#my inability to conclude things neatly is BLEEDING through in these fics lol

[bokettochild]

came back wrong sounds like a very wild thing

and maybe twi could have obedience? something about wolfie and training could be angsty.

If no one suggested that one for Wild, I wanted to do it anyways LOL

Since I already posted Day 4 elsewhere, I'll give you Day 16 personally <3

Rating: Teen

Wordcount: 8,047

Summary: Coming back changed the Hero of the Wilds, and he's known it for a while. he's not sure how much changed, although he's happy to let Zelda and Purah try and find out. He does know though that there's a certain sort of power that lurks under his skin now, one capable of many things, but it comes with one great disadvantage: he doesn't know how to make it stop once he's started to employ it.

(This is set in the Inner Hero AU, so there are references to the other fics of that series, so consider this your warning!)

-

  It’s no great secret to anyone in Hyrule that there’s something Wrong with their hero. Since the shrine of resurrection, he isn’t what those who once knew him remember, and even those who’d never met the him from Before can sense that their hero isn’t exactly like the rest of them. Most of them accept that oddness as just another quirk or some such, just something intrinsic to Link, the weird kid who wanders the kingdom and somehow is also the hero that defeated the Calamity. 

  The Zora accepted it as a change brought by time, much as their own selves have all become altered in the hundred years since last they saw him. Maybe they know too; maybe they’re just too polite to say, but they never fuss about it. 

  Zelda knows though. She’s told him plainly that she knows he’s not what he used to be. He’s still him, she assures, because she knows the smile he spares for his mounts and recognizes the little habits he’d never have suspected she’d caught before the Calamity occurred. He’s still him, she says, but he’s More now too. 

  He came back different. 

  Purah and Zelda have looked into it, with his permission. He's sat and watched his girls sit with their head’s together over tests and papers and results as they try to understand how he’d changed. It’s nice, in a way. He's not very involved and, in many ways, he feels as though they forget at times that he’s able to hear them and the clinical way they refer to their study of him, but it’s not with any ill intent that they do so. In fact, it’s sort of nice to slip into the background of their minds and watch them at their most natural, see their bright smiles and hear them talk over each other and cut each other off in their excitement as they come to similar conclusions 

  He treasures the time spent up at the tower above Hateno, He treasures the time where he can simply exist as he is beside those he cares about, watching them bustle about doing what they love while he can finally rest in peace, knowing that his work is done, that nothing calls him out and that he can linger there as long as he pleases, without guilt. He can see what he was denied; Zelda’s joy, her eagerness, her freedom, and enjoy his own as well. 

  It’s good. 

  Returning to the rest of the world though, he’s always reminded again of how illy he fits among them. Magic has faded from the land of Hyrule, but he is steeped in it. Those around him walk with only the slightest bit of the power of heaven in their veins, yet his body overflows with magic that seeps out of the cracks left by his death. Zelda has compared him to the broken pottery he leaves across the kingdom, cracked and damaged by his adventure, and from those cracks, the power that twisted up with his own to bring him back from the brink now ekes out into the world, twisting and strange. Hylians aren’t meant to understand the feeling of Death’s touch, she says, eyes solemn and wary, lip pulled between her teeth as she’ll scan his face for signs of pain or sadness at her words. He knows she means well to do so, but he understands, and there’s really no need to be sad over such a thing. 

 He’s not normal, but it’s not their fault, and as they still accept him, still treat him with kindness, he feels little hurt for the changes that occurred to bring him to their sides. It’s a sacrifice he’d make again, even knowing what it will do. Watching Hyrule flourish in the wake of the Calamity, watching their victory paint the world anew in life and prosperity for their people, it’s worth dying and being pieced together again for, even if what holds his once drifting soul to his broken body is a magic no one can explain to him. 

  Life is good as long as he learns to hold back the worst of the magic, keep it tamed and keep his temper in check, which is hardly any struggle around most people. There are a few, certain people who drive him crazy and make him want very much to do things a hero ought not, but he holds himself back, and when Zelda really wants him to test himself, to see how much he can restrain the twisting Thing that has become part of him, she’ll challenge him to deal with those people. Really, they make it a game, so even if those people do drive him mad, seeing Zelda beam and mumble to herself at what they’ve learned from such encounters makes it worth it. 

  For her, he’d do anything. After all, he’s already died for her, what worse is there? 

  Well, as it would seem, leaving her behind for the sake of undertaking a new journey is worse. She’s happy in Hateno, capable of defending herself with both her magic and the archery her family is renowned for across the ages. She’s not as good as he is with a bow, but it’s a near thing, and he has no doubt that one more trip to Rito village, one more study session with Tulin and Teba, is all it will take before his princess can out-do him with his own preferred weapon.  

  Even knowing she can handle herself just fine doesn’t make leaving her behind any easier though. He’s still not sure how he’d managed, but he had. He had and he’d stumbled across the other heroes, joining them in their quest. It’s not perfect, not by any means, they’ve found peace in their new team. While there’s still some settling and sifting to be done before they click together like a real team, they are getting there. 

  He may have thrown a wrench in that process though. 

  See, since meeting the heroes, his magic has been rather well behaved. None of them rub him the wrong way, and while he isn’t exactly friendly with them all, they’re not the sort of people who push his boundaries or upset him either. He can co-exist beside them, and in many ways they remind him of the champions. He’s not sure how Time would feel knowing that in many ways he makes the cook think of Chief Urbosa, but he thinks Twilight might get a laugh out of being compared to Daruk. Of course, not everyone has similarities to the champions; Warriors isn’t like anyone he’s met before and he doubts he’ll ever meet anyone like him again, but it’s there for the rest. It's mostly just small things; they are, after all, their own persons, but finding something familiar to define them with makes approaching and working beside them easier. Four possesses the same quiet strength as Riju, Legend the certainty and experience of Teba, and Sidon’s wit and charm peeks through the traveler’s smile at times. Using what he knows about other people, about those he knew before, he can navigate the group with some decency. There's hiccups and there’s snags, but fortunately, they rarely if ever involve him, and never his magic. 

  Until now. 

  He sits back and tries to learn when he finally realizes that the others have magic spilling out from their cracks as well. Warriors is fire and Twilight is rich earth, Somehow, Legend is the force that quiets both, and despite a harsh outwards demeanor, the man holds a surprising amount of sway over the group as a whole. 

  In many ways, Legend reminds him of the Zelda from Before. There’s a potential for something bright and warm and rambling, something that would flourish if left alone and free to its own will, but like his princess, the vet restrains it for some reason or another. Duty drove Zelda, and he thinks something similar leads the vet, because no other factor has yet appeared. It’s there though, that warmth and light, mixed with a strength that is regarded and respected even if it isn’t followed. Legend is no leader, but his word has power, and they all listen to what he has to say in regards to what it is that they face. Not only that, but the vet’s magic is a twisting, free thing that is embraced and clung to by those in their gathering. 

  Warriors and Twilight seek its peace, and Sky urges it forwards with bright smiles and open arms as he somehow slips past the thorns of trailing magic to get at the hidden blossoms beneath. Time, in his own way, accepts it, although he does little with it. Wind seeks it, and Hyrule, whether the traveler seems to realize it or not, has tuned himself to it.  

  Wild may be clueless as to how people work normally, but he can understand magic. He can see how Hyrule’s flickering and dancing light embraces the magic of the veteran, and while he doesn’t grasp where the older ones do, he does linger and bask in it. 

  Wild doesn’t blame him. Legend’s magic feels like safety, like the goddess statues across Hyrule, the ones that quiet his soul and the twisting of his mind to grant him peace and rest even when he’s at his worst. Hylia, they say, is a goddess of Life, so it’s natural that her light would ease or even erase the darkness of Death. He's not sure how Legend’s magic echos that of the goddess, like the moon reflecting the suns rays even once the bright star has faded from view, but he welcomes that warmth and light all the same. 

 Losing that light affects them all. They are, after all, all beings of light, so losing the source that travels with them, having it snuffed out or hidden, leaves all antsy and ill at ease, and he doesn’t blame them. He still doesn’t appreciate Hyrule’s approach to fixing it though. 

  They’d talked, and maybe he'd let his own worries and insecurities spill over. Maybe he’d not correctly portrayed what he thinks he’d seen in the face of their brother when the vet had had Claims explained to him, but what really bothers him is how quickly his words were cast aside, how quickly Hyrule had returned to twining his magic with Legend’s own, laughing and chatting like nothing had happened and he hadn’t tried to tie down a ray of light itself. 

  He’s seen people try to tame light, bend it to their will and force it to linger rather than shine over the world as intended. His princess was never meant to stay locked in a castle, hidden in dark rooms to pray for power she wasn’t allowed to seek on her own terms; to find within herself what had always been. Seeing her free now, riding where she will and doing what she wants, he sees that light realized, knows the same could be found if Legend is allowed to do the same, as he’s expressed wanting. Light doesn’t belong to anyone after all, but to everyone, although they can’t hold it or keep it. Legend feels the same, at least with their group, and he wishes Hyrule would understand that. 

  The problem is, he’s not sure how to talk to vet about it. 

  Twilight, Warriors, Sky and Hyrule all feel free to approach, but Wild has never had anything with which to connect himself to the vet, no foundation for a friendship. They're such different people, and he’s not so blind as to have missed how the vet recoils when his own magic flares and hisses along the edges of the others in camp. His magic, the twisting, festering, darkness of it, entwines with Zelda’s like second nature, both dimming each other to the point of being null. In contrast, he lacks the familiarity with the vet to do the same, and instead, Life’s light flickers and hides when he loses control of the darkness of Death. 

  He wishes it wasn’t so, but it is. 

  How does fire that burns and earth that tends to smother have such a way to twist up with light, yet the un-named otherness of his own soul can’t find a harmony of its own? 

  “Wild, hey, focus.” 

  He shakes himself, staring up at Twilight where the other is standing next to him with a worried look on his face. “Huh?” 

  “You good?” The rancher asks, “you drifted out again.” 

  It wasn’t a memory, but it strikes him that he has, in fact, been sitting here unmoving for the last twenty minutes or so, and that’s probably just a bit worrying to the others. “Yeah, just lost in my head.” 

 The man frowns, settling himself down slowly on the loam underfoot so he’s sitting at Wild’s side, dark stare searching over him as though for an injury of some kind. “Anything on your mind?” 

  Does he tell? He can’t help the way his eyes drift to where the vet and captain sit back to back by the fire, Hyrule so close his knees are almost touching the vet’s as they face each other and chat, busy at work with their sewing and magic even as the captain writes what’s probably a report to his princess. They look at peace, somehow already over the latest hiccup of their group and already resettling into place as though it never happened, as though the subject of Claims never came up at all. How can do they do it? 

  He shakes his head. “Just thinking is all.” The doubt on the face of the other is soothed with a smile, dark gaze softening at the sight of flashing teeth. “Not memories or anything, I promise.” 

  “If you’re sure...” 

  “I am,” he says again, chuckling slightly for extra good measure. “At worst, I’m a bit homesick, at best, just confused, and considering this is me,” he laughs again, watches the face of his brother relax into one of those easy smiles they are al so used to, “I’m pretty sure that’s just normal.” 

  A heavy hand claps down on his shoulder, squeezing slightly, and despite the lingering concern in the rancher’s face, he is smiling. “If you’re sure. Remember though, pup, I’m here if ya need me.” 

  “I know.” He smiles in return, but beneath, his magic seethes just a bit. Twilight is great, Twilight is amazing, Twilight is there if he needs something and always offers a shoulder to lean on, and he’s incredibly thankful for that. But the rancher is also against the idea of using most magics, and despite the fact that he knows Twilight would never resent them for their own use of the stuff, his choice being personal preference rather than a hard belief about it in general, it does still mean he’s rather...ignorant, at least when it comes to magic. He can’t help here, and he probably wouldn’t even understand half of what Wild would need to explain. No, because unlike certain people, he doesn’t have a mastery for teaching. Good grief, he wishes Zelda was here, or even Purah, they could explain this mess to him, and maybe help him find a solution. He’s good at fighting and exploring and making things, not magic. He’s not qualified for all of this! 

  At the other side of camp, he sees Wind sit up abruptly, eyes scanning the world around him, wary. He's not the only one either, for Warriors is grabbing his sword as he scans the trees, Legend’s ears are flicking about, seeking something. He doesn’t feel or see or hear anything though, and it’s only when he sees the fiery glow of Hyrule’s gaze on him that he realizes he’s lost control again. 

  His magic really doesn’t do any of them any favors, does it? 

  He needs to gather it up again and tuck it away in a neat little box, watch guards relax again as the heroes puzzle at the sudden disappearance of whatever they’d felt or thought they’d sensed. Warriors gets up and starts patrolling the camp, leaving his own magic twisting here and there, like a spider casting a web, but predictably, he finds nothing to indicate that they are in any danger, even after he and Twilight have checked the forest around them. 

  Honestly, the longer they look, the more he wants to shrink in on himself and just... bang his head against a tree or something. 

  He feels like a threat to those he cares about, and they have no idea, because they don’t know it’s him that makes them jump to an alert and drop what they’re doing to instead prepare for a fight. 

  It’s worse in a fight though. 

  The next time they’re on a battlefield, Warriors leading the charge with Time and Sky, Legend and Four covering their asses and darting around the field to take out the threats that creep up upon the others, it slips loose. The problem is that it’s his monsters they’re fighting, recognizable by the fact that they’re not nearly as horrific to look at as the creatures from nearly all the others’ eras. He knows them, and they know him, and its sort of his habit when fighting in his own world, where the likelihood of other people being around is basically null, to just... let go. 

  Magic surges around him, a twisting, snapping thing that creeps and twists and twines over and around the enemies, driving them into a state of frenzy at the threat of something, something that their senses can’t pick up, but their souls can feel all the same; feel creeping over them, ready to snatch, to grab, to destroy. Death is scary to the creatures that aren’t familiar with its touch, and even those that act as it’s messengers tremble when the focus of Death is turned from their prey and onto themselves. The bokoblins run about attacking anything that moves, including each other, and it makes sweeping in and slaying them so much easier than if he was just fighting like the others do. 

  It helps that the monsters have come to know to associate the creeping presence of Death with his face, and they know, even before his sword slips across their throats or through their chests, exactly what’s coming. The ones that have met him before, brought back by red moons and dark malice, only fear it more with experience, and it’s sort of...satisfying, unleashing it all and watching the enemy panic, half knowing what’s coming to them and the other half unaware but just as panicked. 

  Once they’ve all fallen though, there’s always one little problem, one he’d sort of forgotten about. 

  “What the heck is this?” It’s Legend calling out, eyes wide, stance wide, sword gripped in one hand and fire rod in the other as his gaze flicks across the field; searching, looking.  Similarly, Warriors is staring about with that glinting look in his eyes, teeth bared, and ears pricked back, a dragon ready to surge out and rip something apart the moment it reveals itself. All the heroes are still looking about for the final threat, and Wild- 

  Wild can’t control the magic. 

  It happens, sometimes. If he leans into his magic, he can’t tame it so easily. It’s like a particularly eager stallion; plunging ahead no matter how he leans back in the saddle or tries to turn the creature off course, turn it, slow it, circle until its energy dies and it listens to him again. Magic isn’t an animal he can slow down though, and despite their efforts, neither he nor Zelda have found a way for him to get it under control by himself. They just have to wait until it calms of its own accord, for now. Purah said she’d try and help him find a way to control it, since it’s his, it's part of him, so reasonably he should be able to control it, just like a limb, a muscle, another part of himself physically. Zelda says it’s because it’s still new, still unfamiliar, still something he’s adapting to, so he’s still learning how it’s part of him, like a pup discovering its own wagging tail, although far less innocent because puppy tails don’t have everyone around you preparing to fend off a death blow. 

    Warriors snarls something he can’t make out, something that has the twisting darkness around them surging back in kind.  

  Wild isn’t trying to threaten, he swears. If anything, there’s something in the magic, in himself, that hears the dragon’s threat and eagerly bounces forwards in response. Now is not a good time though, in fact, it’s probably the worst of times. 

  Hyrule’s eyes are turned on him, harsh and just slightly scared, like they had been in the inn room. Still, the other hero darts to his side and, under his breath, unable to be heard by the others past their own panic, the traveler hisses at him. “Can it, champ.” 

  “I can’t,” he hisses back. He’s trying, but he’s fighting against a part of himself that he still can’t understand, and he’s not sure how to bind it back when it’s strong, only when it’s just beginning to peak out and is just the slightest of strains. Now it’s a howling force he can’t keep back, and all attempts are failing badly. 

  “Are you trying?” The embers in those eyes are flickering, but Hyrule’s voice isn’t harsh so much as straining, worried. The gaze of the traveler is trailing over the rest of their group, aware of their panic and doing his best to try and quell the source, but unwilling, Wild realizes, to reveal it. Hyrule has no interest in exposing him, just making him turn it off. 

  The problem though it he can’t. “Yes! It’s not working!” 

  Some very harsh words slip from the tongue of the other, but it’s not hylian. It’s not fae either, which he’d recognize, but something smoother and less lilting. Legend would know it, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t suppose it matters either. 

  Flames rise against his darkness, a raging force that shrieks and screams. Hyrule’s ears are pricked back as far as they can go, too many teeth glinting in the fading light of the setting sun, light that sets his face aglow as magic surges in a silent battle around them, one that has Warriors tensing, Twilight balking. Wild can feel the wings of the dragon flaring, the lash of the tail, can almost see the rise of the wolf’s hackles. There’s a crackling energy around their chosen hero, a surge of light from their vet, shields rising against the unseen threat, but Hyrule’s magic surging against his own, lashing and licking along the darkness in a roaring flame that reaches to consume and destroy, has his full attention. 

  He doesn’t try and fight it. Hyrule is pushing back what he can’t handle himself, but the boundaries thrown up around his own power, boxing it in and forcing it back, won’t last, and he knows it. The strain is clear on his brother. He’s not sure how strong his own magic is, but the color is draining out of the traveler’s face, his breath quickening as the whipping and shrieking of the fae’s magic pushes back against the hiss and shadow of Death, steadily pushing it back and bottling it up within some confines the traveler must have forged himself, because it’s not just tucked back into the spot within him that he usually pulls it from. The hand on Hyrule’s sword is turning white with the effort of actions unseen, but he sees the guards of the others lower, sees the strain flow out of their shoulders as, at long last, the magic is bottled up and away, still writhing and twitching, but unable to break free. 

  Honestly, it’s terrifying. He didn’t know Hyrule could do that. 

  The traveler sags beside him, breathing hard as he stumbles, but when he reaches out to catch his brother, Hyrule stumbles back. “No, just....” dark lashes flutter and Hyrule’s lips are slightly grey, “Don’t.” 

  So, he doesn’t. 

  Not too far away, Legend is creeping up into the space of their captain, voice low and wary, like he’s approaching a spooked animal, and like any other time in the past, the moment clarity returns to eyes the color of holy flame, Warriors is dropping his sword and grabbing ahold of his brother, hunching over him as Legend sighs and let’s himself be clutched close, huffing words the rest can’t hear but which have short little ears twitching slightly out of their pricked back position. 

  Similarly, Twilight is checking in with the rest, reaching to touch, to self-assure. Clapping Wind’s shoulder and brushing against Four. Time reaches out to the rancher first, but the touch lingers, both comforting each other and themselves before turning to Sky, who’s sheathing the Master Sword and happily accepts the worry of the others, assuring with a smile and a light nudge to Twilight’s shoulder, eyes bleeding warmth that Wild envies. None of them approach the captain, but Legend calls something to them, huffing and half laughing past the arms wrapped around him, an promise that all is well as his magic soothes twisting scales and quells flames. 

  The warmth of Life surges, like a balm, around all of them. Legend’s reach touching the rest even despite the fact that they seem as blind to his efforts as they had been to the source of their previous fear. 

  “You alright, boys?” Time asks, Twilight at his side as the both move to the sides of their wildlings. Their leader’s eyes linger on Hyrule, and when he reaches out, the traveler lets himself sag against the man’s touch. 

  Hyrule doesn’t like touch, Wild reminds himself, trying to excuse the denial he’d faced at a similar offer. Only Time seems exempt from that rule, and it’s probably only because of the fairy magic that lingers faintly over the other, the remains of an old Claim resting about the edges of his magic to mark him as something not quite fae, but treasured by them all the same. If the traveler reaches for that magic, he doesn’t say anything, and Time doesn’t seem to notice either. 

  “I’m okay,” he answers honestly. The worst effect his own magic had had on him was fear at not being able to control it; not the overwhelming terror that seemed to grip the others that they would fall victim to it. 

  Twilight’s eyes linger on him shortly, but drift away after, apparently accepting his words as truth and determining that the others, still shaken and, in Hyrule’s case, trembling with exhaustion, require his attention more. Still, the rancher grips his shoulder briefly in passing, assuring himself and offering brief comfort to the champion in the process. 

  It’s nice, but as he moves away, leaving their leader and his mentor to tend to the exhausted half-fae, he can’t help but watch the others. Specifically, his gaze trails to where Warriors is sagging against their vet, making the smaller man stumble with a cut off laugh as he pats broad shoulders, magic still twisting and entwining with flames as easily as though they’re naught but harmless air. 

  Life pours across the group of them, a heavy weight that settles across their shoulders with the grace and warmth of a cat climbing up to greet it’s master, its presence a comfort that he wants so bad to catch ahold of and nestle into, like he once had curled at the base of goddess statues when his own power wouldn’t quiet, letting the power of Hylia soothe him when he couldn’t do it himself. He wishes there was a goddess stature here too, because as much as Legend reflects that same power, his arms are rather full of their captain, and the hold of gloved hands in red fabric says that he won’t be free for at least a while more. Not that Wild could ask anyways. He and Legend aren’t close to begin with, asking for the same welcome as is granted to the dragon that has slowly been tamed to his brother’s presence isn’t realistic by any means. Still, it’s easier to hide the writhing presence bottled up by force when he’s slinking closer to the source of comfort in their camp, so if he settles closer to the vet and captain than he normally would that evening, after finishing with making dinner, well, Hyrule’s the only one who really seems to take notice. Warriors is distracted with teasing their sailor, and while Legend’s dark gaze lifts to greet him as he moves over, the man says nothing at his choice of seat, just keeps eating his dinner quietly. 

  Hyrule is staring, a warning look in those eyes when they’re on him, but worry when they turn to the veteran. He doesn’t say anything from where he’s slumped against Time though, across the fire and picking at his food. The traveler is exhausted, and reasonably so. The others don’t know why, so it’s natural that they’re worrying, and the cave dweller hasn’t elected to explain himself either, so they probably will continue to do so for a good while. 

  Despite the camp-fire between them, Hyrule’s magic, weak and tired, has still managed to entwine with the vet’s. Legend answers back with flickers of his own power to the embers that scatter themselves at his feet, assuring and fond, even if there’s confusion in the flicker of his ears, the twitch of his hands and the gaze of starlit violet that turns from time to time to meet faintly glowing embers. 

  Wild doesn’t dare try and sneak his own flickering, snapping power out to try and reach, knowing far too well what the reaction would be, but also wary of the escape of the still writhing power that surges against the wall of flames raised around it. 

  How Hyrule bottled back his strength, he doesn’t know, but it feels dangerously like a weak seal; like golden power meant to keep back evil. He isn’t sure of a lot right now, but the idea of that makes him uneasy and definitely bothers him. He’s not a monster or demon that needs restraining by holy power, but the fact that he’d failed to hold himself back enough that Hyrule would feel the need to take such measures at all is just as pressing a pain to his pride and soul as the action itself. 

  The magic holds though. His soul doesn’t creep and screech against that of the others after that. Doesn’t even surge when his emotions run hot. If anything, it thrashes within its confines, but it doesn’t escape to twist like a net around those he considers friends and brothers. Unfortunately, that also means that it doesn’t emerge when faced with enemies either. 

  The next time they’re in battle, this time against something Legend calls a ‘gleeok’ and which he desperately hopes will never appear in his own world, he somehow can’t summon his own magic at all. It’s there, he can feel it, but trying to bring it out, even just the smallest amount, proves to have no results. Every prod, every call, every little hiss of his soul to push and pull and just get his magic to respond, has it only thrashing more, wild within its confines but not breaking past them. 

  His sword plunges and stabs, and the heroes around him do the same. Warriors is a whirlwind of power and ferocity as he charges in head on, the vet’s magic raising in a shield and Hyrule’s own likewise surging across the field in strikes that leave their foe howling and screaming in anger, flames licking across the ground in response, but his own power can only beat at the bounds created around it. He can’t break them, but he’s trying. He’s trying and surging, biting his lip with focus to the point he knows there’s blood trailing across his face from his own efforts and not any wound dealt by the dragon like monster they’re pitted against, but it isn’t working. 

  He hisses as a tail rises up to thrash at him, drops and rolls to avoid the impact of it hitting him, all the time pushing at the seal on his own magic in a valiant attempt to summon it, only to still be met with no results. He could ask Hyrule, if the other wasn’t on the other side of the enemy and currently absorbed with trying to stop the head firing at him with flames that surge and lick around a magic shield thrown up at only the last of moments. Still, with the amount of effort it took to raise the seal on his power, he doesn’t know if the traveler could even summon the strength to undo that same work, not when he’s so busy currently trying to avoid getting killed. 

  It’s driving Wild mad though. 

  Before, he was the knight of the princess who had the power to topple an army of lynels. He'd lost some of that to Death, but in return had been granted something he’s used like second nature since, letting it ruin and destroy and tear apart and terrorize anything and everything that dared rise before him as he’d worked across the kingdom in an effort to rescue the one who’d called him back out of Death’s hold. He can’t control it once it’s free, but he’d at least been able to employ it before, and being without it in the first time in his memory has a fear he hates bubbling up from within, anger surging at the bonds of magic to snap and hiss and cry with a wildness he hadn’t known he possessed. 

  He wants free. He wants to unleash the wildness he’d been named for and let it at the very least leave their foe cowing, if only slightly, as the imminence of its own fate is made clear to it. 

  He can’t. 

  He can’t because Hyrule bottled it, and he hates that. 

  Not Hyrule. He doesn’t hate Hyrule. The traveler had done him a favor by rendering him tolerable for the others to be around again without leaving them straining themselves to understand the threat they’d felt slipping about them. What he hates is the bounds of the seal closing in around him like the walls of the shrine he’d woken within time and again, aching pains all over from half healed wounds that had been strained over and over by efforts to push free from a prison of stone. The shrine had felt as though it was closing in on him and keeping him sealed, leaving him only to awake and fight and pass out, water filling his lungs and straining his body as he’d tried to escape from his confines only to fail yet again.. He’d healed long before he’d escaped, and since letting on the truth to Purah (but not Zelda, he could never tell her about that), she’d started looking into why it had kept him so much longer, but so far, they have had no results. Still, the feeling of being trapped, sealed, shut off from his own strength, it drives him mad. There’s a writhing and snapping, a hiss and a scream, a howling of something in his soul as it tears at the bonds. 

  Slowly, they give way. 

  It’s like a dam breaking. Just a crack, then a hole, then the rest comes crumbling down and, from the other side of the battlefield, he hears Hyrule’s breath shudder, catches ember eyes rising, wide and terrified. And then he’s free. 

  His magic sweeps like a fierce current, a mighty wave, a shadow that plunges over the field and has the gleeok before them screaming, turning its heads for a source of the threat it feels, and thus missing the approach of the captain who’s own surging flames rise beside the shadows, a pulsing, pounding force as the man severs a head and sends it falling towards their waiting leader, who dispatches the thing before the creature can do more than cry out in pain. Writhing darkness twists, twining and trapping and sharing the feelings that only moments before had overwhelmed him; now wrapping themselves around their foe and leaving it frenzied and panicked as the rest of the heroes, despite their own obvious awareness of the new presence, surge forwards. 

  In a strange way, he thinks the flames and scales of the captain are surging stronger as well, pushing back with a hiss against his own magic, one he can’t help but respect, power surging away to let the older man take charge and wreak havoc on their foe while he focuses instead on keeping it on edge. The captain’s magic isn’t stronger than his, but it’s not something he has a wish to reckon with either, and like so many times before, he finds that even the twisting of Death finds something to admire in the lashing of the war hero’s own power. 

  Their foe falls quickly after that. 

  Once the gleeok lies dead, dissipating into black and purple smoke and leaving only the barest remains, he feels able to breathe again.  

  The others though, are not. Wariness marks their features, save Hyrule who looks so, so tired; desperate and weary as though the idea of trying to push back the force of their brother yet again, especially after it had somehow broken through his last attempt, is a far worse fight than the creature they’d just felled. In a way, Wild thinks it must be, because trying to push it down himself is far more a struggle than simply felling something tangible and mortal that fears it. 

  This time though, there’s a surge of another magic, a familiar one, one that pulses and creeps, seeking, against his own. It recoils, as if by instinct, but still presses back against his magic, not pushing so much as following, and light against crypt like darkness which has him looking up in time to catch the gaze of indigo eyes that have lifted to focus on him, sharp and piercing. 

  Legend’s breath shudders, lips pursing. He knows now. 

  Wild tries, tries so hard, to make his face do something, say anything to indicate that he’s sorry, he’s trying, he really isn’t doing this on purpose. It’s hard though when something warm curls up inside of him. It's not his magic, not the cold death touch he knows and has learned to view as an extension of himself. It’s a steady gleam of warmth, not harsh and burning like Hyrule’s, not fierce and violent like Warriors’, but a gleam of light rather than heat, one that curls around some innermost part of him, like it’s wrapping around his very heart. 

  Legend’s eyes glint curiously, stars blazing within. 

  The vet’s feet step towards him. 

  Hyrule whips around to stare, something on his lips and magic surging, throwing up walls and shields and warnings- protective, wary, guarded, begging. The urgency that flings itself at their vet has the other stumbling slightly, but not stopping. Their traveler looks like he wants to scream, ember gaze trailing between them, panicked, worried, wary. 

  Wild tries not to let it bother him. Hyrule is just worried for their vet, their light, his friend. If Zelda trailed into something he felt was a risk, something that made his senses recoil as violently as his power makes the others do, he’d feel the same way, he knows it. Still, the wariness of his brother isn’t helping anybody right now. 

  “Wild,” the same low, even tone that the man uses to ease Warriors own of his own head rises to play in his ears, “what’s going on?” 

  He opens his mouth to answer, but no words come to mind, just a panic, a wish to assure, to apologize. 

  The warmth curled around his core flickers. Light, pure, unaltered by death-touched power, presses around him. The vet steps closer and then, like stepping before a goddess statue, he feels the surge of his own magic quiet. The rest of the heroes ease, looking about in confusion for the threat they’d felt a moment before but there’s nothing there. Nothing that isn’t twisting and twining, muted by light that itself is dimmed to their senses in an echo of his own quieted power. 

  Hyrule is gaping. 

  Legend is just looking utterly confused, stopping only a pace or so away, ears flicking between a curious forwards tilt and a wary press back against his skull. Violet eyes search his own, flickering golden with power that’s familiar, that’s safe, that’s Hylia’s hand in a gentle caress to quiet his own soul and tame the Wrongness that came back binding him to the body that ought to have perished a hundred years ago. 

  The vet sighs, eyes slipping closed and shoulders sagging with the motion. “The heck, champ...” He doesn’t say anything more though, just raises dark eyes to stare, something crooked in the smile that’s offered to him, tired and weary but bright like the magic that pulls his own inwards again and eases it back where it belongs; nestled beside his heart and twining and twisting, crackling at the edges but not in ire as before. No, he reaches, and despite the twitch of the vet’s brows, the warmth of holy magic answers with a press that his own grasps and clings to. 

  He shouldn’t grab, try to grasp, shouldn’t set off the same ire that Warriors has triggered before, but with the alternate option being to scare the wits out of his brothers, he thinks Legend might understand. 

  “You good?” 

  He nods, and this time he actually means it. “Yeah.” 

  “Good,” Legend shakes his head, that weary little smile still on his face. “Honestly, you guys...” 

  “Sorry.” 

  “I should have seen it coming,” violet glimmer, twinkling oddly as they catch his own, the glow of the shrine still lingering in wild blue. “Just don’t make Wars and Twi lose their shit, ‘kay? I’m not keen on dealing with that again.” 

  He promises he won’t.  

  He doesn’t either. Yes, he trails after the vet as the other moves back to the rest of their group, but he’s wary of leaving the immediate presence of the power that quiets his own. Still, he doesn’t get in the way of their usual post battle arrangement. Doesn’t get in the way when Warriors drapes himself over the smaller hero with a huff, soul still seeking the presence it had felt before but finding naught of the force that surged alongside his own. He doesn’t deny Twilight’s wary check over as the man seeks injury among their group, or Time’s verbal call for them to report on their condition. 

  Injuries are treated, and camp is made. Hyrule’s eyes are burning into the back of his head, gaze confused and magic seeking, pushing, looking for that presence he’d strained so much to contain before, yet finding silence in it’s place. 

  He doesn’t stray far from Legend for the rest of the evening, but by morning, he’s got the courage to risk it, and it’s like he’d never released the terrible creature within to begin with. 

 Even so, all this doesn’t mean that, next time that they make camp, Legend doesn’t have questions. Ringed fingers catching his arm and the vet’s steady voice calling to Time that the two of them will do a quick round of the area to check for threats are his only warning before being dragged out of earshot of their brothers and having an answer demanded of him. Legend has questions, and while he doesn’t have answers for all of them, he does his best to give them. He owes that much after the trouble he’s caused. 

  The vet’s pinch of his brows, tired sigh and sinking shoulders are becoming quite familiar. “So, your magic is death-touched, and you scare the shit out of others with it.” 

  “Yeah.” 

  There’s something between a scoff and a laugh that puffs out from the chest of the other. “Dragons, wolves, fairies, now Death herself, good grief.” 

  “I’m sorry.” He’s not sure why, but he feels he ought to say it. 

  There’s the smile again, Legend’s shoulders shaking and pink hair swishing as he shakes his head once more. “Not your fault, champ. Magic’s screwy, and if there’s anything I'm learning with y’all, controlling it’s always a pain in the arse.” 

  Still, he feels awful for adding to the mess that the vet is already caught in. 

  “Okay,” a clap of the hands and a lifting of glittering stars to focus their light on him, “here’s the deal. Your magic quiets around holy magic. I have holy magic. You need it to shut up, you can come to me, but for the love of all holy, please, I am begging, do not mess with the captain, and whatever your beef with Hyrule is, don’t get me involved, deal?” 

  He blinks. “Deal. I wasn’t...I-” it takes a moment, but the vet waits, although his foot taps the ground as he does, nervous maybe, or just impatient. He can’t tell. “I know better than to mess with the captain,” he finally manages. “Hyrule... we’re working on it.” 

  “Good,” Legend sounds, “but again, I don’t want a part of it. Whatever tiff you two have, settle it yourselves. If you need help with your magic, I’m here, but I don’t stand for funny business, comprendo?” 

  He blinks. 

  The vet rolls his eyes, sighing. “Do you understand?”  

  “Understood.” He wishes people would just speak Hylian to him instead of switching mid conversation. 

  “Good. Now, anything else I should know?” And it’s not harsh, it’s not cold, its’s said with the tilt of the head in a way that almost reminds him of Wolfie in their early days, that same half-amused look in dark eyes as the one that had followed him as he’d acquainted himself with a new world, freshly brought back into it. There’s nothing more to share though. Not for now, but he promises to tell if there’s anything he thinks of. Legend accepts that answer too, nodding and setting out again to continue their patrol. 

  He doesn’t get it, but he supposes that’s not the point. How the vet handles the nonsense they throw at him, he can’t fathom, but that he does at all is a blessing. They may laugh and jest about sharp tongues and scathing remarks, but the vet has the patience of a priestess to handle all of them, and he’s thankful for that. 

  He came back wrong, twisted and death-touched and terrifying to those who don’t understand why he is the way he is. It's not fun to explain and it’s tricky to live with, but at least he has a way to control it, even if it does mean asking for help. Still, he doesn’t hate it. His magic is a tool to terrify and harm the enemy, and he values that tool. He doesn’t cherish it, doesn’t adore how it affects those he cares about, but he’s glad he has it. He's glad he has it and he’s working to understand it, to control it.  

  Maybe having someone who understand these things, who knows magic because he’s steeped in it and has lived with it forever- not just unlocked it in a moment of desperation and without proper guidance to master it- will help. Who knows, maybe he can learn something from the vet, maybe even something help Zelda! That would be nice! Being able to return to her and teach her even just the smallest bit about her own power- help her in the way she’d begged the goddesses for, the way he’d wished he could for all the time he’d spent at her side unable to offer more than protection- it’d be nice. 

  Magic is weird, but maybe, maybe, he can get a handle on his Weirdness. 

  At the very least, he can make it shut up now when he needs to. So that’s a start!