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undertheopensky · 1 year

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The Ocarina 1

Whumptober Day 8: “It’s all for nothing.”

Characters: Everyone except Four, technically, though Four is still the main focus

Trigger warnings: Alternative Backstories, Unreliable Narrator, Memory Loss (sort of), Past Child Death

Read on Ao3!

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The portal sneaks up on them. One minute, they’re walking along a trail through a flat prairie, and the next Sky is bouncing off a wall and landing on Legend in a tangled, swearing heap.

There’s a lot of yelping as everyone else struggles not to follow suit.

Once they’ve all come to a complete, groaning halt, they start trying to sort themselves out. Wind has to be helped out from under the low table where he’d gotten stuck, and as Warriors drags him to his feet he starts trying to count heads. Not easy, in such a cramped environment.

“Where are we?” Sky asks.

“It looks like Four’s place, I think?”

Glancing around the sitting room, Warriors admits Hyrule is right. The room does look like the upstairs wing of Four’s house, with bedrooms off the sides and the stairwell behind them. Twilight is helping Wild right the chair he’d tripped over while Sky moves an end table back to wherever it had been before he and Legend crashed into it. Everyone’s accounted for, except…

“Where is Four, anyway?” Wind asks, then, without waiting for a response, bellows, “HEY FOUR, WHERE ARE YOU?!”

There’s no response. Wind’s shoulders hike up a little, surprised and uneasy.

“Did we get separated?” Hyrule asks.

“It’s never happened before –”

From downstairs, there’s a muffled patter of small footsteps on stone.

Wind lights up. “Four! Is that you?”

The sound stops abruptly.

No one comes up the stairs; no one answers Wind’s call. Wind scowls and heads for the landing, intent on flinging himself down them in pursuit.

“Wait.” Wind freezes at Warriors’ sharp tone. “Something’s not right.”

“Well yeah, Four’s not answering us! What if he’s hurt?”

“It’s more than that.” Warriors casts an eye over the sitting room, now mostly set to rights. He can’t put his finger on it.

“Ah think yer imaginin’ things, captain.”

“No, he’s… I think he’s right.” Sky tugs at his sailcloth. “This place… doesn’t feel right. It’s too empty.”

“It’s a small room with eight people in it, how empty can it be?” says Legend, pulling his foot out from under Wild’s. But his expression is guarded. He feels it too.

“Whatever’s going on, we need to be careful.” Wars checks the group over again, ignoring the skip in his heart when Four’s colourful tunic doesn’t appear. He knows Four’s missing. This isn’t new information. “Ledge, can you take point? Everyone else – just be careful, and be ready for anything.”

The shop is just as eerily still and empty as the upstairs. There’s no sign of whoever had made the footsteps.

“Okay, lil’ creeped out now,” says Twilight.

They spread out, scanning the displays for some sort of clue. Hyrule checks the windows. Legend is scanning the weaponry with a disinterested eye – it’s all typical fare for the blacksmith’s forge shop, nothing that stands out. Short swords, daggers, several types of spear, all hung from hooks in the walls or laid out on tables.

On a shelf that was probably supposed to be high enough to ward off small and sticky fingers, Wind is entranced by something.

“Is this a portrait? It’s so tiny.”

The moment Wind picks up the palm-sized frame the room melts around them.

“Dottie! Dot, Dot, Dot!”

Four’s laughter is high pitched and childish and unmistakeable. Another voice laughs with him. The air is warm and thick, bright with noonday sun and butterflies, as two tiny children chase each other across a field of wildflowers.

Wind drops the picture and everything stops.

They’re back in the empty shop, still and silent and suffused with golden afternoon light.

“The fuck was that?” Legend demands, holding Hyrule up where he’s trying to collapse in a ball.

Wild makes a horrible strained noise that has Twilight by his side in an instant.

“Okay, no one touch anything,” Warriors orders, too little too late. Everyone’s already moved as far away from the loose objects in the room as possible. “Wind, what was that?”

Wind scrubs at his eyes, then his arms, then his eyes again. “I don’t –” he tries, voice barely audible, before he clears his throat and tries again. “I don’t… know? I just – wanted to look at the pictograph…”

“Four’s time doesn’t have pictographs, does it?” Twilight asks. Wild still looks a little white around the eyes, but he nods agreement.

Warriors absolutely doesn’t want to get closer to the thing than necessary, but he needs to see if it’s a cursed artifact or something. Preferably without touching it. Fortunately, it had landed face up when Wind dropped it.

It does look like a pictograph, though, or a tiny and very well-painted portrait. A tiny Four and a tiny Zelda are frozen mid-laugh in an eerily familiar field. To all appearances, it’s a simple portrait of a simple time. There’s no runes, no gems, no sense of ominous weight to it.

So how the fuck had it cast all eight of them, most not even touching the thing, into such a strong illusion?

Beside him, Legend grimaces: he’s also stumped.

“I don’t think there’s anything else here, captain,” he says in a low voice. “Check the forge, maybe?”

“If someone was working in there, there would be a lot more noise,” Warriors murmurs back, but he heads over anyway. Legend’s right, they should clear the house completely before moving outside.

Wars shoulders open the heavy door to the forge itself, and relaxes when he spots Four’s familiar figure standing by the anvil. “Four, there you are! Why didn’t you answer us?”

The smithy squeaks in surprise and whirls round, and –

He doesn’t look right.

It’s not just the lack of recognition. His face is too round, his eyes too large and too blue, his hair a mop of windswept fluff. He looks – nervous. Confused. Young, in a way Four usually doesn’t despite his small frame and youthful features. He’s clinging to a forge hammer, the tool clutched tight to his chest, and he flinches and skitters away when Sky raises a hand in greeting.

The tunic’s not right either, Warriors realises, too late. It’s all of one colour, scarlet except for black scorch marks here and there and streaks of ash like the ones on his face. He’d clearly been working recently, though the forge fire is dead and cold.

Sky gentles his approach. “Hi. We didn’t mean to scare you, sorry. We’re a noisy lot sometimes.” He tries to wave the others off discreetly.

The boy blinks at him, but doesn’t make a sound. The hammer inches higher, closer to his face, like he can maybe hide behind it.

“We’re travelling, and we think we got a bit lost. Do you think you could help point us in the right direction?” Sky waves more insistently and Twilight wanders back into the shop, followed by Wild, Legend, and eventually Time, who had visibly had to think about it before realising his massive armour-plated frame might be intimidating to a small child who doesn’t seem to know them. The smithy-lookalike relaxes incrementally as the forge empties and the doorway clears, and he stops holding the hammer quite so much like a weapon instead of a tool.

In answer to Sky’s question, he slowly nods.

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you. Do you live here?”

He catches his lower lip between his teeth and visibly thinks about whether or not to answer before nodding again.

“That’s good! If you live here, then you probably know how to get to Hyrule Town, right?”

He nods more readily this time.

“Great! That’s where we’re trying to go! So… hmm, how to do this…” Sky makes a show of tapping his finger against his chin in thought. “So… should we go south, across the river?”

That gets a little smile and a head-shake.

“Should we go east, through the woods?”

He giggles, and shakes his head again.

The barred door in the back of the forge bangs. Like something on the other side of it had slammed into the wood, hard.

The clamour of the hammer hitting stone adds to the racket as the little smithy in red startles. All the progress Sky had made in reaching out to him is gone in an instant: he glances back and forth between them and the door, like he can’t decide which one is the bigger threat. He’s nearly hyperventilating.

“Hey, hey, are you okay?” Sky says. “Is there something dangerous back there? Do you need help?”

The door bangs again, and Four bolts.

“Shit!” Warriors says.

“Legend will catch him,” says Hyrule.

“No, he’s gone,” says Legend, popping his head back in. “He’s damn fast. Was he wearing pegasus boots?”

“Not that I could see. You must be getting slow, vet.” Warriors doesn’t have his heart in the teasing; he’s more focused on the door in the back of the forge. It hasn’t made any more ominous noises, and is standing just as silent and unobtrusive as before. “Weapons out, everyone,” he warns, moving to shift the heavy bar out of its housing.

Sky protests. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. You saw how scared he was.”

“What if it’s what we’re here to deal with?” Warriors points out. “We don’t know where the kid went, but if we take down this monster now at least it won’t be able to go after him.”

Sky grimaces but this time doesn’t stop him.

Warriors heaves the bar up and off to the side, secures it so no one will get cracked in the head, and checks to make sure the others are close behind him. “Weapons ready,” he warns, drawing his own.

Then he throws the door open.

Nothing rushes them. It’s just the stretch of land behind the forge, the well, the woodpile, the vegetable patch.

Like the sitting room, like the forge, something about the landscape feels subtly wrong.

Maybe it’s the mist hanging over the field, clinging to the worn wooden fence and trailing into the dark Minish Woods beyond. Maybe it’s the trees themselves, growing thick in places Warriors would swear are kept clear. Maybe it’s the sky overhead, which is a blue so dull it’s almost colourless, and only adds to the gloom.

The mist is deceiving. As they step outside, it seems to creep closer, curling around their boots like it’s alive. Wars squints, trying to make out the details of the scarecrow that always sits in the vegetable patch, and can only see a hazy silhouette. The thick grey swirling around it is messing with his perception – Wars almost thinks he can see the thing move. “Stay close,” he orders, “I don’t want to lose anyone.”

“Are the trees always that close?” he hears Wind ask from behind him. “I thought there was more, like, empty space out here. Four said he used it for sword drills.”

Honestly, Warriors isn’t sure. They’ve only visited Four’s time once, and he’d been more focused on the black-blooded monsters in the south than the topography of Four’s homestead.

He thinks they’re about halfway to the fenceline when a voice rings out, sharp and angry, and makes them all freeze in place. “Who are you? You’re not supposed to be here.”

The mist draws back, and Warriors realises the shadow hadn’t been the scarecrow at all.

They’ve found Four, though his clothes have changed to a blue set with grass-stains instead of scorch marks. He’s also now carrying a sword instead of a hammer, which is not an improvement.

Suspicion hardens his face. He looks older than the Four in red they’d seen.

There’s still no recognition.

Warriors turns on the charm and sheathes his sword, trusting the others to watch his back. “Ho, there! We heard something back here and were worried it was a monster!”

The boy just glares. “Go away. You’re not allowed to be here.”

Time moves up to stand beside him. Immediately the boy shifts to block him from coming further, shoulders gone tight and eyes suddenly bright and lips drawing back from teeth. There’s nothing behind him but empty field, but Warriors gets the feeling the boy is protecting something. There’s desperation in the grip of his sword, fear in his teeth.

Sky raises his hands, trying to ease the tension. “We’re not here to hurt anyone, we’re just – we think we’re a little lost, maybe, and –”

“No. Go away.”

His feet shift and brace; abruptly his stance isn’t just defensive, it’s dangerous. He knows how to use the sword he’s holding.

“Okay, okay, we’re not looking for a fight,” Sky says quickly. “You want us to leave? We’ll go. Is it okay if we go that way?” He points down the side of the house, towards the south.

The boy eyes them, tense and suspicious. “Don’t care,” he says at last, “just leave.”

“Okay, we’re going,” Sky soothes.

No one’s willing to turn their backs on an agitated child with a sword, so at first their retreat is a lot of stepping backwards and trying not to trip over each other. Wars leaves himself at the rear of the pack, ready to draw and block any panicked strikes.

Once they cross some invisible line, the boy’s shoulders relax.

As they head around the house towards the woods, Blue Four turns away completely. He’s looking out towards the woods, across the field of mist and fog and empty ground.

Warriors wonders what he sees.

Then they pass the treeline and he’s out of view.

The fog is less heavy in the trees. It still swirls around their feet, mischievous and creeping, but the thick banks are broken up by the weight of the trunks. Visibility’s much better.

It still doesn’t feel right.

They all jump when Wind says, “Something weird’s going on here.”

“What was your first clue?” Legend’s grumbling does a poor job of hiding how unsettled he is.

Wind ignores the sarcasm. “This looks like Four’s house, but things are just different enough to be – creepy. And it doesn’t feel right. We’ve seen Four multiple times and – he doesn’t recognise us, and he doesn’t look right, either.”

Hyrule bites his lip. “I think – you remember when Wind picked up that portrait?”

Everyone shudders a bit. That had not been a pleasant sensation.

“What about it?” says Legend.

“I think – he isn’t Four. Not yet.”

Sky looks back over his shoulder, at the field where a Four in a blue tunic had snarled and spat and refused to move, defending a patch of empty space.

“I think we’re seeing Four’s memories.”

“That’s why he looks so young,” Wars says, eyes sharp.

Legend snorts. “How much younger can he be when he looks like he hasn’t grown at all?”

“Four’s always been kind of weird about that, though.”

“He once said t’me it was a side-effect of magic,” Twilight offers.

“So if that’s the case – we’re in a construct of Four’s memories, somehow – how do we get out?” Sky says.

Hyrule grimaces. “Honestly, I was hoping you guys would have some ideas.”

“I can think of a few.” Legend’s hand is resting thoughtfully on his belt pouch. “They’re probably a bit scorched-earth, though.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna vote to set Four’s mind on fire,” says Hyrule dryly.

“I think we should just keep going.” Twilight shrugs at their looks. “B’fore we get too drastic. There’s a lot we haven’t seen, an’ we might find an answer.”

“It’s as good an idea as any,” Time says. “We’ll see where this path leads us. But everyone, keep your guards up.”

They haven’t gone far at all when Twilight hesitates, frowning.

Wild looks back at him. “Twilight?”

“…I think I see something.”

Twilight has a good eye, luckily, because Four’s wearing green now and is well camouflaged in the trees. It looks like he’d been practising archery, from the brightly-painted targets hung at various heights on various branches.

Twilight heads over to talk to him. “Hullo –”

His bow’s unstrung. He doesn’t even try for it, instead using it like he would a blade – sweeping it out as an extension of his arm. Twilight scrambles out of the way. Even without a cutting edge, that hard yew branch would sting.

They stare at each other for a long moment.

“You’re not meant to be here,” the boy says. He’s wary, like the Four in blue, but the harshness of it isn’t there.

“We know,” Twilight agrees, and that takes a bit of the wariness out of him. “We’re lookin’ fer the way out, is all. Think y’could steer us in th’ right direction?”

“Oh. That’s… probably not something I can help with. Sorry.”

He’s more talkative than Red Four, and more cooperative than Blue Four. Twilight presses the advantage.

“Is there anythin’ you can tell us? ‘Bout where we are, maybe? We’re pretty lost right now, an’ we dunno where to go next.”

“N-not really. Sorry.”

“Not anything?” Sky wheedles. “You must go to Hyrule Town sometimes.”

Green Four blinks at him. “Why would I? I can’t leave.”

“What do you mean, you can’t leave?” Wind asks. “Why not?”

Green Four shakes his head. “Because outside of this place, I don’t exist.”

With that alarming statement, he proceeds to ignore them and go about restringing his bow.

“What do you mean?” Twilight tries. “What place do you mean - where are we?”

Sky pushes as well, eyes dark with concern. “What do you mean, you don’t exist? Did someone tell you that?”

He looks over his shoulder at them, raising one golden brow. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

That’s all they get out of him. He goes back to shooting targets, doing a very good job of pretending he can’t hear Legend’s rapidly burning fuse.

Time stops him from doing anything.

“He’s clearly done with us,” he says quietly, “and I don’t want to break whatever – truce we seem to have going. They haven’t attacked us yet and I’d like it to stay that way. Who knows what will happen if something here gets damaged?”

Legend has to concede there.

They leave Green Four to his practice, and keep going.

They pass through a gate hanging by one rusty hinge, the fenceline bordering the forge property. Wind taps the gatepost absently as he passes it. “How far is it to the bridge south?” he asks. “I don’t remember much of last time.”

“With the fever you came down with I’m surprised you remember anything,” says Wars. “It’s not far to the river – less than half an hour.”

Wind hums assent. Most of that week is a bit of a blur for him – he barely remembers making it to Four’s house the first time, and the others tell him he was still perfectly well then. It wasn’t until they were deep in the Castor Wilds that his fever had started to burn, and by that time they were too far away to turn back.

…he’s pretty sure the trees shouldn’t be thinning out this soon, though.

Like entering the woods in reverse, the fog gets thicker as they near the edge, the trees spreading out and the path opening up to reveal –

The house they’d been walking away from.

Time stops short.

“Mm, don’t like that,” Warriors remarks from just behind him. Wind steps forward to poke at the wooden gate in disbelief, while Legend turns a resigned look on the woods themselves.

“I don’t know why we thought that would work.”

“We must have taken a wrong turn,” Time murmurs with a frown. “The forest in Four’s time has always been somewhat fae, but we had him to lead us before. I’ll pay more attention this time.”

They turn away from the fence and the little house in the mist, ready to try again. Warriors plants a hand on the nearest tree –

Black. Glass shattering. Four screaming, and screaming, and screaming –

Warriors yanks his hand back.

“Don’t do that,” says Sky, face pale.

“But the fence didn’t do anything!” Wind blurts out in panic.

“And thank fuck for that,” Legend mutters.

“Or the doors, for that matter.” Wars is shaking out his hand like it hurts. Wind knows from experience it doesn’t, but something in the contact is so very other that it feels like it leaves a residue, cold and prickly. “Whatever the case, lesson learned: don’t touch the trees.”

“Yeah, that’s not a good idea.”

Wind nearly leaps out of his skin. Sitting on the wooden fence where he hadn’t been a moment ago, Red Four blinks at them, wide-eyed and innocent.

Legend is muffling his cursing into a hand, clutching at his chest melodramatically with the other. Time looks like he’s experiencing the five stages of grief simultaneously. Sky, by contrast, just looks relieved, and like he’d hug him if he didn’t think the boy would flee again.

“I’m so glad you’re okay! Whatever was making that scary noise didn’t hurt you, did it?”

Red Four makes a noncommittal noise. “I’m fine. Nothing can hurt me here. But the woods are where the bad things are. You gotta be real careful, if you’re gonna go out there.”

“Do you know the way through?” Wars asks. “Could you lead us?”

Red Four’s eyes go big and he rapidly shakes his head. “No way! It’s scary out there!”

As if afraid one of them will drag him into the woods, he throws himself from the fence and –

– vanishes.

“I guess Hyrule was right,” says Legend, into the shocked silence that follows. “They really are just… memories. Rulie, how’d you know?”

“They’re all too young,” Hyrule says quietly. “It’s in their eyes, the way they move – Four has confidence they don’t. They’re – he’s scared, every time he sees us. When Four met us for the first time he just laughed, and demanded a closer look at our weapons.”

“We have to find real Four, then. He’s gotta be here somewhere.”

They’ve hardly explored the whole property, even discounting the (terrifying) woods beyond the boundary fence. Legend and Warriors briefly argue over whether to split up – “It’s more efficient!” “It’s dangerous!” – until Time vetoes them, insisting that no one else is getting lost today and that’s final.

They’ve already been over the vegetable patch, and the woods to the east. They’ll work their way around towards the west, and see what else there is to find, before braving the path to the north. Wind isn’t feeling too hopeful about their chances of making it all the way to Hyrule Town, when the southern road had spat them back out at Four’s house.

Knowing that the trees might be hidden memories makes them all tense. Wind doesn’t like it. Nobody talks, too intent on watching where their feet go, and keeping an eye out in hopes of catching sight of Four’s brightly coloured tunic. It’s so quiet it’s making his ears hum.

It takes a while to realise that what he’s hearing is actually music.

Tuneless, aimless; it’s not a song being played, just an exploration of melody floating high and sweet on the wind. Sometimes it holds a note for long seconds, what he’d initially mistaken for a ringing in his ears; other times it runs down scales like water falling down a cliff, then back up again like a swabbie in the rigging.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Legend growls.

Following the music at least gives them some direction. The trees look the same as ever, everyone careful not to brush too close, until they abruptly end in a clearing around a large, pale stone. On top of the stone sits Four, clad in dark purple, playing a golden ocarina.

It’s still not their Four, Wind realises with a pang. The clothes were a hint, but the face is the real giveaway: solemn, sad, and unexpressive, even as eight heavily armed strangers walk up to him.

He draws out the last note, wavering and plaintive, before slowly lowering the instrument. He doesn’t speak.

Sky steps forward. So far, he’s had the most luck interacting with the younger incarnations of Four. “Sorry to bother you. We’re a little lost, and we’re looking for our friend. You probably don’t know us yet, but –”

Purple Four’s brow creases. “What are you talking about?” Even his voice is wrong. Too flat, too quiet; all the life drained out of it and left to exist as a shadow of itself.

Sky tries a smile. “We’ve seen you all over, in different places around here, but it’s okay if you don’t remember us –”

“Stop.” Purple Four sighs, the most emotion they’ve seen out of him yet. “I didn’t expect you to be this stupid.”

He leans over and plucks up a framed portrait from the mantle.

Wind doubles over. His eyes are vibrating. Four had just – reached – and the shelf was right there under his fingers but they were still outside, sun warming their skin, mist underfoot, trees leaning heavy over their shoulders. It is so much worse than the woods looping back on themselves.

Purple Four waits for them to get over the disorientation, neither amused nor concerned, then holds out the picture to show them.

It’s… all four Fours, together, in the same image. Not as if they’d been spliced together, but – tangled together, pressed close and smiling, like friends, or siblings.

All together like this, it’s easier to see the differences between them. Not the clothes, quickly and easily changed, but… the shapes of their mouths and noses and eyes, the subtle shifts in colour, so easy to overlook. The paleness of the purple Four’s skin and hair, the honeyed tone to the blue one’s pin-straight locks, the curls escaping from under a red cap.

They look happy.

“You’re not Four,” Sky says, “are you?”

The boy in purple blinks, slowly. “No. I’m not.”

“So then, what’s your name?”

“You can call me Vio.”

“The other Fours we’ve seen – they’re not Four either, are they?”

Vio looks at Sky, eyes heavy and dark. “No. They’re not.”

Wind – doesn’t understand. Sky’s going all gentle, in a way he hadn’t even with terrified Red Four, and Twilight just looks sad.

“Four’s your brother, isn’t he?”

“Correct.”

Wind blinks, and tries to look him – Vio? – over with fresh, non-Four-tuned eyes. But… he really does look like Four. Same height, same face, same hair. Were they twins? He’d seen that once on Windfall, two little girls who’d looked the same and dressed the same and laughed the same tinkling laugh. But what did that mean for the other three, who also looked so much like Four?

“If you’re Four’s brother,” he says slowly, “why haven’t we ever met you before?”

“Because I’m dead,” says Vio, too calmly.

Wind goes cold.

He misses the next part of the exchange – ears ringing for real, vision greying at the edges – and has to blink himself back to reality.

Vio raises an eyebrow at whatever Sky had last said. “I have been for years. Same as Red, Green, and Blue.”

For a moment Wind thinks Legend will make a comment about the names, but he stays quiet.

The thought comes to him, Not even the snarky veteran will make fun of the names of four dead children, and he abruptly feels lightheaded again. Have been for years, and Four is just sixteen – how old were his brothers when they died?

“I’m sorry,” Sky says, quiet and sombre.

“What for? It’s not your fault.”

“I’m still allowed to be sad that you died,” says Sky.

“You never even knew us.” Vio’s frowning again, the same light crease of his brow.

“But I know you now. I’m talking to you now, and I’m sorry you died.”

“I’m just a memory, like everything else here.” The boy gestures with the ocarina, and Wind remembers the portrait. Tiny Four laughing in the sun. Wars touching a tree, and the sound of glass breaking. “We’re his memories of us. Who we were, how we spoke, the things that we could do. We’re not real. Just echoes of people who used to exist.”

He looks down at the ocarina, fingers drifting restlessly over the holes.

“I’m not even close to being real. I may as well have never existed, for all history remembers of me.”

“But Four remembers you,” says Time quietly. “He remembers you so well you have a permanent home in his mind.”

Vio’s expression tightens. Instead of responding, he draws into himself, pulling the ocarina to his lips and playing a short phrase, then repeating it. It’s almost a nervous tick, like someone playing with their hair or worrying at their tunic.

Time sighs, sounding every inch the old man they call him. “Vio. You seem to – know more than the other three. Is there any chance you know where Four is right now? We haven’t been able to find him.”

Vio pauses halfway through a note. “But he’s here.”

Wind glances around in confusion; Time frowns. “What do you mean?”

He gestures with the instrument. “He’s everywhere. You’re inside his memory palace, where else would he be?”

Twilight exchanges a concerned look with Time. Finding current-time Four had been their last idea.

“Then… how do we get out?”

Vio’s eyes rest on them, dark and inscrutable. “How, indeed?” He lifts the ocarina and begins to play once more.