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asocial-lobster · 20 hours ago

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What We Leave Behind

Everyone leaves something behind. Sky knows this better than most. He has left eight amazing brothers behind in favor of going home to his own era.

Or perhaps it was them who left him?

There is a vacuum in his life. A certain chill to the air in his lungs, unspoken jokes bubbling painfully in his chest. Sky has known a lot of grief in his short life, and he recognizes this feeling for what it is: love turned lonely.

His brothers have not just left emptiness behind, though. It is Zelda who points it out first: Sky has begun wearing his sailcloth like Warriors carries his scarf. He scratches his neck like Hyrule when he is nervous, and his words are thoughtful and mature like Time's. His snarky wit has become more pronounced, honed from months in Legend's company. When he cooks, his fingers expertly find the correct spices without thinking.

Sky's brothers have left a gaping hole in his heart, but they have also left a thousand small habits and gestures. Like driftwood, they keep Sky afloat as he grieves. And if he sometimes cries when a memory of his brothers rises to the surface, then what of it? He is not ashamed to have loved and lost.

So Sky writes down everything he remembers about his brothers and clings to it, remembers. He wonders if he has left a lifetime of odd habits and joys with them, too.

XXX

Four is a scholar, and he takes pride in that fact. He is a scholar and a blacksmith and an adventurer, a husband and an uncle. A brother. Four has always been good at filling his life with meaning.

There are many people Four loves, many of whom he'll never see again. Still, he holds that love securely in every part of his tattered soul; it fills him, keeps his life worth living. He thinks of them often and must reconcile with the fact that he won't ever know what became of them.

All except one.

He has only been home for a year, when the need to know what became of Sky gets too strong to handle. Four is a scholar. He knows how to search for old myths and half-forgotten tales. Four is an adventurer. He knows how to carry himself with confidence on the roads, how to avoid danger and how to escape alive when the danger can no longer be avoided. Four is a brother. He knows how to mourn someone who isn't dead, just out of reach.

It is on this adventure that Four meets Aaron. Aaron is a scholar like Four, but also a baker and a petter of cats and a kind soul. Aaron's soul is whole and unblemished unlike Four's, but he doesn't mind. He is not a brother. He is both something more and something less, because Four knows that brotherly love and romantic love are entirely different things. It's not less, not more. It's just different.

Aaron follows when Four keeps travelling. Hand in hand, they scour the small towns for clues. They flip through old, dusty books and sneeze when it tickles their noses. Aaron makes hot cocoa and apple pie for Four's late-night studies.

Hundreds of years have passed since Sky's era, but Four finds what he is looking for at long last. It is not much, just a few lines in a grimy tome about the first rulers of Hyrule. King Link and Queen Zelda who descended from the heavens. According to the tome, they had two children. Only the oldest, Dinah, is mentioned by name.

Four leans into Aaron's embrace and smiles. He always expected something like that from Sky's future - they all did, really. Sky knew his place in the world long before he met the Chain.

Out of all of them, Sky has changed the world the most. The first hero, the first king. Four wonders if Sky knows just how many good things he has left in his wake.

XXX

Time's life on Lon Lon Ranch is uneventful compared to his adventures but never boring. He likes how small his life is these days. He is allowed to care only about those closest to him instead of the whole kingdom. It is nice to walk into the barn in the morning and know that the horses and cows are dependent on him to feed them, not to save the world.

At night, Malon's body is warm against his, a comfort he has been sorely lacking during his last adventure. Her hair tickles his cheek, but he doesn't brush it away. After so long apart, he cherishes the moments when they are close.

He misses the boys often. Not as they were on their adventure, high-strung and anxious, but as they were during their breaks and on Lon Lon Ranch. He misses Warriors' jokes and Legend's sarcastic remarks. The sailor was always so full of energy, mouth running faster than his mind – an impressive feat, given Wind's intelligence. Twilight was quieter, but no less funny or mischievous than the others.

Time misses them, and in his ideal world, they would all be living on the ranch with him, Malon, and Talon. But the boys have their own lives in their own eras.

Time doesn't go looking for stories about the others. Only Sky and Four come before him in the timeline, and he feels fairly certain they have led happy lives. Sky had both Sun and Groose waiting for him at home, and the skyloftian was mature and kind. He will build a life for himself, Time is sure of it.

Four was well-balanced, a man in tune with his emotions. He had Dot and his grandfather. Four has adapted to sudden changes before, Time knows. He will adapt to this, too.

The person Time longs to see again the most is Warriors. Not because he loves him more than the others, but because he is worried about the captain. Warriors has been through so much already, and he was depressed when they parted. Time can't stand the thought that he'll never know if Warriors fought his way out of depression and into the happy life he deserved.

His adventure with the Chain has left Time with many happy memories, but it has also left a nagging worry in the back of his mind which he fears will never disappear.

XXX

Legend has spent a lifetime searching for weapons and items and answers to a thousand problems. He has fought and bled for a kingdom which never held any particular fondness for him - a prince in a line of princesses and queens. Still, Legend has risked his life many, many times on adventures.

What is a few more?

This time, it is not adventures of Hylia's kind. There is no returning king of evil, no nefarious lizards or scheming mages. There is only Legend's desperate wish to reconnect with the brothers he has left behind.

He finds old, forgotten dungeons filled with treasure. Most of it has nothing to do with his brothers, but some of it has. He finds weapons of Four's making. He even finds a quiet stone chamber with cracked gravestones. The fading text reads:

Her Majesty Queen Zelda Hylia Hyrule

and

His Majesty King Link Hyrule

Legend pays his respects and leaves. Sky deserves a peaceful rest.

The biggest prize he finds is a ratty notebook. It is buried deep within a dungeon, and Legend has no idea how it wound up there. But the title page reads Link in Four's neat handwriting, and that's a miracle in itself.

The small book is filled with sketches of weapons. Comments fill the margins. Some are about the swords' blades, observations on how well the metal folded or how durable they turned out to be.

But some comments are of another kind. Recipes and grocery lists are scattered across the pages. A recipe for apple pie stands out with a small heart next to the A. Legend wonders if maybe it was Four's favorite.

Ravio helps him bake the pie with apples from the tree in their garden. It's a perfect mix of sweet and sour. Almost like life, Legend muses. Happiness is always intertwined with grief. Sweet and sour.

He likes to read the book, again and again, when nightmares chase his sleep away. There really are a lot of recipes in the book. Did Four take up baking? Or did he marry a baker? Legend has no way of knowing, but he likes to speculate. The book lies on his nightstand when he goes to bed.

He writes his own little book, too. Maybe Hyrule will find it someday.

XXX

After a whole year with the Chain, Hyrule's era feels colder than he remembers it. But Hyrule can deal with it. He is used to the cold.

There's still a lot of work to do. Hyrule may have saved the world again, but his kingdom is still healing. The poison from the curse lingers like stains in an old carpet that can't be washed out.

Hyrule is young. He was even younger when he went on his first adventure, fingers gripping uncertainly around a sword too big for his childish hands. Hyrule's grip is no longer awkward. Now, his fingers curl around the hilt like they were made for it. Maybe they were.

How young is too young to be Hylia's chosen hero? Some of his brothers were younger yet when they were called by their first adventure.

Hyrule is cold, but he carries a flame in his heart. It is nursed by Wild's steady hands, shielded by Twilight's broad frame. The memories are painful, but Hyrule chases them anyway. They're the only thing he has left of his brothers.

Sometimes the flame is a roaring fire, devouring everything in its path. Other times, it is but a candlelight, barely enough to stave off the cold. He tells Aurora about it one day, and she helps him search the royal archives for old tomes and ancient scripts which may provide him with the closure he yearns for. But the curse has not been kind to old relics, and a lot of information has been lost to time. Legend is mentioned many times in the scripts, saving the kingdom again and again. It does not mention anything about his life after his last adventure. Hyrule hopes this is because Legend settled down to live a quiet life.

The archives do not mention neither Four nor Sky at all.

The flame burns in Hyrule's chest, and sometimes he fears it will devour him, too.

XXX

The deck rocks gently beneath Wind's feet. He rarely spends time on land these days, instead chasing the blue waves and playing tag with the salty sea breeze. He has been on many adventures during his short life, but he is not yet tired of the wonders in this world. The ship is a gateway, it is a magical portal. There is only one place it cannot take him, and that is the one place he most desperately wants to go.

Wind stares into the blue water and wonders what is hidden deep beneath it. Are you out there? He wonders. Has the ocean claimed your bones?

The sea is vast and infinite. Some days, she is kind, other days an angry, roaring beast. Wind's brothers lived in this world once, but the ocean has long since scrubbed the world clean of any remnant of them.

XXX

Twilight does not need to look for clues to know what happened to Time. The Old Man's regrets turned him into a stal, and he only found peace after Twilight met him. It hurts Twilight's heart to know that Time will yet have to suffer so much.

But there are still things to discover, unanswered questions lingering on his tongue.

Twilight has visited Lon Lon Ranch many times during his adventures in Time's era. The world may have changed since then, but not much. Once he starts looking, it is easy to find his way back there.

He spends an entire day just looking at the ranch from afar. The stable has been painted in a light brown, and the fences have been moved so that the cows have more space. Smoke rises from the chimney.

An old woman sees him hiding in the tree line. She approaches him with a surprising confidence despite her age, demanding to know why he is lurking around on her farm.

The woman's hair is gray save for a few red strands which she has brushed back into a braid. Her eyes are sharp, and her face is lined with dimples and sorrows alike.

At first Twilight can do nothing but stare at her, taking in the embroidered cuffs on her shirt, the apron which covers her skirt. He manages to tell her that his family once lived here. The Lons. He asks if she knows what became of them.

The woman goes still. At first Twilight thinks he might have said something wrong, but then he sees the tears in her eyes.

The woman is his grandmother. She ushers him into a kitchen which feels familiar and wrong at the same time. The dining table is too sturdy. There are more shelves than there shouod be.

She finds cookies and milk – Lon Lon milk – in the pantry and sits him down in a chair. She tells him the story of her daughter and son-in-law who took their little son with them to the market and never came back. She tells him of the boy's brown hair and gentle eyes, of how he answered to the name Link.

She cries as Twilight tells her of his life, and at one point she grabs his hand in hers. Twilight lets her do it and cries a little himself.

The woman's name is Eva. She only had the one daughter, but she has a younger brother who lives in Castletown and a twin sister who lives with her on the ranch. The sister's children live on the ranch too, though they and their mother are out for the day. Twilight has more family out there, and Eva promises to introduce them soon. In turn, Twilight agrees to take her to meet Rusl, Uli, and Colin.

Eva is Time and Malon's daughter. She speaks very fondly of them and listens to Twilight's tales with interest. Unfortunately, Malon passed away a few years ago, and Twilight feels his heart break at the news. Eva is relieved to hear that Time has found rest.

The sky is rapidly darkening outside the windows, and the ranch's other inhabitants come home. They greet him with hugs and teary smiles. Twilight stays for dinner with the family he has never known. There is a lot of lost time to make up for, but that's okay. He is more than willing to put time and effort into getting to know his family.

Twilight knows he will never see Malon or Time again. But they have left him a wonderful family at Lon Lon Ranch which welcomes him with open arms. And though his heart still aches, he has found his peace with that. Twilight sits on the roof of the stable and looks at the setting sun, thinking of the family he has lost and the family he has gained.

XXX

Warriors regrets a lot of things. He regrets being unable to save many a friend during the war. He regrets how distant he has grown to his mama and sisters during a decade of depression and struggles. He regrets a thousand words and moments he wanted to share with his brothers but never got the chance to.

It's odd. Back during the war, he visited many of their homes and met their friends. He didn't know most of his brothers back then and didn't think twice about visiting the unfamiliar eras. But now, as desperate longing swells in his chest, he finds himself confined to his own era. No swirling purple-black portals show up to whisk him away to another time. No familiar blond or brown or pink heads bob into sight from behind a tree, a joke and a friendly smile ready on their lips. No one is there to release a frog onto his pillow or ruffle his hair while he yells indignantly. There is only Warriors and his grief. His heart has been ripped to shreds, and though he is supposedly the field medic, he cannot find it in himself to stitch it back together. To heal feels like betraying everything his brothers mean to him.

So Warriors clings to his memories. He carefully preserves Mask's and Tune's drawings between sheets of glass and hangs them on his walls. He scours the castle archives for information about his predecessors and when he finds little to none, he takes it upon himself to fill the gaps in Hyrule's history. He documents everything he can remember about the others and their adventures. He keeps the more private details of their lives to himself, scratching stories of Hyrule's kindness and Four's levelheadedness onto paper with a crooked quill during the long hours of night. He tries his hand at drawing, and he finds that he rather likes the version of Time which stares back at him from the paper, though he didn't quite manage to capture the mischievous glint of his eye. Still, the drawings are better than nothing, and he doesn't give up before he has all eight of his brothers committed to paper. There are only few things Warriors truly fears, and one of them is forgetting even the tiniest detail about the brothers he has lost.

XXX

Wild leans back against his arms and looks at the kingdom spreading out beneath him. There is no reason for him to visit The Great Plateau anymore, but he likes being there. It is the first home he can truly remember.

There is something magical about the world far beneath him. There was a time when Wild looked at it and only saw his own shortcomings, the ruins covering the landscape like his scars cover his skin. But the wilderness is thriving down there, horses and deer and goats running rampant among lush grass. There is a beauty to it, one which Wild understands better than most.

Besides, Wild has won a newfound interest in old ruins. When he and Zelda aren't busy rebuilding the kingdom, they explore forgotten mysteries and solve ancient puzzles.

Sometimes they are lucky enough to find an old relic from his brothers' eras. An old stone carving depicting a great battle. A sword. The ruins of Lon Lon Ranch.

It is crazy to think that these things have survived for so long, just waiting to be rediscovered by Wild's curious eyes. But that is the nature of his brothers, he supposes. Each of them changed the world forever, like ripples spreading across calm water. A seed lying dormant in the ground only to suddenly sprout come spring.

Everyone leaves something behind, Wild has learned. And while he may never see his brothers again, there is a comfort in knowing that the echo of their existence has carried on through thousands of years. His brothers may be gone, but their memories are everywhere. And, Wild thinks as he stares into the endless blue sky, maybe that's enough.

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