interests' muscles glistening under the sun.
  • Double Date:
    • Link and Zelda had a picnic with Sidon and Yona during the Zora Domain arc.
    • When talking about his and Yona's impending wedding to Link, Sidon tries to convince Link to marry Zelda so they can make it a double wedding, though Link turns the offer down.
  • Downer Beginning: The first chapter has Link being riddled with arrows by Yiga archers, followed by Zelda suddenly transforming into a half-dragon hybird, then losing her Secret Stone as she fought the Yiga, and finally running towards Lookout Landing while carrying a half-dead Link in her arms. Thankfully things do get better for the two of them.
  • Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Link is recounting to Zelda how he killed the Demon Dragon by striking his now gigantic Secret Stone, both of them realize that the ensuing explosion scattered those shards around Hyrule, which are now spreading Ganondorf's residual yet still powerful dark magic.
  • Expy: Being a pale-skinned Hylian Evil Sorcerer dressed in dark purple robes who is associated with the Yiga Clan, Big Bad Zeed is one for Astor, one of the main villains from Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. In fact, before his name was revealed, several readers believed he was actually Astor.
  • Fighting Your Friend: Or your lover, in this case. The effects of the Gloom Wolf's madness-inducing mist turned Zelda completely feral, forcing Link to fight her.
  • Foil: Zelda and Zeed are this to each other, as the former notes; she's a physical powerhouse, he's frail and sickly. In fact, Zeed's motivation for villainy is to gain a body as strong as Zelda's.
  • Foreshadowing: When Zelda tells Link about her newfound ability to understand and talk to Lizalfos, Link jokingly suggests that she could use that to convince them to drop their evil ways and become upstanding citizens of Hyrule. Much later, a group of Lizalfos declare Zelda their new leader, and she does exactly what Link suggested.
  • For Science!: Unsurprisingly, Purah very much embodies this trope.
    • She has to defy it when examining Zelda's new draconic body, seeing that Zelda is in an incredibly distressed state, not just because of her transformation but because Link is at death's door. She has to supress her scientific curiosity for the sake of soothing the princess.
      Purah: No! Stop it Purah, friend first, science later.
    • Link and Zelda both guess that once Purah learns about Zelda's ability to talk to and understand Lizalfos, she'll lock Zelda in a room until the princess produces a dictionary's worth of Lizalfos language. Their guess is proven right when Purah finally sees Zelda talking to a Lizalfos, and the scientist goes absolutely ballistic.
  • Friend to All Living Things: Zelda notes in chapter 18 that Link's ability to charm and befriend animals is unrivaled, and privately notes that it's something she envied of him.
  • Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: While Zelda feels sorry for Zeed being sick and frail his whole life, she agrees with Link when he states that it doesn't justify his villanous actions.
  • From a Single Cell: Invoked. Zeed recovered a still living piece of the Demon Dragon's flesh, and plans to grow it into a full body.
  • Force and Finesse:
    • Zelda and Tulin had this dynamic during the time they teamed up; Zelda's Super-Strength naturally made her the Force, while Tulin's speed, archery skill and mastery of the winds made him the Finesse.
    • When Link recovers and joins Zelda on a permanent basis, his Master Swordsman skillset made him the Finesse in comparison to Zelda's brute force.
  • Future Me Scares Me: When Zelda touches a dark crystal in chapter 13, it shows her a vision where she's a tyrannical Evil Overlord wearing a black armor and wielding a black BFS. Link convinces her that it wasn't a vision of the future but Ganondorf's remains messing with her mind...then, at the end of chapter 14, Yunobo finally gives Zelda the gift he promised her ten chapters ago, and it's the exact same sword she saw in her vision.
  • Genius Bruiser: Zelda's transformation granted her immense strength, but didn't diminish her keen intellect in the slightest.
  • Guest-Star Party Member: Due the fact that Link was still bedridden from the arrow wounds he sustained at the beginning, Tulin ends up joining Zelda on her quest to Death Mountain. Once they return, Link has recovered enough to move and permanently rejoins Zelda, while Tulin returns to Rito Village.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: The crux of the story is that there is still a remnant of the Light Dragon inside Zelda, which causes her transformation into a half-dragon, half-Hylian hybrid.
  • Hybrid Monster: On Death Mountain Zelda and Tulin fight a Gohma/Gleeok hybrid (which Tulin dubs "Gleeoma") created by Zeed.
  • I Am a Monster: Zelda often struggles with this (to the point that she name-dropped this trope in Chapter 5), not just because of her more monstrous appearance, but because her new form also makes her more prone to violence. Purah and especially Link often assure her that she deiniftely isn't.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Despite all the amazing abilities she gained, Zelda just wants to return to what she used to be. In fact, when Zelda and Link visited the Zora Domain, Zelda was glad that she wasn't the tallest person in the room for once, and that she didn't draw that much attention among Zoras as she did among Hylians.
  • Immune to Bullets: During the battle of Chapter 20, a Yiga launches a volley of kunai at Zelda. They all bounce harmlessly off her skin, and all they do is some minor Clothing Damage.
  • Imperfect Ritual: Despite the initial results, the characters wonder that Link using an empowered Recall to turn the Light Dragon back into Zelda might not have been as clean as initally believed.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: While Link doesn't hide how much he likes Zelda as a Cute Monster Girl Amazonian Beauty, he also assured her that he'll help her find a way to return back to normal if that's what she really wants.
  • Joker Immunity: Discussed in-universe; Zeed wonders how Master Kohga is still alive, as by the latter's own account he should have died three times already.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: Link was proud over the fact that he had never, ever, ran away from any enemy, no matter how big or strong they were. A feral half-dragon Zelda put an end to that streak.
  • Lizard Folk: While Zelda still looks mostly like a Hylian woman, Lizalfos refer to her as their kin, which might not be wrong given that she can now understand and talk to them.
  • Logical Weakness: Zelda's Super-Strength comes from her muscles being much more dense than before. However, her extremely high muscular density means she cannot swim, as her body now sinks like a rock whenever it's in deep waters.
  • Man Bites Man: More like "half-dragon princess bites monster", but during the battle at the Monster Ship, Zelda bit a Boss Bokoblin's neck. It wasn't enough to kill it, but it gave Link the opportunity to stab it in the gut.
  • Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex:
    • Part of the reason Zelda uses to turn down Link's proposal to get frisky in Chapter 9 is that with her new size and strength, she might end up hurting him.
      Link: It would be worth it.
      Zelda: Not when I'm the one who has to explain to the healers why you have a shattered pelvis.
    • When the two of them are finally about to have sex in chapter 19, Link dismisses Zelda's worries over her hurting him and her idea of a Safe Word. After giving Link a firsthand demonstration of how strong she is now, he quickly recants.
  • My Instincts Are Showing: Zelda sometimes exhibits animalistic behavior, such as her tendency to rely on savage bites and claw swipes during battle, as well as a penchant for hunting with her bare hands. And when she saw a particularly fat sand seal in chapter 18, her first thought was that it looked very tasty.
  • Named Weapons: Played for Laughs. Since Zelda's new BFS doesn't have a name, Link and some of the guardsmen come with several. Zelda is apalled by them, since the dark and edgy names they come up with made the sword sound like the kind of weapon "some ghostly dark knight would wield".
    Link: Hey, are you going to bring the Midnight Destroyer?
    Zelda: The what? Do you mean my sword? Goddess above, we are not calling it that!
    Link:I can’t take credit, one of the guardsmen came up with it! I would personally go with… Dark Smasher, or Night Rend.
    Zelda: Ugh! Gods no!
  • No-Sell: Zelda's new form grants her immunity to Gloom. She's not immune to the effect of the dark crystals, however, as she finds the hard way at the end of Chapter 13.
  • Only the Chosen May Wield: It's strongly implied (and later confirmed) that due the fact that Zelda spent thousands of years as the Light Dragon feeding the Master Sword her own sacred power, the sword now sees Zelda as her second master.
  • The Remnant: On top of the remaining monsters, there's also the Yiga Clan, who made an alliance with Evil Sorcerer Zeed in order to find a way to resurrect Ganondorf.
  • That Came Out Wrong:
    • During their Double Date, Sidon carves his name, Yona's, Link's and Zelda's on a flat stone and draws a single heart around all of them. While he meant to symbolize the two couples, Yona pointed out that he made it look as if all four of them were in a polyamorous relationship. While Sidon was mortified at his blunder, Zelda found it Actually Pretty Funny.
    • Yunobo promises that he'll "polish his stones" for Sidon and Yona's wedding, only to realize how he sounded when he noticed everybody's stares.
  • Safe Word: Zelda suggests the use of one in chapter 19 before she and Link have sex, just in case she accidentally hurts him with her Super-Strength.
    Link: Uh... how about… Kohga?
    Zelda: Ech! Eugh! Really? That’s the first thing you come up with? (Beat) It’s perfect.
  • Ship Tease: While Link and Zelda are the fic's Official Couple, both of them get copious amount of teasing with Purah; she's very flirty with Link, openly fawns over Zelda's new appearance, when telling Link and Zelda that they should get new clothes due the sustained Clothing Damage on their current ones she said that she "enjoyed the view" but preferred if it was for her eyes only, and the three of them slept together at the end of chapter 16. Some readers even stated that they wouldn't mind if Link and Zelda formed a throuple with Purah.
  • Slave Mook:
    • A Lizalfos explains that Ganondorf's magic bounds most monsters to his will. It's the same magic that allows the Blood Moons to revive them.
    • This is expanded further in chapter 21, when a King Gleeok states that monsters hear Ganondorf's voice inside their heads, hijacking their thoughts with his orders.
  • Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Pre-transformation Zelda was already a little taller than Link, but post-transformation Zelda is an Amazonian Beauty who looks straight up gigantic when standing next to the shorter than average Link.
  • Trademark Favorite Food:
    • Zeed doesn't understand why Yigas are so collectively fixated on bananas, but is smart enough to use their love of the fruit whenever he needs them to cool down.
    • Inverted with Zelda and coconuts, as the fruit is the princess' least favorite food.
    • The King Gleeok found under Gerudo Desert expresses great love for hydromelons.
  • Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Zelda's transformation into a half-dragon is triggered by seeing Link being riddled with arrows during a Yiga ambush.
  • Understanding Boyfriend: Link, oh so much. When Zelda feels repulsed by her new appearance, he reassures her that she's as beautiful as ever. When she wonders if she's still Hylian, he reassures her that her current form doesn't define what she is. When she wonders that she might be a monster now, he reminds her of how kind and selfless she is.
  • Unskilled, but Strong:
    • Zelda's immensely strong and has very sharp claws, but her fighting style is close to that of a savage beast.
    • Link later defies this trope by convincing Zelda to learn how to properly fight.
      Zelda: What does it matter if the results are all the same? I win, they don't.
      Link: True, but you are relying entirely on your strength alone. A Hinox is big and strong, but I can still slip under its guard and end its terror. You are formidable, Zelda, but untrained. Someone could take advantage of that.
  • Who Wants to Live Forever?:
    • Zelda worries over the possibility that she might have regained the agelessness she had as the Light Dragon, as she dreads the idea of outliving all her friends and loved ones.
    • Turns out monsters (or at the very least, Lizalfos) do not enjoy the Resurrective Immortality granted by the Blood Moons, as not only it robs them of the peace of death, but the magic that revives them also makes them slaves to whatever caused the Blood Moon.

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