Chapter Text
“Uncle, I’m going to Syrup’s. Need anything?”
Uncle Alphonse thinks for a moment. Standing in the doorway, Link can’t see into the kitchen, but he can hear the drumming of fingers on a table, and he knows well enough what it sounds like when his old man is deciding on something. He’s only made to wait a few more moments before Uncle calls, “Red potion.”
“Got it.”
Link heads out, shutting the door softly behind him. He’d been so ecstatic to hear that his wish on the Triforce to bring his old man back worked that he only noticed later it wasn’t without consequence. Healing items were becoming more and more of a frequent purchase for the aches and pains that so often flared up.
Link checks his small pouch for his bottles and finds none. Oh, Hylia, he must have left them in his big bag.
It feels a little foolish to walk back in right after saying he’d leave, but Uncle would be the last to judge. Link cracks the door open and contemplates. He ought to take his boots off, but the room is right there… no, he doesn’t need to. This is a short enough trip. He rushes through the open space of the living room, boots making a clack on the floor as he runs, and he cringes when he feels his uncle’s stare from the table.
Some time ago, Uncle would have scolded him. It was his first rule to never wear shoes in the house, after all, but now, Link makes it to his room without any comment his way. He briefly digs through his bag for the bottles he needs.
Damnit, he thinks when he can’t find them. They must be at the bottom somewhere. Feeling a little antsy to leave, he doesn’t bother looking through the rest, just tossing the bag over his shoulder and going back out. Still no comment from Uncle.
It’s a beautiful morning, he can admit. Clouds dot the sky and nearly-ripe apples hang from the tree in front of their house. Link makes a mental reminder to harvest them soon.
He doesn’t dare take the route by the castle to Syrup’s, no matter how much faster it is. The soldiers are still recovering from the effects of Agahnim’s magic, and he’s been attacked in confusion more than once.
Over the bridge he kicks his heels into the ground to jolt his Pegasus boots into motion. Out of habit he reaches towards his back for his sword as he takes off.
Link puts his hand back down, though. He doesn’t need to do that anymore. And the world blurs around him as he sprints through the abandoned mining project, rushing past the yet-uncleared mounds of dirt. In no time at all he skids to a stop in front of the potion shop– and he doesn’t even fall this time! Hah, if Maple were out to see that, she’d be impressed. She isn’t, though, so maybe he’ll just tell her about it once he gets inside.
While his Pegasus boots whir down, he tries to fix his hair and tunic a little. Syrup always does tut over him when he’s not tidy.
The inside of the shop smells strongly of mushrooms and magic powder. Link wrinkles his nose.
Still, he waves at Maple and drops his bag on the ground, kneeling to rummage through it for the bottles.
“Hi, Link!” Maple greets. “You’re here for a refill?”
“Yeah. And an extra red potion.”
“Your uncle again?”
“Mhm.”
Link doesn’t elaborate. Maple doesn’t take it personally. She never did, and she never avoided him the way most of the other villagers did when the princess kidnapping signs went up either. It was beyond relieving to have someone who would just let him point to the right cauldron and pull out the right amount of rupees when his nerves were too frayed to speak.
His fingers close around glass. There they are! He pulls the first container out in victory, then finds the rest of them right beside it.
Maple motions for the bottles and Link hands over the four of them. She ladles some blue potion for the first, green for the second, and red for the third, awkwardly clutching them with her elbow instead of putting them down.
“Where’s Syrup?” the pink-haired hero asks idly.
Maple shrugs. “Said she wanted to stretch her legs. She’s gonna be back in a few hours.” She fills the last bottle with red potion and nearly drops a green one, barely managing to catch it– and then finally shuffles over to the counter, sighing in relief when she puts them all down without spilling. Link is already fishing out the amount of money he needs from his pouch, but Maple interrupts.
“Hey, take the blue and green ones free,” she says.
He blinks. “Why?”
“Syrup mentioned she felt bad about not giving you a birthday present. She’d probably want me to do this anyway.”
“But… my birthday was last week.”
“Yeah, and you didn’t come in last week. Give me fifteen rupees, no more, no less. And how old even are you now? Ten?”
Link rolls his eyes.
“I’m eleven. Thanks for the discount.” He hands over the coins and corks the bottles, stuffing them back in his bag. “See you around.”
Maple waves.
Alright, well, now that he’s out and about here he might as well pay a visit to the old man on the mountain. It won’t take too long with the Weatherbird. He secures his bag over his shoulder and pulls out his ocarina, playing the short tune, and within a few moments the large white bird swoops down towards him. He winces a little when its talons close around his forearm, but points it towards the mountain nonetheless.
It chirrups and takes off. Link can’t help but smile. He’d been downright terrified the first time it picked him up.
They coast over a few trees, and Link’s leg scrapes against some of the branches. The bird goes higher.
The world is quieter up here.
He can see so much. The world had been so huge on his adventure, filled at every corner with monsters and soldiers, and even though he hadn’t been much smaller than he is now, it still seemed so much bigger than him. People mill about now, usually just the lone traveler or two, but as they travel further north, Link catches sight of strangers on the path by Sanctuary.
A frown crosses his face. He knows everyone who lives here. Immigration and travel pretty much stopped a few months after his uncle arrived, what with the political unrest, so tourists are rare– and yet, here are one, two, three, four… nine strangers all walking together along the trail. Armed.
One of them, and he’s wearing a red tunic, now that Link’s closer, veers off from the rest. One of them wearing green stops to watch him questioningly, but he waves them off, gesturing for them to continue. Link tugs on the Weatherbird’s foot. Let me down.
It chirps again and angles its wings to bank right, setting him down gently in a rogue swath of trees and bushes along the path. The hero barely has time to say thank you before it flies off again, and now, rubbing at his sore arm, he crouches behind the foliage. The ninth one is checking around the front of Sanctuary, but Link doesn’t want to risk losing the others by interrogating him, so he stays still and keeps his eyes on the eight. Hey, that red tunic looks like my Red Mail… wait, no, focus!
He has to strain his ears to hear, but he can just manage to catch the strangers’ voices from this distance.
“...And we don’t even know where it’ll be,” the one with long hair complains.
“It seems like there’s going to be somewhere indoors we can stay this time, though,” The one in a multicolored tunic hums.
“And with any luck, the Vet will get us in the castle.”
Link bristles. The castle? The one in the scarf is saying something about an audience with the princess, but Link’s not about to let this slide. The knights are in no state to be protecting her right now, and Link’s not half bad with a sword himself.
If there’s anyone who’s gonna stop them, it’s me!
Without thinking past that he leaps out of his hiding place, squarely blocking their path and leveling his blade at them.
“What do you want with the princess?” he demands, jabbing the sword in the air for effect.
For a moment they all just stare at him, varying degrees of confusion on their faces. Link takes this time to really process the fact that all of them are armed. And all of them are adults, save for maybe the two in the back.
He starts to sweat a little. Oh, Hylia, this was not smart, but he can’t back out!
“Any time now!” he calls, trying to make himself bigger. Uncle’s good at this intimidation thing, and that’s a thing he does, right? Right? It seems to snap them out of their stupor.
A few of them try to speak at once.
“We’re a group of–”
“Kid, we’re just trying to–”
“It’s nothing dangerous, don’t–”
The one in a long white cape clears his throat. The others step back to let him speak. And though he makes a placating gesture, holding his hands up to show he’s unarmed, Link doesn’t lower his sword. Instead he steels his glare.
“Listen, er, are you Link?”
“Doesn’t matter. I asked, what do you want with the princess!”
A patient sigh. “We don’t want to hurt her. We’re just a group of travelers, and we’d like an audience with–”
And he doesn’t even get that sentence out, because the shortest one in blue shouts something about an era switch. Which Link doesn’t really listen to, because there is the loud noise of a giant swirling evil portal whirling into existence right under their feet.
Red Tunic from earlier shouts something too, running towards them.
Before Link can think to do anything– shout for help, run, escape, do anything– it swallows him whole. The last thing he sees is the other eight meeting the same fate as him.
“Oww…” Wind groans, pushing himself back onto his feet and dusting his knees off. They’ve been dropped in the middle of a swamp… and also that small pink-haired child is hauling himself up from the ground a few feet away.
What?
Wind needs to do a quick double take to make sure he sees exactly what he’s seeing. The kid is just a little shorter than him, Four’s height, wearing a blue-and-gold tunic, with fluffy pink hair and a long yellow hat. A reflective shield is strapped to his back and a fiery orange sword is grasped in his hand– and, oh yeah, it already took him about three seconds to notice that’s Legend’s Master Sword and Mirror Shield. So either this kid is an avid fan of the veteran hero, or this little pink-headed squirt practically half Wind’s size is…
Well, Legend did refuse to explain why his hair was pink that one time.
They are time traveling, Wind supposes. They’ve seen stranger things.
The kid shakes his head to clear out the disorientation from being launched into an entirely different time period, and with impressive reaction time, looks around, staggers to his feet, and raises his sword again. (He only stumbles backwards a little bit, too. Better than Wind the first time.)
“Who are you?” he demands sharply, hefting his blade in front of him defensively and unstrapping his shield. It doesn’t take a detective to tell he’s frightened. He’s backing up and his eyes are flitting around the clearing he’s been dropped in, and also, by Hylia, is this kid’s voice higher pitched than Wind’s. “And– and where did you take me?”
The rest of his companions’ eyes, if they hadn’t already been, zero in on the kid again, all other priorities forgotten.
So… who’s telling him?
“Answer me!”
Twilight recovers first. “It’ll likely sound ridiculous, but we’re heroes from across time.”
“The Vet’s gone,” Wild whispers.
Four elbows him. “Not now.”
The kid doesn’t move. He strikes the ground with the heel of one of his boots, then the other. The telltale whirring-buzzing they hear when Legend’s Pegasus boots activate starts to fill the air. “Bullshit. T–tell me the truth! I didn’t kidnap her, Agahnim’s dead already, and you won’t get some prize for my head. The princess even gave me a royal pardon, so if this is some– some gambit for the reward, you’re not getting anything!”
Warriors’ eyes widen; he steps forward as well, something about that speech clearly being recognized. “We can prove it.” Young Legend backs away another step in alarm.
Time pulls off his bracer before he can bolt. Twilight and Warriors do the same with their own gauntlets, showing their Triforces of Courage; Sky and Four show their markings next. The holy symbol glitters in the light.
Wind stays silent, gauging the kid’s reaction. He only gets one after a moment of stunned silence.
“You can’t… you can’t fake that,” he whispers to himself, sword wavering. “...but…” He directs his next words at them. “That’s not possible,” the kid says fiercely. “Who are you really? I’m not breaking any laws, I have a pardon from Zelda herself, and you–” his voice starts to rise in volume as he jabs the sword towards Warriors, accusing. “You tell me what you’re playing at!” he demands.
It’s Hyrule that steps forward, handing his own blade off to Four.
He clears his throat and walks right up to the boy, who points his Master Sword at him instead. The traveler doesn’t flinch; he uses a hand to simply push it away and Link lets him, looking uncertain. He crouches to speak to the kid– that’s a younger Legend, right? They don’t need to keep pretending they don’t know who that is, right?– in low tones. Wind can’t make out what he says, but Hyrule gestures at himself, then at Time and Sky. He points out each of the other heroes and Young Legend’s eyes rake over each as they’re presumably being described. At Four, his eyes light up in… recognition? And to Wind’s shock, the kid’s stance loses its wiry tension. His sword lowers.
After a few more moments of quiet speaking, Hyrule stands. The sailor is dying to know what he said.
“Do you want me to introduce you?” the traveler asks, finally speaking loud enough for Wind to hear.
A stubborn head shake.
“I’m Link,” the kid announces hesitantly, addressing everyone. “Is it true that you don’t know my– what the knights are after me for?”
“No.”
“Nope.”
“Nuh uh.”
The rest of the group chimes in with their unanimous no’s. And finally, after a few more scrutinizing moments, Link sheathes his sword.
“We’re in Castor Wilds.”
Everyone looks at Four, who shrugs. “No shot we get out of here before nighttime.”
“And, uh, I know this isn’t our priority right now, but the Vet’s missing,” Wild reports. Link narrows his eyes distrustfully at him.
“Vet?” Link questions, tone acidic again. “He’s the one who was looking at the Sanctuary before we all got dropped here.”
“We’ll explain soon,” Twilight offers. “For now, let’s set up a camp. We’re stuck here for the day, right?”
Four nods.
It’s now that Wind thinks to take notes of his surroundings. They are in a swamp, muddy and gross and damp, and the sun is a few degrees below the middle of the horizon. Afternoon. The smithy directs them towards a pile of rocks that seem to indicate a path, and off they go. Link loiters behind Hyrule the whole time, and Hyrule walks at the very back. Wind slows his pace until he’s walking by them.
“So… hero, huh?”
Link crosses his arms. “Yeah. Got a problem?”
“No, no, that’s an accomplishment.” Wind wonders if the kid has any titles yet. He tries to make more small talk, and only gets the kid to loosen up a little in his answers– but still, progress is progress.
When, after one very awkward hour of wandering through the swamp, they find a cleft in a tall, rocky wall to set up in, Wind elbows Hyrule while Young Legend wanders off ahead to inspect the area. “What did you say to him?” Wind asks, impressed.
Hyrule rolls his eyes. “I didn’t tell him some secret password. I just explained him the whole situation, pointed out how Sky and Four look just like the heroes in his history books, and promised on my honor that I wouldn’t let any of you hurt him.”
“Huh.”
Hyrule heads off without speaking again to help the others with camp setup, and Wind joins Warriors in grumbling about the lack of an inn for the night. Link loiters away from them all, but after a little while, he helps Four set up a dry place to put the bedrolls.
Wild starts a fire, flicking through his Slate for materials. It gets chillier as the sun goes down.
It doesn’t take long for all nine of them to be sitting around the fire. Conversation is quiet, made awkward by the new (not-really-new) hero in their ranks. Wind’s going to give Legend shit for hours when the Vet gets back. His hair really was naturally pink! Lying bastard.
Four breaks the silence when Wild hands out the soup, something meaty and delicious. “We’ve got nicknames,” the little hero says. “They’re mostly just our hero titles, or our jobs. I’m a smith, so while I’m the Hero of the Four Sword, they call me the Smithy.”
“And I’m the Hero of Winds!” Wind pitches in when Young Legend doesn’t say anything. “They call me Sailor.”
The rest of them add in with their own titles and nicknames.
“So, what’re you the hero of?” Twilight asks. That’s smart. Link might not be the Hero of Legend quite yet.
“Hero,” the kid repeats wonderingly, his practiced wariness dissolving with the word he just spoke clearly being unfamiliar on his tongue. “Well, Zelda– uh, Princess Zelda, that is– said she’s working on that. She called me the legendary hero one time. So did the maidens. Um, a while ago someone called me the hero of prophecy, even though I think the prophecy was about the one before me. A guy called me the hero of Hyrule.”
The traveler shakes his head. “That one’s taken, I’m afraid.”
“Pretty sure we’ve all been called the hero of Hyrule at some point, too,” Twilight points out wryly. He’s sitting right next to Wind, with Wild on his other side.
A snort. “I could change that.”
“If you actually decide to call the Surface ‘Grooseland,’ I’m going to kill you.”
“Sure, hero of Grooseland.”
“You said you’ve gotten a few titles,” Time says, refocusing their attention on the topic. “Which was your favorite?”
The kid thinks for a moment.
And then, to everyone’s surprise, he blushes. He clears his throat and looks away. “Well… Granny Marigold called me the Hero of Kakariko Village. That was kind of nice.”
Well, that’s just adorable.
“Awwwwwww,” Wild and Wind chorus. Twilight clamps his hands over their mouths. Baby Legend’s expression shutters closed again (though his face is still as pink as his hair), and that makes Wind feel bad. Not bad enough to not lick Twilight’s hand to get him to let go.
“Is that what you want us to call you?” the rancher asks, and then lets go of Wind and Wild to raise his hands defensively when the kid rounds on him all of a sudden.
“No!” he snaps, then realizes his mistake. He crosses his arms again, averting his eyes rather than acknowledging that outburst. “No. It’s Link. No hero title. You can call me Link the… knight-in-training if you want.”
“A knight?” Wind repeats, curious. He can’t help it– Legend’s so disdainful about knights. And he used to be a knight-in-training?
“...Not like I want to be. That’s just what I did before my whole quest started.”
“Why don’t we call you Rookie, then?” Warriors asks, a smile on his face.
“I don’t care.”
Hyrule elbows him. “Rookie?” he questions, quietly. Wind leans in from where he’s sitting at Hyrule’s side.
“It’s perfect! We’ve got the Veteran and the Rookie. Got anything better?”
“...Fair.”
But at the mention of their veteran, the mood dims. Though talk resumes and Link starts to drop his distrustful front a little, they all just know .
It’s Wind who whispers the question, later into the night. “What’re we gonna do about Legend? He’s just… gone.”
“He’s no pushover. He’ll be able to survive,” Sky reasons. “We were dropped in his time period, after all.”
“And if we never get back to him? Or he never gets back to us?”
Time’s blunt statement makes the other five pairs of eyes turn to him. Wind, Warriors, Sky, Four, and Hyrule all look uneasy at the suggestion. Four speaks up.
“It’s true. We don’t have any control over these time portals. It… could just leave him there.”
“This is planned,” Warriors says, not looking up from the fire. “It wants to isolate one of us. Easier to take out one hero than nine– and Legend’s a prime target, being the most experienced. Having him gone puts a dent in our power.”
There’s an uncomfortable pause.
“But there’s nothing we can do, is there? Other than hope he makes it out?” Sky asks.
Warriors sighs. “I think so.”
It’s at least a little understandable that Link refuses to sleep properly the first few days. He parks himself at the edge of their makeshift camps and watches them all warily, still distrustful.
The next day after the whole meeting fiasco they’re setting out to Four’s grandfather’s house. There’s a chance this is the right era and they’ll be able to get an actual place to stay, right? They start packing bright and early. Wind doesn’t expect much from the day. The mood’s still dampened by Legend’s absence. It’s a little funny; the guy sours the atmosphere when he’s here, and sours it when he’s gone. Wind’ll say, he much prefers the first.
Imagine his surprise when he’s rummaging around through his bag and hears the familiar quiet buzz of Pegasus boots. Specifically, Legend’s. Out of habit he expects the veteran to make some comment about how disorganized he is, or asking what he’s looking for. Instead, he hears–
“You’re a sailor, right?”
The unexpectedly high-pitched voice makes Wind startle– he whirls around, blinking wide-eyed at the kid for a moment before getting a handle on it. The kid looks cautious of him still, and when he’d just spoken he hadn’t sounded too friendly either.
“Oh. Yeah, I am. Pirate, actually, but why d’you ask?”
“Um… I want to learn some stuff about sailing. Or, boating, or whatever you call it.” Link says. He fiddles with his hands a little, and when he sees Wind notice the motion, tucks them behind his back. “Well?”
Wind can’t help but smile. This is obviously Sky’s or Hyrule’s doing, directing the kid in the sailor’s direction with a free conversation topic. The boy relaxes when Wind answers. “Sure. Let me get my waterskin out.”
He turns his back again to dig through his bag. He can hear the kid behind him getting closer, and the shadow over Wind tells him that the kid’s leaning over him, taking a look.
“Must be pretty disorganized compared to yours, huh?” the sailor chuckles.
“Huh? No, mine’s just as bad,” Link says.
That’s enough to make Wind’s hands pause. Legend, disorganized? His pack might be a nightmare for the rest of them to look through, but Legend’s always got a perfect track of where everything in it is. There’s some organization system he’s got that they can’t figure out, but it works. Once Warriors had stolen one of his Ice Rods to cool his water, and within a minute of checking his pack, Legend asked the captain if he took it.
Come to think of it, Legend hates sailing too. Not in the loud, grumbling way that he hates knights and whales, but in the kind of way that Wind knows not to pry about. Though he helps around the ship with no complaint, he’s quieter, and there are moments during the nights when his gaze drifts from tense and disturbed to uncomfortably distant as frequently as the waves hit the hull.
Wind finds the waterskin he’s looking for and pulls it out. No water, shame– he’ll have to ask Wild for some later. For now, he closes his bag and hangs onto it. Just so he doesn’t forget.
“What do you want to know?” Wind asks. He dusts his pants off and stands, hefting his bag over his shoulder. They’re planning to leave in a few minutes anyways.
“Umm… anything, I guess. I want to go to Holodrum or Labrynna soon, and seeing as Hyrule’s whole… political issues, there’s no big ships heading out.”
Huh. Makes sense. Legend did mention he went there. They check with everyone that they have all their things, and then Four starts to lead them through Castor Wilds again.
“Well…” Wind thinks for a moment. It’s pretty useless to try and teach actual ship work tricks when they’re on dry land, so he tries something else. “If your boat’s small, then something you wanna look out for is shipworm.”
“Shipworm?”
“Nasty things. They get into wood and dig holes in it, till it looks like a sponge and you can rip it up by hand. Fuckers will ruin anything wooden, so you’ve gotta get rid of ‘em when you see them.”
“How?” Link rushes a few paces ahead of Wind and turns around, walking backwards so he can watch Wind with interested eyes.
Wind chuckles, slowing his pace so it’s easier for Link to match his speed. “Well,” he says, leaning in a little for the theatrics– it’s not often he gets to entertain kids younger than him, and Link leans in as well like they’re both in on a secret– “I’m glad you asked. You can’t.”
Link looks alarmed, and Wind laughs again. “That’s right. All you can do is prevent them. Bigger ships do it by copper-plating their hulls, but since you haven’t got that kind of equipment, you’d need something more small-scale… Sometimes you can use fabrics that are crazy tightly-knit. And waterproofed. You seen Sky’s sailcloth? Pull on it, you can’t see any of the pores in the fabric. That’s the kind of thing you can cover wood in to stop the worms from getting in. ‘Long as it’s not in the water. Piling wrap works for docks and wooden beams… though when we get ‘em on Tetra’s ship we’ve just gotta replace the wood. You can’t let ‘em fester in there, ‘cause if they make the wood too fragile it’ll crumble under your feet. And–” Wind stops himself. Oh, he’s been rambling. “Sorry,” he says sheepishly, one hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck.
But when he looks back at the kid, he’s surprised to see him still looking at him, interest still in his eyes. “So I’ve just gotta replace it when I see it going bad?” he asks, eagerly.
“...Yeah. Where did you say you were– right, Labrynna and Holodrum,” Wind corrects himself. “How far are they from Hyrule?”
“Umm… not sure. I’ve got to ask Uncle.”
“You have an uncle?”
“Yeah.” the kid says. “He’s Labrynnan. I mean, my whole family is, but he came to Hyrule a few years before I was born.”
“...Huh.” He didn’t know Legend was Labrynnan.
“He tells me about the War of Time, or whatever it’s called over there. Apparently that’s why the oracles don’t work for the royal court, ‘cause that kind of magic got outlawed. Anyways, I heard about sea storms. What do you do about those?”
Wind thinks for a moment and smiles.
“Well, the best thing you can do is…”
They’re lucky.
It is Four’s era, and his grandfather lets them all stay in the house for as long as they need. Under the condition that he wouldn’t need to take care of the brunt of the cooking and housework– though between the nine of them, that’s a non-issue. Two days pass with intermittent investigations to ask around for any sightings for unnaturally powerful monsters, and on the third day it’s a quiet, peaceful afternoon.
Four has to say, it’s pretty impressive how quickly the kid managed to adapt to traveling around eight other people. He hangs out around Wind the most, but that’s probably because of how close they are in age. And… he’s terrible at keeping up his distrustful front. It’s a little endearing, a little concerning; Four certainly never would have warmed up to strangers this quickly. He supposes it’s a good thing they really do have no intentions to hurt him. At dinner, he talks about his adventures with no reservations; they’ve learned more about Legend’s first adventure in three days than Legend has told them over months.
“I can help with the cooking,” he offered to Wild once. The dish ended up being a little burnt and criminally over-sweetened, but not too bad.
“I could polish your sword for you,” he suggested to Twilight while he was cleaning up the rest of his metal gear. He didn’t do it right– there were visible swathes where he didn’t use as much polish, but it was clear he learned it from somewhere.
“Need me to do anything for you?” he asked Hyrule. Over and over. The traveler didn’t need it, but Le– Link insisted.
(No sign of Legend anywhere. But the veteran is beyond hardy enough to take care of himself. He’ll be fine. Right?)
The only people Link won’t talk to are Warriors and Time. The former, he’s almost hostile towards, giving Warriors irritated glares when he tries to interact. The latter, stiffly agreeing or disagreeing to things Time suggests.
The house is just outside of Castletown, and so on day three while the old man, rancher, and Skyloftian went out to search for sign of infected monsters again, the rest of the heroes decide to go stock up on their potions and groceries. Four declines. He likes those guys, sure, but he needs some time to himself.
And so they leave, and he waves them out from the front door. He shuts it behind him, going inside, and takes a deep breath.
…
…Time to himself isn’t productive enough.
That’s one of the colors’ exaggerated tendencies he’s picked up. Blue never could manage to sit still while there was work to be done… And besides, time spent working alone is still technically time spent alone. Grandpa mentioned something about back pain an hour ago and went to lie down in his room down the hall. Four will have to check on him to see if he needs a painkiller.
Before that, he can do the dishes. Ten people in the house make a veritable mountain of them.
It’s a relief being alone. Or, as alone as he gets.
Once the dishes are clean, he wipes down the table as well. He debates laundry, but it’d be more efficient to wait until the rest of the heroes get back and help out. Forge work, then? Grandpa gets commissions. It would certainly take something off his plate if Four could help.
Oh, that’s right. Grandpa’s painkillers.
Four gets them from a drawer in the kitchen, counts two, and seals the glass container again, placing it inside. He heads down the hall, still thinking about what commissions his grandfather has. He can’t remember exactly, but they’re usually swords. That’s what he’s asked for most these days anyways. Vaati’s invasions must have shaken the townspeople more than Four thought.
He knocks twice and opens the door. His grandfather’s awake, and sitting on the bed with a book open in his lap. The blinds are half-open.
“Link? Do you need something?”
“No, just here to see if you needed painkillers.”
“Oh. Thank you, son.”
Four hands them over and Grandpa considers them for a minute with a hum. “I really shouldn’t get so dependent on these. I’m getting older, I suppose.”
“How bad does your back hurt now?” Four questions.
“Quite a bit,” Grandpa admits. He places them on the bedside drawer. “I’ll take them in a few minutes.”
Four nods and leaves. He makes a mental note to check back in with him in a few hours or so.
Halfway down the hallway, though, he hears a noise.
The muffled sound of something hitting the ground upstairs. It’s followed by someone cursing…
…Alright, who the fuck is still here.
Four changes his path, making his way up the stairs instead, a little peeved. Who decided to stay? And not say anything to him? Rude. Sounds like something Hyrule would do, but then, Hyrule wouldn’t drop something either. So it’s not him, not Legend, couldn’t be Wind or Warriors or Wild because he saw them leave, couldn’t be Sky or Time or Twilight since they left even earlier to scour the area for infected beasts.
The sound came from his room, and Four knocks once on the door. Normally he’d knock a few times, but this is his room. He pushes the door open and fixes whoever’s inside with an irritated–
–the kid is holding the Four Sword.
“Don’t touch that!” Four snaps, and before he can even think he’s snatching the blade out of Link’s hands. The boy’s wide-eyed stare doesn’t mitigate Four’s own alarm. Of course. He should have known. By now, the others know better than to touch his stuff, but Link’s grabby with people’s items in the way kids are. He should have noticed Link didn’t leave with the others. Gah, that was sloppy.
“Uh, sorry–” Link starts, but Four interrupts.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes?”
Four looks over the kid, a little redundantly making sure nothing happened to him. Of course not. He’s not four people right now. And he wouldn’t have been actively calling on the sword’s strength, since there was no way he’d know to do that. He is looking as alarmed as the smithy, though… Ah.
“...Sorry for yelling,” Four says, placing the blade behind his back out of sight.
“It’s fine. Sorry I was messing with your sword.”
“It’s alright.”
They stand there for a moment. Four doesn’t really know what to say other than ‘don’t touch it again,’ but a red-tinted thought points out that it seems a little rude to say that seeing as he’s just yelled at Link less than five minutes ago and all. He could save that little speech for later. He turns around, intending to go back downstairs, but Link interrupts him.
“I was just wondering what it did,” he clarifies again, a little nervousness in his voice. “‘Cause the Four Sword’s got a palace to protect it in the Dark World. I went there.”
Four’s eyebrows shoot up. A palace? There’s no palace like that in this era. And that Dark World…? He banishes the thought of the broken mirror and his still-trapped shadow as Link continues.
“Are you mad?” the boy asks instead.
Four blinks at him. His expression softens as he realizes. “No, I’m not mad,” he reassures him, and Link visibly relaxes. “That sword has potentially dangerous magic in it. I just didn’t want you to get hurt.” But please do talk about that palace again.
“Okay. Sorry.”
Four doesn’t reply; he turns around again, heading back out the door.
He’s just crossed the frame when Link talks again. Unbidden, a little bit of frustration sparks in Four’s gut. By Hylia, is he going to have a conversation or not?
“You need any help down there? I can do anything.”
Ah, what the hell. Four wouldn’t get any peaceful time with the kid messing around upstairs anyways.
“I’m doing forge work. Would you be able to handle it?” A nod. “Try not to be too loud, then.”
Four goes to the forge, Link on his heels.
And thankfully, he’s a peaceful companion too. He waits quietly to the side while Four prepares the materials, listens to instructions, still seeming a little guilty for messing with his stuff.
“So… tell me more about that palace from the Dark World,” Four prompts when the silence gets a little too suffocating. The sword is left to cool while he addresses the boy, who blinks. After a moment, he speaks.
“Um, it didn’t really look like a palace, I guess? But the Dark World distorts everything in it, so maybe it was a palace before it fell. It was a pretty normal dungeon, puzzles and traps and stuff. Had to get four of those swords and fight four… dark versions of me. Nobody at home believed me when I talked about it.”
Interesting. Really interesting. When Legend had first joined their group, he’d been watching Four for a little bit before eventually just asking about the sword. He’d phrased it like casual curiosity, not seeming to pay any mind to Four’s polite dodges around an actual answer, and didn’t bring it up again. And Four wrote it off as being his predecessor, probably referenced in some history book or something. So Legend had known about it already. Crafty. Something to bring up with him later.
Four kind of wants to ask for more details, but he’s pretty sure any of his questions would clue the kid in on answers he doesn’t need to know just yet. The smithy hums, checking on the metal that’s been cooling. “Interesting.”
“Alright, now I’ve got a question.” Link leans forward a bit, emboldened. “Wind and Sky didn’t answer it when I asked yesterday. Who’s that Vet you guys keep talking about? Missing one.”
…Ah.
They’d kind of agreed not to tell the kid who Legend was, mostly because Time was firmly against it. He said that children shouldn’t know these sorts of things, and, well, he’s right. That and it would probably wreck the timeline or something if they did.
This is a bind.
“How much did you see of him in your era?” Four tries.
Link narrows his eyes. “Not saying. Sky asked the same thing so he could just tell me obvious stuff that didn’t mean anything.” Damn. This kid is perceptive. Legend’s the same, so it’s to be expected, he guesses, but… hmm. “And Wind lied to me,” he adds, “so don’t try that either.”
“Well.” Four thinks for a moment. With any luck, he could get away with just mentioning the veteran’s title and some more vague details. “Well, he’s the Hero of Legend. Real heroic guy. You wouldn’t know him.”
A pause.
“He was wearing what looked like the red mail I got from Ganon’s tower,” Link says flatly.
Goddess damn it all. “What makes you say it’s your red mail? He’s a whole lot taller than you. I doubt anything of yours would fit him.”
“It’s magic, it changes size to match the person who wears it.”
By Hylia, this kid is persistent. He kind of wants to ask how exactly he knows that it changes size, but that’s a bit pedantic.
Alright. Four can’t see a way out of this one, so he concedes.
“...You got me. We think he’s you, from years in your future,” Four answers honestly. Link’s eyes widen. “Don’t take that as absolute truth. But it’s not right for me to tell you more than that. Our times are so disjointed already.”
Link stares at him incredulously for another moment, and Four almost thinks he’s lucky enough for the kid to not believe him. But then Link’s ear twitches and he turns back around to the door. “Got it,” he says distractedly. “They’re almost here. Thanks. I’m gonna go.”
And before the smithy can say anything else, he bolts.
“LOOK OUT!”
That’s all Twilight can think to shout when he happens to turn around and see a Wizzrobe silently floating right out of the ground behind their new youngest member. Link’s reaction time isn’t bad– he whirls around him to check the danger, then ducks under the spell it casts, scurrying backwards with his sword and shield raised.
He adjusts the grip of the hilt in his hand, but Twilight can tell that his it's still a bit awkward. He’s risking missing a hit from this position. So Twilight dashes, taking out the Wizzrobe with a few efficient strikes of his own. It dissipates.
The others ahead of them are staring. Twilight sheathes his sword, motioning for Link to follow him back, and the conversation they’d been having previously isn’t brought up again.
He, Sky, and Time heard of monsters up by the base of Mt. Crenel. They’ve been traveling there for the past hour or so. It’s a two-hour trip that Four usually covers with his bird Zeffa, but seeing as it only responds to Four’s ocarina, and refuses to carry anyone who isn’t actively holding the instrument, bird travel isn’t really an option. It’s alright. The path is wooded and there’s shade to keep the sun out of their eyes.
“You didn’t have to save me,” Link mutters after a while. “I can deal with monsters on my own.”
“I’m sure you can,” Twilight returns, resisting the urge to respond to him like he does to Wind. “But I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“I wasn’t gonna get hurt!”
“Well,” Sky offers, falling into pace on Link’s other side, “unless either of you can turn back time, there’s nothing to be done now. So there’s no point in worrying about it.” Link scoffs and crosses his arms, but doesn’t continue arguing.
“How much further?” Wind calls from a few feet in front of them.
Four doesn’t turn around, but they can practically hear him rolling his eyes. “We can see the mountain.”
“Maybe he’s too short to be standing in the back, don’t judge him,” Wild hums to no one in particular.
Wind kicks him in the shin.
“Hey!”
“I’m not even that much shorter than you!”
“Still shorter.”
“I’m–”
Twilight is elbowed in the stomach by someone who is very short. He looks down to see Link, distractedly looking off to his right. Sky’s wandered off to the front to join the conversation and Hyrule’s talking to Four, and Time and Warriors are up there too.
“Do you hear that?” Link asks urgently.
His brow is furrowed. Twilight strains his ears to catch whatever it is. Wind is saying something really loud, though, and the rancher really wants to tell him to be quiet for a minute. But, there.
The scuffle of a bush behind them. Scrape of metal plate against metal plate. A brief hissing noise, the kind you hear on the rare occasion a group of Lizalfos will try to coordinate something.
Twilight seems to realize at the same time as Link. He whirls around, pulling his sword in the process, paying no mind to the boy beside him doing the same.
“THERE’S MONSTERS HE–!” Link hollers, but cuts himself off at the sight of three beasts jumping out of the cover of trees. One Lizalfos, a Vire, and is that a Lynel?
It’s not any he’s seen before, but it’s shorter than Wild’s kind. It’s smaller and much more wiry, with no horns and an even thicker mane. It holds a large, curved shield, but in a flash Link pulls his bow out and nocks an arrow. Twilight approaches the Vire first, eye on the Lizalfos too– he strikes out with his sword, but the winged creature screeches and flies out of his reach. It spits a ball of fire at him, and on reflex, he hits it back.
Before he can see what happens to it he whirls around to parry a swing of the Lizalfos, He can see past it that there’s a whole group of monsters emerging from the trees, but he can’t focus on that right now– Link’s rushing at the Lynel with nothing but his magic hammer clutched in a two-handed grip. Is he insane?
The Lynel is bleeding from an arrow to its abdomen. Dark blood.
There’s a monstrous shriek as the fireball hits the Vire– and a sudden leathery storm of wings flapping overhead. Oh. Oh, that's right. Legend's Vires turn into Keese when killed.
The Lizalfos slashes through Twilight’s pelt and across his collarbone. He stumbles back, only for a Keese to fly right in his face. Fuck!
He swings blindly around with his sword, trying to get the little devil away from him, but it lunges and lands a nasty scratch dangerously close to his eye. But then it screeches, suddenly gone for another target.
He opens his eyes, only to squeeze the right one shut again as blood drips into it. That’s fine. He’s fine. Just as the Lizalfos tries to land a downwards strike, he sees an opening– and slices right through its chest.
It shrieks and backs off.
There’s a boomerang whirling through the air, cutting through the Keese with near magical accuracy. It’s Hyrule’s, who’s a good few feet away alternating flinging his boomerang through the air to slice through the out-of-reach Keese and bringing his shield up to block the attacks from ones around his face.
Twilight will have to thank him later.
Where’s the kid?
Link’s a little closer than Hyrule, near the far side of the path, swinging his sword in a genuinely worrying uncoordinated manner at a Goriya bearing on him. It blocks hit after hit with its shield. Twilight wastes no time– he runs for it and stabs it through the back.
As it disintegrates, Link stares at him, wide-eyed.
Much further off, Time and Warriors are cutting through a Moblin, and Wild is perched in a tree with his bow drawn, shooting at monsters that approach Wind and Four. But the area around Twilight and Link is momentarily devoid of enemies.
Except it apparently isn’t, because Hyrule shouts, actually shouts, “LOOK OUT!”
Twilight reflexively ducks and an arrow flies over his head, shooting through a flaming Bubble right over him. The skull, sharpened teeth and all, drops to the ground in between him and the kid, and both of them reflexively jump backwards, looking around for what else is there. But, Warriors lands the final blow on the Moblin, and all of a sudden the monsters all retreat.
“HEY–!”
“AGAIN?!”
Twilight looks at the kid, ignoring Wind and Wild’s yells. He looks uninjured save for a few cuts here and there. The rancher checks over him, looks over at the rest of his friends to make sure they’re alright, and then starts to head towards the direction he saw one of the creatures retreat. Before he can, though, a small hand grabs his wrist.
“Where are you going?” Link asks, alarmed. “Shouldn’t we go before they come back?”
…Ah. “Uh, we usually have to go after ‘em.”
The boy stares at him uncomprehendingly for a minute before realization hits. Twilight feels bad for him– he must have known that he wasn’t just on the run anymore, but he must not have really known.
“Oh. Right.” There’s an unspoken I’m not used to doing that hanging in the air between them.
“But… for today, we might turn in early,” Twilight concedes. He checks towards Time. “The monsters usually don’t go near towns… and I think the old man will let us.”
“Right…”
Several hours later they cautiously set up a camp for the night a distance away, and don’t bother removing the less cumbersome parts of their armor. They clean their weapons and wash blood out of anything they can wash blood out of.
Link hates it.
These people are talking to each other again like this is a normal occurrence. Like they do this all the time. And they do, and Link hates it.
He’s not used to people fussing over him and checking if he’s hurt, because before his adventure Uncle was usually at his job when Link got injured, and during his adventure the closest to fussing he got was Maple and, rarely, the old man in the mountain. Maple’s way of showing care was to offer him a “free sample” of red potion to heal him up… though she never offered free samples before, and she always eyed him over to make sure he was fine after drinking it.
She didn’t nag him.
She didn’t insist that he eat something.
She didn’t ask if he needed help cleaning his sword.
And after his adventure, Uncle stopped nagging him too. Link feels another stab of guilt in his stomach at the thought, at the reason why.
He’s homesick. It feels stupid after spending just a few days on this quest, but he misses knowing the world around him like the back of his hand, being able to go anywhere without a care for who’d follow him unless they were out for his head. No Twilight trying to ask him about his sword skills because he thinks they’re bad or Wild asking him what his favorite food is. Why does that matter? Link doesn’t even have a favorite food!
Bitter and upset, he eats what Wild gives him anyways. It’s spicy. He wishes it was sweet.
Hyrule, for once, tells a story about his own world. About the Bubbles that haunted dungeons, a dryly humorous name for something so dangerous. When one of them touched him, he’d find himself unable to draw or use his sword for entire days after. Apparently something just stopped him– he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. And he details a heroic tale of his adventure, in which he had to escape near-certain death in that state.
At least it lifts the mood.
Time and the knight captain set up watch shifts for the night, but they purposefully leave their new youngest hero out of the list. He doesn’t care. Not like he’ll sleep anyways. (The captain looks much less like a knight without his pauldron and wraps on. Link doesn’t like it.)
Night falls. Sky gets first shift because he’s apparently too hard to wake up in the middle of the night. The rest of them go to sleep where they’ve set their bedrolls up, but Link feeds another log to the fire and plops himself down, pulling his knees up to his chest. He sits right in front of the campfire, a tree stump at his back. There’s probably ants on it. He doesn’t care. He stifles a yawn.
He misses his uncle, though he hates to say it. With nothing to distract him, his thoughts are loud.
I never had to chase after monsters before.
The night is cool, bordering on chilly, a light breeze blowing at his back. It’s good for keeping the smoke from the fire out of his eyes. The sky is clear, filled with stars. There are crickets chirping to each other. Firelight dances off the dusty ground.
Some time passes. Link doesn’t stare directly into the fire, but at the log being burnt at its base.
His eyes start to drift shut. He forcefully blinks them open each time.
Suddenly there’s a tap to the top of his head, and Link instinctively ducks forward, twisting to get a look at who did it– but instead of someone above him, there’s a thick white cloth being draped over his back. He barely gets to identify it as the sailcloth before the stranger settles down next to him.
“Can’t sleep?” Sky guesses.
Link nearly curses at him. But instead, once he’s processed that he must have been falling asleep already, he grumbles. “You startled me.”
“Sorry.”
Sky watches Link pull the sailcloth more firmly over his shoulders, and then experimentally take hold of a piece and try to pull it apart. He squints closer as though trying to get a look at the pores in the cloth. He won’t have any luck– Sky swears Zelda used magic to make that thing for him. That, and it’s dark.
“What’s keeping you up?” Sky tries. Link shrugs, giving up trying to inspect his temporary blanket and wrapping it around himself tighter.
He’s clearly tired, and answers without thinking.
“I miss home.”
Oh. Sky didn’t expect the honesty– no, more that he didn’t expect Legend to admit to missing somewhere. Especially in comparison to Sky’s affection for the littler things, their veteran is as far from sentimental as someone could get. Much less about places. But this isn’t Legend, at least not as they know him. Not Legend yet.
Link catches the look Sky is giving him and backtracks. “Not that much. I don’t. I’ve been away for longer.”
“I miss my home too,” Sky offers.
A matching expression of surprise. “...You’re the hero from the Skies, right? Didn’t you live in the clouds, or something? There’s nothing up there– I’ve been.” He folds his arms over his knees and pillows his head in them.
Sky ignores the pang in his heart at hearing his home is gone in the boy’s time. “In your era, perhaps. It’s a lovely place, above the clouds. We fly around on giant birds to get around.”
“Really? ‘Cause there’s–” he yawns, speaks through it– “a bird in my time that flew me around. Call him the Weatherbird. He’s how I found you guys.”
“Is he a big bird?”
“No. Well, maybe. He’s about as big as my arm when he flies.” He smiles.
“Ah, see, we’ve got huge ones. Mine’s name is Crimson– he’s a big red Loftwing, and…”
Link’s eyes start to droop as the older knight starts to chat about Skyloft and Crimson and Zelda and Groose. Sky doesn’t take it personally– he kind of hoped this would happen, actually. Occasionally he leaves a lull in his talking for Link to say something, but the boy doesn’t take it, just humming in acknowledgment or waiting for the older knight to continue. It takes a short while, but eventually it looks like the boy is asleep.
Sky lets his story taper off into silence, briefly wondering whether he should get Link to his bedroll or not. That way he’s sitting with his knees tucked up isn’t a very comfortable position, but waking him up to walk him over would be counterproductive. The option of picking him up is off the table. While Sky is more than strong enough to lift him three times over, he’s pretty sure Link would actually make an attempt on his life if he did that.
But then the boy’s eyes drift open again once a minute of silence passes, and he sleepily says,
“I guess then my home isn’t as big as yours was. It’s just me and Uncle Alphonse.”
“Your uncle?” Sky asks. After a moment of thought, his curiosity wins over his original goal to get Link to rest. “What’s he like?”
A pink lock of hair falls into Link’s face and he pushes it back, He sits up a little straighter, then twists it around his finger while he thinks.
“Well… he’s… patient. I used to ask him everything, and he always told me what I wanted to know. He’s the best knight in the castle even though he’s not Hyrulean. Um… he’s pretty strict, I guess. I dunno.”
“He sounds like a good man.”
The croaking of crickets and quiet snores of his friends fill the air for a moment. Sky is suddenly uncomfortable with the lull in the conversation.
“He’s…” Link looks away. “Yeah.”
Sky catches that look. He’d recognize guilt, painful and cold and self-isolating, anywhere.
“Did something happen to him?” he tries.
The boy says nothing. Sky waits. Cicadas buzz. The fire crackles weakly.
He thinks Link is going to leave him hanging, but instead he speaks. “He died.”
Oh. Oh, Hylia.
Link must notice his stricken expression, because he rushes to fill in. “Only for a little while. He… gave me his sword before it happened.” And if Sky didn’t already feel absolutely awful for him, his eyes reflect the firelight as tears unexpectedly start to well up. He scrubs at them, looking more ashamed and frustrated than sad. “He was mad at me that day, ‘cause I skipped knight training. I thought when I brushed him off it would be the last thing I–I told him.”
“Hey, we don’t need to talk about this,” Sky says. He pulls at Link’s shoulder, trying to get the boy to look at him. “It’s late. You look tired.”
“No, I’m fine. I brought him back to life anyways. With the Triforce.”
Link must assume that makes Sky feel relief, or anything other than worry for him. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“It’s not your fault.” Another pang of guilt spikes in Sky’s gut. (He hates it when his friends say that to him.) Link continues. “N’ he’s really fine now. Got the nation’s hero as his nephew, after all. The villagers love him.”
But it’s said with too much weight on the nation’s hero, his nephew. Like he thinks there’s not much other than that. But it’s late, and Sky doesn’t want to ask.
The moon is just a sliver tonight. The fire starts to dwindle. Insects quiet for a moment, and it’s as though the world itself is waiting for Sky to speak.
“...You two must be very close,” he finally offers, because it’s all he can think to say.
Link goes still. And then, he abruptly unwinds the sailcloth from his shoulders. He hands it back.
“It’s late,” he says, and finally goes to his bedroll. “Goodnight.”
As the portal seals shut right under his feet, just barely blocking him out, Legend swears. Loud. This sucks. This fucking sucks!
Legend wants to throw something. Preferably a certain dark lizard that’s been haunting them lately, but a boulder would do. Maybe a nice set of wooden planks to set on fire. That would be nice. But as it stands, he can’t do any of that, nor can he complain loudly to his companions, because–! Oh wait! They’re fucking gone!
He swears, he’s never letting those bastards out of his sight ever again. Just one moment to go investigate the Sanctuary, trying to figure out what the exact year was, he wandered off the path. And when he turned back around, he saw a distinctly pink-haired brat loudly interrogating his friends. Oh, Hylia, he hates that kid.
He leveled his sword at them, bright orange and shining and not shaking in the face of eight armed men who were, in fact, much older than him. That’s right, Legend had forgotten how much of an idiot he was when he was eleven. He’d never do that at his current age. But by this time, Legend was already rushing back, trying to get their attention– only for Hylia or the Dark or whichever force hated him the most today to open a portal right under the nine of them and whisk them away. Leaving him stranded in his own time period, ten years too early.
So now, Legend briefly thanks Wind for his sailorly teachings and lets out another string of curses that would make any grandmother faint.
What on earth does he even do now? Look around? Wait for them to get back?
Unendingly frustrated, Legend starts to wander around his old kingdom. Damn the sunny morning. He wishes it were raining. That would fit his fucking mood. He thinks.
There are two problems he needs to sort out: what the hell is going to happen now that his past self is off gallivanting with a set of eight people Legend distinctly does not remember having spoken to before his current adventure, and how the hell he’s going to get back to them. Oh, and what’s going to happen to him while he’s here. That’s important, too.
Well, first: he doesn’t fucking know. The Harp of Ages has no control over the exact time period he’s sent to– it’s only Nayru who can do that. Five hundred years in the future or past is dreadfully non-specific and potentially dangerous– five hundred years in the past is just around the time Ganon wreaked havoc on the world because of some poor goddess-chosen child biting the dust, and five hundred years in the future is just around the time some princess is getting put in a magical sleep by her brother. He’s as good as trapped here.
As for what’ll happen while he is… he’s been separated from all his friends before they had a chance to get rid of the infected monsters of this era.
So it must be some sort of targeted attack, right? Legend’s not an idiot. He’s no Wild; he knows his worth, and he’s well aware he’s the most experienced as well as the most well-equipped. And seeing the control the Dark has over these portals, well… he’s going to need to stay on his toes.
His thoughts flicker to his uncle.
He pushes them away.
Legend’s probably not recognizable now. He can get a room at Kakariko Village and sort things out from there. Though if he’s right about the year, the knights might still be recovering from Agahnim’s magic.
Zelda told him years ago that the kind of magic that Agahnim used was tied to identity, not appearance– and that no matter what disguise he tried to wear, they’d still be after him.
So Legend’s not quite keen on seeing how many knights are still under magical influence.
He deliberately takes the route as far around his house as he can to get to Kakariko. The woman at the inn’s eyebrows rise when she sees him. Oh. That’s Old Auntie Ruby. He remembers being infinitely grateful to her for never ratting him out to the knights, only turning the other way and pretending not to see him.
“You’re new here. Are you from overseas?” she asks, surprised.
“Uh, yes,” Legend decides on the spot. “Name’s–” fuck, what’s a name– “...Ralph.”
“Oh. I thought most of the travel here stopped when Agahnim took over, but it’s good to see that new people are coming. Say, what country are you from? Most visitors when I got actual business a few decades ago just stuck to Traveler’s Common, but your Hyrulean sounds native.”
“I’m just… a big fan of language learning. Can I get a room?” He starts to pull out thirty rupees, the standard fare for a night, but then remembers he’s not supposed to know that. “And how much?” he adds.
“Thirty rupees. Single room?”
“Mm. Here’s the money.”
He hands her the rupees, and she hands him a room key. He’s directed towards an empty room. Well, that’s a little misleading– all the rooms are empty.
He drops his stuff on the ground and falls back heavily on the bed. Throwing an arm over his eyes as he lays down, he sighs.
…
What materials does he have?
He probably doesn’t have fairies, because Warriors and Hyrule get weird about those for seemingly no reason. He’s got his bottles, though. A trip to a fountain might not be a bad idea. He’s got one red potion and one blue potion. A visit to Syrup’s?
Arrows are good; he’s even got some of Wild’s bomb arrows and Time’s ice arrows stashed away if he needs them. So his first order of business: visit Syrup. It’d be a sore waste of a blue potion if he could just as well use a green one.
The next morning on his way out of Kakariko, he sees a townswoman speaking to guards. He can’t see her face, but she’s gesturing pretty frantically. Legend’s eyes narrow. He’s about to move closer to try and eavesdrop, but before he can he spots a shock of blue hair among the knights.
…Uncle Alphonse.
Legend hurries away.
His uncle had the unique honor of dying not once, but twice. Once in the castle right in front of his nephew, then five years after being brought back to life by Legend’s use of the Triforce. He fell to an illness Legend had been too busy gallivanting in Labrynna and Holodrum and Hytopia and Koholint to help treat. The last thing Legend said to him was that he didn’t need to be fussed over, to not worry, that he’d be back in a year.
Syrup greets him with a nod. Maple doesn’t offer him a free potion sample.
It’s strange. When he came back to Hyrule after years in his travels– the world here moved so far without him. And now, he’s grown, but the world is stagnant.
He buys three green potions and two red ones. It leaves him with two bottles for fairies. There’s a fairy fountain by Death Mountain… he thinks. Unless he wants to go back to the palaces of the pendants, that’s the nearest fountain. Death Mountain is a day’s walk away, though.
Well…
A day’s walk.
He could clear that in half the time with good use of his Pegasus Boots. Even better, with the Weatherbird. But he’s too tired to sprint that far today, and he doesn’t know if the Weatherbird would recognize him like this. Might as well walk.
And hey– the woman had pointed north when he saw her earlier. So if she was asking the knights to investigate danger, with the direction he’s heading, he might catch it before them.
He knows this world like the back of his hand anyways. It’s a relief. The sun drifts overhead as he walks.
(And he could swear he’s being watched. His sword is at the ready.)
He finds the bridge he used to take refuge under during his adventure. The man who stayed under it is gone, but it’s still pretty sheltered– and seeing as he’s not actually planning on sleeping very well, if anything approaches him from either land side, he could retreat to the water if need be.
He’s left alone at night. Eerily alone.
There are no monster tracks along the trail he’s following.
That trail fades into monotony; dusty ground, trees to the left, trees to the right, varying in scarcity every few minutes.
The next day passes in cautious exploring and searching for any sign of monsters, even reaching Death Mountain. He gets his fairies and looks around, but he finds, disturbingly, nothing. Sometimes he hears rustling or shuffling, but whenever he goes to investigate, there’s nothing there.
It almost makes Legend wonder if Hylia, or that blasted Dark just… forgot him. They did take his younger self. A mistake…
But if there’s anything he’s learned, it’s to never expect an adventure to be over.
The sun continues on its faithful track across the sky. It sets. He rests. It rises again…
He’s back on the trail when he hears it. High morning of the fifth day.
The heavy snap of a branch on the ground.
Legend’s ear twitches at the noise. Behind him, maybe ten feet away. He scans the area for anything in his sight in front of him, in case this is just a distraction to catch him off guard when he turns his back. Nothing. He unsheathes his sword and unstraps his shield.
He turns around.
A Lizalfos, larger than any Lizalfos reasonably should be, emerges fully out of the cover of the sparse surrounding trees; it lashes its tail and hisses once it sees it has its attention, advancing on him with heavy steps.
The beast lunges at him, and Legend blocks with his shield– its swipe clangs uselessly against the enchanted metal– so he repostes with a pair of quick jabs at its chest and ducks under its next swing. The hits aren’t very effective, barely piercing the thick, scaled skin, and the Lizalfos doesn’t pause, just goes for his head again. Legend dodges and slices its arm properly. This time, blood gushes out. Black.
Fuck.
The heavy footfalls of other creatures approach from his sides and behind.
Think.
The veteran hero reaches into his pack and for a moment, time slows around him. He thinks about what he has– Lizalfos are pretty resistant to heat, but his Ice Rod might help. His sword clicks back into the sheath to make room in his hand– and he finds it in an instant, yanks it out, and fires it right into the monster’s face. It recoils back with a cry. Legend rushes forward and stabs it through the heart.
All hell breaks loose.
There’s everything here. By Hylia, too many to identify– monsters from Wind’s era, Time’s, Hyrule’s– oh, fuck, those are Hyrule’s monsters. Notoriously hardy, notoriously strong. A spear is thrust towards his face but he sidesteps.
His shield instinctually comes up to block the heavy blow of a Gibdo. It recoils backwards, unbalanced by the Mirror Shield’s returning its force, and pushes several of the monsters on his right side backwards. Good. Good. He brandishes the Ice Rod again, sending a blast to his left.
Legend backs up a little, beyond thankful to see he’s been bought a little time with the combination of his larger-area attack and strong shield. And he’s not entirely surrounded just this moment. There’s space behind him that was once occupied by the first Lizalfos he killed, and he just needs to protect it. Piss-poor chance he’ll be able to keep it up, but, he thinks as he shoves the quickly-draining-of-magic Ice Rod back in his bag and redraws his blade, it’s better than nothing. He knocks another blow aimed for him back with the shield, then draws his sword close, digging the heel of his left foot into the ground and grasping his sword tighter.
He spins.
Using the sword to slice through the monsters that were crowding him, he’s able to cut through a fair few monsters cleanly. Thank Hylia for the spin attack, and thank the goddesses that he’s not rusty with it, because there’s a lot more. Body parts and black blood fly out of his way and the sound of screeching fills the air as he keeps hacking away at the beasts before him, and then something sinks its teeth into his leg. Hard.
Legend can’t stop the shout of alarm. There’s a Wolfos on the ground and he kicks it away, blocking more hits and on near-autopilot parrying the blow of a Moblin on his left. There’s so many. There’s too many.
Something is clawing at his back, but his Red Mail is damn sturdy– it doesn’t cut through.
He can see the Wolfos get trampled by eight, nine, ten monsters, but that’s the thing– ten of them are bearing on him from one side and there’s more on the way and there are Keese here too, doing what they do best, diving at his hair and scrabbling at his face. He curses, loudly, and backs up fast.
I’m not fucking dying today.
A Goriya croons and chitters at him in excitement. He keeps backpedaling, nearly tripping over a Bokoblin, but the monsters before him are faster, and it’s all he can do to avoid stepping on the remains of the first monsters he killed and keep blocking their attacks. He can’t bolt– he’s stuck here. Fuck!
His Sand Rod. They’re on a dirt path. So if he can pull out his Sand Rod, he could use it to sink them and buy himself time. He slashes angrily at the Keese swarming around his head.
Legend thinks he can hear someone shouting.
But fuck, to reach his Sand Rod he’d have to put down his sword or his shield, and seeing as he’s currently using both of those to fend off attacks, he’s in a bind. He can’t take the Sand Rod out.
He doesn’t specialize in crowd control like Warriors does– an arrow flies towards him– or have the deftness to fend off hordes of monsters like Sky– a Stalfos lunges for his sword– or have the spells to–
That’s it!
He uses his sword hand to shove the shield further onto his arm, so he’s not having to hold onto the handle while he reaches for his neck where the medallions dangle from the chain. He’s not sure which one he’s going to activate, but any fucking help would be appreciated right now.
His hands close around one of them. He nearly yanks it off trying to flood as much magic into it as he can while still ducking and staggering gracelessly away from attacks. But then,
He sees it in slow motion.
Legend's last thought before it gets him is that 'Bubble' is a stupid name for something so deadly.
It floats over the heads of the other creatures clamoring for his attention and dives, bright and electric and promising pain. Legend can’t react in the time he takes to process that this is the kind from Hyrule’s world.
The monster phases right through his heart. The medallion’s lightning magic he’d just barely managed to activate turns into pitiful sparks.
He drops his sword like it’s made of fire.
“FUCK!” he shouts, reaching for it, but his hand isn’t reaching and his shield isn’t positioned properly and suddenly he’s very, very aware that this is bad.
He’s got his fairies, but if he falls, there’s the threat of being pinned down and killed again.
A hand from the earth itself snatches his sword, and rises upwards from the ground. A Geldman, a sand beast, Legend realizes. It looms over him, shoving aside all the other monsters that now try and get at him from the side, and raises his own Master Sword over its head. Legend grasps at his shield with both hands, holding it defensively over him. There are creatures slashing at him from the back.
He wants to use his Quake Medallion right about now, but he needs to drive his sword into the ground to use it properly, or at least be standing still to channel it into the earth–
Something slashes at his side, another sinks its teeth into his arm. Another Wolfos bites his leg from the back, and there’s a bow being drawn behind him.
But all he can see is the sword, his Master Sword, plummeting down on him.
Oh, Legend's faithful Mirror Shield blocks the hit, but can’t reflect the force of that holy weapon. He’s tossed to the ground like a ragdoll. A hoofed foot kicks him in the chest.
An arrow whizzes over his head, sinking into the sand monster but not fazing it at all. Something else shrieks in the air, and sparks are being spit at him. He braces his shield over him like a turtle, suddenly deathly aware of his position.
Scaled talons grab at Legend’s shield and pull. He doesn’t let go. It’s a crazed, desperate thought, that he won’t let go, he refuses, he’ll never let go of this, but he sees claws close around the edges of it. He tightens his grip. Another set of talons grab the other side and-
He hears an awful cracking noise from his fingers as they break more than he feels the pain of their breaking.
The Mirror Shield is wrenched out of his now-useless grip–
His pouch is tied around his hip. He’s cheated death before. He digs around in it, mind racing too fast to even catch the ideas and desperate half-plans as they fly through it. Fire Rod? Cane of Somaria? Think, Link, think!
But now, with the gleeful shrieks and screeches of too many monsters to count filling the air, he thinks it might be the end.
Someone shouts again. Human.
The sword is raised once more. Sand spills in his face.
Legend’s eyes slam shut at the grains.
He wants to open his eyes. He wants to move, he wants to run, he wants to live. Hylia might have beaten his love for the world out of him with her cruel will, but a girl on a beach that no longer exists once told him that the thought of being forgotten made her impossibly sad. And he’s never told anyone about her yet, and if he dies, he’ll have let her down again.
But, as the blade whistles through the air, Fi’s burning and frantic chiming completely useless against the monster’s earthen grip, he thinks he’s going to disappoint that girl early. He’s on the ground, a broken hand, no shield, no sword. Two fairies won’t do anything if he’ll just get killed again and again.
Everything goes silent for an instant, the heart-stopping instant that reminds him it won’t just be an instant soon.
The panicked buzzing of the blade closes in–
Legend takes his last breath and-
Clang.
–Metal on metal, blocking the blow.
Someone’s here.
Legend forces his eyes open- there are tears from the sand streaking his face that he hadn't even noticed; but he blinks them away as best he can.
And through his blurred, squinted vision, he can see bright blue hair, a knight’s shield, silhouetted against midday sun with details only visible from the frames of his memories.
His heart stops again.
“GET UP, SON!” Uncle Alphonse bellows, and the world kicks back into gear.