#I think my bridge is better than Twilight's or Hyrule's

[gatitopicante]

Where is the destination? I am unsure. If there is trouble, I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

[deadlygronkle]

Chapter 6 of ancestor's legacy

“AGAIN?!” Twilight winced at the sudden loud voices coming from the other Links, or more specifically Time, Wild, Wind, and surprisingly Hyrule. The others had looks of unmasked shock which was surprising to Twilight as usually the Links are very good at masking what they are truly feeling, Legend especially.

“Um, yeah?” Twilight replied a bit confused at their reactions, after all this isn’t the first time he made references to his journey in a pain scale ratio. 

As Twilight tried to think back on what happened, he could only recall fighting the monsters, using the mortal draw on his opponents, getting slashed along his abdomen, and barely holding off the moblins before passing out.

What Twilight couldn't make sense of was that he remembered seeing the Hero's Shade who looked younger…. or at least less eroded by time. Then the Hero' Shade was replaced with Time who looked concerned.

Twilight internally sighed before thinking 'Must've been a dream or rather a nightmare' letting the matter rest.

“Well Pup are you going to answer us on how it came to be that you needed to jump off your world’s Great Hylian Bridge into an empty river?” Time asked. Though it was more of an order than a question. Time's tone was cold with disapproval. 

"I - Uh -  Well" Twilight floundered under the stern, disapproving gaze of his mentor. Twilight's stomach chose this chance to make it known that it hadn't eaten anything since yesterday, with a loud grumble that made a few of the Links snicker.

Taking the chance to change the subject Twilight started to get ready and get up despite the pain and said “Who’s hungry? I feel like I could eat an entire Ordonian goat by myself!” desperately trying to change the subject.

Twilight propped himself up on his elbows, mentally preparing himself for the pain that will inevitably follow, but before he could make much progress Sky stood from where he was sitting to Twilight's right. As Sky gently pushed him back down he said  “Sorry Twi you are on bed rest for at least a week, doctor’s orders.” 

Warriors, who is, in Twilight's professional opinion, an asshole, suggested “Why don't we go and find the doctor so we can figure out what he can eat, and once we all eat some breakfast in here, he can tell us the story."

Twilight looked over at Warriors and glared, only for Warriors to grin wider and say, “what? We have barely heard anything about your journey. I am not passing up the chance to hear about how you thought that was a great plan.”

Before Twilight could snap at the Knight Time said “Sounds like a plan I’ll stay in here and make sure Twilight doesn’t decide to get up.” Twilight could still feel Time’s gaze on him.

All of the Links excluding Time and Twilight filled out of the room one by one to collect food from the kitchens. With Warriors and Hyrule going to look for Doctor Diane, and the other 5 going to collect their food to bring back to Twilight's room. 

Wind replaced Sky on Twilight’s right for a brief moment, and hugged him as gently as he physically could and whispered  ‘I am glad you are alright.”. Wind just as fast as he came over left with his usual pep in his step. Twilight couldn't respond to Wind before Wind left his sight.

Silence quickly over the room now that the other Links were gone. After a minute or so Twilight broke the silence by looking over at Time and saying "I assume you have some questions for me?"

Time's response was to raise one eyebrow while looking down at his protege, who had a mixture of guilt and shame written on his face. Time sighed before saying “Yes I do, but I will hold off on the questions for now until you’re better.”. Twilight physically relaxed a bit at this. “But only on two conditions, one that you answer my most important question and two, you won’t shy away from my questions when the time comes.”

Twilight knows that this deal will only delay the inevitable but at least he will be able to deal with the conversation when he can at least walk/move without pain. Twilight prays to whatever goddesses is listening, where its Hylia, Farore, or Ordona, the protector of the place where Twilight had first trained with the Hero’s Shade, that the conversation they inevitably have won’t be the reason why Time lingers for who knows how long as a Stalfos instead of being with Malon in the afterlife.

Twilight, with that last thought in mind, begrudgingly says “Deal, what’s your question?”

Time leans back on his chair, satisfied that he managed to be a promise out of his stubborn descendant replies with a “Your left arm apparently has some bad scarring, calluses, and was a bit inflamed, want to explain what that is about Pup?” 

Twilight’s mind went blank ‘What scars could the old man be talking about?’ Twilight thinks as he takes his left hand out from under the covers with little difficulty. Twilight stares at his arm trying to see if he can find anything unusual, the only scarring he can see is from the chain in his wolf form either rubbing or whipping against his arm. Sure the area around where the chain rubs is a bit inflamed…. Oh that is what he is talking about.

To make sure it was indeed what Time was talking about he pointed at it with his right hand and said “Is this what you are talking about?” As Twilight looked up from his examination of his arm he saw Time’s face had lost most of its color as his one good eye was transfixed on the scarring on his arm.

Time was horrified at the state his Pup’s arm is in. Not only was there heavy calluses about one inch above his wrist but it was a shade of bright pink that was saved for burns and infections, which Time supposes makes sense given the description the Doctor gave him yesterday. What was also concerning was the slashes were random above and a tiny bit below the thick band of calluses. The size of the slashes were random as well, some not much bigger than a quarter of an inch, others were long and gagged. Every single one of the scars look an irritated pink.

Time briefly wondered how he never noticed how bad it was before, and then thought of the fact that Twilight hardly ever took off his bracers and when he did it was at the end of the day when everyone was preoccupied by eating, talking, or trying to sleep. 

“Pup what happened, who, or what did this?” Time says this as he looked at Twilight’s face who was now concerned at this reaction Time had.

“Uhm well.” Twilight lets out an awkward fanged tooth smirk “It was from a mixture of things, you know how ‘wolfie’ has a metal cuff and bit of chain on his, or well my left arm?” 

Time somewhat realizing where this is going “Yes, how did that get attached to you in the first place?”. Time was furious when he first learned that Wolfie and Twilight were the same person and someone had chained him up and left him to die, but never really thought to ask the specifics on how he was chained. After Time calmed down a bit he started to call Twilight ‘Pup’ much to Pup’s chagrin.

“I was getting to that,” Twilight sighed ‘So much for avoiding talking about my journey’ Twilight thought. “The kids in my village were kidnapped so I went after them. Long story short I was dragged into a ‘twilight zone’ by a creature of twilight, my triforce somehow turned me into a wolf so I could move around and not become a spirit. The pain was so bad I passed out. Next thing I knew I was in a cell chained up in a corner, and with a little help from…  an ally I was able to escape. Never saw who put me in there.” Twilight chose his words carefully as he didn’t want to dig at old, but painful wounds talking about Midna.

“Well my ally could only cut the chain so as to not risk hurting me in the process, and I can’t get it removed because all of the blacksmiths of my time are all scared of wolves. So over time the cuff has rubbed off the skin and fur under it raw and the ‘lashes’ are from when the chain occasionally hits against my leg while I’m running or something.”. Looking at Time’s blank contemplating face Twilight quickly adds, “It happened more when I first transformed than it does now.”

There was a brief pause before Time slowly said “Y’know you don’t have to have that chain on anymore.” 

Twilight looked at him in confusion “What do you mean?”.

Time’s eye crinkled in amusement “Four knows that you and wolfie are one in the same, and he is a blacksmith, so he has the skills and knowledge to take it off. You could’ve just asked him!”

Twilight's face was blank before the realization hit him like getting run over by a rideable boar “Oh. My. Goddesses?! Why didn’t I think of that?!” Twilight practically yelled, taking both hands and covering his face.

Time seeing his descendant laying there, head on the pillow with his hand covering his face, with ears pink with embarrassment, just like his do, broke down in loud, booming laughter at his protege never thinking of asking Four to help him, even though they have talked in great lengths about Four’s skills in the forge.

Time opened his watery eye to see Twilight having a look of complete and utter embarrassment and horror ears a brighter pink than before which made Time practically break down again but, this time in his more usual, and more importantly to Twilight, quieter chuckle.

Twilight mumbled out “It isn’t that funny, I just never thought about asking ‘im”

Time wiping his eye said “Sorry, Pup, it's just that somehow throughout however many generations passed between my time and yours, your ears turn pink just like mine do.”

Twilight let out a weak laugh “So it wasn’t about me not realizing I could ask Four to take off that Goddesses damned shackle?”

Time, still with amusement in his eye said “Oh no it was also about that, I am going to hold this over your head for a long time Pup. I can’t wait to tell Malon.”. When Time added that last part Twilight sighed in defeat just as the door was flung open by the other Links each carrying a tray of food or in Warriors, and Wild’s cases two trays.

“Tell Malon what?” Wind asked curiously as he walked in the room after Hyrule.

“Oh it's nothing you should concern yourself with Sailor” Time said still smirking. Twilight internally sighed, relieved that he won’t have to live through that again. 

“So Twilight can have food but it has to be simple stuff, so we got him bread and some simple beef broth. Oh! And you need to take this after you eat.” Wild sat down one of the trays on the bedside table and with one hand went into his sheikah tablet to bring out a full red potion, making Twilight grimace at the thought of drinking one of those.

Before Twilight could refuse and say he changed his mind about eating, so he didn’t have to take the red potion, his stomach grumbled so loud that it made a few of the Links snicker. Twilight, once again sighing in defeat, propped himself on his elbows mentally preparing for the pain, when Time and Wild were on either of his sides in an instant. Each of them took one of his arms, and before Twilight could protest he grunted in pain as they hauled him up into a sitting position with his back resting against the headrest/wall.

“Could’ve done that by myself” Twilight grumbled as his food was put in a bed tray so he could eat and not have to lean down so much.

“Just accept the fact that they aren’t going to let you do anything by yourself until your better dumbass” Legend snarked as he pulled up a chair to eat his, in Twilight’s opinion, much more appetizing food. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After everyone was finished eating Twilight was staring in contempt at the health potion he was currently holding. To everyone that knew his secret he looked like a puppy that had just been told he couldn’t have a treat.

“Hurry up and drink the damn Potion Twi! I want to hear your excuse on why it was a bright idea to jump off your Great Hylia Bridge!” Warriors complained, wanting something to make fun of Twilight with.

Wild helpfully added in Warriors favor cheekily “You are only delaying the inevitable.”

Twilight sighed “I was really hoping you would forget about that.”

To which they responded with a cheekily “Not on your life!” and “Nope!” from Warriors and Wild respectively.

Twilight then yanked the cork off of the red potion and downed it in one go and then grimaced at the taste. As he looked up he saw everyone waiting expectantly for his story.

“Let’s see where to start…. So my Hyrule was put under a spell that affected nearly everyone but me, my Zelda and a few others, in which they were all practically ghosts and were stuck in a trance not realizing they couldn’t do anything. I overheard some of the guards talking about how they needed to go investigate Lake Hylia because the river dried out so I decided to investigate it. On my way over as I was walking on the Great Hylia Bridge I noticed that it smelled funny. Around half way across the bridge a bublin archer jumped out on the other side and fired two arrows lighting each side of the bridge on fire and was very quickly coming to engulf me.”

Legend interjected saying “Wait are you telling us that you somehow didn’t recognize the oil on the bridge and decided to continue walking the bridge? Not only that but the spell cast on your land was so powerful that it made everyone go into a trance, but the monsters, who was powerful enough to do all that?”

“Believe me that guy as a certified asshole, and was in league with my time’s version of Ganon, and as to how he did it, I only know that he decided to send his minions to the spirits watching over the land, to steal some of their power and then sealed it away in these weird little insects that I had to destroy.” Twilight replied knowing some would doubt his story.

“So since the bridge was on fire you decided that the best way to not get burnt was to…. jump off of a bridge several stories to an empty river bed?” Sky guessed brow creased in increasing concern.

“It wasn’t completely empty, there was a bit of water at the bottom that I landed in.” Twilight said as he was trying in vain to defend his actions.

“That’s even worse than landing in a relatively soft sandy river bed! Did you even land in the water properly to minimize the damage?” Warriors asked clearly, enjoying Twilight’s uncomfortable shifting.

“No…. I was more concerned with the fact I was a bit caught on fire.” Twilight said and while seeing Time’s shock added quickly “Even if I tried to do that! It was way too shallow for that!” Twilight stopped and realized what he just said and looked up in horror to see Sky’s, Time’s, Wind’s, and Hyrule’s, Four’s shocked and horrified faces, Warriors’, Legend’s, amused faces at Twilight’s slip up while he was trying to make it not sound as bad as it was, and Wild’s face of pure indignation.

“You get on my case all the time about jumping from high stuff with my glider and yet here you are jumping from high things on fire, and with no way to slow your fall?!” Wild shouted.

Wind stared at him in shock and said “My grandma drilled it into my head that landing on water from high up makes it feel like landing on stone, and that you would break all of your bones, how did you manage to continue your quest?!”

“What the fuck Pup” Time bluntly stated concerned at his descendants lack of concern for his own well being. It seems like Twilight had more of a one track mind than Time himself had on his quest.

“How did you survive?!” Four and Hyrule said, each with an expression of horror. 

Sky stared at him slack jawed, knowing how much it hurts just landing on his loftwing from a story or two up, especially at the beginning when he first bonded with his. Twilight jumped from easily twice that.

Twilight cringed at everyone shouting at once, hurting his sensitive ears. 

“Oooo Twi is in trouble” Warriors unhelpfully added after everyone finished talking over each other earning him a halfhearted jab in the side by Legend who also looked just as amused by the current events as Warriors.

Twilight, once again glared at Warriors for his addition before saying “It wasn’t that bad. Sure it hurt, but it was easy enough to walk off, once I woke up. At that point in my quest, me being hurt was far from my greatest concern.”

“And what exactly was more important than your own well being?” Sky asked, giving a glare that made Twilight shiver. Twilight could count on one hand the amount of times he’s seen that look on Sky’s face and it's just his luck that Sky is giving him that look.

“The children of my village were taken by King Bulblin, the only reason I even started on my quest was because I was trying to get them back. Hell, the only way I found out what happened to Hyrule was because of them getting kidnapped, and the only way I could even think about bringing them back was to lift the curse on Hyrule.” Twilight snapped, now irritated at being interrogated from something that happened years ago.

Before anyone else had a chance to ask anything else Doctor Diane walked through the opened door with a bag full of medical supplies said “Excuse me, I am sorry to interrupt but I need to check and redress my patients wounds,”

[cafecourage]

The moment they realized they loved you. (Isekai Au Edition) Part 1

Because this was my first time doing this I went a little crazy. If you want more information on this AU here is the Link!

Time:

- It had been welcomed with open arms.

- You two are literally the opposite but also very similar. Time is calm and stoic. You are chaotic and loud. But both of you are very cryptic.

- You’re the only person in the kingdom of hyrule currently that remembers what he had gone through. He feels like he can trust you with anything.

- It’s started with a slip up by wind and just spiraled out of control.

___________________________________

Time was discussing the groups inventory with Twilight and Wild when it happens. A small slip of the tongue followed by a laughter that could be mistaken as a fairy chime. He looked over to see your bright smile shining through under your hood. In front of you was the target of your amusement, the youngest link.

“That’s so cute!” You exclaimed to the horror of Wind, who was red in embarrassment. “Wait who’s dad?”

“Can we let this go?” The teen was covering his face now.

“It’s Time.” Four said without looking up from his book. Utter chaos broke loose in camp with just a few words. A chorus of any forms of agreement was making you laugh even harder. Time though covering up his true feelings about the situation was very lost. While yes, he acknowledged that he had slowly became the father figure of the group. That title didn’t involve you.

Unless…

“Time! I didn’t know we were married!” You bounced over to their leader looking at him with a playful smirk.

A life with you flashes in his head.

There could be a small cottage farm surrounded by the forest that reminding him of his old family and home. You could take care of the garden while he could take care the animals. In a few years the two of you might just have a few kids running around. Playing with each other without a care in the world. No more fighting. No more traveling. Just a simple lifestyle with a tight knit family. It looked peaceful. Everything he would want.

“You should have told me.” He was brought back to the present by your face looking up at him expectedly.

“I thought you knew.” He said super seriously. “We’ve got to raise nine children together already.”

“Hey! I raised you during the war old man!” Warriors called out from across camp.

“You’re the uncle then!” (Y/n) countered “I already say Twilight is our first born!” You declared pointing to Time’s flustered descendent. The rest of the conversation was tuned out as he went back to his thoughts once more.

Time lived longer than most of the heroes here by age 11. Yet not once did he stop to think about a future and family. He was so busy trying to keep out of hero work that it just slipped. Yet see you with the other heroes, knowing now that you were just as much a parental figure to the others as him. It made his softer just thinking about it and he welcomed that warm fuzzy feeling with open arms.

Reaching out he brush’s hair out of your face to kiss your temple. “I’ll propose to you properly later.” He said in a teasing tone to suggest he was only joking to hide the truth in that statement. Seeing your entire face flush red was really worth it.

“Gross Mom and Dad are flirting!”

___________________________________

- He’ll never once tell you straight if he liked you or was just playing along with the ongoing joke that the chain has.

- This time instead of you observing him. He wants to see how far he can go until confessing.

- It drives you crazy. Since you can’t get a read on him. You attempt to flirt back in retaliation. However, it always ends with you being the most flustered.

- Who knew the Old Man had it in him?

Twilight:

- It became a melancholic hopeless feeling that spiral out of control.

- He already had his heartbroken by someone before and he knows he shouldn’t get attached to you too.

- Yet he can’t stop himself from wanting to be near you. He heard you so clearly before.

- Now that he can actually speak to you directly, he wants to get to know his other travel companion more.

___________________________________

Being alone in the forest with you wasn’t what Twilight planned when dropped in a different Hyrule but here you two where. You offered to go on patrol with him when the others were setting up camp claiming it was too see if you could identify the era. It didn’t matter since Twilight enjoyed your company no matter what. The lack of conversation between the two of you didn’t bother him. If anything, it felt the most natural. Only a few words were needed for the two of you to understand each other. “Do you mind if I use my wolf form?” Twilight asked fiddling with the chain that attached to the shadow crystal around his neck.

You paused to think about it. “I mean you can. But be aware I will baby talk you.”

This got Twilight to stop walking. Maybe he lied. He doesn’t need a few words to understand your thought process. “Excuse me?”

“I can’t control myself around cute creatures.” You simply stated like it was the most obvious thing.

Instead, Twilight was burning up. You thought his wolf form was cute? Of all things you used that word? What did you think of human Twilight if you thought like that? Did he want to even know? He was searching for any way to take this conversation but it all lead to dead ends. “Cute?” Was all he could ask. His voice pitching up as he got flustered.

“Yeah?” You looked at him just as confused as he was. “Wolves are just like big dogs and to be honest you look more like a giant dog then a wolf.” Your explanation did not help at all with his situation. “If it makes you feel better you’re very handsome as a Hylian and also built like an go-“

Twilights brain was malfunctioning he couldn’t hear any more of what you had to say about him. He grabbed on to the shadow crystal, turning into his wolf form he ran. He didn’t hear you call out his name in surprise.

Hylia, what was wrong with him? You were just a friend. A very blunt yet gentle friend. Nothing more. Nothing less. Why was his heart racing so much? He had heard you shower him in complements before while on his first adventure. But hearing you say it to his face with no shame whatsoever was a different story.

Twilight knew what these feelings were and deep down he really wanted to act on them. But was it ok? Was his heart finally healing from his last love? Twilight was already aware this time that you had to leave at some point. He didn’t need to act on them despite wanting to. He could just be your friend and continue the relationship like that.

His heart was already breaking a second time.

Twilight was in love you and it was driving him crazy.

___________________________________

- Like Time, Twilight isn’t going to tell you about his feelings. Instead, he is going to forever pine for you.

- It’s going to be a slow process and you need to be aware that he will get hurt if you’re going to go back home.

- He’ll see you off with a smile, but as soon as your gone he will break.

Warriors:

- It was full of denial and fear.

- He went through the receiving end of someone’s obsessive love.

- And it doesn’t help that you’ve watched over their adventures. He vowed to not get that close to you.

- There was a need to destroy the endearing feeling he sees when you smile at him.

- Yet seeing you with a sad far out look on your face makes him scramble to your side to find out what’s wrong.

___________________________________

It was just the two of you. Weaving throughout the crowds of castle town. You were currently in Four’s Era and in the middle of the Picori festival. The group was long spilt up, leaving Warriors alone with the dimensional traveler. Soon even (Y/n) was walking away from him. He didn’t know why he followed, the argument in his head was telling him that it was so they didn’t get lost. Yet there was a part of him that knew that wasn’t it.

“Where are you going anyway?” He thought to finally ask as you reached a quieter area. “It’s going to be hard to spend time in the festival from here.”

“Yeah, that’s the point.” You were a bit snappy today, “shouldn’t you find someone else to hang out with?” Warriors just shrugged as you slowed your pace down to pause in front of the small river that ran through castle town. The silence now filled with the rushing of water as you sat on the bridge.

Against his better judgement Warriors sat next to you. Finally, he got to talk to you one on one but the normally impulsive and excitable person Warrior’s grew to expect had changed in that moment.

You looked so tired.

“Hey Link?” You finally called out to him “I know I shouldn’t ask you this but…” hesitation was new to your character. “How do I even start?” You rake a hand through your hair. Sweeping a part of your hair out of your eyes. “Was I ever helpful during your Adventure?”

Oh… Oh he really wasn’t the right person for this talk.

You look back you and towards the festival and he followed your gaze. From where they were he could only spot a few of his party members. Wind was with Legend and Hyrule playing some of the stall games. While Four was with his Zelda holding hands as she pulled him further into the crowd. “Last time I saw this festival it ended up destroyed by Vaati.” The wind mage was only brought up a few times by Four. All Warriors really knew was that the villain was supposed to be sealed away by the Four Sword, and that his power was connected by the dark mirror. “I found myself wondering if my presence even mattered.” Your shoulder slumped in defeat as you curled into yourself.

The instant need to comfort shot through Warriors. He wanted to reach out. He fought the urge to hold you. He bites his tongue when he started to think of embellished words to make you feel better.

What was wrong with him?

Warriors had to say something though. “I don’t know about Four or the others.” He didn’t even think about your presence in his adventure too much. If anything, he actively tried not to think about it. Here you were though a person and not a figment of in his imagination. “During the war, your voice and presence is what broke the tension. The moments that could have been my lowest, you were there saying things that I wanted to repeat out loud.” There was a fondness while he was looking back at the memories. From the moment he ran on the battle field foolishly as a trainee soldier. His pride grew upon hearing your praise and surprise when seeing him fight for the first time. To your excitement while meeting his friends from the other Eras. He shared your sentiments about Mask as you cooed over the child as Warriors fought by his side. Then your anger, disgust and pity towards Cia. While on his side, your empathetic nature had you morning during her passing. These where just the tip of the iceberg.

Just having someone voice out mutual thoughts on a situation helps when you can’t do it on your own. You feel crazy thinking the way you do. “With you there it’s like you always have someone by your side cheering you on and supporting you.” He paused to look at you. Conflicting emotions clashing together. You turn to look at him, your eyes only briefly visible through your bangs. Curiosity and guilt were swarming with in them. “I’m not the person to talk to about this.” He finally admitted out loud. “But I would be lying if I said your presence wasn’t important to us.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Was that not what he was supposed to say? Warriors tried to stay calm under your gaze.

You let out a huff of laughter covering your mouth and turning away from him a bit to calm down. “I didn’t think about it like that.” There was a pause where you looked back at the festive before turning back to smiling softly at him. “Thanks Cap.”

The smile that you had on your lips had Warriors stomach do back flips. A blush decorated his face as he turns away. “It’s something that should have been said a while ago.” He manages to say without stuttering.

You were really pretty.

The sound of a picto box followed by winds snickering, was ignored when the thought had just register in his head. He finally realized how far he fell for you.

___________________________________

- one by one his defenses lowered.

- With every smiled sent his way, with every laugh that he earned. He found himself wanting more.

- He slowly opens up, a slow process but it wasn’t as scary as he thought it was going to be.

- A teasing nickname here. A gentle touch there. He realizes he has gone too far.

(Part 2)

[powdermelonkeg]

BotW: Where is Everything?

Breath of the Wild includes the most expansive map in Zelda history, with references to locations in other games, as well as trying to pack in as many areas of interest as possible.

But this is Hyrule, right? Other games were supposed to take place here too.

So where’s each game take place?

Keep in mind, there are going to be a few liberties taken here.

The Legend of Zelda

We have our first map here. Above it is Death Mountain, in the center are two lakes with isles in them, to the right is the sea, and up in the top right is the beginning of a curly shape.

So, I would place it about here.Death mountain is a little bit too off center, but the Zeldevs basically stretch the map however they please when they make new games, so I’ll let it slide.

Zelda II: Adventure of Link

We have a maze island in the middle of the ocean, and two landmasses surrounded by water, with Death Mountain in the bottom left.

The water has DEFINITELY receded a bit, but the maze and Death Mountain line up, while Bloodleaf Lake gives us some insight into maybe a flooded Hyrule.

A Link to the Past/A Link Between Worlds

Death Mountain, this time, is in the upper right, with a waterfall leading down from it. Meanwhile, we’ve got the Lost Woods to the upper Left, an island surrounded by water in the middle, and a lake in the bottom right with high mountains surrounding it.

This one was a LOT harder to figure out, and things have shifted quite a bit. But we’ve got Death Mountain and the Lost Woods at the top, the island with the river connecting it to a lake, and the desert of mystery. I put a village there because we DO have the park ruins with the statue, and there’s a statue in the center of Kakariko

Minish Cap

I struggled with Minish Cap for awhile, because of the existence of Mt Crenel and Minish Woods.

Because those have equivalents in BotW

But if we say that Minshi Woods is the same as Minish Woods, we get something like this:

This is...weird at best, and it cuts out the swamp in the bottom left.

On the other hand, if we keep Crenel as the constant and ignore Minshi Woods:

We get something that works a little bit better.

Four Swords

Four Swords was harder than it looks.

The forest and the mountains, easy enough. But that water area? There isn’t really anything like it.

I eventually decided on this:

Thundra Plateau was my best bet for a “water realm,” since it rains all the time, and it has plenty of steep rock formations to match.

Maps are confusing.

Four Swords: Adventures

MUCH easier was Four Swords’ sequel.

Because, ignoring the ocean, it’s a pretty easy fit for the lower half of Hyrule.

Ocarina of Time

Ocarina’s also a relatively easy fit. I think BotW was made with it in mind.

Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass

Wind Waker, on the other hand? Much harder.

It’s just a bunch of mountains, right? Hyrule’s full of those!

Well, yes, but BotW ALSO includes a location for Phantom Hourglass to take place.

So you’d have to get Wind Waker WITHOUT touching Phantom Hourglass.

This is the best you can do with that, because you’re not only confined to high points, but the only thing actually recognizable is Death Mountain, now Dragon Roost.

And you already know where Phantom Hourglass is.

Twilight Princess

Ah, Twilight Princess, the game neglected by the Zeldevs in charge of BotW, who only tossed in a reference to Arbiter’s Grounds and called it good.

The weird thing abut this map is the placement of Zora’s Domain; not only is that weird for BotW, but it’s basically in no other game ever; MAYBE they were referencing the waterfall in Zelda 1 when they made it.

Anyways.

We can’t place Zora’s Domain on this mam properly, but we DO get a nice addition of Snowpeak, AND a good high bridge over Lake Hylia with a steep cliff separating Gerudo.

Spirit Tracks

Spirit Tracks’ locations are weird. We’re TOLD they aren’t the Hyrule Wind Waker left behind, but...

Again we’ve got a volcano in one corner and snowy peaks in another. My guess is that this is Hyrule’s northmost point starting to recede?

If we had just ONE other volcano, this would be much easier.

I’d like to reiterate that this is very much an approximation, and I’m not entirely satisfied with it. But the land spot at the southern center of the Spirit Tracks map DOES look a lot like Mt Crenel.

Skyward Sword

Finally, Skyward Sword.

Absolutely the most forgiving map of all of them, because these locations could be ANY distance apart from each other, with nothing in the center that HAS to be there.

We also get bonus points because in Faron Woods, there’s the Spring of Courage

Which looks suspiciously like Skyview Spring

As well as the Spring of Power

Which looks like the Earth Spring.

Anyways, maps hurt my brain.

[bokettochild]

The Scarf Fic!!!

Inspired by This post by @sekiumiarashi and written as a gift for @into-the-linkverse

I wanted to write Ravio sharing scarves, but I accidentally found that I like writing Ravio, and more importantly, writing him and Legend like they’re a pair of elderly people, because... just because.

Giving Legend glasses was a choice that I didn’t see coming, but do not regret. I do regret Ravio’s naming scheme, but it was too funny to back out so I kept pushing. I’m not sorry that you all must suffer.​

Feel free to read this as being part of my main fic The Ties That Bind, but it can also be separate, just consider the uncle bit as being related to predecessors and stuff.

Enjoy! :)

 Mr. Captain Hero Sir wasn’t wearing his scarf.

 The one constant Ravio knew he could always count on during the war, was that the captain would be wearing that bright blue scrap of cloth with all the pride in the world, no matter what the circumstances (good grief, one time he’d stumbled upon the man bathing and the scarf had been the only thing that saved them both from embarrassment). But today, he wasn’t.

 The heroes had come to stay at Mr. Hero’s house again after a long battle, and Mr. Captain Hero Sir was currently sitting on the couch in the living room, one arm resting across it’s back and his feet propped up on the table. A scowl marred his fine features and his neck was horrifyingly naked.

 “Mr. Captain Hero Sir! Where is your scarf?” The words were out of his mouth in a moment as he looked around the captain to make sure it simply hadn’t fallen off or been laid aside (things the captain would never let happen, ever. He’d once been bleeding out and still managed to keep the trailing blue fabric out of the mud.)

 “It’s shredded.” The captain sighed, a bitter look in his eyes as he motioned down to the arm hanging from a sling around his neck. “And I’m currently unable to mend it.”

 The thought of the captain not having a scarf was so utterly horrible, simply unthinkable, that Ravio didn’t even think about what he was doing, instead bounding over to plonk himself onto the couch and quickly unwind his scarf before rewinding it around the captain’s neck (he had a dozen of these things anyway).

 “There! You can’t be without a scarf.”

 Mr. Captain Hero Sir smiled fondly, fingers reaching up to gently stroke the fabric. “And you can?”

 Ravio shrugged. “I have a dozen of those, keep it, it looks fabulous on you!”

 The captain’s eyes sparkled brightly, a familiar cockiness erupting within. “Are you kidding? I make everything look good! Even the Vet’s fashion choices would look fabulous on me!”

  Ravio sniggered. He’d heard and seen plenty of the goods from Hytopia, and he wasn’t entirely sure that Mr. Hero even knew what fashion was. But then again, he was just a simple Lolian; for all he knew, things like bomb outfits and heart shaped collars were absolutely acceptable and normal in this world.

 “But where is your scarf, Mr. Captain Hero Sir?” He asked after a moment, cocking his head on one side as the man looked at him oddly.  

 “Don’t you ever get tired of saying that? You can call me Warriors like everyone else you know.”

 “I know, Mr. Captain Hero Sir, I don’t mind.”

 Mr. Captain Hero Sir blinked. “O-kay.” Shaking his head, he answered. “Legend has it. Since I can’t use my dominant hand, he said he’d stitch it up for me.” The captain hero nodded towards the corner of the room, and Ravio followed his line of sight.

 Mr. Hero was perched in that Lolia-awful rocking chair that had been in the house since Nayru knows when. It was a horrid thing in his opinion, old, out of style and absolutely stiff and uncomfortable, and he’d shoved it into the furthest corner of the room ages ago. Mr. Hero loved it though, although he never said why, and he didn’t seem to mind that it was now nearly next to the fireplace all the time, even if he did have to pull it out of the corner to properly rock in it.

 Mr. Hero sat with one leg tucked underneath him and the other one hanging down to gently push at the floor, making the big chair rock steadily. Mr. Captain Hero Sir’s scarf lay in his lap and a pair of spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, a needle in his hand as he dutifully labored over the brilliant blue fabric of the famed scarf.

 “His eyesight is terrible.” Ravio snickered to the Captain.

 “But his hearing is perfect.” Mr. Hero’s voice rang clearly across the room, violet gaze darting up to look at them disapprovingly over the top of his spectacles.

 The minute he looked away, merchant and captain shared a grin, only to burst into muffled laughter.

...

 Mr. Smithy and Tune are cold.

 It’s obvious from the way the two huddle in place at the kitchen table as everyone enjoys the meal that Ravio and Mr. Hero have pulled together (Mr. Hero is hesitant to let even the finest of chefs in his kitchen for some reason, despite having stated that Mr. Champion Hero is a very good cook and better than him (at cooking, life, or heroing, he does not specify)). Tune- Wind has all but attached himself to Sky’s side, using the bigger hero as a heat source as he slurps down his warm stew, and Mr. Smithy has bundled himself against the Mr. Rancher.

 It’s only autumn, but both of the smaller heroes act like it’s the start of winter with the way they shiver and rub at their arms.

 Mr. Hero’s only response when he asks is to sigh, but when he presses, his pink haired doppelganger eventually explains. “Their Hyrules were never corrupted, so they’re used to warmer weather most of the time, if not always. The mist from the ocean is the worst Wind knows, and heaven only knows if Four could survive a proper freeze.” Mr. Hero shakes his head, wiping the last of the broth from their meal off a plate with his dish-rag. “If they need something, they know to ask.”

 But Mr. Hero isn’t really that cold hearted, he’s worrying too if the way his brows furrow and the lines around his mouth deepen is any indication. “I offered blankets, but they don’t want them.”

 “Does this happen often?” He muses as he takes the plates from Mr. Hero to dry and put away, and to his displeasure, his housemate nods.

 “When we come here or to Sky’s Hyrule, yeah. Usually, Wars will bundle them up in his scarf, or Sky with his sailcloth, even Twilight shares his fur, but...” Mr. Hero’s ears twitch irritably (truly adorable how they do that, although he’ll never say as much). “Sky’s asleep with his cape, the wolf pelt is a bloody mess after that battle, and I haven’t finished mending Wars’ scarf.” The ears flap again. “That thing is so dang complex and Warriors apparently hasn’t the faintest about the proper cloth to use to mend it. He used new material to mend a hole! Brand new material, Ravio! It’s an awful state and I swear if Styla could see it she’d faint dead away!” The vet huffed as he plunged another dish under the sudsy water of the wash tub. “Using new cloth on a worn scarf, it’s like he wants the thing to be ruined...”

 Ah yes, Mr. Hero’s rants. There’d be no righting this one until he’d fixed the problem, and considering he’d only been torn away from the scarf that lay peacefully sitting on his rocker in order to make food, it was quite likely that once his kitchen was clean again, he’d be right back to working on it.

 Ravio smiled, Mr. Captain Hero Sir would be quite pleased.

 His gaze traveled over to where the hero in question was sitting. The captain and Tu- Wind, were talking on the couch, the younger staring nearly longingly at the rocker and the scarf on top of it.

 Kid really liked that scarf, huh? If Ravio remembered right, half the time during his adventure with Mr. Captain Hero Sir, he’d constantly seen either Mask or Tune hanging onto it.

 Somewhere inside of a bunny head, an idea sparked and green eyes brightened excitedly.

 He’d donned a new scarf just before dinner, but it wouldn’t do quite right, so instead, he darted off to his room, much to the displeasure of his dish partner as his rag flew into Mr. Hero’s face and left his housemate spluttering indignantly.  

 “Ravio! You didn’t finish-”

 “One sec!”

 Mr. Hero’s grumbles followed him out of the kitchen, but faded as he darted into his room and towards his wardrobe. It was the work of moments to select two of his largest scarfs, and less time than that to dart back out to the living room and wrap one around each of the smaller heroes.

 “There! Snug as a kit in a quilt!”  

 Two small heroes stared down at the black and purple fabric that now draped around their shoulders, smiles brightening their flushed faces as Tune buried his face happily in the fabric with a bright hum.

 “Thanks, Ravio!”

 “Thank you.” Four’s eyes glimmered warm brown as he sunk into his seat, only the top of his face and his hands visible beneath the striped fabric.

 Mr. Captain Hero Sir’s eyes sparkled as the man looked up at him, and Ravio fought the blush that rose in his cheeks as he fiddled with his own scarf (he’d mess with his sleeves, but he’d shed his robe to help do the dishes, and his undershirt wasn’t nearly long enough to fiddle with). “Don’t mention it, it’s-” He chewed his lip for a moment before a smile broke loose, the one Mr. Hero said was cheesy and fake, the one for when he was trying to sell things. “It’s a complimentary gift for exceptional customers and/or guests!”

 “We’ve never bought anything from you.” Four deadpanned, eyes glinting with a smile Ravio couldn’t see past all the scarf in the way.

 “Yet!” Ravio chirped back, and darted back into the kitchen to help Mr. Hero finish doing the dishes.

...

 Mr. Champion keeps rubbing his scars.

 The heroes had left for a short spell, traveling off to fight more monsters only to be dumped in the orchard a week or so later (Mr. Hero said it’d been a month and a half for them, but by his time it was a week). And when Ravio said they’d been dumped in the orchard, he meant in the orchard. He’d been busy picking some of the ripened apples before the birds took them all (most of the wild birds knew better, but still, it was the principle of the thing, fresh fruit was rare in Lorule) when a shout and the snapping of branches had sounded all about him.  

 Ravio had shrieked in surprise, thinking that he was alone only to find (once he’d removed his hood again) that there were nine heroes hanging from various tree branches around him, and Mr. Hero himself was hanging upside down, one foot caught in the branches, as his face dangled inches from Ravio’s own, a scowl darkening it as a string of mumbles escaped his room-mate.

 He couldn’t stop himself, he kissed Mr. Hero’s twitching nose.

 Mr. Hero shrieked in surprise, jerking in place and effectively loosening himself from the tree, falling all over Ravio in the process. It was worth it, Ravio giggled as he lay on the ground. Mr. Hero was so like the bunnies in Lorule and their noses simply demanded to be kissed.

 Laughter and grumbles sounded around them, the heroes pulling themselves down from the trees around them.

 Captain Hero Sir Jr. moved with surprising ease, despite his heavy armor, clambering down the tree with the same grace that Mr. Champion did most of the time. Some things never change, he could still see him climbing up onto Mr. Captain Hero Sir’s shoulders in the same manner (only now he rather doubted either of them would attempt to do that anymore, Captain Hero Sir Jr. was much bigger now).

 It felt entirely too natural to lead them all up to the house, Mr. Hero trailing at the back with a bushel of apples in his arms. Settling them all down in the kitchen was easy as could be, and he and Mr. Hero worked quickly to set some fresh apple cider to boil before starting on a meal for everyone.

 He missed not having them all around, it was going to be awful dull when they all had to go back to their worlds when this adventure was over again.

 He was determined to enjoy the moment for that very reason while they all sat about in the living room, sipping apple cider as Mr. Hero had settled down in his blasted rocker, spectacles on his nose and more mending in hand. He never would rest until the light was faded, and Ravio had half a mind to take out his knitting (he was still currently short three scarves) before he decided to simply flop down on the nearest open spot on the couch and just enjoy his cider.

 Except, Mr. Champion was sitting in the seat beside him.

 The young hero kept rubbing at his scars, eyes distant, and despite the numerous amounts of times that either Mr. Captain Hero Sir or Mr. Rancher tried to move his hands back down to the still full mug he was cradling in his other hand, Mr. Champion (he was younger than Ravio though...would Mr. Be an appropriate title for him?) kept reaching right back up to rub his neck and face.

 The scars were enflamed, harsh red and puffy where they peeked out from beneath the collar of his shirt, and it made Ravio wince to even think of how he’d acquired such injuries that would scar so.

 He only winced more with every drag of broken nails and rough finger pads over the skin, but Mr. Champion- Wild? He could think of him as Wild right? He was kind of the kid’s uncle in a weird way- didn't seem to even notice that he was doing it. Cornflower blue eyes stared unseeing into the fire, face still and only his hands moving.

 Mr. Captain Hero Sir sighed, worry pulling his lovely face into shadows as he grasped Wild’s hands again. “Wild, hey, no more of that, okay? You’re hurting yourself.”

 Fingers twitched, but no other movement came from the young Champion until Mr. Captain Hero Sir (wait, was Wild also Captain Hero Sir Jr.? Or was he Champion Hero? Oh fiddlesticks, he wasn’t sure anymore) let go, and then broken nails moved right back up towards swollen flesh.

 Ravio shifted in his seat, uncomfortable.

 Mr. Hero had spaced out before, did it a lot when the sun set or when he was outside, but he never scratched like that. He sang and fiddled with his rings. If Wild Champion Jr. Sir (oh heavens) did something like that, it would be fine, but this was... this was rather unsettling.

 Ravio shifted in his seat, curling around his mug as Mr. Captain Hero Sir had to reach out to stop the wild-child's hands from reaching the inflamed wounds (the last scratch had broken skin, and a thin trail of red has appeared).

 It was without a thought that he acted, pushing his mug into the captain’s hands and promptly looping his scarf around Wild Champion Hero Captain Jr.’s (oh Lolia help) neck.

 Thoughtless fingers nose just as before, but this time, they brushed against soft fabric. Ravio tensed, dearly hoping that his scarf would not be ripped off or simply pushed aside.

To the surprise of all of them, rough fingers brushed over the fabric, paused, and gently stroked its material. The Champion’s face did not move, but slowly, long fingers ran down the fabric, rubbing it between their tips as cornflower blue eyes blinked slowly. In an instant, the young hero’s gaze was lost to sight as the fabric was nuzzled with all the fondness of a cub nuzzling their parent.

 “He likes scarves, of course he does.” Mr. Rancher chuckled wearily, a tired smile playing over his features as both he and Mr. Captain Hero Sir sat back (but not before Ravio took his mug back).

 “So he does.” Mr. Captain Hero Sir sighed, eyes fond as he watched the hero in question curl up on the couch, face lost in purple fabric and bare toes the only moving part of the kid. The wiggling toes were almost like a dog wagging its tail, but weirder, still, he wasn’t one to judge.

 Mr. Captain hero Sir caught his eye. “Thank you, Ravio.”

 “Customer loyalty.” He murmured softly into his mug.

 He caught the way Mr. Hero and the others stared at him though, and he could only be thankful his hood shaded his face enough to hide his pleased blush.

...

 Mr. Rancher needs to wear more color.

 It’s like looking at the photos of Mr. Hero from just before he’d come around. Mr. Hero always fussed at him for going through things, but he couldn’t help but laugh at how odd his room-mate looked with black hair and dark clothes. “You dyed it?”

 “For safety reasons. How many people have you see in Hyrule with pink hair of all things? It was a dead giveaway!”

 “But you’re the hero?”

 “A hero whose face was plastered on every wanted poster in Hyrule. Still is in some cases.” Mr. Hero had grumbled, folding the last piece of newly clean washing and throwing a pointed glare in his direction. “Life on the run sucks. I was thirteen and just wanted to be ignored.”

 A glance at the dark haired but smiling youngster in the photo and back up to the bitter pink haired hero he knew told him (even if Mr. Hero hadn’t already) how well that wish had been fulfilled.

 But seriously, those photos at least showed Mr. Hero with some color. The most Mr. Rancher wore was that horrid sash and obi, and the orange and blue looked simply terrible with his color scheme, something that, when brought up to Mr. Hero, his friend seemed to agree with, stating that ‘he’d never get into Hytopia’s capitol looking like that’.

 Ravio had never been to Hytopia, but based on the stories and mannerisms Mr. Hero took on after that adventure, he can only agree.

 Originally, he’d hoped he could simply find something among his wares that he could sell to Mr. Rancher, but that proved to only be so effective, after all, when one sells weapons and items, it’s hard finding a normal piece of clothing amidst all the blessed or charmed pieces.

 Oh well, he was counting on ending up sharing the rest of his scarves with them all anyway.

 It wasn’t any dramatic or particularly touching moment when he walked up and slung a clean scarf around the rancher’s shoulders, but Mr. Rancher, after initially starting, smiled as he touched the sun-warmed material. Of course, that expression quickly faded into one of awe as the hero squeezed the fabric lightly.

 Mr. Rancher’s eyes lit up like a dog being given a new toy (Ravio wasn’t stupid, he knew a dog when he saw one) and the man proceeded to continue squeezing and petting the springy fabric with eyes sparkling as if Ravio had just handed him the stars themselves.

 He was down to two scarves now, but it was worth it.

...

Mr. Traveler Hero is small.

He is small, and wild, and the clothes he’s wearing are nearly too small. The traveler is a growing child (never mind that he’s still a teenager himself) and he’s out and about in nearly threadbare garments that leave Ravio shivering at the mere thought of wearing.

And this is the other hero who grew up in a corrupted world where the sun doesn’t shine as bright as it should and the winters are always too long.

Ravio doesn’t think twice when he sees the first signs of cold in the young hero. He’s got two scarfs recently made, and he’s only too happy to share.

Purple and black stripes nearly drown the young hero when he walks over and wraps not one, but two of the comfiest scarves he’s ever made around the youngster's neck.

Like Mr. Rancher, nothing is said or done immediately, but Mr. Traveler Hero smile at him shyly, holding up a hand and scampering over to his bag.

The pair of polished stones he’s given don’t make much sense, but he catches sight of Mr. Hero and Captain Hero Sir Jr. Both smiling over at the two through the doorways.  

“Thank you.” He murmurs warmly, tucking the rocks in his pocket.

“Thank you.!” Mr. Traveler smiles in return, eyes twinkling in the shade of the room and scarf tails flapping like the four wings of a fairy as he spins around to show them to Mr. Hero.

...

 Captain Hero Sir Jr. has nothing comfy to wear.

 Once more, the heroes had been whisked away, and once more they’d appeared at the house weeks later, looking exhausted and utterly soaked.

 The chill autumn rain might be to blame for that.

 Mr. Hero hadn’t even protested that... Wild (he’d just call him Wild, he couldn’t do this title thing this time) had bustled off into the kitchen to warm some tea, and instead promptly collapsing in all his soaked glory onto the couch.

 The other heroes followed suit, and Ravio (like a good host) immediately hopped up and fetched some blankets. Mr. Rancher was already stoking the fire, and with a bit of work, Ravio was able to help Mr. Her grasp what was left of his own steaming mug of cider (his hands were quite the state in this bitter weather) before popping off to the kitchen to brew more of the sweet apply goodness to share with the heroes.

 Armor and over-clothes had been stripped off, sitting wet and dripping in one corner (Mr. Hero eyes it with distaste, knowing just as Ravio did just what that would be doing to the floor) but neither housekeeper said anything, Mr. Hero nursing his cider and letting its warmth sooth his gnarled fingers, and Ravio puttering about with a kettle and mugs to share with everyone else.

 Blankets had been pulled from the shelves and were cast around quaking shoulders as chattering teeth uttered breathy thanks to the purple-robed merchant.

 There was nothing like being thanked for good service, and Ravio beamed as he passed between them.

 That smile faded however when he noticed Captain Hero Sir Jr.

 The man sat in a thin linen shirt and under-armor, looking far from being near the level of comfort that the rest did in their undershirts and pants (or a dress in Mr. Hero’s case).

 Come to think of it he’d never seen Captain Hero Sir Jr. dress in any comfortable manner since he’d come along behind Mr. Hero that first time since they’d started this adventure. Did the poor kid- er... Man, not have anything comfortable to wear?

 While the heroes slept that night, in the two bedrooms and sprawled across the couch, Ravio kept Mr. Hero comfortable, sitting before the fire with his knitting needles while Mr. Hero repaired yet more damaged clothing (poor mister Chosen Hero’s sailcloth had been damaged somehow).

 Usually, one or the other of them would eventually remind the other to go to bed, but both were so wrapped up in their work (Mr. Hero started singing even, that goddess ballad Miss. Princess told hm about) that neither seemed to remember to check the clock, or even to go to bed.

 Come morning, Ravio finds that he has fallen asleep wrapped in the tails of the scarf he’d been making, and Mr. Hero has become entangled in his mending, a peaceful smile on his face, worn fabric brushing his cheeks and spectacles teetering precariously on the tip of his nose.

 Mr. Chosen Hero is the one who wakes them up, stirring awake with a violent sneeze, but he smiles fondly when he lays eyes on them, opening his arms in an offer of a cuddle if either feels inclined to return to sleep. Neither does, but Ravio appreciates it, and even if Mr. Hero doesn’t say as much (quite the opposite really) he knows his friend does too.

 The day is normal, as far as a day with nine heroes in the house can be, and with the rain still pouring, they spend their time cleaning, although Mr. Hero shoos them all away after a time because they’re not doing it the right way (AKA Mr. Hero's very practiced manner of cleaning and organizing). It’s after Mr. Hero had shooed them all into the main room while he organizes the basement (thank goodness, it's an awful mess down there) that the talk starts.

 It’s cold out, and most of the heroes have donned the scarves they’ve been gifted over time (Ravio isn’t blushing, he’s not). Smiles shine and laughter rings as they explain to their brothers how they’d some to have them.

 “And he just... threw t at me! Not a word, not an explanation, just came up and tossed it over my shoulders.” Mr. Rancher chuckles. “Kinda like how my ma would do when I was a tot, jist wrap it up and ‘round soon as the cold weather came a’creepin’ up.”

 The others nod, smiles fond. Ravio beams as he lights the candle set near the masks on the wall.

 “I had one too once,” Captain Hero Sir Jr. Muses aloud. “Back in the war, you remember, Wars?”

 “Do I ever.” Mr. Captain Hero Sir smirks. “I used to tie you up with that thing when you got too rowdy.”

 “You and the general both.” Captain Hero Sir Jr. Chuckles, soft and deep and so different from his nearly witch level cackle that Ravio remembers.

 “What ever happened to it?” He asks curiously, blowing out his match and turning to move towards the rest of the group.

 Captain Hero Sir Jr. Smiles at him, eyes far older but far more at peace than they used to be. “I outgrew it. It was a child’s scarf, even if it was a bit big at the time. I considered bringing it, but it just doesn’t do much anymore.” A thin smile pulls at his features, almost guilty as he admits “I didn’t take the best care of my clothes as a kid.”

 Well, that doesn’t matter over much. Ravio smiles at his young (old) friend, and around him he can hear the others whisper and laugh. They know what’s happening, and Captain Hero Sir Jr. Does too if the twinkle in his eyes is to be believed, so Ravio makes a point of flourishing his gift with all the fuss he can before reverently draping the garment around the tall man’s neck. The eldest hero has to stoop, even from where he’s sitting on the couch, so that Ravio can reach, but it only adds to the mock reverence as Ravio adorns another bare neck with one of his toasty scarves.

 “Mind you take care of that one,” He scolds lightly. “I was up all night making it.”

 “Yes sir.” Captain hero Sir Jr. responds with a playful smile in his eyes, even if his face is the picture of obedience.

 Giggles sound around them, and despite hating it, Ravio takes the only seat left available (he really hates that rocker) and curls up. “You all be quiet now, I’m tired and need a nap.”

 “Okay, gramps.” The sailor whispers faintly, a giggle in his tone as titters and chuckles erupt.

 Strangely, it doesn't take too long for Ravio to doze off, especially when Mr. Hero settles in beside him and starts to rock the stupid chair, humming lightly as fingers work over another project, the light buzz of activity all around them as Ravio allows himself to be carried into dreamland.

...

 Mr. Chosen Hero has caught cold.

 He’s not surprised, not with how drenched the others all were day before last, but the Skyloftian is shivering madly, miserably sniffing into handkerchiefs and trying his best to avoid drinking the nasty herbal teas that Mr. Hero claims are good for people. Ravio doesn’t care if Mr. Hero drinks them, but for pities sake, drink black tea if you’re going to drink tea! What sort of decent being are you if you’re just drinking plant water?

 “Legend, I’m serious, I don’t-” Mr. Chosen Hero breaks off coughing. “I don’t think tea will-” Another cough, nastier than the last. “I don’t think it will help.”

 “Trust me.” Mr. Hero already has a small table pulled up to Mr. Chosen Hero’s side, tea and handkerchiefs both set carefully on top. “Tea’s just what you need. Eucalyptus does wonders for a cold.”

 “He’s right.” Mr. Traveler Hero chimes in, gaze warm and sleepy as he sips some of the tea himself. “And it’s got a calming effect.”

 Mr. Hero cocks a brow. “What are you, ‘Rule, a koala?”

 No one knows what that is, except Mr. Traveler Hero, but it doesn’t seem to matter much, as Mr. Chosen Hero breaks into another coughing fit and bundles a blanket closer around his shoulders, voice hoarse when he speaks. “I wish it’d stop raining. I didn’t even realize-” A cough sounds and is followed by a sniffle. “I didn’t realize the surface got so wet.”

 And Ravio sees where this is going, the shivering hero, the gentle atmosphere. He doesn’t bother waiting for Mr. Chosen Hero to sniffle again, he just wraps a scarf around the man’s neck, tucking it in close enough to keep the heat in.

 The smile exchanged is silent, and Ravio is thankful that the others aren’t about at present to tease, only Mr. Hero and Mr. Traveler Hero are here with them, and neither says a word as they sip their leaf water.

 “I’ll make you some real tea.” He murmurs softly, offering a wink and a gentle pat to the knee before he’s off towards the kitchen.

...

 Mr. Hero doesn’t have a scarf.

 It was glaringly obvious, as whenever the rest of them appeared at the house, they'd all be wearing their Ravio gifted scarfs proudly, smiles on their faces as the ends trailed or dragged after them (despite that, they were all in perfect condition).

 But Mr. Hero didn’t have a scarf.

 He was never going to get one either.

 They’ve all just returned to the house (it’s been two months since the last visit) and the snow outside it up to Ravio’s waist in places. It took him ages to shovel himself out of the house, but the harvest of apples is in and the bees are well prepared for the winter, and Mr. Hero finally tidied the cellar enough that they have room for food storage aplenty.

 Cider and tea are brewed as the heroes gather, fluffy socks and scarves on full display as they sit around the fire.

 Mr. Hero is shivering.

 Curious glances are thrown at both himself and Mr. Hero as the heroes drink their beverage of choice, concern in their gazes as Legend eventually gets up to pull the most ridiculously bulky quilt in the entire house over his shoulders. He’s all pink in the face and he’s shaking like a leaf, and it’s only because he won’t hold still that Ravio hasn’t attempted to try and help him hold a warm mug enough for his fingers to relax.

 Mr. Hero moves like a man thrice his age, if not more, and he creaks worse than the roof does in the wind outside.

 “Where’s your scarf, vet?” Mr. Captain Hero Sir murmurs softly, one brow raised as he watches Mr. Hero fumble with the quilts edge.

 “My what?”

 Glances are exchanged among the others. “Your scarf? The one Ravio gave you?”

 “I don’t have a scarf.” Mr. Hero answers, dropping the quilt again with a scowl that makes his nose wiggle.

 “But” Cornflower blue dart between himself and his housemate. “Aren’t you two friends? How do you not already have a scarf? Even Time did!”

 “It’s a customer service thing.” Mr. Hero murmurs. “I’m already a loyal customer, so he doesn’t waste resources on trying to earn my loyalty. That, and I don’t wear purple.”

 He shakes his head, loosening his scarf as the eyes of the others twinkle, but rather than taking it off, he only loosens one end, before wrapping it tightly around his friend’s neck, fluffing up the quilt in both of their laps, and settling a warm mug of cider in Mr. Hero’s hands.

 “Nonsense!” he chirps, trying not to be hurt at the obvious surprise on his friend's face, so he muses Mr. Hero’s hair instead. “You have every item I offer except this scarf. Why would you keep buying from me if you get it? I have to keep you from having one until I get something better in, otherwise business will plummet!”

 Knowing smiles are exchanged amidst the others, but Mr. Hero just sighs and shakes his head, leaning slightly into Ravio’s side as he sips his cider.

 A bitter expression overtakes Mr. Hero’s face. “You forgot the cloves.”

 “Oh shoot!”

[therealyaspen]

Possessed Legend Go Brr

You know I was gonna just post a snippet bc I stopped writing this like five months ago bUT HERE HAVE A MESSY, UNEDITED BUT COMPLETE THING I GUESS?? Any grammatical errors will probably be looked over tomorrow dfnsav

So. The Lost Woods were still creepy as hell. Good to know. A dense fog still covered the area, and crows still screamed their call-and-respond at random seemingly just to startle anyone not expecting it. The same old eerie lantern-light darted between the trees, the same poes laughed at the group as they got up and dusted themselves off.

Some things would never change, Legend supposed, no matter how often you came back.

"Looks like the Lost Woods," Time observed. "Do we know whose era we're in?"

"Mine," Legend said with a glance at the pedestal in the middle of the clearing, "The Sword looks just like I left it."

Sky sighed sadly. "This place is so... different," he said, then turned to Legend and asked, "Are you going to take it?"

Legend shook his head. "Better to leave it here for now, I think." In truth, he didn't want to hold the blade ever again. Too many memories involved his hand clenched tight around the azure hilt of the Master Sword until his knuckles turned white. Without another word on the matter, he started walking. "We should probably get going before that scaly bastard can put anymore distance between himself and us. Follow me and stick close--Hyrule, no wandering off."

And so began the journey through the woos. As the group of heroes left the Sword behind them, however, it became increasingly apparent that something was wrong with the Lost Woods. The further they went from the clearing, the more obvious the signs were. The plants were wilting and turning a sickly purple grey color, the crows got to be fewer and fewer. Wild was caught trying to grab mushrooms that even Legend hadn't seen before three times. Even the poes seemed to notice that something was amiss and were avoiding the rest of the forest as much as they could.

Hyrule was the first to say anything. "Something's not right. There's magic here, but it's... wrong. Like Dark Link's," he announced, reaching up to touch a grayed leaf and recoiling with a yelp when it crumbled to dust in his hand. It almost looked like it had burned the Traveler.

"Then all we can do is stay on our toes and trust Legend to get us out of here," Twilight replied, and Legend noted the way that his pelt almost looked like the fur on the back of an animal's neck, bristling and on high alert. He nodded.

"New rule--don't touch anything. Wild, for Din's sake, put the mushrooms down!"

Wild gave him a kicked puppy look over his armload of slimy, red-capped fungi. "They look like they might be good for cooking!" he protested.

Legend pinched the bridge of his nose. "They also might be poisonous, you--" the Veteran stopped mid-sentence, and not of his own volition. He felt his arms drop to his sides, his face go slack. What the hell...? What in the actual goddess-damned fuck?! He wanted to shout, to rip whatever was doing this to him a new asshole, but he couldn't.

This was... something else. Something other.

"...Legend? You okay?" Wild asked. "It's fine dude, I'll put them down." Gingerly, he set the mushrooms on the ground, then put his hands up when Legend--or rather, the thing that was controlling Legend--didn't look away or change its expression or do anything. Get the fuck out of me! I swear to Hylia, I'll kick your ass! Legend swore at whatever it was, trying to force even just a little twitch of his finger.

Four looked at him warily. "Is he... do you guys think he can even hear us? Legend?" he asked, tentatively walking over to him. Yes! Yes, I can, and I have no goddess-damned clue what the hell's going on! Hyrule's arm shot out to stop Four. His eyes were wide, never leaving Legend.

"Don't," he said, voice cracking a little. "Something... something's really wrong."

Whatever had taken Legend's body finally decided to speak. Its voice was raspy and quiet and most certainly not his own. It sounded almost like fallen leaves scraping against the bare earth in the fall. "Trespassers... leave..."

Then Legend felt himself be thrown forward in a leap towards Hyrule, sword out and ready to attack. Move! He screamed, but again, his mouth didn't so much as twitch. Four grabbed the other hero and pulled him down just barely in time to avoid getting sliced in half, but the sound of steel cutting through flesh was as clear as Hyrule's scream as the blade struck him. The Traveler had a massive gash in his side. legend's arm moved up to deal a death blow, and he was begging now, Please, don't do this! Don't kill him, don't kill any of them, they're all I have--

Clang!

Legend would have cheered at the sound of his sword striking Wild's shield if he could. Wild pushed outwards with a shout, sending Legend stumbling back. Warriors and Time were on him before whatever had him could even think about getting up, though the thing was apparently much stronger than he was and was struggling violently in an attempt to throw both of them off. "What the hell are you doing?!" Warriors bellowed. The fury in his eyes almost physically burned, and Legend didn't really blame him. He'd probably react much the same.

"He's not himself," Time said. His voice was strained, and Legend could see that behind his neutral expression was a barrage of emotions. He couldn't imagine any of them were particularly pleasant. "Someone grab his sword!"

Twilight was just barely able to pry the weapon from his grip, which seemed to just further aggravate the thing inside him. Time and Warriors both ended up being thrown off. "Damn, that was... has he always been this strong?" Warriors muttered, getting up swiftly and moving to aid Sky in trying to grab Legend again.

It's probably whatever's causing him to act like this," Sky guessed. He blocked a punch aimed directly at his head and Legend silent-howled in pain as his fist connected with solid metal, but his body landed a blow to the Skyloftian's gut and a kick to Twilight's left knee.

He was sent downwards when Wind charged him and grabbed ahold of the back of his legs, then swore internally as his newly-retrieved sword tore through the Sailor's calf. "Fuck! I don't want to hurt him, but this asshole's sure not taking it easy on us!" the kid exclaimed.

Twilight was back on his feet quickly, though Legend noticed that he was favoring his injured knee just a little. He hoped to whoever would listen that this thing didn't see it too. Sky was a little slower to recover, but he got back up before Legend shook Wind off of him.

"Hey!"

Legend's head snapped in the direction of the shout to see Warriors. The Captain looked jarringly unsure and a little surprised, as if he hadn't meant to yell. He shook his head and the surprise disappeared, though he was clearly still uncertain. Legend was barreling into him before he could start speaking, and he hardly had time to get his shield up. "Snap our of it, Legend! This isn't--I know you're still in there!"

The thing controlling Legend kicked at Warriors' ankles, sending him toppling down. Warriors went at Legend's own ankles, hard. Fucking ow, asshole. Legend didn't even have time to think before he was on his stomach, Warriors holding his left wrist firmly against the ground and rendering the sword he held useless. The Captain's knee was in his back, and his full weight was holding Legend down. The whatever-it-was struggled, thrashing to get free, but the others were quick to secure his other limbs.

There was a beat of silence, save for ragged breathing and the sounds of a frantic attempt to get free, before Warriors spoke. His weight shifted a bit. "Sorry, Legend. We'll figure this out, I promise."

Then there was a pain in the back of Legend's neck, and he was released into unfeeling darkness.

~~~

When Legend awoke, the first thing he noticed was the rope tying his hands together. The second was the very familiar bed, and the third...

"Oh, Mister Hero! You're awake!"

Legend groaned and gave Ravio the evil eye when he helped him sit up, but was relieved to find that he could move his body on his own now. "What the hell am I doing here, and where are the others."

Ravio gasped, placing a hand on his chest. "Oh, you wound me! And here I was, worried you wouldn't wake up yourself!"

"Ravio..."

"Fine, fine--but you did give me quite the scare, you know! Being carried in, unconscious and apparently possessed and all--"

"Ravio!"

The merchant put his hands on his hips. "Hold your horses, Mister Hero, I'm gettin' to it! Your family--" Ah. Yeah. He had called them that, hadn't he? "--didn't have time to say much at first. Mister Cape pulled out his sword--somehow, he had the actual Master Sword, what's up with that?!--and did this thing with it Something about purifying a corrupted forest spirit and getting it out of you? I dunno, that kinda went over my head if I'm being honest,... Anyways, the sword burned up his hands pretty bad, so I pointed him and a bunch of the others towards Kakariko so they could find a healer or something. Mister Scarf, Mister Armor, and Freckles headed to the castle to try and get an audience with Zelda for help, in case the whole sword thing didn't work."

Legend frowned, taking a moment to digest all that. So Sky had tried to use the Master Sword to exorcise him? And apparently it had worked? But he'd hurt himself. Now Fable might get involved, and not only would he get the ass-chewing of the century, but she'd be wasting her time she could be spending not worrying about a brother that was okay, really. Legend sighed. "I guess we're gonna have to wait until they get back, then," he said. "Think you can untie me? I'm guessing these were put here in case I woke up and was... not myself." Come to think of it, how had he stayed out that long? Had Hyrule used sleeping potions? That had to be it, there was no ay he would have been out for the entire trek from the Lost Woods to his house otherwise.

A mischievous light glinted in Ravio's eyes. "Hm... I'm not sure, how do I know you're not just that evil, corrupted spirit impersonating Link? Think you can prove you're not?"

"Fucker-- you know damn well I'm not!"

"Mmm, I dunno~"

Legend seethed. "Fine, when you started your 'rental shop' or whatever, the thing that pissed me off the most was that you moved my goddess-damned bed. That good?"

Ravio clapped his hands together, and Sheerow chirped from somewhere across the room. "It really is you, Mister Hero!" he exclaimed cheerfully, going to work at the knot holding Legend's hands together.

He would still be working at it when Time, Warriors, and Hyrule returned with Fable to the sound of Legend screaming at him to just cut the damn thing.

[minart-was-taken]

Linkverse writing?? I guess??! It’s a tad simple and rough around the edges, but hey, isn’t everything if you look close enough? I’m proud enough of it to share, so that’s a win in my books!

Title: Tree Trekking Characters: Twilight, Sky, Time, and Wild No warnings for this one (Although highly vague twilight princess spoilers?) “Tags” First meetings - the start of bonding - Sky being a good boy - Time is a little bastard - Twilight is tired

Enjoy!

“Those look like rain clouds…” Link signed, dreading the thought.

“Ah- I think you’re right.” Feathers replied the same way.

Link winced, but gathered himself quickly after, making sure his adventure pouch was properly attached to his belt. They didn’t need a member of the group complaining AND also him having a loose adventure pouch.

...He sounded like a dork- Goddesses, he was panicking a little wasn’t he? Rain wasn’t a big problem, but on top of everything else it felt like a slap to the face.

He had been snapped to another world, teamed up with two strangers who were also him, apparently, and now it was going to rain.

The little guy had nothing to say either, but that wasn’t anything new.

Taking leading action, Link gathered himself, found his posture and signed to the Link whose Hyrule this apparently was. “Do you know anywhere we could find shelter?”

The little guy turned to look at him, with an expression that made it seem like he had insulted his entire family. “It’s just rain.”

Link sighed. “We don’t have much on us, a town with an inn and a shop to purchase a bedroll or two seems like a good idea.”

The little guy was quiet, before turning around and walking off. By this point Link knew that was his way of saying “follow me.”

He quickly checked Feathers, who with a slight stumble and a check on his items was on his way to follow as well.

With the small one in the lead, followed by Link and Feathers, the day continued like the past few had.

It had been strange, suddenly ending up here with a bunch of strangers like this. With Feathers it had been easy, the guy seemed to have a good heart. However with the little guy it was a different story. He seemed to speak the minimum possible, and didn’t especially want to stay as a group- Making it a daily battle to convince him to keep helping them navigate this hyrule.

Still, they were managing.

“We should probably try to get you a sword too.”

Feathers seemed taken back by this, before smiling awkwardly: “We’ve not run into anything, though, have we? Besides, you two seem quite used to wielding yours.”

“I don’t trust this situation.” Link confessed. “Something is bound to go wrong.”

Feathers gave him a sympathetic look.

“I’m serious.” He insisted. “The air doesn’t just crack and cause people to teleport through time and space. Something bad is in the air.”

Feathers seemed to want to say something to deny it, but couldn’t. He turned his head forwards again, facing where they were going. “I have other weapons.”

Link still felt unsure, but accepted it for now.

A bit more traveling, now down what seemed to be a dirt path, Link felt the silence beginning to grind on him. He clenched his hands to fists, and released them, repeating this action a few times to calm his nerves. When it wasn’t enough, though, he shook his head and fastened his walking pace.

This way he caught up to the small guide, and signed: “Can you share the route with me? I’d like a better understanding of what to expect.”

The kid looked annoyed again, but after a moment replied: “Kakariko is down this road, to the west until we reach a big rock, and then down the road next to it.”

“Thank you.” He said, breathing with purpose to calm himself, as he fell back behind to walk next to Feathers again.

It had been a long time since he had panicked like this last. It had been at a cell, in a strange body and shackled to the floor. It had been when Midna’s hold on his fur had weakened further as he tried to be faster despite the pain. It had…

Link sighed. He’d survived all of those, he had been hurt, but he survived. He could handle yet another journey to an unknown world. This is fine.

The little guy disappeared in that second.

Link blinked.

The kid had genuinely disappeared- One moment he was there, the next he wasn’t. 

This was not fine, actually.

“Where did he go?!” He signed frantically to Feathers.

“I don’t know!” Feathers responded, equally bewildered. “Did I see that right?! Did he-”

“Did he vanish…?” He signed as well, turning to look at the spot again.

“Maybe-” Feathers, panicking much more clearly than Link was: “Maybe he got sent to another world, like we were.”

“That beats him being dead.”

Feathers was shaken by that addition, but Link ignored it in favour of walking over to where the kid had been and looking around. It was of no use, of course, but he felt powerless and not doing anything felt wrong.

Not again- Not again-

There was a loud crack inside his ears, and the space between him and Feathers looked like it was cracked glass. This strange scene lasted as long as it took it to arrive, and in the next moment: instead of reality looking broken, there was another boy.

This new stranger took a hitched breath, taking a quick step backwards, Having immediately noticed Link. The step however lead him right into Feathers, which caused the stranger to yelp and manifest a blade twice his size from blue light.

Feathers threw his hands in the air, panic filled eyes looking between the armed boy and Link.

Link breathed in and out, as he moved to walk around the newcomer and next to Feathers, with his hands up in the air as well. He hoped that moving from behind the stranger would make him realize he didn’t care for that tactical advantage, and was looking for peace.

The stranger watched, the weapon still in hand, but took no action.

“Are you-” Link signed: “L-I-N-K?”

The stranger’s eyes grew suspicious with each letter, and Link figured he had made a mistake of some sorts.

Quickly trying to bridge the miscommunication, he added: “So are we.”

The stranger shook his head, which wasn’t ideal.

“No?” Link signed. “What do you mean no?”

To that the stranger didn’t seem to have an answer for. Simply shrugging like it was obvious.

“He’s being honest.” Feathers joined in. “We’re both Link, the hero of courage.”

After eyeing the two over like they had lost their minds, the stranger sighed. “I don’t believe you.” He signed. “But I’m also not sure where I am.”

“That’s fair.” Link supposed. “We’re willing to share our information.”

“Spill it, then.”

After explaining their understanding of how they got here, and what they were doing, the stranger sighed and agreed that going to a town would seem smart in his eyes as well.

However he chose to walk behind Feathers and Link, which Link couldn’t blame him for. He had his own fair share of paranoia of the situation, after all.

Besides, he’d know if the kid tried to approach with a blade in hand, he was awfully good at keeping an eye on his surroundings.

Not good enough, though. Despite following the route the first angry kid had given: they somehow got lost anyway. Sure they found a big rock, but there was no path near it that led to anywhere other than more wilderness.

“Did we misunderstand?” Feathers asked him.

Link furrowed his brow, unsure of the answer. He was quite sure they had gone the exact route the kid described.

The newcomer whistled suddenly, causing the two older to turn and look at him.

He seemed annoyed, and signed: “Is this a trap?”

“I mean, if it was we wouldn’t tell you.” Feathers signed back, at which Link elbowed him.

“It’s not a trap. This is neither of our Hyrule, so we don’t know where things are. The person who gave us instructions either forgot something or we failed to follow it right.”

The stranger crossed his arms, and pouted. Suspicious.

Link, wanting to hit his head against the trees until he could disappear from this situation, tried to breathe in and out and figure this situation out before anything worse happened. “We can probably try and find it on our own.”

“Oh, true.” Feathers replied, smiling again.

“Alright.” The newcomer accepted, still tense.

“Great.” Link responded, tired. “What does everyone here know about scouting?”

Feathers looked a bit flustered, and admitted: “I spent most of my life on a single island- In the sky.”

“Ok.” was all Link could muster.

“I’m okay at it.” The newcomer said, looking a bit less confident than before. “I know what signs to keep an eye out for.”

Link nodded at this. Back in the day he could’ve asked Midna to change his form so he could simply smell the strange scent that towns had, but that stopped being an option a long time ago.

He could still manage with human senses. He had done so for the majority of his life.

So after they pooled their knowledge of what to look out for, they began trekking forwards. Although it was more the two actually experienced people describing some basic things to the one from the sky.

After one man-made path diverged into two, the tired air of the group only grew worse.

“So- Which way?” Feathers asked, trying to not cause anymore tension with the question, by smiling gently.

The newcomer lifted the strange slate he had on his belt, and used it to get a better look forward. It wasn’t enough, though: “The foliage is too thick, I can’t see where either of them leads.”

Feathers pouted.

Link, quite frustrated at this point, signed simply: “Just one thing we can do, then.” And proceeded to scan the area for the tallest tree.

Feathers looked in mild curiosity as Link walked up to an alright specimen, and proceeded to climb it with almost no trouble. Branch to branch, and a good grip on the wood while still being mindful of it’s well being.

From high up he could take a far better look around the area, and found his nerves eased as he spotted smoke from further on and down the right path, as well as the gentle breeze that flowed freely up there. He smiled, despite himself, and climbed back down.

Once he landed with a gentle thud, he let Feathers know what he had seen, before turning to look at the newcomer.

He had stayed by the path, unlike Feathers who had gone to wait for him at the trunk of the tree, and was looking at him with what Link would describe as surprise.

“I was raised on a farm.” Link stated, feeling actually a little up for joking, before he started walking down the right path.

The journey went alright, and although the smoke turned out to be from but a small cottage, it meant they weren’t entirely on the wrong track. Someone was able to live here, so it would mean a town could exist nearby as well.

The newcomer, who hadn’t said much, spoke up another few minutes into the walk, as they tried to decide between three paths this time. “I could climb this time?”

Link was a little surprised, but nodded and gave him a supportive smile. “Go for it.” It was nice seeing the hostility gone, and in its place a want to help.

What he saw then, was… Unexpected. The newcomer proceeded to pick a tree at ease, and then climb at a speed Link had never seen before. It was extremely impressive, and somewhat terrifying.

“Woah.” Said feathers.

Link nodded, slow and stunned.

When the kid returned to ground level- With a thud and an expert landing to boot -he explained that with the zoom on his slate he was able to spot a town. He wasn’t sure which path would lead to it, but if the rest were fine with just going to that general direction until they got to it, he’d be able to lead them.

Feathers and Link approved of the plan, and now followed after the newcomer who was walking forth, at times checking the slate.

Feathers began to talk to him about beacons, apparently something on the slate reminded him of his adventure. Link tuned it out due to not really getting it, and breathed in the forest air.

This was all very strange, but it was nice that no-one was being a grump for once.

At sunset they reached the town, and having moved along with the rain cloud, it only caught up to them at the village gates.

Link gave the newcomer a pat on the shoulder, which surprised him. “Good work.” He signed before heading forward to look for an inn.

The rain only caught them when they had a roof above their heads, as they had moved in the same direction as it had been heading.

Sitting in a shared room, there was that strange snap-crack again, and the other kid was back. Strange face markings as clear on the face of annoyance as always.

The newcomer didn’t disappear, so their three person room had just become crowded.

“Oh.” The kid commented, looking at them all, including the newcomer. “You made it.”

“...Were we not supposed to?” Link asked.

“I gave you the wrong directions.”

Link blinked. He was stunned, having trouble processing the situation. Not because it was so unexpected, but because he hadn’t seen it coming despite how obvious it was this kid wouldn’t help them properly.

“Why?!”

“I didn’t want you to find the town.”

“Again, why?”

“I don’t trust you.” The response was instant.

Link sighed, it wasn’t a reason he could exactly fight.

Giving up, he sat down on one of the beds. This was going to be a stressful adventure, wasn’t it? He lent back a bit, looking at the ceiling. He couldn’t deny the truth of that question, but a part of him wasn’t entirely bothered. It had been a while since he’d slept in a room with another living being.

[queenof-literature]

Hero of Wild - Chapter 6

I’m sorry about the delay… again… life really does get in the way sometimes doesn’t it? Anyway, I’m kinda planning my timelines/series as I go along, so if things don’t correlate I will try to fix them later. There’s also been some confusion about my story timelines and why Wild can talk in some stories and not in others. Sorry for the confusion! In my stories if WIld can talk then it takes place after this series which is a work in progress. For any questions to the order of my stories, please visit my Masterlist on my Tumblr, @queenof-literature. Thank you as always for the insane amount of support. Love you all and hope you’re doing well!

**This fic portrays Selective Mutism and trouble with speech how I and my peers have experienced it**

TW: Taunting/Bullying (No slurs), Minor Panic Attack 

Wild was still a mystery. It had been more than a week since Wild had joined their little crew. Sky and everyone else thought they were done receiving heroes, but Hylia still had surprises for them it seemed. Oh well, Hylia did what she thought was best, and Wild was a good person to have around. After the first time they saw him fight that Lynel, no one could deny that. Yet Sky couldn’t help but wonder why Hylia waited so long. Why make Wild more of an outsider than necessary by waiting more than two months to introduce him? Sky knew he would probably never know the answer, Hylia did what she needed to, but it was still something he questioned. They were back in Wild’s Hyrule once again, even though they were just here a week ago. After Wild’s Hyrule the first time, they went to Sky’s, then a random one, then back to Wild’s again for seemingly no reason. Sky hadn’t even gotten to see Zelda before he left his own Hyrule… it was just frustrating. But Sky tried not to let it show, getting mad wouldn’t help anyone. Sky looked back at Wild, who was doing his best to keep his distance from the group. Well as much as he could, Warriors and Twilight seemed to be worried that him and Hyrule would wander off again to ‘shield surf’. 

“Hey Wild?” Sky called out lowly. Wild looked up, eyes full of question and apprehension. He didn’t seem to be in a talk- signing mood today. “Are we still going down the right path?” The Links were currently traveling through a small patch of trees after what Wild had called Proxim Bridge, heading straight towards what seemed to be two large mountains, or one that was split right down the middle. Wild nodded, lifting his hands to sign. 

‘The path is straight through the mountains to the stable.’ Sky remembered Wild telling Time there was a stable after the mountain, but it was unusual for Wild to direct them down a large path. Even knowing him for a little over a week, Sky knew that Wild absolutely hated traveling main roads on foot.

“Okay, thanks Wild.” Sky smiled back at him. Wild had seemed to come out of his head slightly, awkwardly coming up to walk a shorter distance from Sky. The older assumed it was in case anyone else had questions. He didn’t mean to make Wild uncomfortable, he just wanted to be sure they weren’t lost. Wild glanced at him, as if expecting him to make small talk the boy obviously wasn’t comfortable at the moment. “We don’t have to talk, we can just walk.” Sky offered, low enough so only Wild could hear him. The other boy simply nodded, though Sky could see the grateful look in his eyes. 

The group walked in, a mix of lulled conversation and comfortable silence sweeped over them, and it was moments like these that Sky could simply appreciate his surroundings. As they approached the looming cliffs, Sky couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty of it all. Wild’s Hyrule was savage and massive and overwhelming, but it was also beautiful. The tall rocky walls reflected the bright afternoon sun, the rocks a deep navy blue instead of ominous gray. 

Sky felt a small tap on his shoulder and looked towards his companion.

“Yes, Wild?” Sky questioned softly, doing his best to not draw attention to them.

‘There’s some monster camps between the cliffs. They usually leave people alone but we need to stay on the path.’ Wild signed to Sky. Even after that small of a conversation, Wild seemed to slump down a little further. It was almost unnoticeable, but Sky was always good at reading people. Wild said the stable was almost directly after the end of the mountain path, so hopefully he would be able to run off and recharge while the rest of the group stayed at the stable for the night. 

“Guys.” Sky called out, gathering the other’s attention. “Wild says that there’s monster camps coming up, but we should be ignored if we stay on the path.” Wild looked slightly flustered that Sky had spoken up for him, but he sent a grateful nod in the older’s direction. 

“When isn’t there a horde of monsters in this Hyrule.” Legend grumbled. No one could really tell if he truly hated Wild’s Hyrule or if he was just being sarcastic. It was hard to tell with him sometimes. 

“Thanks for the heads up, Wild.” Time interrupted, nodding his thanks to Sky for relaying the message. 

The group continued on along the river, looking up in wonder when they finally entered the enclosed path. 

“Is that a shrine up there, Wild?” Wind pointed widely to the blue glow in the distance. The rest of the group turned their attention on Wild, who squirmed slightly under their gaze.

‘Yes. One here, two on top.’ Wild signed quickly to get their attention somewhere else. Sky wanted to ask about their challenges, since Wild’s trials really interested all of them, but thought better of it when he remembered how uncomfortable Wild seemed in their large group today.

“We sure we should just leave those camps there?” Legend asked, glancing between the screaming Bokoblins and the Lizalfos swimming in the rushing river.

“If you want to fight them all, be my guest.” Warriors snarked. 

“Wild said it’s fine.” Time gruffed, halting that argument before it started. As much as Time wanted to kill any monsters possible to avoid future incidents, in Wild’s land they just seemed to keep coming. Plus the boys were all weary. Even Legend seemed to dread the very idea he brought up.

Wild felt a cold hand squeeze his heart. If they got attacked after Wild explicitly that it would probably be safe, then would they ever trust Wild again? Even if they did, Wild would never forgive himself…

“Is that the stable ahead?” Hyrule asked, glancing at the rustic horse head in the distance. Wild nodded a little dumbly, not noticing how far they had made it. 

“Yes!” Wind yelled, and the group sped up with newfound energy. Stops on their journey were always a relief, no matter how brief they were. 

~

After the group finally emerged from the cliffs above, the stable was in plain sight. The group crossed a flat rickety bridge. It reminded Twilight of the bridges the other children in Ordon would claim had trolls beneath. Wild called it Big Twin Bridge, although it certainly wasn’t big compared to some of the bridges the other Links had seen. 

As they approached the group felt the same warm aura that Wild’s stables seemed to radiate. The first thing Twilight noticed was the pen of animals every stable seemed to have. 

“Are those goats?” Twilight asked Wild, thinking back to the apparent sheep the last stable had. Wild nodded with a small smirk, already knowing Twilight well enough to know the older would go greet the goats when there was time. There were few people at the stable besides the group of nine, but that seemed to be normal for Wild’s Hyrule. Once again, they saw a scrawny young man carrying a beetle shaped bag three times his size.

“Is he everywhere?” Legend whispered incredulously to Warriors.

‘Beetle.’ Wild finger spelled to them.

“Is that his name?” Warriors laughed, only laughing harder when Wild nodded.

~

  “Wild? Are you coming inside?” Four asked, nodding his head to the other Links filing inside the stable to relax around the small table within. Wild shook his head and gestured vaguely to the fire pot. 

“But… Dinner isn’t until a lot later?” Four’s brow furrowed, looking towards the sun in the middle of the sky. 

‘Has to simmer.’ Wild signed fingerspelling the last word Four didn’t recognize, and Four mentally shelved the word for ‘simmer’ he just learned. 

“Okay… but will you come inside after it starts to simmer?” Four questioned, genuinely confused as to why Wild seemed hesitant about going inside. Wild bit his lip then nodded slowly. “Wild… you know that you can do what you need to do in your Hyrule? If you have someone you need to see or something, just let Time or Warriors know. We’ve all had to take care of business in our Hyrule.” Four assured. He couldn’t tell for sure why Wild seemed quiet. Well… more than usual. It didn’t just seem like a bad day like when he and Hyrule went shield surfing, it felt like far more than that. He thought back to his conversation with Hyrule. Perhaps Wild had something to do, but he was too scared to say anything. It was worth a shot. To his dismay, Wild simply smiled a little and nodded. So that wasn’t it, it seemed. 

“Let me know if you need any help.” Four finished, shoving down his disappointment. Hopefully Wild would be able to let someone know if he got too bad… as slim of a chance as it was. Wild signed a quick thank you before heading to the cooking pot.

~

Hylia, he hoped they weren’t here, but he knew they would be. The ‘Treasure Hunting Bros’, still looking for treasure Link had found in under an hour. Link had made the grave mistake of trying to tell them that he had already found it. They gave him the riddle, teasing him, not expecting him to really find it. Even if their arrogance was infuriating, he didn’t want them to spend months, if not years, wasting their time for treasure that wouldn’t even be there if they found it. When he attempted to sign, they rudely waved him off. He hadn’t tried to talk that much to others verbally since he left the shrine. The times he did it didn’t go… well… but he could feel the words on his tongue if he could just push them out, he’d be fine! He tried to approach them, tried to warn them.

“I…” The first word tumbled out of his mouth, hot streaks of pain clawed up this throat. “I… f-foun… I foun-” Link felt frustration and fear only closing his throat more. Why was this so hard? He could feel the words, he could feel his mouth form to say them, why couldn’t he just get them out?

“Uhh, are you okay?” Prissen, the one on the right asked with a laugh.

“Tre-rea-” Link’s words bubbled in the back of his throat only to slur and stutter and eventually die before they even had a chance to leave. 

“You sound like a demented toddler, man. Have some water or something.” Prissen giggled out, and Wild felt his throat flame up even more. Somehow the white hot pain was still so cold.

“I don’t have time for this.” Dak snapped. “Either say whatever you’re babbling about or leave.”

So Wild left.

~

Sky didn’t know whether or not he should be worried about Wild. The boy was quiet, but that wasn’t unusual. The newest Link reminded Sky so much of himself it actually hurt some days. Sky had his bad days, but it was better now.

Wild however, he never spoke a single word. No one could touch him without him panicking and reaching for his sword. The group didn’t want to approach him like a spooked animal, but no one was quite sure what to do. Wild didn’t need to talk, or accept hugs and pats on the back to be truly a part of the group. They would accept their Brother of Courage no matter what, but Sky truly was worried there was something deeper going on. Something the Hero of Sky couldn’t fix.

Looking at the boy sitting by the fire outside the stable, Sky felt more lost than he had in a long time. Sky’s eye twitched as once again the two men conversing in the stable got too loud. Their constant whispering and occasional yell was even getting Sky slightly irritated, but there was nothing to do, they were in a public place.

“It’s him.” The one in blue snickered, now that he was paying attention Sky realized that their ‘whispers’ weren’t even secretive at all. Sky wondered who they were even talking about. It seems the one in red had the same question. 

“Who?” The one in red snapped irritably.

“That one!” To Sky’s confusion and worry, he not-so-discreetly pointed directly at Wild outside. The entire group subtly perked up at the mention of their new member. Some in the group were used to praise and whispers, however, this didn’t sound like praise.

“Is that the one that you said sounded and I quote ‘like a demented toddler’.” The one in red asked in a deadpan voice, much to the group's shock. Did that mean what Sky thought it meant? He heard shuffling and expected Warriors to be holding Legend back, he did not expect to turn and see it was the other way around.

“Just wait a second you idiot.” Legend snapped in a low whisper. “We need more information first.” Warriors took a deep breath and sagged slightly. Legend was right, not that he would ever admit it.

“That’s the one!” The one in blue laughed heartily, and Sky felt a rock in his stomach.

“I don’t have time for you to antagonize an imbecile that can’t even talk back.” The one in red warned, and Sky felt his worry turn to anger. 

“He was the one that came up to us last time! Not my fault he couldn’t even get a thought out! Tr-tre-” The one in blue mimicked. Sky felt his ears heating up in anger on behalf of their friend that was clearly being insulted. Glancing over, it seemed not even Time knew if he should speak up or keep quiet. They all seemed to have one thought running through their head: Maybe if they didn’t cause a commotion, Wild wouldn’t notice. But these two certainly weren’t quiet about their hatred towards their new friend.

“You talking about Link?” Four piped up, masking the deadly look on his face. The two patrons in front of them either didn’t notice the glares of the other Links, or they were too stupid to care. 

“That the one cooking out there?” The one in blue asked, smiling arrogantly at the boy outside.

“Yup.” Four confirmed in a clipped tone. Sky admired him trying to scope out the situation, but it was obvious the hero’s patience was running short.

“Then yeah. That’s the one.” The blue on, Sky had given up on learning his name, smirked. “Dumbass kept interrupting us, stuttering and slurring. Hell, I would have felt bad for the guy if he wasn’t so annoying. There’s obviously something wrong with him.” The loud one luaghed, finding the situation far funnier than eight furious Heroes of Courage.

“That’s it-” Wind growled before lunging forward, letting out a loud ‘oof’ when his middle was caught by Time. 

“If I were you, I’d keep your mouth shut.” Time leveled the man with a glare. 

“Don’t tell me you’re friends with that fre-”, Sky couldn’t tell which glare was more terrifying, Time’s, or Wind’s. 

“I suggest we make a deal.” Warriors’ stone cold voice spoke up. Even the one in red shot out of his thoughts for a moment. “You two stay on the other side of the stable from us, and keep your mouths shut, and we might just do the same.” 

“I suggest you take that deal.” Legend spoke up, icy blue eyes trained on the two men before them. Sky could see the man’s gears turning, the one in blue glanced at the one in red, who was masking his fear far better.

“Fine.” The man in blue spit out, following his brother to the corner of the stable with his tail between his legs, not deeming the fight worth it. 

“Where’s Wild?” Twilight questioned. Sky’s gaze snapped over the place where Wild sat, finding it vacant. Before Twilight could move Sky was getting out of his seat, his chair screeching against the wood floor.

“I’ll talk to him.” Was Sky’s only declaration before he was outside. He knew where this would lead, and he wasn’t going to let Wild suffer alone. 

~

Wild tugged his hood further up, as if that could make all the bad thoughts disappear. They knew now. They knew. Of course Wild knew they would find out eventually. They surely had their doubts about Wild’s lack of speech with the scars on his neck, but Wild wanted it to be on his terms. Not some random assholes in a stable! Wild forced himself to take a deep breath from where he sat on a log that was covered in overgrown moss. He had fled to one of the nearby patches of trees after the conversation that no one even bothered to hide. Four had asked if they were talking about Link. They knew it was him, and they asked to make sure. Would they think he could talk and just… didn’t? Now that they knew would their disappointment in him begin? They had been so nice, too nice. On the other hand, that’s what Wild thought before they made name signs. For him. They made name signs specifically to make it easier on Wild. Deep down he knew the others wouldn’t be so shallow to discard him for this, but it made battles dangerous. If he saw a monster all he could do is let out a pathetic croak as one of his teammates went down. It made conversations around the fire harder too. They were nice enough to try and include Wild, but it sometimes died off when they gave him room to sign. They were trying, and Wild was trying so hard but it’s not enough-

“Wild?” He heard a calm voice call out through the woods. That was Sky. Wild mentally smacked himself. He just left them! No note, no dinner instructions, he just ran away again. Self loathing wasn’t worth it, it never had been, so why did he always run? Maybe he should make some sort of noise to let Sky know where he was, but Wild didn’t even have the energy to do that, as selfish as it was. He just hoped his cloak would stand out against the trees and moss so Sky wouldn’t be searching for long. A few minutes later his hope came true.

“Wild?” A gentle voice asked behind him. Wild didn’t respond, of course he didn’t. He heard footsteps approaching and he pushed down his panic, it was an ally, not an enemy. Wild wanted to look up, but some of him was too ashamed to do so. 

“Wild? Can I sit down?” Sky said when he was finally next to the log. Wild liked Sky, he seemed kind and always asked him things. Questions, opinions, permission to do something like sit down next to him or put his bedroll near his, it made Wild feel a warmth he hadn’t felt in a long time. Or perhaps a certain kind of warmth he had never truly felt before. Wild simply nodded, not ready to come out of his curled position under his cloak.

“I just came to check on you.” Sky spoke as he sat down on the other side of the log, giving Wild the space the boy needed to think through everything. “What they said… it wasn’t okay Wild. Far beyond okay, it was disgusting.” Wild peered up in surprise at the venom in the other’s voice. Sky took a deep breath and continued. “Wild… can I ask you something? If that oversteps just tell me and I’ll stop or leave you alone.” Sky reassured. Wild thought for a moment. Sky wouldn’t push him, Wild could refuse to answer and the other hero wouldn’t push at all. That was just the type of man Sky was. Wild nodded once again.

“Wild… Can you talk?” Sky asked. It was just a question, just a simple yes or no should have been okay, but instead a rush of ice invaded Wild’s body. Without thinking he lifted his hands into his hair, clutching near the scalp like a lifeline. There it was. He was a damned coward, not even being upfront about why he didn’t talk to the other Links. Wild forced himself to nod his head. 

“Does it… Does it hurt you?” Sky asked hesitantly. Wild nodded again, refusing to meet the other’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, Wild. I know it doesn’t help but I’m sorry. I know how frustrating it is.” Wild once again glanced up in shock. He what? “Yeah.” Sky rubbed the back of his neck. “Speaking was hard for me when I was younger. I was left at the Knight’s Academy in Skyloft, my home, when I was a baby.” Sky began, looking over to see curious eyes peering from under Wild’s cloak. 

“I was quiet, and even when I talked I barely said anything. It took the teachers a while to figure out that sometimes I just couldn’t get the words out. I don’t know, they just couldn’t make it past my thoughts sometimes. The other kids called me stupid or said my head was in the clouds, but Zelda spoke for me on those days and I appreciated it. It never felt like she was babying me, she just always understood what I wanted to say. I’ve gotten better at getting the words out, but it’s still hard sometimes. The other Links understand, Wild. I know our situations are different, but we’re here for you. I’m here for you.” Sky finished. His final statement said as if it were a fact Hylia herself could not dispute. There was no doubt or uncertainty. ‘We’re here for you. I’m here for you.’ The words echoed in Wild’s head. Wild had thought himself weak, but Sky wasn’t weak. Sky was one of the strongest people he’s ever met and he’d only known the man for over a week. Wild’s hands released his hair slowly, coming to rest in his lap before he raised them.

‘I feel the same. I don’t even know if it’s my scars or if it was always like that.’ Wild panicked at the mention of what was before the Shrine of Resurrection, but Sky didn’t question him. ‘But the words don’t come. I can feel them, I can think them, but they don’t come out!’ Wild finished angrily, his hands flinging to his lap once more.

“It’s frustrating.” Sky stated. It wasn’t a question, nor was it pity, it was a fact they both knew. “If you want, we can work on it.” Sky offered, smiling slightly at the pure shock on WIld’s face.

“Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” Sky assured. “But Zelda and I practiced talking over the years and it helped me. Me, or any of the other Links are willing to help, Wild. It’s an option. Otherwise, none of us mind that you sign. We all have things to work around, it comes with a team.” Wild didn’t even know how to respond. Help him? Team? Those were all new to him.

‘Can I…’ Wild trailed off for a moment. Did he want that? Wild couldn’t even really imagine himself talking. What did he sound like without the claws in his throat? Perhaps Wild wanted to find out.

‘Can I think about it?’ Wild asked, forcing his hands to steady, meeting Sky’s eyes. Eyes that held no judgement or malice, just understanding.

“Of course you can!” Sky assured brightly. “Just let me know if you ever want that, or if you just never want to speak of this again. It’s completely up to you Wild.” It was up to him, not Hylia, or the King, or a destiny he never wanted, it was Wild’s choice. That felt nice.

‘Thank you.’ Wild signed simply, and they both felt the emotion behind it. A few quiet moments passed before Sky spoke up again. 

“Do you want to go back?” Sky asked. Wild bit his lip.

‘I don’t want to face them.’ Wild signed honestly.

“I’m sure the others have made sure you won’t have to deal with those idiots anymore.” Sky thought back to Wind snarling.

‘Not them. The others.’ Wild corrected before turning away. Coming back to an entire group after running away in shame sent cold waves of panic through Wild.  

“Oh… Yeah it’s scary, but after the amount of times Legend has left huffing and cursing I think you’ll be okay.” Sky laughed, feeling ten pounds lighter when he saw Wild’s shoulders shake a little with silent laughter. Wild finally stood slowly, followed by Sky. They began the short trek back to the stable, but one more question still plagued WIld’s mind no matter how much he tried to get rid of it. Wild snapped his fingers to get Sky’s attention.

“Hm?” Sky questioned from his place beside Wild.

‘Why help me? You don’t know me.’ Wild questioned shyly. 

“What do you mean? You’re a Hero of Courage.” Wild winced at that. 

‘You don’t know me.’ Wild emphasized. ‘Not well.’ Sky seemed to think for a moment. 

“That’s true.” Sky confirmed. “But one day or two months, you’re one of us. We’re a group of nine now and it wouldn’t be nine without you.” Sky stated simply, waving at the distant group waiting for them at the stable. 

A group of nine. Wild could live with that.

On this episode of: I Think I’m funny. “Four confirmed in a clipped tone. Sky admired him trying to scope out the situation, but it was obvious the hero’s patience was running short.” Cuz Four… short… anyway. 

I love Wind so much. He is ready to fight entire armies of Ganon himself to protect his siblings old or new he will square up. 

Also does this mirror my other fic “The Tavern”? Perhaps ;)

Hope you guys enjoyed!   

[legendofzelda4life]

Crazy

Day 2 or writing oneshots until the linked universe au is updated.

Today, for whatever reason my friends found funny, we’re doing a non-platonic Time x Four fluff.

I know, sounds crazy, right?

----------------------------

Four looked down at his hands. They were so much smaller than everyone else’s. Well, except maybe Wind’s but he had never tried placing his hands against anyone’s to know for sure where he stood.

The smith looked from his hands to the hands of one of his comrades.

Time.

Though, he and all his colours - especially blue - hated to admit it, he did have a small crush on the groups... leader... if you will.

Time always had a plan on how to do things. He also brooded a little but that was fine. Good in combat too. Add that all to the soft side Four had once seen, and the fact he’s the only one that knows Four’s secret, and BOOM! He has all four colours head-over-heels for him.

Silly, right?

Well red seemed to like him the most so somebody always had to stick around when red was in charge. Yes, they all acted like one person, but it was so he wouldn’t break character and spill the secret.

“You okay, Smithy?” Legend asked, walking up to Four.

Other than Time, the colours liked Legend. Not to the extent of how they saw Time, but in a friend way. He was a pretty good sparring partner to be honest.

Four nodded. “Yeah, just thinking.” He said. Legend placed a hand on his chin and nodded. The pink-haired hero looked like he was going to say something but was cut off.

“You seem to do that an awful lot around Time. There something going on?” Ah yes, Warriors. Always trying to play match maker.

He sucks at it.

“Do I? I didn’t even notice.” Four said, looking Warriors straight in the eyes.

Well... more like diagonally from his short point in the eyes.

“Break it up you two.” Uh oh...

That was Time’s voice.

Four turned slowly, making sure to keep his eyes up when looking at Time. Nobody fussed when his head dropped lower though, they all just assumed looking up that high for long made you neck tired.

Don’t get him wrong, it did. But it was also a nice excuse to... check things out?

Four what the fuck? (I’m joking btw)

Anyway...

Four looked up at Time, rather wearily, only too see him staring past Four, glaring, at Warriors.

Yeah, Legend left quickly. Time didn’t object, knowing Legend didn’t take a stab at Four, only checking if he was okay.

“Don’t fight.” Time said, walking closer to the hero of wars. The latter stared at him like he wanted to hide in a ditch somewhere. By the look of Time’s face, he’d be put there if he didn’t shut up.

Finally, Warriors looked away from Time and to Four. “I’m sorry, Four.” He said simply. “It’s okay.” He said.

Time turned around to face Four. “You okay? You’ve been sitting there for the last ten minutes.” Time asked worriedly. “I’m fine. Who’s taking third watch with me by the way?” Four replied, also asking a question.

“I am.”

This caused a switch from green to Vio. Seeing as the latter was more calm and could handle that better.

“Okay.” Vio said, mimicking green’s voice and demeanour perfectly.

After a few hours - maybe three - Four was awoken by Hyrule telling him it was his shift.

“Thanks ‘Rule.” He said, rolling out of his sleeping bag, before walking to where Time was sitting.

“Hey.” Time said. Four didn’t reply, he was trying to not freak out. Being alone with Time was a... weakness of his. Especially at night. And with all the colours talking; green, who was in charge right now, could barely focus.

“Uh- hi.” He said, slightly nervous as he sat next to the other hero.

“You okay?” Time asked, not looking at Four. “Yeah. What about you?” Time shrugged. “Could be better. If only Warriors didn’t mess around so much.” This caused Four to chuckle. “Pretty boy code.” He said with a sigh.

“You’re the only pretty boy I see.”

Four froze as those words left Time’s mouth. He felt a large headache and his vision blurred.

Blue. Green. Red. Vio. Blue. Vio. Green. Red.

The cycle, of course, stopped on red.

Four opened his eyes to see he was on the floor and Time was leaning over him. One hand on either side of his head, basically straddling the smaller hero.

Four felt himself blush furiously, ironic because his face was probably the same colour as the one in control.

“I like you!” Four yelled, quickly slapping a hand over his mouth. He removed it and looked away, cheeks still slightly pink.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t’ve said anything.” He tried to get out of the other’s grasp as he spoke. But... as luck would have it, Time had lowered himself slightly in surprise. Slightly was enough to have their hips against each other though.

Four became more flustered. Red wanted to switch out but he was, as Vio called it, ‘front stuck’. This happened when the body was stressed.

Suddenly, Time’s lips were on his. He pulled away quickly though. “I... sorry, that’s not what you meant by ‘like’? Was it?” Time asked. The hesitation gave Four the opportunity to flip them over. “No.. it’s what I meant.”

When did Blue take over? This newfound confidence definitely wasn’t Red’s.

He was holding the other hero’s hands above his head with one of his own, whilst the other hand was next to Time’s head. He was sitting on Time’s waist, meaning he had to lean forward a bit. His face was really close to Time’s because of this.

The hero below him gave a smirk that made his brain go crazy. He fell back onto his knees and clutched his head.

Vio. Blue. Green. Vio. Red. Green. Blue. Green.

Red was back in charge and immediately started crying.

“I- I-” He choked out a sob. “I’m not crazy... right?! Time?”

Time had pulled Four into a tight hug. “You’re not crazy. Just over whelmed.” He rubbed circles on the smaller hero’s back as Four calmed down once more.

Once he was calm, Four reached reached up and gave Time a passionate kiss.

“Who in the actual fucking ass!?! Is being this loud at- oh.” Wind must’ve awoken at the noise of Four’s crying. Or the yelling from before.

Either way, the youngest hero had managed to awaken everybody except Hyrule, who was on second watch, and Sky, who slept deeper than they gave him credit for.

“I was right!” Warriors exclaimed, making Legend groan.

Four went bright red and tried to hide himself against Time - who had his legs crossed for Four to sit him as they hugged. Time wrapped his arms around Four more. “Piss off Wars.” He all but growled. Okay Vio, at the least, had to admit it was hot.

“I ship.” Wild said, snapping a photo on his slate.

“Ya’ll crazy.” Twilight pinched the bridge of his nose as he spoke, turning back towards his sleeping bag.

They really were.

END.

---------------------------

I never thought I’d have to write this ship but here it is...

It took so much effort to not write lime.

LEAVE REQUESTS BELOW!

REQUETS MUST INCLUDE: PAIRING TYPE/GENRE/CATEGORY (fluff, angst, etc) PLATONIC OR NOT

I WILL WRITE ONLY ABOUT THE LINKS (including the ravio, shadow, and requested characters. Will not write about whole other fandoms though)

I CAN DO READER INSERTS IF REQUESTED (no oc’s tho)

[sky-squido]

Turn Back Time (A Linked Universe Fanfic)

Part one of the Time’s Travels series

GUYS I WROTE A FIC! This is the first fic i’ve ever put anywhere! Wooooo! 

WE GOTS SOME SWEET SWEET TIME ANGST. Lotsa mentions of death and dying, though, so if that’s not your cup of tea, then don’t read this fic. Get cho’ tissues, pals, cuz this is gonna hurt. There is Certified Fluff™, but you gotta work for it. Inspired by this fic I read: https://dinfeanoriel.tumblr.com/post/189094362202/dusk-falls

The group had noticed Time growing more and more weary every time they barely escaped a harsh battle. They could see the bags under his eyes, the way he seemed to be losing weight, and the way he dutifully kept a journal that was suspiciously always tucked out of sight. When Four woke up once during Time’s watch, though, he could see it sitting by his side.

Time was out patrolling when Legend broke the group out of their evening routine. "Does anyone know what's wrong with Time?" he barked out impatiently, drawing everyone's attention. "The old man looks like he's on death's door. Don't tell me you guys haven't noticed."

A chorus of downcast faces gave him his answer.

Before they could discuss it any further, Time returned. If he noticed the heavy silence in the group, he didn't comment on it.

Legend’s comment sparked something inside of Four.

Legend's right. We have to do something!

But what, Red? Time isn't going to tell us anything he doesn't want to. Nobody can make him crack, not even Twilight.

…

Oh no. Vio, what's your idea.

Remember when we woke up in the middle of the night with that terrible headache once?

Yeah?

Who was on watch?

Time.

And what was he doing?

Realization hits the other three.

Keeping a journal.

Vio that's terrible.

It's for his own good, Green! We need to find out what's wrong with him so we can help and we all know he's not going to tell us of his own free will.

I hate to say it, but I think Vio's right.

As usual.

Shut up.

But how are we going to get ahold of the journal in the first place?

What if we ask Legend for help? It was his idea.

We can distract him, and Legend can snatch his journal.

Won't Time realize it's missing?

Not if we can keep him distracted long enough for Legend to figure out what's wrong. He doesn't need to read the whole thing

Good idea. Let's get Legend alone.

Four stared into the fire the group was sitting around. During his internal dialogue, conversation had picked back up again, though strained.

"Do you guys think we need more firewood?" Four asked, making pointed eye contact with Legend.

"I doubt it," Sky replied, "we have a little pile over there and it's getting pretty late."

"Better safe than sorry," Legend yawned, getting up and stretching, "I'll help."

Four nodded his thanks and began heading into the woods with Legend. Twilight's suspicious gaze followed them, though he made no comment.

"What's your plan?" asked Legend the second they got out of earshot.

Four gave him the rundown of everything he had come up with so far. Legend nodded his approval.

"It was a good call asking me. I've got a book that could probably help me translate his Hylian."

"How long should I buy you?"

"I'll need a decent amount of time; a few hours tops. Do you think you can do it?"

"Consider it done."

"Consider what done?"

The two conspirators whirled around, hands on hilts, until they spotted Twilight casually leaning against a tree, arms crossed.

"Twi, you can't stop us. I get that you two are close and all, but-"

"Who said I was going to stop you?"

The two blonds froze.

Twilight pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

“It kills me to watch him do this to himself but no matter what I try, he won't tell me anything! He doesn't even seem to think whatever he's doing to himself is wrong! I want to help him, more than anything, and I think this is the only way"

Twilight knew firsthand how obsessed Time could get with his regrets. His desire to teach Twilight the sword had kept his shade from rest for who knows how many years. Twilight knew exactly how Time could get caught up in his head to the point to self-destruction and he didn't want to see it come to that.

"I'll help Four distract Time."

Legend nodded, surprised but grateful.

They split up to gather wood—they had to keep their alibi strong after all—and returned to camp.

"Took you long enough," sassed Warriors, but the three didn’t comment. Instead, Twilight and Four walked up to Time as Legend headed to his own bedroll to organize his inventory. Luckily for him, his spot sat on the edge of the campsite, just like Time's.

He didn’t catch what Twilight and Four said to Time, but Time got thoroughly engrossed in whatever conversation they ended up having, so Legend decided to make his move. He took his box of rings and—with a heavy sigh—tipped it sideways, letting them spill across the floor, rolling towards Time's bedroll and gear.

Warriors glanced over at the sound.

"You good over there, Legend? You need help organizing your jewelry?" Warriors teased, eyeing the rings scattered across the ground.

"My jewelry could kill you so you all better keep your distance while I clean this up," he bit back. To his satisfaction, the group accepted his explanation, not wanting to get cursed by any of Legend's... exotic magic.

It was under this guise that Legend rifled through Time's things, pulling out a small leather journal from between some masks, pocketing it, and picking up the rest of his rings.

He shuffled back to his bedroll, put his box of rings back, and slid the Book of Mudora out of its pocket in his bag. As some of the first stars winked into the sky, Legend began deciphering.

There was no title or date or any sort of preamble. The first entry was rushed and short, only a few sentences. It looked more like Time had jotted down a quick piece of info he wanted to remember for later rather than any sort of journal.

The first word he deciphered was his own name.

He hurriedly deciphered the rest, his blood growing colder with every word.

"Legend: I'm sorry. I'm so f***ing sorry. Tell Hyrule I love him. Tell Warriors I don't actually hate him. Tell—"

Eager to read what followed, he continued deciphering, but to his horror the next word was another name and a new entry.

“Warriors:”

He stopped translating. These were the dying words of his friends, his brothers. The first passage sounded like the very thing he'd cough out with his final breath, something so important and personal that it couldn’t be said until there was no chance of being able to say anything ever again. He looked over at the campfire, at his laughing brothers, and silently closed the Book of Mudora. Whatever needed saying, they’d tell him themselves. These were private, heartfelt words.

He wondered how Time acquired said private, heartfelt words.

He also wondered how many more pages there were and began skimming.

As Legend flipped through the short, clipped sentences, he saw that most of them ended with a sharp, dashed line. Some had small numbers at the bottom, a x2 or x3 and once, a x7.

There were too many. Far too many.

He saw his own name multiple times and wondered how that was even possible, how one person could die multiple times. He thought of his uncle, who had died before his eyes and, though Legend had brought him back, would probably die again eventually.

If Legend had had to guess, he’d say Time had copied down at least 100 dying statements. That was over 11 times for each of them.

Again he wondered how Time had collected so many dying words—different dying words—of people who were, at the moment, still alive.

He wondered why Time had bothered to write them down at all.

But one small question, one he'd had for a while but dismissed, bubbled to the surface.

Why is Time named Time?

A small pebble hitting him in the head snapped him out of his thoughts. His head whipped over to its source and he saw Four looking at him urgently, Twilight stalling as Time began to stand up. Legend got the message and hurriedly tucked the book back where he found it, clutching the paper containing his translations in his curled fist.

Four volunteered for the first watch. Twilight took second. Legend grabbed third.

They all knew they wouldn't be able to sleep anyway.

When Four went to wake up Twilight at the end of his watch, he shook Legend awake as well. A furtive glance toward Time told them that the Old Man was slumbering soundly, or at least appeared to be. Not taking any chances, they moved to the opposite corner of the campsite, talking in hushed voices.

"What did you find?" Four asked Legend urgently, clearly restless after spending his watch in suspense.

Legend sighed.

"It's not good."

Twilight's eyes narrowed and Four's face became a mask of focus, his eyes glinting purple in the firelight.

"His book contains a lot of entries, short little snippets, never longer than a few sentences. There's gotta be about a hundred of them. They all go along these lines." He read his own passage, the only one he had had the heart to fully decipher, and Four and Twilight's gazes shifted from focus to shock and fear.

"The journal is filled with our dying words. Dozens of them. This one... it's.... it wouldn't be inaccurate," he manages to force out.

"I've gone back in time to prevent someone from dying before. I know it's possible. But that involved the Triforce and…  I've only ever done it the one time. But I have one question for you two:" the two listened at rapt attention, understanding and horror filtering into their gazes as he asked his burning question: "Why is Time named Time?"

A cacophony of voices burst through Four's head, causing him to curl in on himself and pull on his hair. Twilight absently put his hand on Four's head, petting him in a hollow pantomime of comfort as he stared brokenly into the fire.

"We've all died," Twilight started. "Dozens of times. All of us, dead. And he watched as every single one of us breathed out our final words and then turned back the clock to save us."

"I always thought he had an uncanny ability to swoop in and save someone in the nick of time," remarked Four, collecting himself.

"But what do we do with this information?" asked Twilight, the tears in his eyes sparkling in the firelight.

"We can't very well ask him to stop, can we? He's saved our lives countless times and we didn't even know it!" asked Four, the red flames of the fire dancing in his eyes.

"He should have told us," Four bit out abruptly, seemingly changing his mind. He froze in shock for a moment before looking up and letting his eyes reflect the blue of the night sky. "He chose to shut himself up for months, watching us die time and time again. He's an idiot is what he is. He could have told us so we could help him when he rewound time. He could have told us how we died so we wouldn't make those same mistakes again! He could have told us so we could comfort him after he watched us die in his arms!"

Twilight, with his arm now around Four's shoulders, beckoned for Legend to sit next to him. He complied, and Twilight pulled him close, soaking in the warmth of two of his very alive, very breathing, brothers. The three boys sat under the stars, tears sparkling in their eyes and running down their faces.

"We have to confront him" stated Legend, leaning into Twilight's side.

"Do we tell everyone else?" Four asked, eyes drooping from exhaustion after already taking his watch and then having to wrestle to keep himself in line in light of the new information.

"We should start by talking to Time," Twilight growled, eyes steely, "I don't want the others finding out like this."

He felt Four nod sleepily into his side and Legend hum his agreement. Twi thought about how he had the chance to comfort and be comforted by his brothers in the light of this news but Time had never had such luxury, even after doing so much more for so much longer.

---------

Wild rose with the sun as he usually did, glancing around the campsite to orient himself. The whole camp was fast asleep, Wind sprawled over Warriors and burritoed in his scarf. Sky snored lazily, spread-eagle on the ground next to his bedroll. Hyrule slept curled up, the closest one to Legend’s empty sleeping bag. Time laid completely still and silent in his bedroll save for the slow rise and fall of his chest. Twilight, Four, and the aforementioned Legend's sleeping bags were all empty and as Wild moved towards the fire, he saw why. Twilight sat on the ground, his back against a log, staring into the dying embers of the fire. Four was curled up against his left side, snoring lightly, while Legend curled into his right. Wild smiled deviously and pulled out his slate, the camera rune already selected, but upon being leveled by the broken, tired, grief-stricken eyes of Twilight, the smile fell off his face and he put the slate away.

He began preparing breakfast somewhat awkwardly before asking quietly: "you wanna talk about it?"

Twilight didn't move, staring into the embers some more. Wild didn't think he was going to get an answer out of him until he heard a stern "if you are ever hurting, no matter how big or how small, tell me. Please."

He looked over to see Twilight looking at him with an urgent, pleading gaze.

"This is about Time, isn't it," Wild replied.

Twilight's shoulders rose, startled.

"I'm not an idiot,” Wild started defensively, “I saw the looks you three were giving each other after Legend's outburst and then you all went off into the woods together and then took watches and now I find you out here snuggling with Legend of all people? You guys figured it out, didn't you. It’s not good, is it." It wasn't a question.

Twilight sighed, defeated. "No, it's not good, cub."

Wild glanced up from his cooking. "What is it?"

Twilight shook his head.

"You hypocrite!" he started, before getting shushed by Twilight. He continued in a whisper, "you tell me I have to tell you everything that's bothering me and not five minutes later you withhold what's eating you from me! I'll tell you what's bothering me: this!"

Twilight opened his mouth to respond—

"Give up, he's got you cornered."

Twilight looked down to see Four staring up at him. He sat up, stretching, before continuing. "We might as well tell him."

At all of the noise and Twilight's shifting, Legend began to stir, moaning and blinking slowly before sitting up with a start. He looked around, disoriented, until he realized he had fallen asleep on Twilight. When he spotted Wild barely holding back a snicker, his face turned the same shade as his pink bangs.

"You should have woken me up," Legend said in a huff, pulling at his tunic, "I said I was taking the last watch."

Twilight didn't tease him like Legend had thought he would, instead saying, "you needed the sleep more. Besides, I wasn't going to get any, anyway."

"Whyever would that be?" asked Wild, trying to inject himself back into the conversation.

"We read Time's journal," started Legend, waving away Twilight's protests with a hand, "and found out that…  we think…  well…  we haven't been as successful as we thought we were. On this adventure, I mean."

At Wild's cocked head, he continued.

"We have reason to believe that we've died, all of us, numerous times, and Time's somehow been turning back the clock to save us before that happens."

Wild listened intently, running his right hand up and down his left arm as he waited for the water to boil. Understanding slowly crept across his face as he looked up at the trio.

"He must have watched us, all of us... so many times. And he never said anything. Never asked for comfort or recognition..."

Four cut in "or even telling us that we had died and warning us how to avoid it later."

Wild thought for a moment before adding "well, he usually does give out pretty cryptic advice after battles," he gasped, "you don't think—"

"I do think," replied Legend, nodding solemnly. This was a point he hadn't previously considered, but it fit his theory.

Wild continued making breakfast in relative silence as the sun continued to rise. Warriors seemed to wake up before the Wind Burrito™ snuggled him back into dreamland. Time sat up, rubbing his eye, and began to start his morning routine.

"Hey old man!" Four stage-whispered, to the horror of his three companions.

Time looked over at them curiously.

Four waved him over and he obliged, standing slowly before picking his way through camp. He cocked an eyebrow at Four, a carefully blank expression on his face, but now that Four knew what Time had been going through, he could see the grief in Time's eye and could imagine that Time must have been seeing his broken, twisted corpse whenever he looked at him.

The smallest hero stood before the tallest before leaning into his chest and wrapping his arms around him. "Thank you for keeping us safe," Four said into Time's tunic.

Time looked around in confusion before Twilight barreled into him, doing the same.

"We're safe. We're safe thanks to you," Twilight said, wrapping his arms around his mentor from the side. Wild didn't hesitate to follow Twilight's lead before squeezing himself next to his own mentor. Legend watched as tears began to fill Time's eyes and he looked down at who the Old Man saw to be his own children.

"But Pops," Legend drawled, eyes narrowed and a hand on his hip, "f***ing talk to us about it. That's what we're for, right?"

He was met with Wild reaching out and grabbing his tunic, pulling him into the group hug. Tears were streaming down the left side of Time's face and he melted into the arms of his boys, relishing their beating hearts and warm bodies.

They broke the hug after a few moments, Time furiously wiping his eye and the others sniffling slightly and wiping their own. Time tried to collect himself, gravity sinking into his voice as he said: "so you know, then."

Twilight opened his mouth to reply but Legend jumped in first. "No thanks to you! We watched you slowly deteriorate for weeks, Old Man! We thought you were gonna drop dead and you didn't f***ing say anything! The only reason we know is—" Legend cut himself off, realizing he was getting carried away and not wanting to divulge too much.

"The only reason you know is...?" Time questioned, voice growing stern. Legend squirmed for a moment before Twilight stepped in, finally asking: "how many times?"

"You'll have to be more specific, Pup"

"How many times have you rewound time to save us?"

"As many as I needed to."

"That's not a number," growled Twilight, leveling a glare icy enough to rival Time's own.

Time sighed. "Eighty-seven."

Legend's brow furrowed in confusion. There were a lot more than 87 entries in Time’s book. Time noticed. "Sometimes I had to do multiple people a run," he explained. Legend looked up in shock. Had time figured out that Legend had read his journal? Legend wasn't surprised; Time was one of their sharpest members, after all.

"A run?" started Twilight, "a run? You've got a cute little name for it and everything, don’t you. Eighty-seven times, huh? How many runs were you going to do before telling us?"

"Twi," said Four evenly, putting his hand on the teen's arm. He looked at him pleadingly, silently asking him to back down.

Twi sighed, deflating. Time could see his anger for what it really was: worry, fear, love.

Legend figured that Time was onto him anyway, so he decided to come clean about the journal.

"Yeah, but Time," Legend began, almost pleadingly, "why did you have to keep that Hylia-forsaken journal? So you could keep a lovely chronicle of the pain of watching us die over and over again? Why—" he bit back something resembling a sob— "did you write down all of our last words?" Legend asked, searching Time's face.

"In case something happened and we couldn't get your real last ones. In case I couldn't fix it. Because... I thought they deserved to be recorded. I know firsthand that traveling through time causes new timelines to be born. That that Legend is dead in a world where he always will be. Just because I left that world does not make it any less real or that Legend any less dead."

Wild's eyes widened in realization. "You didn't just fix it right away, did you?" He asked. "You buried us, didn't you."

"Every time..." Four trailed off, staring into the distance.

The group descended upon Time again, wrapping him in another, fiercer, bear hug. They got interrupted by Wild's pot boiling over and they quickly untangled while he went to salvage their breakfast. It was good timing, though, as the rest of the camp was beginning to stir, Warriors finally breaking free of the snuggle clutches of the Wind Burrito™ and Hyrule blearily rubbing his eyes. Wind began to unroll himself from the burrito, and Sky began to stir.

Sky, Wind, Warriors, and Hyrule eventually joined the others for breakfast. They all sat around the fire before Wind piped up. "What happened?" he asked Wild. Sentences trailed off as everyone waited for Wild's response. "Something happened?" he asked, trying his best to act nonchalant, but the others had caught on. "Breakfast doesn't taste the same and you've all been awfully quiet," Wind elaborated. Hyrule eyed Legend. He did seem rather off. Warriors' searching eyes caught Twilight's, looking for an explanation, but Twilight's only response was to flick his eyes up to Time. Sky turned towards Time and smiled slightly. "You look better," he remarked simply, startling everyone. "You don't look quite so broken anymore." The group stared in shock at that. He turned to the group. "I won't press," Sky shrugged as an explanation. "He's doing better. I don't see how prying would help."

"Just because you aren't aware of the actions someone took to cause a given outcome, that doesn't mean the outcome would have occurred without their aid," Four cryptically contributed.

The Links in the know shot surprised looks at Four, who glanced softly at Time.

"Would someone please explain what's going on," pleaded Warriors. Time sighed, setting down his empty bowl. He began explaining, but instead of giving them the facts that the other Links had puzzled out, he told it like a story. He told them the story of how Legend, after getting stabbed from behind by a lizalfos, had died in his arms. He told the Links how he had quickly committed his last words to memory, scribbling them down in his journal. He told the Links how the weight of his ocarina hung on his belt, how memories of rewinding time to save lives ran through his head, how he knew that other timelines branched off every time he rewound. He told them how they buried Legend and he read his last words out of his journal as the remaining eight wept. He told them how he had explained to the other Links that there was a way to get Legend back, but that they would never see that other world. He told them how he hugged them all goodbye before playing the Song of Time and materializing right behind Legend, decapitating the lizalfos before it could get to the red-clad hero. The group stared in awe and shock at Time, but also at Legend. Hyrule leaned farther into Legend's side, sniffling. Legend wrapped his arm around the brunet's shoulders.

Time trailed off after he finished his story, allowing the others to figure out for themselves that he had done that whole process 87 times. That there were 87 timelines out there where they were heartbroken, destroyed, dead, and Time had vanished, promising a better future for a different group of Links. "I could only pray that Hylia erased those timelines when I prevented their existence, but I could never be sure. I had to make sure each timeline was the best it could be before I left it."

At that, something dawned on Sky and he rushed over to where he had the Master Sword sheathed by his bedroll. He drew it and wrapped his hands around the hilt, staring at the blade intently and mumbling under his breath. The group watched in confusion, eventually collectively realizing that Sky was asking Fi if she knew what had happened to the other timelines. Sky paused for a moment as though listening before slumping down in relief.

"She says that when you prevent a future, the alternate timeline ceases to exist as if it had never happened." Sky smiles warmly, "the only thing that causes a timeline to continue, even if it has been prevented in another world, is the interference of the Triforce. Legend's not dead. Nobody is. They're all right here."

Time's eye widened in shock. He broke down in that moment, hundreds of lives lost no longer weighing down on him. Wind dove into his arms, the other Links following suit in the third and teariest group hug of the day.

"If only someone could have told you this 86 'runs' ago" muttered Legend under his breath before getting smacked over the head by Hyrule.

---------

After that morning, they would have liked to be able to say that everything went back to normal, but that would have been a lie.

A few days later, they were ambushed in the middle of the night. Hyrule had been on watch, and despite him waking everyone up, they couldn't get prepared in time to defend themselves very well. Twilight had woken with a start to Hyrule's cries, reaching for his sword before getting yanked back by a fully armored Time just in time to watch a spear from one of Sky's moblins crash down where he would have been standing. Twilight stared at Time in shock, who was still clutching his ocarina in his left hand. Twilight froze at the sight before his mentor shook him. "There's no time. Guard Wild's back."

Twilight didn't need to be told twice. Time finished off the moblin and Twilight grabbed his sword, rushing to protect Wild. The battle ended shortly thereafter. It had been a quick, previously deadly, calculated strike. Clearly, their enemy had a very strong grasp on tactics. As the group cleared out their camp, Twilight whispered something in Wild's ear. The younger gasped in shock and the two rushed to where Time was packing up his bedroll and tackled him in a hug.

"Thank you" whispered Twilight into Time's tunic. Wild gingerly picked up Time's hand and placed it over his beating heart like he'd had to do a few times with Flora after the Calamity.

"I'm alive. I'm safe. It's okay."

Needless to say, the group got rather accustomed to the sight of Time in tears, but they also hugged him far more as well. After the battle, Wind spotted Time writing in his journal. Had he been able to read any of it, he’d know that it had said:

Twilight: It’s going to be okay. I love you.

Wild: This isn’t goodbye and you know it. Just play that ocarina of yours and we’ll be right as rain.

“Hey, Time.” Time looked up. Wind continued, “because you know now that the other timelines stopped existing, you don’t have to write those down anymore.” Time started as if he were about to say something before Wind suddenly got an idea. “What if we all wrote down our words so you don’t have to! We could all write out everything we might want to say so you don’t have to copy down those short little sentences anymore.”

“Some people did that in the army,” Warriors butted into the conversation. “It was common practice to write that kind of stuff down for your next of kin before heading out. It’ll make your life a heck of a lot easier, Old Man. Besides,” he added with a wry grin, “I’m not gonna spill out my guts if I know I’m just coming back anyway.”

Time relented. He knew from experience that they never had time to get out everything they wanted to say in those final moments. He nodded his approval and that evening, the whole group solemnly wrote out everything they didn’t want to leave unsaid.

---------

Once, while the group had been trekking through the Snowpeak of Twilight's world, Wild pulled out his shield and prepared to surf down a particularly steep and icy hill.

"Cub." Twilight scolded, "Don't. You'll get yourself killed."

"It's never happened before!" replied Wild cheerily before they all froze, realizing what he'd just said. They turned to Time.

Time shook his head gratefully, "not as of yet. But I still wouldn't—"

That was all the encouragement Wild needed before readying his shield again. Right as he was about to jump, he felt a hand snare the back of his tunic, stopping him. He turned and was met with the face of Time, a new, haunted look in his eyes, and an ocarina clutched in his left hand.

Wild was noticeably less reckless after that, much to the relief of everyone, especially Twilight.

That night, Four sidled up to Time and asked quietly, "how long did we look before giving up?"

Time sighed, "using the ocarina takes a toll on me. I try not to use it unless it's absolutely necessary."

"How long."

"A few days."

At that, something in Four's eyes flashed red and he found Wild, dragged him by the tunic and shoved him into Time's arms. "Give this man a hug," was all he said before heading back to rejoin the others around the fire. Wild didn't need to be told twice.

Time began to look healthier and healthier, no longer on the verge of death. He had to travel back less and less frequently because of his group's newfound self-awareness and he never had to travel back more than once for the same event. He had also been spending less time in each alternate future, only ever sticking around long enough to ensure that there was no other option before they smiled and told Time they’d see him later.

"Moral of the story," chirped Legend happily one day over dinner, "always read your friends' journals without their permission."

Hyrule thwacked him over the head with his spoon.

---------

Bonus:

“There’s no way he survived that fall, Twilight.”

“He has to have. He wouldn’t let something this stupid kill him.”

“Yeah, actually, he kind of would.”

Hyrule hit Legend in the back of the head.

“Are you gonna rewind?” Four asked Time.

He sighed. “There’s no way he’s lasted this long with those injuries. We very well might starve out here anyway considering Wild has all the food. We’ve tried everything. Even Wind’s pendant isn’t helping.”

“Besides,” Sky points out, putting his hand on Twilight’s shoulder, “Wild won’t have to go through all that pain if we rewind.”

“But,” Time adds meaningfully, “let’s not resort to altering the flow of time for the sake of convenience. It’s not exactly easy for me to pull off. Sometimes I miss.”

The group nods solemnly.

“So we’re going back, then?”

“I think we’ll have to.”

Time grabs his ocarina before Legend stops him.

“So when you rewind time, none of us will remember this, right?”

“We’ll walk along the cliff, Wild will ask if the stunt will kill him, I’ll tell him yes, and we’ll keep walking. None of this will happen.”

“Sweet,” says Legend, a mischievous glint in his eye. He walks over to Warriors. “Hey Warriors.”

“Yeah?”

“You suck at life.” Legend punches him in the face. “Turn it back, now!”

Time does not, in fact, turn it back. Instead he watches in amusement as Warriors punches Legend in the face. Then, he starts playing the ocarina.

“I’ll punch you in the face!” yells Legend over the music, but Time’s smirk reminds Legend that he won’t remember to.

Hyrule smacks Legend over the head again for kicks before they finally cease to be.

[twilightgoddesshylia]

The Incident

Read on Ao3 Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23375077

This is. Entirely the fault of @linkeduniverse-incorrect

Ranger gives me IDEAS at oh-god-o’clock in the morning

+++

“Who let this happen.”

Time stood with his arms crossed, glaring the boys before him. The one eye always somehow made his stare so much ore intense, and they all shrunk under the force of it.

Warriors stepped forward, and they all held their breathe in wide eyed fear.

“Its my fault. I know how rash my sister is, and I still let the girls rush off on their own. I take all the blame,” He stood at attention, a good soldier ready to face his failure. Time’s cool stare didn’t budge.

“Wait no!” Wild jumped forward, flinching under Time’s attention. “I was the one who told her about it, I knew she would rush off, and I let myself get distracted, and then she was gone, and I’m sorry, I should’ve been guarding her, and I didn’t mean to but its my fault and-”

“It’s Twilight’s fault.” Despite the collective gasp Legend remained completely unrepentant, looking Time evenly in the eye. “He was with her the whole time and did nothing to stop it. He’s definitely one hundred percent to blame here, don’t listen to the self-sacrificing idiot team.” Legend crossed his arms, effectively ending his testimony, ignoring the other’s side eyes.

Time looked each one of them in the eye, before sighing, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Well Twilight. What do you have to say for yourself?” Time turned, facing his protege, as well as the . . issue at hand.

Twilight finally gave the group his attention, pulling away from the scene.

“I would sincerely like to see y’all do better. Frankly, I don’t know what the problem is.”

An observer, might note that, at this point, the eldest hero had developed a twitch in his eye.

“The problem,” said hero began, “is that this situation is in no way sustainable. We’re on a very serious and dangerous quest, we never know where we’ll end up next, or when a hoard of monsters will attack, and we certainly,” Time was near actually raising his voice at this point, “do NOT. Have the room, time or resources to keep a Hylia damned PEACOCK!”

Silence reigned, briefly, and then-

“WUUAAAWK! EEEHH! EEEHH! EEEEEH!”

The “issue” was this: Hylia, had made a friend. Twilight, had been with her when Linkle- and it was still odd to think Warriors had a twin; how did that work with the hero’s spirit?- had bounded up and asked if they wanted to see a something even cooler than a cucco. Now, had he been more familiar with his friend’s sister, he might have been more wary. Or not. He did love animals, even the ones that frightened him, like cuccos. The point being, that one might have considered what exactly she might find more interesting than a cucco.

The answer, was, naturally, the biggest peacock Twilight had ever seen. Not that he’d seen many, but there were a few in the castle gardens, that were terrible gossips when he was in wolf form. This one however, was significantly larger than those. Hylia’s size, or lack thereof, was made very obvious next the over sized fowl. A giant, white peacock. Because of course it was white. Really, what happened next was truly an inevitability, a design of fate.

They were supposed to keep there distance, as Linkle warned them of the disturbing level of aggression the Peacock had displayed, and they did! But, the bird had other plans. It waltzed right up to where they sat at the edge of the wood, and plopped itself in Hylia’s lap.

She had thrown her arms around the massive bird, and looked Twilight straight in the eye, declaring, “I love him, and I’m keeping him.”

Their fate was sealed.

Now, Time stood, attempting to wrangle some sense into the situation, while the others looked on but Twilight knew it was futile. Hylia made ordonian goats look compromising when she dug her heels in, and the peacock might actually be worse.

“We can’t keep it.” Time was actually attempting to stare down the goddess who faced hatred incarnate. No one could ever call him a coward, but clearly he still had something to learn about picking battles.

“Archimedes has decided to accompany us, and quite frankly, I don’t see how you can stop him.” Hylia mirrored Time’s crossed arms. She was absolutely mocking him. The newly dubbed Archimedes found this hilarious, bugling happily.

“You..Named it.. what.” Time’s voice could not have been flatter. Archimedes also found this amusing.

“Archimedes Ranger Hyrule. The first. He’s quite intelligent, no need to be insulting.”

“. . .”

At this point, Twilight was certain his mentor had broke. The absurdity of the situation was too much. They were arguing with Hylia, white goddess of Hyrule and time itself, about whether or not she could bring a giant peacock named Archimedes, along on their mysterious quest through time.

That is A Lot.

Hylia, finally taking pity on the poor man, pranced up and squished Time’s face with her hands “Oh don’t be such a worrywart; He’s a giant, wild Peacock, he can take care of himself. He can hunt, he doesn’t need bedding, and he can easily keep pace with us. It certainly won’t trouble us; in fact, birds make wonderful guards, especially the larger fowl. Think of Archimedes as big breathing alarm.” she beamed, and well. Twilight didn’t see how anyone could refuse that smile.

Time closed his eye “I’m not winning this, am I.”

Hylia giggled standing tiptoe and tugging his head down to place a kiss over his scar. “Absolutely not.” She pulled away, and faced the others, beckoning them closer to her and the bird.

“All right boys, come properly meet Archimedes; don’t crowd him now, he likes hugs but only on his terms. . .” The heroes were relieved and curious about their new companion.

Twilight clasped Time’s shoulder. “He really is a decent beast.” he tried to reassure him.

Time eyed the group were Archimedes was allowing a hug from an enthusiastic Wind “We never stood a chance.”

“Not even a little bit.” They looked at each other and shared a chuckle, before joining the group.

All’s well that ends well.

Though, this wasn’t even close to being the end.

[shaykai]

I'm replaying Twilight Princess again (cause why not) and it just occured to me that Zant is way better at mentally fucking with people than he is physically fighting them- and now I'm here to rant about it because I can

He really doesn't kill a lot of people? Or if he does it's less to murder them and more to hurt somebody else- Like with Zelda. When he breaks into Hyrule Castle he attacks the guards, nobody from his side including himself outright attacks Zelda because he knows that she values her people's lives. He does this with Midna and Link, too- at Lake Hylia with the Light Spirit. He doesn't outright kill anybody there even though he easily could have (Midna is on her death bed and Link is a wolf who can't even use Midna's abilities at the moment) but it's more of a 'you've really gotten on my nerves so now I'm taking away all of your allies, making you way weaker than you were, and I'm going to make you watch your friend die' kind of a thing, and even when Midna doesn't die, it still forces you to (temporarily) kill Zelda.

Even the small side things he do are mostly just to piss you off and make your journey a lot harder than it needs to be, like scattering the mirror shards a l l o v e r t h e p l a c e (I know I got a little upset the first time I found out I'd have to run around collecting those) or how he destroys bridges and basically makes you run around way more than you'd normally have to. Even when he makes that Stalord thing come to life, he doesn't stick around to actually fight you (probably because he's aware that he's really not the best fighter) but he does make yet another obstacle for you to not only survive through, but to have enough of a will to push through yet another challenge just to find out you're going to have to do that a lot more.

Basically in short he's just fucking with you for the entire game, I'm sure I missed a lot of things or got something wrong, somebody else has probably talked about this in a much better fashion, I love Zant, sorry for rambling-

Edit: there's also the cutscene where he turns Midna into an imp rather than just killing her even though I'm 98% sure he could have just killed her right there-

Another edit: Zant has definetly killed people/got people killed- I just think he likes to torment our main crew a little more than random civilians

[ask-rijus-ocs]

Starter

[ There must be better ways to meet an interesting stranger than in the middle of the night during a storm. Yet, here he is.]

[ Twilight really didn't have a reason to go out this late. But like always, sleep evades him. And like always, he doesn't have anything better to do. So he heads outside. It's raining. He doesn't seem to mind it, despite the many, many times he's caught a cold from staying outside in the rain. Ordon is quiet. Unbearably quiet. ]

[The forest village is usually bustling. To see it silent is...different. He's not sure if he likes it. It brings back memories of when the kids were taken. ]

[ Epona is asleep. Thank Hylia. She has much better luck than him. Twilight pulls the fur hood over his head and walks into Faron Woods. Even in the dark of night, he knows exactly where he's going. He could probably close his eyes and end up in the exact same place. He's going to the bridge.]

[ Twilight doesn't know why he's going to the bridge, but he is. His feet have their own instinct, and he knows the forest both from seven feet up and kneeling to the ground. He cannot possibly be lost; simply wandering. He's about to pass by Faron Spring when he sees something. There's a shivering form in the water. Just from a glance, he can tell that the person is not from Ordon. Even Uli doesn't have hair that long. It would most certainly get in the way of work. ]

[ Twilight knows he can't leave them there. The protective instinct takes over, and suddenly his pace increases. They're asleep. Cold. Very cold. They've probably been laying in the water for a long while, there are petals mixed in with their golden hair. He doesn't have a towel, but he does have the pelt, which he quickly wraps around them. He's also soaked by now, and he's cold too, but like hell if he's about to be selfish and take it for himself. ]

[ "C'mon. Let's get you somewhere warm." He picks the young girl up, planning on heading back to Ordon. And then he hears it. Rustling, everywhere. Perhaps if not for his acute hearing, he wouldn't have noticed, but here we are. Twilight places her back down (on dry land this time, of course) and turns up to face the sky. Is that a...tail? Hm. His hand rests on the hilt of his sword, almost by reflex. And then, they jump.]

[ "Lizalfos. Just as expected." Twilight has the Ordon Sword out in an instant. Water is where Lizalfos are most mobile, but he can handle it. There's a lot of them. One,two, three, four, five....nine. Nine Lizalfos. In the rain. Hylia must really hate me, Twilight suspects. ]

[ The brunette attaches his shield fast enough to where he has time to get into stance. Two rush at him, and boy having the Bow or his Gale Boomerang with him would be real helpful right about now, but his past self assumed with naiveté that it would just be a harmless midnight walk. He's lucky he never lets go of his sword, otherwise he'd be dead. ]

[ Twilight's able to kick the first one to the ground before the second one gets to him, which he goes for the arm, and misses. Why'd it have to be midnight? Why now? He's saved Hyrule once before, can't he just be left alone? Perhaps it is his insomnia getting to him, but he's getting quite fed up with this. ]

[ He lands a hit the second time, and uses the pommel of his blade to slow down the third Lizalfos. An arrow hits his shield. Wait, an arrow? They have bows now? Oh, wonderful. Just wonderful.]

[ First is back up again, so he prepares for a helm splitter. That one's fast, so it dodges the head hit, but he's able to hit it from behind once he lands. Next comes the fifth, sixth, and seventh. They hold off for a few moments, and Twilight holds his blade out to his side in warning. They don't take it. Too bad. He releases a spin attack, sending all three stumbling backwards. An arrow hits his shield arm. Great. Just great. ]

[ He doesn't have any ranged attacks on him except for...Slingshot! How did he remember to take his slingshot and not his bow?! Stupid! Ugh, never mind, it'll have to do. He has to awkwardly tuck his sword under his arm so that he can use both hands. Good Hylia, it hurts to use an arm when you've got an arrow stuck in it, but he has a high pain tolerance, and so he manages. The last two bow wielding lizalfos fall to the ground and exchange their weapon for the swords of their fallen comrades. ]

[ Twilight has to straight up drop the Slingshot just so he has enough time to meet the Lizalfos in a sword lock. After it backs off, Twilight rolls behind the second one and performs a Back Slice. It's not as great as it could have been thanks to that goddess-damned arrow in his arm, but it hits just as well, and it's cause enough for the Lizalfos to retreat. He must've waited there for a solid ten minutes before he finally sheathed his sword. He's always tense after battle. ]

[ "It'll keep the wound sealed up until I can get back to the house, but it's gonna hurt like hell once I try to take it out. But I can't worry Rusl with this..." Twilight inspects the wound. If it gets infected, though, that's a different story. Hm. Well, thankfully, the girl is fine. He'll have to carry her only using one arm, but he'll manage. ]

[ The walk to the house is uneventful and painful. Putting all that weight on one shoulder made it hurt just as much as his arm.]

[ The sun is up by now. That fight must've taken a while. And now, another problem presents itself - how to get her up the ladder. At this point, he might as well just go to Rusl's place. Hmm.... If he can hold the ladder with his hurt arm well enough, then maybe. Twilight carefully ascends up the ladder, finally making it up to the door. ]

[ He sets her down on the bed, making sure she's warm enough. Hypothermia is something he knows well, and for someone with a child-like form to have to go through that is troubling. He wonders how she got here, and why she was laying out like that. ]

[ The next ordeal is his arm. He cleans the wound before taking out one of his spare daggers to cut the lodged in part. Renado has done this so many times that it's like instinct, but it's hard without anyone to hold out his arm or use the scalpel. He misses when Midna could just magic the arrowhead out and all he'd need to do was heal his skin afterwards. But alas.]

[ A pitiful wince escapes him as he pulls out the arrowhead. He'd been trying his hardest to stay quiet so she could sleep, but still. "Okay. Now to wrap it," He doesn't have any gauze, so he reaches into his dresser and uses one of his shirts to wrap it. There. He swaps his heavier arm guard onto that side for more protection in case it gets hurt again. ]

[ "Mm?" The girl sits up a few hours later, to find Twilight sharpening his blade. "Calm down. I'm not going to hurt you." He looks up, placing the sword by his side after her panicked reaction. "Where.. Are we?" She looks around, baffled. "This is Ordon Village. It's my house." He explains calmly. ]

[ "Did you bring me here?" She adjusts herself on the bed, taking off the hood. Twilight nods. "You were passed out in the spring, it was raining. What were you doing out there?" He asks. "I found a portal while i was traveling. Took me here, but I got real dizzy and I think I passed out." She rubs her head. A portal? Strange. He decides to leave out the part about the Lizalfos to not worry her. ]

[ "Where's Roxy?" She searches her things. "?" "Roxy. Small fox, like 2'4", green eyes?" She explains. "Never seen them. Sorry." Twilight shakes his head. "Ah... " The girl looks nervous. "What's your name? Oh, right, uh, I should introduce myself first. I'm Carly Elizabeth Parker-Callisto. Uh... but just Carly works!" Carly nods. "I'm Li- Twilight." He corrects himself. He doesn't like his old name much anymore. ]

[ "Hm?" Carly pulls out something from her bag. "These quests weren't on the Slate before..." She swipes across the screen. "The Slate?" Twilight is confused. "A sheikah slate! It stores all my things, and I write quests down on here." Carly explains, holding it out in front of her. "Main Quest: Answer Questions... Side Quest:Find Roxy..." She cites it. "That's weird. I didn't put these in here." Carly scratches her head.]

[ "Answer questions? We don't have time for tests. It'd be best if you could get home as soon as possible. Where are you from?" Twilight sighs. "Lurelin Village! It's right here." Carly pulls up a map on her Sheikah Slate, handing it to him. "Never heard of it before. Actually, this whole map seems really off. Snowpeak is behind Zora's Domain, after all." He squints. ]

[ "Well, until I can get back home, I don't think it'd hurt if we answered a few.." Carly seems to like the idea. "I - I guess it'll be okay. But only until we can find your pet and get you back home." Twilight rubbed at his temple. "I think it'll be fun!" She smiles. Fun. Right.]

// Carly and Twilight are now open for asks! I will open up new characters as they appear.

- Mun Riju

[bokettochild]

Sisters, Scoldings and Seaside Memories

My excuse? I wanted to write the Oracles meeting the heroes and it spiraled into some Legend angst, because, well- this is me.

I do have a prompt I blame for this though, so go yell at the folks at @linkeduniverse-prompts for inspiring me with this idea.

The heroes had landed in Legend’s world again, jolted across time and space by yet another sudden switch, one that had left them more shaken and out of sorts than normal, and which, quite to everyone’s panic, had nearly made Four pass out. As was, the smithy had clutched ahold of the nearest hero at the moment, Legend, and refused to let go, resulting in his getting picked up and carried by the vet after they had figured out where they were.

The fact that they had been dumped so close to Legend’s house (they were only just a half an hour’s walk away) had unnerved the vet, and a few others, but there was no sign of monsters as far as their scouting crew could tell, even with the heavy rainfall, and if Hyrule, Wild and Twilight all agreed that the path was safe, then no one else was going to be the one to question them. After all, if you can’t trust the two best survivors and the best tracker on their team, who could they trust?

Ravio had greeted the group with open arms and cheerful welcomes, pulling the sopping smithy out of Legend’s hold and cooing when the multi-colored hero hadn’t even protested. Legend didn’t appear too very put out about it either, just shaking his head with a smile that he hid behind dripping bangs as he’d removed his shoes and barked orders at the rest of them to do the same.

While Legend stoked the fire and grabbed a blanket for Four, who Ravio was settling in his own favorite overstuffed arm-chair (if Ravio hated Legend's rocker, then Legend had already condemned that chair to the furthest corners of the dark world), the rest of the heroes stood about toweling themselves off and looking around. Ravio had reorganized again, although he’d left a few things, like the strange mask on the wall and a few other decorations, alone. It looked nice, cozier, although a bit less like a shop. When asked why, the merchant had waved off the curious looks from both the heroes and his housemate.

“I figured with all y’all visiting so much I’d probably better work out of the shed. It took a bit of tidying up- now Mr. Hero, don’t look at me like that, it was a mess! Anyways, I tidied it up, moved most of the things into the basement where you can get at them easier, Mr. Hero, and set up shop! Now y’all won’t have to worry about my things getting in the way.” Ravio smiled brightly as he finished, patting Four’s head and ignoring the smithy’s irritated look and looking pointedly at Warriors instead.

It was clear that Ravio’s adoption of Legend and Twilight’s use of the word ‘y’all’ was bothering the poor captain immensely.

The evening progressed as usual, with Ravio humming off key as he bustled about the house making ready the bedrooms for the heroes’ use. Wild, perhaps in wake of the pie incident, had finally been granted access to the kitchen, which allowed him to make dinner while the others offered Ravio their aid.

As “host” Legend had been assigned the task of sitting with Four until the smithy felt a bit better. The vet had at first protested leaving all the work to the others, but Ravio had finally persuaded him by pointing out that Mr. Smithy shouldn’t be left alone to stew too much in his thoughts, and wouldn’t Mr. Hero like to make sure the Hero of the Four Sword was quite alright in this particular Hyrule? Why that worked, or why Ravio had used that specific wording was unknown to the others, but Legend caved quickly after that, changing into a horridly oversized tunic and joining Four on the couch, the smithy leaning against him while the two talked over mundane things like metal imbalances in weapons and other such matters.

Time hadn’t been able to hide a snort of laughter as he caught wind of Four very casually explaining proper cooling methods to use on newly forged swords to a flushed veteran, and Legend had looked one instant away from snapping back about a recent mishap involving such a task, only stopped the smith’s continued softness of voice and weary eyes.

The knock on the door only sounded however, once most of the others had already bustled into the kitchen, leaving Legend and Four to eat their dinner together where the smith would be most comfortable and Legend couldn’t scold Twilight for his ‘wolfish’ manners at the dinner table.

Considering the vet had trouble keeping himself clean, Warriors had quietly commented that maybe the other boy didn’t exactly have room to be complaining about table manners.

The sound at the door was lost to those in the kitchen as they chattered and laughed, but to the two heroes in the living room it was clear as day, and startled them both so much that they both fumbled with their bowls, violet clashing with brown as sheepish smiles marred both their faces, light laughter on their lips at their shared startle.

The knock sounded again, this time urgent, repetitive and with a desperate air.

Amusement flickered to worry as Legend had risen from the couch, the line of his shoulders tight with worry as he’d reached for the sword he’d left at the door before even daring to lay his fingers on the door handle. Four’s own hand had scrabbled for his blade, but he’d remained sitting, tense and alert with his ears pricked forwards and eyes sharp against whatever might be outside.

There were a few things Legend was expecting to see when he’d opened the door; royal guards coming for the bounty that the king had still failed to lift from him, despite most all of Hyrule knowing by now of his innocence of the crimes attributed to him, or maybe it would be a villager desperately reporting a monster attack down in Kakariko, he had thought it strange they had been dumped so conveniently close to home with no danger immediately evident.

What was on the other side however was not any of the things on his mental list.

Three cloaked figures stood outside the door, two of them nearly looming over him as a pair of sharp blue eyes stared at him from beneath the shade of a hood, stern and wary, but not entirely devoid of concern. “Link! Oh, thank heavens you’re here!”

“Nayru?” The vet blinked in surprise, gaze falling first on the Oracle in front of him and then to her sisters, standing behind her and wrapped tightly against the rain. And for lack of anything better to say, or even think, he opened the door a bit wider, motioning vaguely with the sword still in his other hand. “Come in.”

Four’s eyes followed the three girls as green, red and blue had brightened the dimming room, the bright hair and clothes of the three Oracles strangely out of place in the muted tones of Legend and Ravio’s house. Legend stashed his sword back against the wall, taking the cloaks from the three ladies and hanging them on hooks with everyone else’s as Nayru turned to him with her face drawn and eyes flickering sternly.

“Link.” Nayru began, frowning down at the vet, who stared up at her with similar seriousness. “It has come to my attention that there has been a temporal and chronological anomaly that seems to have been following you, I’ve come to ask-”

“Four!” Farore’s trill broke through the tense atmosphere as the Oracle of Secrets rushed over to bundle the Hero of Four Swords into a hug. “How? Oh, my stars! It’s been so long! You look so much older!” The girl exclaimed, holding the sheepish smithy at arm's length and inspecting him. “I haven’t seen you in forever! Although, I suppose it seems like less time for you. Linky! How on earth did you rescue him?” That stopped the smithy silent, and he stared up at the greenette before him curiously as she chattered on, worry in her eyes. “Is that why he looks ill? Did you-”

“Farore.” For maybe the first time in his life, Legend actually managed a half decent growl. Sure, he still squeaked a bit, but it was low and harsh enough to nearly count.

“How-” Nayru frowned, blinking slowly at the smithy seated on the couch while Din waved to him quietly.

“Boys, is everything-” Time’s voice was cut off as the three Oracles spun to stare at him, color draining from their faces as Din buried her face in her hands, Farore tensed and Nayru stiffened, sharp blue eyes turning to Legend with a glare.

“I told you to never play with the Harp of Ages!”

“I didn’t!” Legend snapped back, glaring up at the older girl with something similar to a pout. For the other two heroes, had it not been for the painful tension of the situation, they may have smiled at how much the interaction looked like a pair of siblings arguing over a valued toy.

“Then how is he-” Nayru flung a hand out to point at Time, who stood awkwardly in the doorway. “-here?” The Oracle faltered, gaze turning back to Time in confusion before settling on Legend again. “Wait, which hero is that again?”

“Ouch.” Time deadpanned, completely on instinct.

“Hero of Time.” Legend returned with a scowl.

“Wait.” Farore stared from one hero to another in confusion. “Isn’t he dead? Linky, are you- have you been rescuing-”

“This one didn’t die.” Legend returned, looking increasingly done with the situation while Time and Four both winced.

“Split timelines, remember, Fare?” Din offered with a pained smile.

Nayru scowled, pinching the bridge of her nose as her other hand settled on her hip. “Link, I swear, the Harp of Ages isn’t even supposed to be able to cross realities! Do you know what you’ve done? Link, I know you miss her, but searching across time and space for her just doesn’t work! You’re going to-”

“I didn’t use the freaking harp!” Legend shouted, and to the surprise of both of the others, tears were gathering in his eyes. “So could you just not-” The vet’s voice broke as teary indigo glared up into startled ocean blue. “Could you just not bring that up? I know better, Nayru! Besides, which one of us is it that broke the timeline last time, huh?”

“That wasn’t me.” The blue-haired maiden sighed. “We both know I had no control over any of what happened. But your point stands, I’m- I’m sorry for accusing you.”

“Good.” Legend wrapped his arms around himself, a single tear trickling down his scowling face as Din flew over and wrapped him in a hug. “Oh, Sunshine, she didn’t mean it! We’re just worried is all, you know that, right?” The vet didn’t answer, but he did melt into the hold of the young woman as she patted his back gently.

The others chose that moment to make their respective appearances, peeking around Time to see Nayru standing awkwardly beside the embracing Oracle and Hero while Farore and Four exchanged a Look.

“Legend, who is this?” Hyrule frowned, instant regret flooding over his face as he saw Legend swipe the end of his over-long sleeve over his face with a violent sniffle and a huff, releasing Din as the red-head sighed sadly.

“The Golden Goddesses.” Time answered instead, nodding politely to the three ladies, who all offered him awkward smiles in return.

“The Oracles actually.” Nayru corrected with a strained smile. “Apologies, Forest Hero.” She inclined her head respectfully. “I meant no disrespect, it’s only that you are quite similar in appearance to another hero from this world, one that is near and dear-” The woman’s voice stuttered to a halt as she stared at the others peeking out from behind the eldest hero.

The room fell to silence for a brief moment as Nayru’s face fell, eyes widening dramatically as her shoulders slumped. “Is that- Link, how many Heroes of Courage are in your home?”

“Nine.” Legend huffed, crossing his arms and looking anywhere else but at the girl. “Counting me anyway.”

“Nine Heroes of Courage.” The Oracle repeated, dumbstruck, before rubbing her hands over her face. “That’s like half of all of Hylia’s Heroes in all! Why? Why would so many be gathered in one place? How did you even meet them?”

The vet shrugged, still not meeting the baby-blue eyes that turned his way in desperation. “A lizard. Also, portals.”

From where she was now sitting next to Four, Farore nodded. “That sounds just bizarre enough to be true.”

At Nayru’s nod of agreement, Din reached out to ruffle Legend’s pink hair. “Just like you to get pulled along in something like that, isn’t it, Link?”

The soft chuckle earned a hesitant smile from the vet as the others pushed further into the room, only to freeze again as Nayru’s startled again, staring across the room at Warriors, eyes full of horror. “Oh no. Not you!”

The captain blinked in surprise, offense taking over as he stared at the young woman. “Excuse me?”

Nayru shook her head, no long paying attention as she cupped her cheeks. “No, not the blasted Hero of Warriors! Oh, why me!”

“Okay, now that’s just offensive.” The captain huffed, crossing his arms indignantly as Legend chuckled softly.

Sharp blue eyes made the captain still again as the Oracle of Ages whimpered softly. “Of all the people in your home, Link, you had to have the one Hylian that my daughters obsess over? Why?”

All eyes turned to the vet, who now looked similarly dumbfounded and horrified, blinking slowly at nothing as one hand buried itself in his long bangs. “My niece has a crush on-” the vet viably gagged, face screwing up as he looked up to meet the confused stare of the captain, “-Oh my gross!”

“Seriously?” Warriors huffed with a glare before throwing his hands up, voice raising slightly as he spoke. “Could someone kindly explain why all of you suddenly find me disgusting?”

“Not you.” Din laughed. “My nieces just have something of an obsession with you, and Nayru’s sick of it. Add to that that-”

“Of all the people,” Legend interrupted with a horror filled mumble. “For my nieces to have a crush on, it had to be my brother? Just- oh that is just so incredibly gross!” Violet met twinkling red as the vet leaned back to stare at Din. “Why do the ladies in my family always have such weird taste in men?”

“Says the guy who had a crush on his now sister.” Farore sniggered, now fully wrapped up in the blankets with Four, despite no one having noticed either of them move. The smithy didn’t appear to mind either, his smile matching that of the Oracle of Secrets’, even if he didn’t appear to know exactly what was going on any more than the rest of them.

“It wasn’t a crush!” Legend near shrieked, stiffening as his face turned nearly as red as the long hair that shimmered in the firelight behind him. “You get asked to dance by a girl you don’t know and see how you act!”

Nayru, now somewhat recovered, grinned impishly at the blushing hero. “That’s right, besides, I’m pretty sure our little brother had a crush on a certain farm girl.”

“I didn’t like Ropely like that!” The vet huffed, brightening further. “Or Malon, if that’s what you’re implying. She’s my freaking cousin and that would just be gross.”

“Malon is your what now?” Time blinked, confused.

“I have a Malon in my time too.” Four offered, very unhelpfully, as the eldest hero looked like he was descending into mental acrobatics. “She works near castle town and even lives on a ranch. I think Malons are a constant in our worlds, just like Zeldas.”

“I don’t have a Malon...” Wind mused quietly while Time began to look increadibly distressed.

“It’s a family name.” Legend huffed, rolling his eyes as his blush began to fade. “Mine was named after our great-something-gramma. The same is probably true of Mamalon, Time. She’s probably named after an ancestor from Four’s time or something.”

“Great!” The smallest Oracle exclaimed with a clap of her hands. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, can I please make you recognize that my babies are in one place for once?”

Her sisters stared at her, blinking slowly. “Um, Fare, that’s sort of why Nayru just had a freak out?” Legend snorted but his...sister? Ignored it.

“Yes but,” Farore nodded at Four, who she’d once more wrapped in her arms. “Look!”

And they did. Four was cuddled up with a resigned smile, looking positively tiny in the Oracle’s hold and, admittedly, rather cute. There was not one person in the room left unaffected, and several actually cooed when Farore hugged him tightly, burying her face in the smithy’s hair. “All of my babies, I love you all so very much!”

Warriors laughed at that, shaking his head. “What, do the Golden Goddesses have favorite heroes too? I thought that was just Hylia!”

“Unfortunately, that is the case.” Nayru shrugged. “We can’t help getting attached, just like any other Hylian.”

“Who are who’s favorites?” Wind chirped; eyes eager as he stared from one Oracle to another.

It was Din who answered, wrapping her arms around Legend’s shoulders as she stood behind him, smile warm even in the chill of the evening as she stared at the sailor hero. “Sunshine here’s mine, he’s my baby brother after all!”

“Adopted, as all of our other siblings are.” The Oracle of Ages interjected, earning her a pout from her sister and a laugh from the heroes.

“Nayru’s favorite is the Hero of Time, it’s why she calls him by a nickname, and Farore, well...” The red-head grinned to where the youngest of the three Oracles was cooing and fussing over Four. “I think you can guess.”

“Do any of you have second favorites?” Wind pressed, curiosity flickering in ocean blue and silver.

“I haven’t had enough experience with most of the other heroes to really say, although the Hero of Wild’s never fails to make me laugh when I watch him through Nayru’s mirrors.” The Saesonal Oracle laughed, making the hero in question flush lightly. “Both for his pranks and clever antics, and, of course, having a horse named after you means you simply have to adore the owner!”

“Farore has several favorites, she’s just only ever interacted with Link and Four.” Nayru chuckled. “She’s quite fond of those who had to strive for Courage though, so I suppose the Hero of Hyrule and the Hero of Winds likely tie for her second favorite.” The two boys in question grinned brightly at each other. “As for myself, I find that as the Keeper of Time, I have quite the fondness for its hero. Although, my baby brother and brother-in-law are also dear to me.” Twinkling blue settled on Sky’s flushed face as the Oracle winked. “Hylia could have chosen no one better to be her lover, and I approve the match wholeheartedly.”

Sky proceeded to flush a color o one had known existed and quickly lower himself to the floor, smiling madly and covering hisface with his hands, earning tender laughter from the blue-haired maiden as she turned her attention back towards the other heroes.

“And for some reason, I’m the only hero left unfavorited.” The captain sulked.

“If it’s any consolation.” Farore called out. “Our other baby sister thinks you’re cute! She says she’s glad you married her daughter!” The Captain Hero choked, and it was only due to Twilight thumping the others back that the poor man didn’t choke right then and there. “The same goes for the Twilight Hero, Lolia absolutely adores him!”

“How did the same goddess choose us both? We are nothing alike?”

Warriors coughed in what might have been agreement.

Farore only shrugged. “I suppose it’s the same reason she adores Ravio so much, it’s the hero who makes an impression on her world that earns her favor.”

The heroes in question took their time processing that, and in the meantime, Legend darted off toe retrieve dry things for his elder sisters, only to come back to Ravio chattering to the three, who’d now gathered on the same couch as Legend and Four had been on earlier, all answering his questions fondly and politely while Farore continued to suffocate Four with hugs. The smithy didn’t seem to mind though, resting easily, eyes glimmering reddish-brown in the fire-light as the Oracle of Secrets toyed with his ong hair.

“I brought warm clothes.” Legend called, offering the things with a brief shuffle of his feet. “They’re Fable’s, but I don’t think shell mind.”

Ravio frowned, looking up at the offered garments with furrowed brows. “Are you sure that will warm them enough, Mr. Hero? It would be horrible if your poor sisters caught cold!” Grenn flickered knowingly, and Legend huffed as he met the expectant gaze.

“Fine, I’ll brew some cider, since I expect that’s what you suggest?”

“Oh! Mr. Hero, how kind of you! I didn’t mean to ask, but since you’ve offered I’m sure your lovely sisters will love to have some!”

Din straightened in her seat, eyes sparkling brightly. “Cider? Oh, Link! I haven’t had your cider in ages! Please make some! I’d actually kill for a cup about now!”

And really, who was the veteran hero to argue with the will of the Oracle of Seasons?

“He’s made you cider before?” The Oracle of Ages frowned.

“Oh, all the time! The whole circus troupe loved it! Auntie Impa always used to beg him for the recipe, but it was that one thing she could never convince him about. It’s absolute heaven, Nay! You’re going to love it!”

The bluette huffed, crossing her arms and faking a put. “He never made me any cider.”

“Because you tried to kill me!” Legend’s voice called back from the kitchen, making the three girls startle slightly. “If you hadn’t, maybe you could have tried some along with Ralph and Raven.”

“I wasn’t- I was- Link!” Nayru spluttered as a cackle arose from the kitchen. “I was under mind control!”

“Still tried to kill me!” The vet chirped back with far too much cheer considering what he was saying. And really, none of the others could argue his point, either because they didn’t understand what was being discussed or because it was true.

Cider was passed around after a brief wait, during which the others had made idle small talk and Farore had finally agreed to release Four from her grasp. The short hero still sat at her side, trading smiles with the three Oracles as he chatted amiably with them, clearly familiar with all three and quite happy to see them again, even with the drama from before.

No one brought up what Farore had meant about ‘rescuing’ him.

When Legend finally emerged from the kitchen, Ravio’s tray stacked high with mugs of steaming cider, silence had quickly fallen save for the quiet sips and louder slurps of the three as Legend handed out the mugs, finishing with the three Oracles and promptly plopping himself down in their midst, entirely uncaring of the looks they exchanged over his head while Four shifted a bit closer to his brother.

“Link,” Nayru settled her mug in her lap and stared over at the pink-haired hero, unfortunately gaining the attention of the rest of the chain in the process. “About earlier, I really am sorry for accusing you. It was wrong of me to assume-”

“You already apologized, it’s fine.” Legend cut her off, yawning softly as he sipped his cider.

“No, it’s not. But I’d like to make it up to you.” The mug was set aside as long fingers had begun to glow with a soft blue, catching the vet’s eyes and making him stare as the Orale of Ages waved her fingers gently, a blue orb appearing in her grasp as a soft smile graced her delicate features. “Anything you’d like to see, baby brother?”

Violet eyes stared fixed on the orb, glistening slightly with wonder as the vet floundered, nearly spilling his cider only to be rescued by Four’s quick thinking as the smithy removed the mug from his grasp. “A-anything?”

“Anything.” The Oracle reaffirmed.

Legend stammered softly for a moment. “C-Could I see Raven? Where he is now?”

There was some murmuring from the others, curiosity and confusion in their tones as Nayru frowned. “Raven lived four-hundred years ago, Songbird, he’s dead now.”

“Oh- uh- I knew that.”

“I can show you what he was doing today four-hundred year ago though.” She laughed softly, spinning the orb in her hands slowly before turning it to face Legend. The veteran hero stared intently, brows furrowing slightly before his eyes widened and he was pushing back into the couch and away from the viewing orb.

“Oh yuck! Nayru! That- ew!” At the girls’ laugher he shot them all a glare. “I did not need to see a woman eating my mentor’s face!”

“That would be kissing.” Time smirked. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“That’s my ancestor though!”

“And I knew that would happen.” Nayru giggled. “That was a prank, here’s the actual thing.” A small child and a man looking suspiciously like Time appeared on the surface of the orb, both lying on the floor of what might have been a farm-house as the little one played with a few small toys, the man watching with a fond gaze as he relaxed, looking as if he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.

“They look happy.” Legend hummed, gaze softening as he watched the duo a moment more before smiling up at his sister. “Thanks.”

The bluette smiled in return. “I accused yo twice though, so you may have a second. What else would you like?”

Anyone who was watching could see the conflicted emotions flying through Legend’s eyes as he stared at the now blank orb, the vet fidgeting with his rings and long sleeves as he gnawed his lower lip, torn about something that remained unknown to the others but clearly was tearing him up inside. At long last however, the vet’s voice, small and vulnerable, more so than they’d heard even when he was half asleep, spoke his request. “I’d like to see her.”

Ocean blue eyes softened as the Oracle nodded, spinning her orb slowly before handing it over to the vet as the scene of a beach crossed the surface of the ball.

A girl with curly red hair and sparkling eyes sat on the beach, voice rich and lovely as she sang ou a tune that had the vet’s eyes watering as he smiled as the vision, his brothers crowding close curiously as several of them muffled soft gasps.

“Marin?” The voice of a boy rang from the orb, gentle, uncertain and young, but resemblant of Legend’s own in an odd, gentle way.

“Link! Don’t startle me like that!” The girl laughed, shaking her head and making her curls bounce as she smiled over at a boy maybe a bit older than Wind.  The lad was dark haired, but pink showed through at his roots and while he carried a sword on his back, he looked relaxed and at peace with the world around him, face gentle and unmarred by worries or fears as he walked across the sand to where the girl sat. A dopey smile and light blush touched the kid’s face as the girl, Marin, gently patted the sand at her side. “Join me, you’re done running errands for everyone now, right?”

“For today.”

“Good.” The girl reached up, tugging ‘Link’ down next to her firmly. “Lay down.”

“What?”

“Lay down.” Marin ordered. “You need a break. You’re always running everywhere and helping eveyone else, you need a bit of time to yourself.”

A smile pulled at the boy’s features. “Yes ma’am.”

The girl snorted, but patted her lap and tugged at the green tunic of the other, resulting in him at last laying on the sand, head in her lap as she smiled down at him. “You’re going to rest now, because tomorrow is a busy day for us.”

“Oh?” Already there was a dreamy quality to the boy’s voice as he relaxed into the hold of the girl, her fingers tugging gently through tangled black hair as she nodded.

“Yes. We have to sleep in until nine, and then eat a big breakfast before taking a long walk on the shore. Then, you’re going to help me conquer a huge basket lunch before you can then defeat being awake for an hour. After that, we have to chase the tide until it tires, and then dance in victory over the ground that it’s lost.” The boy laughed softly, lashes already fluttering softly across rosy cheeks as the girl continued. “Then, you and I are going to sit here and watch the sun go down, and we will sing it to sleep along with the island until the sun comes up.”

“And what then?”

“And then we do as we please!”

“We build a fire.” The boy hummed. “And I’m going to make you cider so good you’ll be ruined for any of your silly teas.”

“Hey!” The girl huffed, purposefully jostling the lad’s head as she huffed down at him. “My teas are good!”

“Not as good as my cider.” The boy replied, opening one eyes to grin up at her, a cheeky smile on his face. “Just you wait, you’ll see.”

Marin shook her head, eyes glistening gently as she ran her fingers through Link’s hair again. “I suppose I will.”

The orb shattered as it hit the floor, dissipating instantly as the heroes collectively startled.

“Legend?” Four rested a hand on the vet’s shoulder, staring in concern at the other boy, who hid behind his bangs with a faint sniffle.

“Thanks , Nayru.”

“Do you want me to fix it? I can give you another-”

“No, I know what happens.” Legend waved her off, sighing heavily and offering a teary smile. “I just wanted to see her again.”

“Well then you should have said something!” Warriors exclaimed, catching the attention of all gathered as he stared at the vet, caught between a grin and a scowl “Had I known you were Marin’s prince charming I would have said something by now! For pities sakes, the girls have been trying to hunt down her world since the war ended!”

Legend blinked.

“She’s still not home?” Wind frowned. “But, it’s been months!”

“No one knew where she belonged, she didn’t even know, said she knew nothing of Hyrule’s history, only that there was a hero.” The captain shook his head. “Hard to believe the sweet hero she described is this here ass, but who am I to judge?”

“She’s alive?” Legend stared.

“Yes,” The captain smiled slightly, gaze warming as he met the vet’s. “But between Cia, Lana and Midna, we never-”

“Midna too!” Twilight exclaimed, pushing into Warriors’ line of vision with a shocked face and watching the captain immediately fly through every shade of shock imaginable.

“Love of the goddess...” Warriors breathed. “Both of you? The two famed sweethearts of my team are the biggest asses I know? You have got to be kidding me!”

The Oracles laughed, or in Farore’s case, cackled, at the plight of the captain, and the other heroes joined in.

“Wars, I’m not even mad.” legend chuckled, shaking his head, and Twilight nodded in agreement.  “But I will say this, we can’t get to your Hyrule soon enough, and when we get there, Time, know for a fact that I don’t need to wait till I’m older to understand that thing earlier.”

“Okay, that's just gross!” Wind exclaimed. “I do not want to see Legend kissing someone! That’s just- oh yuck!”

The vet threw his head back and laughed, and no one could really help but join in. Except Wind, who scrunched up his nose in disgust while Wild and Hyrule shared a confused look.

[dinfeanoriel]

Missing Legend Pt. II

Part two of Missing Legend! Linked Universe belongs to Linked Universe and Jojo56830. Be sure to check their art out! 

I own nothing but my writing.  Bit long, over 4K!

~~~~~~~

“Say, what’s with the rabbit?” 

Warrior’s question drew the attention of all Links to the pink bundle huddling in Wild’s protective embrace.

Time quirked an unimpressed eyebrow. Part of him did wonder at the unusual coloring of the rabbit, but the other part of him wondered where in his previous instructions of locating Legend Sky and Wild had determined he’d given them permission to adopt a unique bunny.

Wild’s arms tightened around the rabbit, holding it close to himself. He gave Time those pleading eyes.

Twilight had to look away, lips trembling from the urge to smile and laugh.

Time’s brow rose higher, the eldest of the group seemingly unaffected. 

Sky placed a gentle hand on Wild’s forearm, turning to face Time and speaking on the younger Hero’s behalf, 

“We rescued him from a terrible man,” He briefly explained, eyes flickering as he recalled the hunter from before, “Wild didn’t want to part from him and the rabbit was reluctant to leave him also.”

Time refrained from sighing aloud.

The look Wild wore grew more pitiful.

Why?

Why him? 

“Wild,” Time pinched the bridge of his nose, his only good eye sliding shut in fond exasperation, and just when Wild was about to turn to Twilight for help, he said, “You can stop with the kicked puppy look.”

Wild brightened. Did that mean-?

“You can keep the rabbit,” Time conceded, and the whites of Wild’s teeth flashed as he grinned. The leader had to fight not to smile in return. 

“But,” He raised a finger, “You are solely responsible for him. I don’t know how well the rabbit can handle our constant travelings and skirmishes, however, if you think you can handle caring for him, then I see no issue in allowing you to keep him.”

Wild’s smile broadened, silently thanking Time. Time purposefully averted his gaze, wondering what in Hylia’s name he’d done to deserve this. He narrowed his gaze on a chuckling Twilight, who’s hand was pressed against his mouth in a futile attempt to suppress the traitorous snickers.

“He’s your responsibility too, Pup,” Time lowly added, giving Twilight’s shoulder a squeeze. The Orodonian sputtered and shot Time an incredulous look.

“Mine?!”

Time didn’t deign him with a response, instead waving a hand nonchalantly in the air and heading for the forest surrounding them.

“Come along now, we have a Legend to find.”

The grimness from before returned and the Heroes quickly followed after their leader. 

“If Wolfie couldn’t find him, how can we expect to find him?” Warrior overheard Hyrule softly asking himself. The Knight looked to see Hyrule fiddling with his hands, worry and concern shining in his dark eyes. The Links knew Hyrule idolized Legend, having heard many tales revolving around him growing up in his world. He’d been incredibly excited when they learned they would be working alongside him in order to stand against Dark Link. 

When they’d met Legend, all of the Links had been thrown off by the snarky and outspoken Hero. Hyrule didn’t seem to notice- or he just didn’t care. 

Oddly enough, the two had become...friends? Warrior supposed he could call them that. Legend looked out for Hyrule. He looked out for all of them in a less noticeable fashion. Once you learned to read between the lines and deeper into Legend’s sarcastic words or snarky comments, you found the hidden truth. You saw what Legend wasn’t outwardly revealing. 

It had taken some time for the Knight to realize this. 

Warrior also realized just how much he missed his and Legend’s bantering. Not one day passed without them tossing scathing remarks or jabs at one another. They never meant any of it. It was mostly for fun and to pass time. 

Warrior shook himself from his thoughts. He needed to stay focused. Finding Legend was the top of their priority, but...

His gaze slid over to Hyrule, withholding a sigh at the nervousness and worry Hyrule did his best to hide. 

He knocked the shorter Hero on the head with his fist, 

“Don’t think so negatively,” He told Hyrule when the younger of the two looked to him in confusion, “We’ll find him.” 

Hyrule didn’t know why, but hearing the confident statement comforted him. Before he could thank Warrior for his words, a sudden weight landed on his head nearly knocked him off balance. When he looked, he saw the face of the pink bunny Wild and Sky had rescued peering down at him, clucking and thumping his foot on his head. 

Warrior laughed at the look Wild wore as he blinked down at his empty arms then to the rabbit on Hyrule’s head in disbelief. The distance between himself and Hyrule, while not extensive, was still quite far, but the rabbit had covered it with hardly any effort.

Twilight smirked from where he stood with his arms crossed, impressed. 

“That takes coordination and remarkable aim.” He remarked. Time cuffed him lightly on the back of his head. 

“Only you would find that feat impressive.” 

Twilight made to retort but stopped when he saw Time watching the rabbit intensely. 

“There is something unusual about that rabbit,” Time murmured to Twilight, leaning closer, “He’s intelligent. You can see it in his eyes that he understands us. Not to mention that pink bunnies are supposedly nonexistent.” 

“What are you thinking?” Twilight whispered in question, studying the rabbit alongside his mentor. 

Time frowned, “I’m not sure...Just keep a close eye on him and Wild.”

Twilight curtly nodded. Time drew back, satisfied. 

“Is he comforting Hyrule?” Wind asked, stars in his eyes. “That is so adorable!” 

Four could only shake his head at the bedazzled Hero. 

Hyrule carefully reached up, shyly grabbing the bunny and taking him into his arms. The bunny bumped his nose with his paw, as if telling Hyrule not to worry so much. For whatever reason, Hyrule felt even better. 

He hugged the bunny close to him, a small, grateful, smile appearing on his lips. 

The rabbit wheezed, eyes wide at the crushing embrace, but didn’t dare move. 

Time never once looked away from him.

~~~~~~~

Hours of searching unsuccessfully passed. The Heroes refused to give up despite the sense of discouragement slowly seeping in. They looked all through the afternoon and far into the night, separating into groups and calling upon Wolfie once more to find Legend.

They had no idea how much time had passed until a new dawn began to approach. The sun could be seen peeking from behind the distant mountains, outlining the snow-capped ridges a crimson red. Light chased away the dreary black and greys clinging to the landscapes, forcing the shadows to recede back into the forests and beneath the outcrops of rocks and boulders.

Wild had tucked the rabbit into his pack, removing various items to give him some space to move and make himself comfortable. It made it easier than leaving the rabbit to hop after them. 

The bunny hardly budged. His head appeared from beneath the flap of the pouch, chin hooked over the edge and dark eyes examining their unfamiliar surroundings. His ears drooped as his nose twitched. 

Wolfie often flashed him curious looks. 

There were times Wild would catch a low rumble coming from the back of Wolfie’s throat as he tried communicating to the rabbit. When this would happen, the pink bunny would vanish into the pack and not emerge until minutes had passed and he deemed it safe to return. 

Guess he’s not quite comfortable with you, Wild signed to Wolfie. Wolfie grumbled in response.

Scary wolf. Wild teased. 

This earned him an indignant look. I am not scary.

You always look so fierce.

I do not!

Wild raised a disbelieving eyebrow at Wolfie. The rabbit’s head poked out again and Wild absentmindedly pat his head.

“We need a name for him,” Four piped up, startling Wild momentarily. He’d forgotten Four had teamed with them- he being the only other Hero, excluding Time, to know Wolfie’s secret. “Calling him ‘him’ or ‘bunny’ or ‘rabbit’ is a bit redundant and boring, don’t you think?” 

Although Wolfie’s name isn’t that much better, Four added in his mind. He kept that remark to himself, however, seeing as it had been Wind who’d enthusiastically given Wolfie his name. 

Wild pondered Four’s words and nodded in agreement. He looked down at the bunny, considering.

The rabbit returned the stare, fixing Wild with a look that clearly stated,

You’d better not give me some stupid name like ‘Wolfie.’

Wild grinned, a gleam entering his eye.

This, the rabbit found he didn’t quite like. He flashed Wild a warning look.

Don’t you dare-

“Skittles!”

Wolfie snorted, coughing as if he were trying valiantly not to laugh.

The bunny- now dubbed Skittles- looked absolutely horrified. He disappeared into the pack and Wild felt tiny paws punching his side at lightning speed.

“Hey!” Wild lifted the wriggling pack from his hip, “It’s better than Bubble Bean!” He defended himself against the furious bunny. 

Four choked and Wolfie stumbled.

“Bubble Bean?” The shortest Hero coughed, striking his fist against his chest as he attempted to recover himself.

Skittles reappeared, glowering fiercely at Wild.

“Would you prefer Sugar and Spice?” Wild suggested. The look intensified. Four had to admit he was impressed by Skittles’ fierceness. For such a cute, floofy, bunny, he certainly looked capable of throttling Wild. “Timber Toast?”

“Skittles!” Four wheezed. In his mind, he could hear Vio, Blue, and Red losing themselves at the names Wild had suggested. “Skittles is perfect!”

Wolfie rumbled in agreement, nodding vigorously. Skittles clucked his teeth, paws flailing in the air indignantly.

“Sure?” Wild asked them, “I have several more names readily available.”

As curious as Wolfie and Four were to discover what other...creative...names Wild had stored away, they assured him that Skittles was a very fitting name for an adorable and temperamental, pink, bunny.

And so it was from that time forth, the bunny was referred to and addressed as Skittles.

Skittles slouched, depressed, paws dangling in the air. Wild, however, was grinning widely.

Wolfie rumbled again and Skittles turned his head towards him, one ear flicking in his direction. Wolfie made various sounds, pitching his growls and rumblings as he spoke to the despondent animal. Cobalt blue eyes darted meaningfully up towards Wild then back to Skittles. Skittles looked also, taking in the light smile Wild wore and the glimmer in his eyes.

He studied the happiness and contentment etched onto Wild’s features for a long moment then released a defeated sigh. Skittles��� nose twitched as the bunny made a small sound and slumped his shoulders. Wolfie flashed him the best grin he could manage in his form.

The corner of Four’s lips curved upwards.

Twilight, always looking out for Wild.

“Say, Wild,” Four spoke up again when silence fell, “Where did you find Skittles?”

Skittles’ gaze peevishly rolled his way, huffing indignantly. Four felt as if he’d had that look directed towards him once before...

It was eerily familiar...

Wild pat Skittles’ head, “A hunter trapped him.” A hint of anger seeped into his tone and Wolfie glanced towards him, “Sky got caught in one of the traps- oh!” Wild paused mid-stride as a thought struck him, “We forgot to purchase new boots for him!”

Ah, yes, Four had noticed the puncture holes in Sky’s right boot. He’d wondered about them, but didn’t ask questions considering the circumstances. It didn’t appear Sky had cared all that much, either. All that mattered was finding Legend. 

“I suppose that doesn’t really matter right now,” The quiet spoken Hero murmured to himself before continuing his story, “The trapper put Skittles into a cramped, rusty cage and planned on keeping him rather than killing him.” Wild’s hand curled protectively around Skittles’ neck, “I couldn’t let him. I couldn’t leave Skittles with him. Skittles’ foot was in bad shape- mutilated beyond recognition.” Wild grimaced as he recalled the disfigured rabbit’s foot Sky’s fairy had generously healed. “He was in so much pain…”

“So you and Sky rescued him.” Four finished for him, and Wild nodded.

“Sky convinced the Hunter to sell him to us.” A smirk grew on Wild’s lips as he remembered just how Sky had ‘convinced’ the man to let them buy Skittles. “Didn’t give him much of a choice, really.”

Sky could really put his foot down when he wanted to. 

Four had a feeling there was more to the story than Wild was telling, but he didn’t press for details. They were, after all, searching for a missing Link. But it helped him to keep his mind preoccupied.

Suddenly, Wolfie stiffened, head snapping up.

Wild and Four stilled immediately.

“What is it?” Four lowly asked, creeping closer to them. His fingers loosely curled around the hilt of his Four Sword, ready to unsheathe it at a moment’s notice.

Wolfie sniffed the air then bolted to the left, flying past Wild. Wild and Four didn’t hesitate to follow him. Hope blossomed in their chests as they expertly chased after the great beast.

Had he caught Legend’s scent? Had they found him?

Poor, helpless, Skittles was flung back into the pack and left to bounce around as Wild ran. 

They stopped once they emerged into a small clearing.

Wolfie scoured the area with his nose pressed to the ground, sniffing diligently and tracking whatever scent he’d caught.

“Legend?” Wild dared to ask when Wolfie paused. Wolfie dipped his head but there was a worried glint in his eyes neither Hero failed to catch.

“What is it?” Four asked before Wild had a chance to. Wolfie’s head disappeared into a large flower brush nearby, teeth clinking against metal. When he reappeared, he held a familiar rod that caused Four and Wild’s hearts to drop. 

“Legend’s Fire Rod.” Wild murmured, taking hold of the staff. Skittles popped out from the pack, dazed and indignant. 

When he saw what Wolfie had, however, all he could do was release a dismayed cluck. 

Wolfie sharply looked to him. He barked...

...but Skittles remained silent. 

~~~~~~~

Time watched Hyrule cradle Legend’s Fire Rod in his hands as the grim Heroes circled around the campfire. 

The atmosphere hanging o’er the encampment was dismal and troubled. It had been with great reluctance that the group had settled in for the night.

Wind was seated in Warrior’s lap, the elder of the two’s arms wrapped loosely around him as they stared blankly into the fire. The miserable and sad look Wind wore tore at Time’s heart to see. The young sailor was usually so optimistic, bright, and cheerful, but with Legend’s mysterious and worrying disappearance, he had grown quiet and sullen.

Around this time, Sky would have already been slumbering away, but this night, he found himself to sleep. He was resting against a log, arms crossed, and worry clinging to his features. Next to him was Four. The smallest Hero had taken to sitting on the log, back bent and hands dangling over his knees. His lips were tightly pursed together, brow creased as a look of deep thought stole over his youthful visage. 

There was no murmuring to be heard from him that night.

Twilight, still in wolf form, was lying nearest Time, head pillowed on his paws and cobalt blue eyes fixed on the forest. His ears often twitched as he listened to sounds that could not be heard by Hylian ears.

Time knew what Twilight was doing. Although they both knew it was useless, Twilight never stopped and Time didn’t tell him to.

Wild was silently preparing a meal for them to eat and Time noticed his eyes would often dart to where Legend would normally sit. His spot was empty. 

There were no snarky remarks, no lighthearted jabs, or bantering. No stories being shared, tales being told, or memories of times past.

All was unnervingly quiet.

Time did not like it. He did not like any of this. Legend was gone. His Fire Rod had been found, spelling trouble for the Heroes. Something had befallen their companion, their friend, and they didn’t know what. They didn’t know whether or not Legend was hurt, whether he was near or far from them, or if he were alive..

No.

Legend had to be alive. Possibly hurt, but still alive. Time would believe in this. Legend was too stubborn and resourceful to die.

Where was he? Why hadn’t they been able to find anything that could lead them to him? Twilight had been unable to relocate Legend’s scent, informing Time of how his scent had simply vanished. This did not bode well with Time. Then Wild, Wolfie, and Four return with Legend’s Fire Rod in hand…

According to Wild and Four, there had been no signs of a struggle or battle, so why had Legend drawn his Fire Rod? Perhaps a light-footed enemy had caught him by surprise? Had struck too quickly for Legend to react?

But no. That couldn’t possibly be it. Legend was one of the swiftest of the Heroes to move and react. He was experienced, senses and reflexes honed. Someone Time could tell had seen and done plenty in his short lifetime.

He hid it well, but there was a bitterness, forlornness, and weariness in Legend’s eyes Time recognized and understood, for he saw it in his own each and every time he would glance at his reflection.

Time quietly sighed as he raked his gaze across the camp once more. The lack of activity and conversation only amplified the fact that one of their own was missing. They felt his absence keenly.

Deciding he had had enough of the silence, Time turned his head to face Wild and his eyes fell upon the pink bunny nestled beside the Hero.

Ah...A perfect excuse to strike up a conversation.

It was mostly a distraction, but Time could care less at the moment.

“Have you given your rabbit a name, Wild?”

Wild blinked slowly, taking a moment to realize Time had addressed him. He lifted his chin and faced Time for a brief moment before his gaze settled on the bunny hunched next to him. He smiled faintly and nodded.

Wolfie snorted and Four coughed lightly into his hand.

This sparked intrigue among their fellow Heroes.

Wind perked up, “What did you name him?” He curiously asked. Time felt a tendril of happiness spark upon hearing his voice.

The rabbit glared up at Wild.

Go on, Time could almost imagine it saying, Why don’t you tell them what horrible name you’ve given me?

He felt an odd pang in his chest at the odd thought.

That was definitely something Legend would have said.

“Skittles.” Wild answered. A smile grew on Sky’s lips and Warrior had to muffle a laugh. Wind brightened considerably, grinning toothily.

“Aw! That’s such a cute name!”

Wild shot Four and Wolfie a triumphant look.

See? He signed to them, They like what I named him!

Warrior could have sworn Wolfie rolled his eyes...but that couldn’t be possible.

Hyrule studied the pink rabbit with a hint of melancholy. He remembered the small stories Legend would whip up whenever Hyrule couldn’t sleep at night or was adjusting to being with eight other Heroes. He would weave tales of a helpless, pink, rabbit that had to survive in a dark world teeming with monsters and nightmares lingering around every corner. 

If only Legend could see for himself that pink rabbits actually existed and weren’t something he’d made up. 

“It fits him.” Hyrule finally remarked, and he could have sworn Skittles was studying him intently. 

“It was better than the other names Wild suggested.” Four piped up, a grin lining his lips. “I think one of them was Bubble Butt or something.”

Warrior snorted while Wind burst out laughing. Sky was chuckling to himself, Wolfie coughed and hacked, and Hyrule smothered another smile behind his hand. Even Time cracked an amused grin. 

Wild was momentarily indignant and Skittles absolutely appalled by the possibility of being given such a name.

“Bubble Bean, Four, not Bubble Butt!” Wild corrected, jabbing his wooden ladle at the Hero. Four waved a hand dismissively in the air.

“My bad.”

But Time could tell from the satisfied gleam in his eyes that he’d purposefully butchered the name. He gave a light grin, appreciation swelling in his chest. Four had done it to lighten the mood, and he’d succeeded. It wouldn’t last, but it was enough for now.

“The other was Timber Toast,”

“Timber Toast?” Warrior echoed, incredulous. “Where do you come up with these names?!”

Time wouldn’t admit it, but he also wanted to know.

“And the last?” He inquired instead, coaxing Wild to talk a little more.

“Sugar and Spice.” Wild promptly replied, petting Skittles fondly.

Skittles was disgruntled, making an iconic little bunny face Time found rather amusing. He hadn’t even thought it possible for bunnies to glower- but this one sure could.

“Ah, I would have gone with that one.” The leader told them, waving a finger.

The Heroes turned to him.

“Really?” Wild asked, and Skittles clucked indignantly. Wind hummed thoughtfully,

“Well,” The sailor began, tapping his chin, “If you think about it, Skittles can be sweet and adorable one minute, and then fierce and feisty the next, so it does make sense.” He nodded sagely and leaned back against Warrior’s chest, making himself comfortable.

The two really were more like brothers than anything else, Time observed.

Skittles’ nose twitched and he shifted, practically glaring at Time. Wild suddenly slid a hand beneath him and lifted him up to his shoulder, sparing a moment to pet him as the pot boiled.

Time narrowed his eye on the rabbit in return.

Something about that animal struck him as odd. The animal was far too intelligent for its own good. It sort of reminded him of Wolfie, but then again, Time knew Wolfie was Twilight, so of course he was smarter than every other animal in the world.

“I was thinking more along the lines of his unusual coloring and foul personality.”

Skittles growled and Wolfie peeked an eye open.

Wild pat Skittles’ head.

“There there,” He soothed the seething rabbit, “Don’t listen to the Old Man.”

Time raised an eyebrow but Wild ignored him.

“I’m sure he would make for a delightful meal.” 

“Pops!” Wind scandalously gasped and Wild had to tighten his hold on the murderous Skittles that fought to lunge at Time.

~~~~~~~

Later that night, when the Heroes turned in and Four had taken first watch, Skittles lie waiting.

He’d been scheming for this precise moment. For when the Heroes were asleep and oblivious to the outside world. 

He’d been tucked close to Wild, the teen curled up on his side and arms loosely wrapped around the bunny as he slept. Wolfie was lying protectively next to Wild, tail shielding his eyes as he rested.

Sugar and Spice indeed, Skittles thought darkly to himself, glaring at the peaceful form of Time across from him. His nose twitched as his previous ire returned and an evil plan entered his mind.

He snickered to himself. The Old Man needed to be taught a lesson. He was no helpless bunny.

No. He was not just any bunny. He was smart, resourceful, and quite vengeful.

Now, was the perfect time for him to extract his revenge. Without anyone to hold him back, he was free to do as he pleased. Carefully slipping himself from Wild’s hold, Skittles ducked under an arm and gently lowered it to the ground.

He froze when Wild shifted, confusion furrowing his brow until Skittles had bundled up a nearby cloth and tucked it carefully into his hold. Wild settled, hugging the bundle close to him.

Skittles nodded to himself, pleased. He ignored the strange, warm, feeling that grew within him when he recalled the kindness and gentleness Wild had treated him with. He tried not to think of the bubbliness that arose whenever Wild would draw him close in a loose embrace or rest a hand on his back or head.

Feelings he remembered experiencing years ago...

He stubbornly squashed them and stomped them down. It was better this way. He didn’t want to end up disappointed or hurt again. He was tired of it all, and so he maintained a distance from it all. He feigned indifference.  

He’d grown desensitized.

At least...He’d thought he had.

Vigorously shaking his head, ears flapping, Skittles banished the thoughts from his mind and quietly made his way across the encampment. He scooted past the glowing campfire, its ambient light causing his pink fur to shimmer.

“And what do you think you’re doing?”

Skittles jumped, startled by the curious voice and whipped around to see Four peering at him questioningly.

“He has that look on his face,” Four commented aloud, his voice slightly altered and eyes flashing a different colour.

“Mischievous.” Another voice.

“He’s up to no good.”

“Would you guys please be quiet?” Four grumbled, raking a weary hand through his golden-blonde hair.

Skittles would have raised an eyebrow if he could, but instead settled for giving the small Hero a confused and slightly concerned look.

Four understood it and grinned ruefully. “Voices,” He vaguely explained, tapping his temple, “In my head.”

Skittles leaned back, weirded out.

Four rolled his eyes with a huff of laughter, “I’m not crazy, if that’s what you’re thinking.” 

“You’re talking to a fluffy, pink, rabbit, Green,” The second voice from before deadpanned, “I think that qualifies as crazy.”

“It does not!” The third voice retorted. “I talk to animals all the time!” 

“Guys!” Four growled again. “Settle down.”

Skittles blinked at him.

Four suppressed a groan, tapping the Four Sword that rested across his knees.

“It’s weird,” He murmured, studying Skittles closely, “It’s clear that you can understand our speech…” he tilted his head thoughtfully, “Quite like Wolfie.”

Skittles did not react, but Four saw his dark eyes flicker.

“Animals are more intelligent than they are given credit for,” A bored voice tumbled past Four’s lips, and Four gave an exasperated sigh.

Skittles didn’t know why. Maybe it was because he was an animal and was experiencing heightened animal senses, but he could tell it wasn’t Four speaking. His eyes would change colour, and his expression would alter slightly with each new voice he spoke in.

Four different personalities skillfully hidden behind Four’s persona.

A sudden thought struck Skittles then and there.

Four.

Perhaps he wasn’t called Four because he wielded the Four Sword, but because he had a split personality?

Oh boy…

“You guys are not helping me at all,” Four grumbled, “It’s bad enough everyone thinks I’m crazy.”

You are, Skittles deadpanned, but he shrugged it off. He supposed he’d seen weirder and darker things in his life.

“I’m not crazy,” Four found himself telling Skittles, “My constant mumblings and changes in personality have to do with this lovely thing,” He explained, patting the Four Sword.

Skittles supposed it made sense. Although he didn’t understand what exactly the Four Sword had to do with it, he supposed it was called ‘Four Sword’ for a reason. As curious as he was to learn more about it and Four’s strange shifts in persona, Skittles wouldn’t pry.

Not that he could anyway. 

“So,” Four straightened, fixing Skittles with a raised eyebrow, “What were you doing?”

Skittles raised his paws and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. An eerily human-like gesture. 

He appeared all too innocent.

“I know you’re up to something.”

Skittles rolled his eyes.

Your powers of observation are astounding.

He turned away and continued towards Time. Four watched as Skittles paused close to the Old Man and considered him for a moment.

Ah. Then it hit Four. Skittles hadn’t forgotten Time’s earlier remarks.

“Vengeful little animal, aren’t you?” He commented under his breath.

Skittles thought long and hard about what he would do.

And when he finally settled for an idea, Skittles set to work. 

[inkedmyths]

The Final Battle

Because someone wanted me to write this in fic form. Your welcome.

Based on a certain conversation I had with @draconiswinters

"How much longer do you think they'll be at it?"

"Hylia only knows."

Sky and Hyrule were sitting on the edge of a clearing, watching the argument continue. Sky had the Master Sword laying across his lap, a precaution since the Darks were sitting across on the other side of the glade. No fighting had happened yet. Well, not as in sword fighting. Noble and Warriors, on the other hand, had been yelling at each other for the better part of an hour.

"This is the bitch-off to end all bitch-offs," Legend could be heard muttering on the other end of the group of heroes. Several murmurs of agreement echoed from the others.

-

Meanwhile, the Darks sat on the other edge of the large clearing. Eternal was pinching the bridge of his nose, likely contemplating exactly what life choices he had made that had brought him to this point. Why was he putting up with this whole situation again? Probably because he was frankly too tired to do anything about it. Everything was grating on his nerves. Maybe they should just leave Noble here.

Tempest was lying on his back, his feet propped up on a tree. "I'm bored," he whined, stamping a foot against the wooden trunk. "I want to do something!"

"How about shutting up?" Snapped Conqueror. The taller Dark was rather miffed at not being able to punch his Light counterpart due to the ongoing fight.

"If anyone should shut up, it's Noble," Tempest grumbled back. Eternal sighed internally. They'd been sitting around for a while. Everyone was growing restless.

-

Back on the other side of the clearing with the Lights, things weren't going much better. Wild was fidgeting a lot, and it was clear his was practically vibrating with pent-up energy. The others were similarly looking bored and uncomfortable. The whole situation was a bit awkward.

"So... anyone up for a game of Go Fish?" Hyrule offered. "I have a deck of cards."

"I am!" Wind hopped up from his formerly seated position and bounced over, plopping down beside the brunet hero.

"Sure." Four slid over.

Legend shrugged, joining them. "Why not?"

Sky moved down off the rock he was sitting on to join them. He glanced up at the three who had yet to join. "You guys want in?"

Time shook his head. "You kids have fun. I'm going to keep an eye on the situation."

Twilight also shook his head. "Wild needs something to do to let off some energy. I need to keep an eye on him." At that, Wild jumped up and scrambled up a nearby tree. He jumped down, then climbed up it again. Sky watched for a moment, then nodded and turned to the others gathered for the game.

Hyrule started dealing out cards. "Do you all know how to play?" The others nodded. "Good. That means we can start once I have everyone's cards passed out.

-

"What are they doing over there?" muttered Savage, eyeing the group of Lights gathered around each other.

"Cards, it looks like." Callous seemed disinterested, fiddling with a knife in his hands.

"Fools."

Tempest, meanwhile, was kicking the tree angrily. No one had done anything to satisfy his boredom. He hated them. And he hated being bored. He groaned, flipping over onto his stomach and burying his face into the ground. He continued to groan loudly.

"Would you stop that?" Conqueror snapped.

"But I'm boooooored!"

"If you're that bored why don't you go bother the Lights or something!"

Tempest made a face, but actually considered this. Looking over, he examined the heroes. He frowned when he saw the group gathered. They were actually doing something. He stuck his tongue out at Conqueror, then stood up and stomped over to the group.

-

"What are you all doing?"

Startled, the heroes looked up to see Wind's shadow standing behind them, arms crossed. "Uh... playing Go Fish?" Hyrule answered, too confused to bother being suspicious.

"Why do you care?" Legend questioned.

Tempest groaned in response. "I'm bored and nobody over there is actually doing anything."

The heroes exchanged looks. "Uh..."

"I bet I can beat you at Go Fish."

Everyone's heads whipped aroumd to face Wind, who was staring his shadow down. Tempest narrowed his eyes.

And sat down to join them.

"Deal me in," he said, glaring at Wind. Hyrule nervously glanced at Sky, who shrugged. So Tempest was dealt in. From there on out, the game got a good deal more heated.

"Gimme all your fives, alter-Ornament."

"Dammit," Legend grumbled, handing over two cards.

-

"Is he actually over there playing cards with them?" Eternal looked both incredulous and mildly infuriated.

Callous shrugged. "I suppose he really was bored, if he went seeking entertainment over there."

Conqueror rollled his eyes. "Brat. Hey Tempest! Having fun with the babies?" His yell echoed over that of Noble's and Warriors's. The small Dark turned around, glaring. "I hope they're going easy on you!"

"Why don't you shove your precious scarf down your throat, huh? I could kick your ass at this game!"

Conqueror laughed. "Like I would stoop so low. I won't get involved in some child's game."

Tempest's eyes narrowed. Then he smirked. "Wow, not even going to try? Scared?"

Conqueror froze. "What? No! Why would I be?"

"Because you're a coward."

He whirled around, eyes flashing. "Excuse me? I am not."

"The get over here and prove it, Barbie."

That was the last straw. Conqueror stormed over, and Four had to scramble out of the way to make room for the angry Dark. He sat down with a grunt. Eyes blazing, he held out a hand. "Deal me in."

"Here," said Four, handing him his cards. "I think I'm going to go join Wild with whatever he's doing." No one was really sure what Wild was doing, other than it involved a boomerang and an apple.

And thus began the most heated game of Go Fish in the history of just about ever.

-

After that, somehow or another the other Darks migrated to where the Lights were sitting. Legend, Acidic, Hyrule, Callous, Wind, Tempest and Conqueror were the ones playing cards at this point, though they had switched over to a game called Uno (which was even worse than Go Fish in this case). Shadow watched as Sky carved a figurine of a horse. Four was balancing three apples on his head while Wild took careful aim with a boomerang. Stygian watched the scene with disinterest, and Twilight looked on with concern and Savage in interested entertainment. Time and Eternal were leaning back against a rock, surveying the entire group along with the still arguing Noble and Warriors.

Time sighed as Warriors launched another rant at the same time Tempest yelled at someone for using a draw four. "I'm honestly not sure how much of this I can take."

Eternal was silent for a moment, then reached into his bag. He pulled out a tall bottle of vodka. "I think I'm too sober to put up with these idiots."

Time stared as he pulled out two shot glasses, filling both. This was a bad idea. He wasn't going to drink any of that. For one thing it was his shadow serving it, which meant there was a decent chance he was in danger. For another, it was completely irresponsible.

Then he heard Wind yell something about skips and the sound of something getting hit and Four's yelps, and decided that maybe a couple shots wouldn't hurt.

"Maybe we should have a drinking game." Eternal said, fingering his glads in his hand. "Something with those two over there."

Time considered this. "Take a shot every time Noble calls him a heathen."

"A specific word? That won't get us drunk nearly fast enough."

It was at that moment that Noble chose to screech "You absolute filthy heathen!"

Time smiled. "You sure about that?"

"Fair enough." Eternal downed his shot.

-

It was about three shots in when Twilight wandered over. His eyebrows were furrowed in confusion as he glanced between Time and his shadow. "So...uh, what are you guys doing?"

Eternal glanced up at him. "Drinking game."

Savage, who had followed Twilight over out of boredom, perked up curiously. "What kind?"

"Of alcohol or game?"

"Both."

Eternal held up the bottle. "We're taking a shot of vodka every time Noble says the word 'heathen'."

Savage sat down near Eternal's feet. "Mind if I join in? I could use a drink."

The older Dark reached into his bag for more shot glasses, glancing up at Twilight. "You in as well?"

Twilight knew this wasn't a good idea. He opened his mouth to say no, but stopped. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Wild readying some new hell-game up to play. He was too tired to deal with this. With a sigh, he nodded and held out his hand. Time handed him a shot glass, smiling sympathetically. He sat down next to Savage. "So... what's the game again?"

"Simple: each time Noble yells some variation of the word 'heathen', you take a shot."

"He can't say it that much," Savage said, raising an eyebrow as he settled back to watch the fight.

-

Wind stretched, then began wandering away from the group to stretch his legs. Tempest, who was similarly restless, followed. Those who were still playing cards were discussing what jungle rules to use in the next round.

Wind glanced over at Noble and Warriors, who were somehow still going. "How long until they get done do you think?"

"Only the gods know," Tempest said, shrugging. "Noble won't shut up for hours, so they could still be a while."

"You'd think by now they'd be- what in the name of Hylia is going on over there?"

"What? What are you talking about?" Wind gestured, and Tempest looked up to see where he was pointing to four certain people off to the side.

Twilight and Savage were leaning against each other's backs laughing loudly. Eternal was saying something over them, smirking. Time was reclining slightly, an easy smile playing across his lips.

"Is that what I think it is? In Eternal's hand?" Wind asked.

"Oh my goddesses they're drunk," Tempest murmured in wonderment.

"Holy shit."

"We have to go see this."

"Absolutely."

They quickly jogged over. Time was the first to notice their approach, and smiled at them. "Hello boys. Everything going alright?" Despite the fact that he had clearly been consuming a good amount of alcohol, he seemed to have retained most of his mental faculties.

"Fine," Wind said, doing his best to keep a straight face. "We just wanted to know what you guys were doing."

"Making poor life decisions!" Twilight grinned and raised his glass into the air. Savage laughed, raising his own as well. It was clear that they were both more than a little tipsy at this point.

Eternal chuckled, raising his own glass. "As it turns out, Noble days heathen quite a bit. Perfect drinking game."

Wind nodded. "Okay, cool. Have fun." He started walking away, but Tempest grabbed his wrist, forcing him to stop.

"Hey, wait a minute. I'm super bored and this seems like fun. I say we grab my bottle of rum and join in."

Wind considered this, then shrugged, grinning. "Sure, why not? It's not like we have anything better to do."

Undet normal circumstances, Time and Twilight would most definitely not allow the fourteen year-olds to drink alcohol, especially Wind (despite his having encountered it plenty of times before on his pirate adventures). However, even Time was a little too tipsy to notice that issue. If Eternal noticed the problem, he didn't care.

-

"Oh my Farore, who let the fourteen year-olds have alcohol?"

All heads in the group of card players turned at Hyrule's exclamation. Their eyes were met with the sight of Wind and Tempest laughing with a bottle of what was almost certainly rum.

"Oh my goddesses," Sky murmured, hand hovering over his mouth in horror.

Legend took the scene in. The two weren't the only ones consuming alcohol; there was a party going on over there. He stood up. Hyrule glanced at him, surprised.

"Legend?"

"If they get to do it, so can I." There was no way he was missing out on this opportunity.

"Oh hell yeah." Acidic stood up as well. "Fuck the rules, let's take some shots."

"Wait you guys I really don't think that's a good idea-"

"Nonsense." Callous cut Hyrule off. "It's a fantastic idea. I'm on board with this. Way better than a card game."

"Shit dude, there's booze? Sign me the fuck up." Conqueror too abandoned his cards to stand up.

Sky frowned up at them. "I really don't think this is a good idea..."

However, his opinion went ignored in favor of joining the shots party.

-

Noble and Warriors finally stopped arguing sometime later. They both were gasping for air, vocal chords dry from their yelling match. After a moment, Warriors looked up and realized everyone had moved. He turned around, and his eyebrows shot up. "What the actual fuck happened?"

Noble looked up, glaring, but his eyes widened in surprise when he saw what Warriors was talking about. "I... what all manner of hells?"

They walked up to the group that had gathered, looking over the scene before them. It looked like several people were passed out, most of the others varying states of half-conscious.

"Is that... alcohol?" Noble looked disgusted.

"What the hell did we miss?"

Off to the side, Stygian rolled his eyes. "They all got bored waiting for you morons to finish bitching at each other." The others who were sober, Wild, Shadow, Four, Sky and Hyrule, nodded.

Warriors looked at him incredulously. "So they went and got drunk?"

"Pretty much," Hyrule said.

Noble made a face. "Absolute heathens."

Groans and drunken laughter met this statement. "Take a shot!" Legend cackled.