Sicktember but It’s Only Legend Having a Bad Time

by Quickbrook

Summary:

Legend is my favorite so I want to give him problems and put him in situations. Watch as I put in in a bag with every possible symptom of feeling shitty and spin him around at 180 miles per hour.

Chapter 1: Index

Notes:

Eyo, I finally have an index.

Note that these descriptions are slightly more detailed than individual chapter summaries, so they might contain mild spoilers.

Each chapter counts as an unconnected standalone (unless stated otherwise), so details that are true for one chapter won’t necessarily be true for others.

1. Index: you are here.
2. Hopelessly Bad at Self-Care: Wind and Legend. Legend tries to work despite being sick and Wind forces him to rest.
3. Quest for a Cure: Warriors and Legend. Legend starts turning into a Skull Kid from being young and lost in the Lost Woods and Warriors needs to get him out before he fully transforms.
4. "What Happened to Your Phenomenal Immune System, Huh?": Wind and Legend. Direct continuation of Chapter 2. Wing caught Legend’s sickness, so Legend repays the favor and takes care of him.
5. Preventative Measures (Not Taken): Sky and Legend: Legend refuses to take anything to prevent stomach issues before flying on a loftwing and regrets it. Sky comforts him.
6. Hiding an Illness: Twilight and Legend. When Twilight and Legend are stranded on an island together after a switch, Legend tries hiding an illness that is making his mermaid half increasingly more visible.
7. Sick and injured: Pre-LU Legend. Link needs to stitch up a wound while sick in a dungeon and completely alone.
8. “You’re a Jerk When You’re Sick”: The Colors (mostly Red) and Legend. The Colors are left in charge of a vet who is extra-grumpy due to not feeling well.
9. Persistent Fever: Pre-LU Fable and Legend. When injured not long after Koholint, Link doesn’t take care of his infection because he no longer wants to live.
10. White Coat Syndrome: Time, Hyrule, and Legend. Modern au. Time takes his new foster sons for a checkup because neither of them have been in years. Legend gets anxious and starts catastrophizing.
11. Fuzzy socks: Ravio/Legend. Ravio takes care of his boyfriend when he gets sick. Set ambiguously pre/post-LU.
12. Beginner’s Guide to Faking Sick: Twilight, Legend, and Wind. When they need to steal something to save Time from Dink, Wind and Legend put on a big performance of Wind being sick as a distraction so Twilight can make the grab.
13. Old Wives Tale: The whole Chain but mostly Warriors and Legend. The Chain has drinks at an inn, and Warriors has (consistently terrible) advice for avoiding a hangover.
14. Anxious Stomach: Pre-LU Legend. Link freaks out his first time in the dark world and his stomach reacts badly.
15. “I Shouldn’t Be Worried About You But For Some Reason I Am”: Wild and Legend. Wild is sick when he and Legend are separated from the others in a new Hyrule and the two of them fight over the way Legend tries to take care of him.
16. Sick in an Inconvenient Place: Wind Four, and Legend. The three heroes are stuck at Minish size when Legend is sick with the flu.
17. Consulting Web MD: Hyrule, Wild, Wolfie, and Legend. Direct continuation of chapter 15. Hyrule takes Wild to a healer in his world who has unusual ideas about what he's sick with.
18. “Wear Your Coat, You’ll Catch a Cold”: Sun and Legend. Legend muses on the nature of stars and Sun keeps him company.
19. Curled Up With a Pet: Twilight and Legend. Twilight comforts Legend as Wolfie when he’s sick, then Legend repays the favor by comforting a sick Twilight in bunny form.
20. Magical Remedy/Healing Potion: Hyrule and Legend. The two of them get sucked into a Dark Realm, and Hyrule’s fairy body slowly falls apart due to the lack of access to light magic. Bunny Legend needs to traverse the realm with his increasingly sick passenger in order to get him to a fairy fountain to cure him.
21. Cramping Pain: Legend and Wild. Legend suffers from his period and has a discussion about being transgender with Wild.
22. “But If You Stay, You’ll Get Sick Too”: Malon and Legend. Malon takes care of Legend when he’s sick at the ranch.
23. Pounding Headache: Warriors and Legend. Legend suffers from a concussion on the battlefield and is taken care of by Warriors.
24. Coughing Fit: Wild & Legend. A very sick Legend tries to buy cough medicine using sign language in Wild’s Hyrule and fails. 
25. “Did You Just Sneeze?”: Ravio/Legend. With the whole Chain in Legend’s Hyrule, he tries to take them out to gather information, but his husband stops him because he’s getting a cold.
26. “I Could Really Use a Hug Right About Now”: Pre-LU Legend and Ralph. Link gets shipwrecked on Tokay Island and relives his Koholint trauma.
27. Uncooperative Patient: Twilight, Four, Time, Legend. A magic rune in a dungeon turns three of the heroes into 12 year olds and Twilight is forced to watch over the newly young heroes. The magic also had the effect of leaving all of them feeling unwell in some way.
28. Side Effects/Adverse Reaction: The Chain and Legend. An intense battle happens and Legend needs to use his bombos medallion to save them despite not having the magic to do so. This has negative side effects for his body.
29. “I Should Have Stayed Home”: The Chain and Legend. The first place Legend gets brought after being recruited to The Chain is the depths of Wild's Hyrule.
30. “I’m So Sorry”: Pre-LU Legend and his uncle. The Triforce couldn't being Link's uncle back for good and he is slowly but surely dying for a second time.
31. Confused/Disoriented: The Chain and Legend. Legend is delirious with fever and keeps falling into his worst memories when The Chain is just trying to take care of him.

Chapter 2: Hopelessly Bad at Self-Care

Summary:

Boat Bois

Once again, Legend wanted to reiterate how much he absolutely hated Wind’s Hyrule. Ocean everywhere, nowhere to go to escape from the smell of salt or the sound of the sea.

Not that he was really experiencing either of those at the moment, considering how stuffed up he was. Legend stifled a tiny sneeze into the arm of his tunic. 

It was his fault, of course. He couldn’t sleep, plagued by memories as he always was when they visited here. So he stayed on deck the entire night, gazing out over the open ocean. In the cold. In the rain. It’s little wonder he was feeling so shitty now. Not that he was going to admit that. Actually, his entire plan for the moment is just to pretend everything is normal so he didn’t have to admit to his mistakes. A flawless strategy befitting the group’s veteran.

Wind was directing everyone how to sail the ship they’d ended up on when they got here. Between the fog in his head and the gunk in his ears, Legend was only barely following along.

Grab the rope, pull it taut, tie it down. Ignore the fact that your hands are shaking so bad you can barely hold on. Ignore the fact the hot sun and the fever you’re rocking are making you sweat bullets that make your grip slick. Ignore the fact that your legs are barely holding you upright.

It’s fine, everything’s fine. You’re fine.

Wind snatched the rope out of his hand. “You call that a bowline knot? I’ve seen a better bowline tied by a blind pig!”

It takes a moment too long for the words to reach Legend’s brain.

“Sorry.”

Legend internally winces ‘Sorry’!? That’s all you can think to say? No quips, no witticisms, no snapping? Now Wind is going to know something is up for sure.

Wind squints at Legend. A single drop of snot slowly trickles out of the bottom of his nose.

“Hey vet, you feeling okay? You’re looking a little pale.”

Legend scowls. When in doubt, double down.

“I’m fine enough to work, sailor. Leave me be.”

Wind pretends to contemplate this for a moment. “Hmmm. Nope! As the acting captain of this ship, I am ordering you on official bedrest! Sleepytime for sick heros!”

“You can’t order me to do shit, kid, I’ll- hey! Stop!” Curse that hero’s strength. Despite the full foot of height Legend has on the kid, Wind is able to easily pick him up and sling him over his shoulder. It only takes a few minutes of struggling before he gives in to his fate.

As it turns out, Wind is able to give a great demonstration on how to use knots when he’s tying Legend to his bed.

Notes:

We'll see how many days I actually manage. Please cheer me on.

Chapter 3: Quest for a Cure

Summary:

Fun times in the Lost Woods.

It starts with an itch.

Warriors and Legend are the only two on this mission. Everyone else had been scattered to the four corners of Time’s map with their own allies they needed to ask for aid. The two of them were trying to find the Great Deku tree in the Labyrinth of the Lost Woods. Key word: trying.

Legend barely notices the redness of his skin or the way he’s roughly dragging his nails over his flesh with the ongoing argument he’s having with Wars.

“I’m telling you, Time wanted us to turn left at the rock that looks like half a dog doing a handstand,” the idiot insists for the third time in a row.

“Yeah, but this is clearly the rock that looks like three cuccos doing ballet, so we’re supposed to go straight .” Legend grits his teeth in frustration and continues scratching.

“Just look, this little protrude-y bit is the dog’s tail!”

“Okay, first of all , if you were actually using your eyes, you’d see that’s the cucco’s comb. And second, it can’t be doing a handstand if it’s the back half of the dog you dipshit!”

Legend raked his nails down his arm hard enough to draw blood.

Warriors let out a sigh like he was regretting every life decision he’d made to get him to this point and pinched his nose. “If we die in these woods, I’m coming back to haunt you.”

“Joke’s on you, I’m planning to go directly to hell when I die. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 rupees.”

“You’re sure it’s straight.”

“Just as sure as I am that you’re an asshole.”

“Fine, fine, we’ll do it your way.”

They fall silent after this, simmering tension and frustration heating the air between them. Only crunching leaves and the slight scritch of dragging nails as evidence of their passage through the woods.

It’s the latter sound that finally draws Warriors’s eyes to the state of Legend’s arm.

“Did you touch poison ivy or something?”

“What, first you think I can’t handle navigating, now you think I can’t even handle walking?” 

“No, your arm isn’t looking good.” Warriors forcibly grabbed Legend’s arm and pulled it up to his eye level. On reflex, Legend tried to pull away even as the captain held fast.

His entire forearm was red and raw. There were wide swaths where strips of skin were peeled away like remnants of a sunburn, and the flesh underneath was dark and rough.

“We should get the traveler to look at this when we get back. There’s no way this is normal.”

Legend finally ripped his arm away and held it close to his chest.

Now that Legend was paying attention, the rash hurt. It felt like there was something beneath the surface of his skin, surging up, trying to get out.

Legend tried his hardest not to itch.

He failed.

The Captain slapped his hand away. “Stop that, you’re just going to make it worse.”

Legend snorted and purposefully put his nails back on the wound just to spite the Captain. “Let’s just get going. The sooner we find the Great Deku Tree, the sooner we can get out of here.”

Warriors clearly did not want that to be the end of the conversation, but Legend power walked away before he could object. If he didn’t want to get left behind, he had better keep up.

Every tree they passed looked the same. There were no sounds of wildlife in the woods. But every step made them feel eyes, peering out of the dark, watching them.

He only felt worse the longer they walked. Now it wasn’t just his arm that was itching, but his legs, his back, his eyes .

Something he saw out of the corner of his eye made Legend double-take. And then double back to take a closer look. “Hey Wars?”

“Yeah?” He was already far enough ahead that he was nearly hidden by the underbrush.

“Is this the same rock from before?”

Warrior jogged back a few paces and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket with a frown. He looked rapidly between the two, squinting all the while, before finally deciding, “I think that’s the ‘fish doing yoga’ rock.”

Legend felt a hysterical laugh bubble out from his chest. It was funny, but it wasn’t . Everything hurt. He wanted to rip his own skin off. Earlier, Warriors had  joked about them dying out in these woods, but maybe they actually would.

Halfway through, the laugh turned into a cough. And another. And another, until his whole frame was seizing with the effort. The rash felt like it descended down the lining of his throat.

Warriors rubbed him gently on the back until his coughing fit subsided, a worried expression adorning his face. “Maybe we should turn back. We can always do this another day. Or Time can do it; the Old Man knows these woods better than anyone.”

Legend waved off his concern with a hand, trying to hold on the last remnants of his composure with all his strength. “I’m good to keep going. I don’t want to foist this off on someone else.”

“But you’re only getting worse the longer we…” horror and realization slowly dawned on Warriors’s face. Legend wished he didn’t know what the Captain just figured out. “Vet,” Warriors quietly breathes, “how old are you.”

Legend straightened up from his coughing-induced crouch, lifting himself to the entirety of his 5’2” height. He almost seemed to be trying to make himself look bigger and more imposing, with limited success. The question is a non-sequitur, but he can’t even pretend he doesn’t know why he asked. “Nineteen,” Legend confidently lies. He leaves his face blank. A false shield to warn against questioning further.

The captain met the steady gaze with a fierce heat of his own that lets Legend know exactly what he thinks of that answer. “Try again.”

The energy slid from Legend’s body in a smooth wave, leaving Legend braced against a tree for support. He let out another small, pitiful cough. “Sixteen,” he admitted quietly.

Warriors swears. Loudly.

“ Hylia, you’re just a baby! What the fuck , vet!”

Legend tried to bore a hole into him with just his eyes. “This is why I never told you! You’re all bad enough with Wind, I didn’t want you treating me like I’m some dumb kid too!”

Warriors paced back and forth and waved his hands wildly in the air. “You don’t get it, Vet! This is the Lost Woods! Why do you think we decided it was too risky for Wind and Hyrule and Wild to come here!”

The force of his glare abated and Legend averted his eyes. “I thought it would be okay.”

“Not one part of this situation is okay.”

Legend moved as if to respond, but he was cut off by another coughing fit. It seemed to go on and on, racking his body with its force, requiring great heaving breaths just to get air into his lungs. When it finally abated, Legend pulled his hand away from his mouth. Clutched between his ringed fingers was a palmful of leaves. Droplets of blood glittering on their surface like morning dew. The two of them lean over the oddly pretty sight with expressions of horror.

“Fuck,” Legend summed up the situation sussinctly.

With a flourish of his scarf, the Captain straightened up, adjusted his clothes, and set his face into a hard expression. Through the haze of shock clouding his mind, Legend recognized it as the ‘Captain mode’ he only used when things were truly dire. “Vet, I’m sorry, but you have been physically and possibly mentally compromised. I am removing you from the leadership of this team and officially appointing myself as temporary acting captain. If you have any complaints, you can give them to me back at the ranch house after we get you out of here alive, understand”

Legend could only nod numbly in agreement. 

“Our diplomacy mission is now postponed until further notice. This is now a medical evac.”

Legend grimaced in distaste, but nodded again. The blood was tacky beneath his fingers.

“We are going to retrace our steps. Tell me if a single thing changes or worsens in your condition.”

A final nod and they’re off.

Or, they try to be.

At first, Legend just thinks it's his mind playing tricks on him. Or maybe he didn’t remember the path here as well as he thought. But no matter how hard he looks, this doesn’t look like the path they used to get here. One look at Warriors’s face tells him the man is thinking the same and Legend holds his tongue.

A small cough erupts from his lips and brings with it a cloud of leaves and blood that flutters to the ground like macabre confetti.

Every step makes him feel more tired, more like his limbs are dragging him down. He looks down at his arms, where this all started not that long ago. More and more of the skin has peeled off and it flutters behind him like spiderwebs caught in the wind. He can now see what was below it. Wood. There is bark running up and down his limbs, its reach expanding as his real skin continues to fall away.

Warriors is muttering to himself up ahead. “Is it right? No, left? Why couldn’t Time be better at writing instructions!” 

Legend no longer has the energy to offer input. Just standing there until the older man makes his decision.

A quiet noise from behind him has Legend swiveling his ears backwards. There are whispers echoing out from the forest. Distant voices, calling him, beckoning him, to give up, to join them.

“You okay there, vet?” Legend’s eyes snap to focus on Warriors crouched in front him with concern etched onto his face. When did he get there?

“I’m fine,” Legend rasps. His voice sounds like he’s been gargling bark. The sentence is short, but it’s difficult to get the breath needed for it. It’s like there is something taking up all the space in his lungs.

The concern on Warriors face only deepens. “Come on, I think I found the way to go.” He gently grabs Legend’s hand and the teen does not protest.

Every few steps, they need to stop for Legend’s increasingly violent coughing fits. The number of leaves rapidly decreases just as the amount of blood increases. Legend doubts there are actually less leaves now, it’s just that they’re all staying inside.

Warriors was gentle and steadfast. “Look, we’re almost there. Recognize that rock?”

“Dog doing handstand,” Legend wheezed.

Warriors smiled fondly down at him. “Cuccos doing ballet,” he confirmed.

Legend slumped against Warriors arm. He could barely keep himself upright anymore. A hand hovered just over his shoulder.

“Would you like me to carry you?” Warriors questioned delicately.

Legend nodded mutely into Warriors’s arm. He was too tired to care about how undignified he would look right now. He just wanted to lie down.

Warriors gently lifted Legend into his arms like one would cradle a baby. Legend just mumbled and buried his face in the soft fabric of Warriors scarf.

Now that he no longer needed to adjust his pace to accommodate his companion, Warriors broke into a sprint. As fast as he could go without jostling the teen too much, although if his grumbles of discomfort were anything to go by, it still wasn’t the smoothest ride.

With their increased speed and newfound sense of direction, it wasn’t long before they neared the exit.

Warriors skidded to a stop.

Legend mumbled something unintelligible and tried to fuse his face with Warrior’s torso.

“Legend,” Warriors said, the words tight in his throat. “I’m going to need to put you down for a moment, okay?”

Legend didn’t respond as Warriors laid him on the ground, but he did make an attempt to open his eyes. Everything in front of him looked blurry, like he was viewing the world through a film. But he was able to see what halted their advance.

Stalfos.

Warriors draws his sword and faces them down.

The skeletons laugh, their bones rattling and their bodies shaking like they just heard the funniest joke ever told, despite the fact that the forest is dead silent around them.

“It is too late for the boy.” One says. Its voice echoes strangely and seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. “Leave him be. He belongs to the forest now.”

Warriors readies his blade for a spin attack. “You can take him over my cold dead body.” 

“Gladly. You will make a fine addition to our ranks.”

Legend feels his consciousness wane to the sound of battle.

———

When he wakes, it’s to a room he recognizes. Tucked into bed in a room in Time’s house with a frankly absurd number of blankets piled atop him.

In an uncomfortable wooden chair next to him, Warriors is sound asleep. He looks like shit. Haggard and unkempt. Like he hadn’t changed or shaved in the entire time he’d been there.

Legend kicked him.

With a yell and a crash, Warriors fell out of the chair. When he gets back to his feet, he looks like he almost can’t believe his eyes. “You’re awake,” he breathes.

“Yeah, and I’m sweating bullets under so many blankets. You all went way overboard.” Warriors looks about ready to cry and Legend tries to think of a delicate way to phrase his question before just going with his default bluntness. “What the hell happened.”

Warriors runs a shaky hand down his face and forces himself to breathe smoothly. “I got you out of the woods. The transformation stopped, but we weren’t able to reverse the damage already done. We tried everything. Potions. Healing spells. Nothing worked. Finally, the Old Man went out into the forest himself to talk to the Great Deku Tree and find out if there was a way to fix this. I don’t know what he did, but the transformation was fading away within the hour.”

Legend scowled. “So the old man did our jobs after all, huh?”

Warriors looked like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “We almost lost you, vet! I don’t know what I would do if-”

Legend aimed another kick at the soldier’s shine, this time, as hard as he physically could while still half-buried under blankets. Warriors stumbled, but did not fall. “Quit your blubbering, Captain. I’m fine now, so there’s no need to have a conniption fit over it, okay?”

Warriors wiped away his gathering tears and gave the grouchy hero his best smile. “Okay.”

“Good. Now help me get out from under these blankets. I really gotta take a piss.”

Notes:

If there were two guys in a forest and one of them started turning into a plant person would that be fucked up or what.

Chapter 4: "What Happened to Your Phenomenal Immune System, Huh?"

Summary:

Direct continuation of Chapter 2. Oh how the turns have tabled.

Wind was flagging. Again. 

Legend scowled and hiked his bag further up on his shoulder. 

Legend had insisted and insisted that Wind not take care of him, that he was capable of taking care of himself, and that if the kid stuck around too much he would get sick too. But nooooo, Wind just had to force him to sleep, and bring him water, and give him cool washcloths, and feed him his grandmother’s (delicious) soup. It was awful.

Yeah, Legend had failed to take care of himself earlier, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t! He just… didn’t want to.

And now Wind caught whatever he’d had. 

Legend had half a mind to leave the kid to deal with it on his own, but… it was really good soup.

Legend slowed his pace to reach the younger hero. He was the absolute last of the pack, unless you counted Hyrule, who was off exploring and nowhere to be found. (That was a problem for later. He was fine. Probably.)

Legend nudged Wind with his foot. “Hey kid.”

Wind sniffled pathetically and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I’m not a kid.”

Legend rolled his eyes and continued like he hadn’t heard anything. “You gonna try to catch up, or what?” 

Wind squinted towards where the other heros were pulling farther and farther ahead. He groaned in irritation . “They’re so faaaaaaaaar .”

Legend gave the longest, most put-upon sigh he could muster and crouched down in front of Wind. “Come on, get up.”

Wind just looked at him like he lost his mind.

Legend held his hands behind him in an imitation of a step stool. “Climb aboard. It’s totem time.”

A grin brightened Wind’s face, and he clambered up to the veteran hero’s shoulders, nearly kneeing him in the nose in the process.

Once making sure Wind was settled and wasn’t about to fall off, he took off in a light jog to catch up with the others.

"What happened to your phenomenal immune system, huh?" He questioned as he closed the gap with the rest of The Chain. “Back when I was in bed, you said there was no way I was going to get you sick. What happened to all that bravado?”

Wind wiped a dribble of snot that was crawling its way out of his nose onto Legend’s hat. “That was back in my Hyrule. Now we're in Wild’s Hyrule and it’s cold, and wet, and gross here.”

Legend grimaced, but didn’t dispute his claim. The unpredictable and sometimes dangerous weather of Wild’s Hyrule always posed a challenge, and it did no one’s immune system any favors.

With a quick burst of speed, Legend pulled up to the hero in question. “Wild,” he called.

“Hmmm?” Wild responded from where his nose was buried in that Sheikah Slate of his. Legend swore that half the time, he wasn’t even doing anything with it. Just matching colored blocks or connecting dots. Did Sheikah Slates have games on them?

“Nix going to the castle. We got a sick sailor on our hands. Where’s the nearest stable?”

Wild finally looked up to see Wind sitting on Legend’s shoulders, fully slumped over his head with his face buried in the vet’s fluffy pink hair. Wind raised one arm in a half-hearted wave.

Wild turned back to his slate and rapidly pressed several buttons. He stuck his tongue out between his teeth in concentration. “Oh right! We should be getting near Tabantha Stable real soon. It’s just on the other side of the canyon.” Wild gestured to where only mountains were visible on all sides, but Legend would believe there was a canyon just around the bend.

“Great, thanks,” Legend responded, and allowed himself to fall back and smooth his pace.

Before long, Legend could hear light snoring from above his head. A small smile found its way onto his face as he tightened his grip. He knew Wind tended to move around in his sleep and didn’t want him to fall off.

Legend made sure to keep his steps as steady as possible when they crossed the planks of the Tabantha Great Bridge. He didn’t want to wake the hero fast asleep on his shoulders. Any time another hero startex talking too loudly, he glared them into silence.

Just before they reached the stable, Hyrule heaved himself up the wall of the canyon. Somehow, there was dirt in his hair. Legend decided not to ask.

With their beds paid for, Legend gently tucked the 14 year old hero into bed. And not a moment too soon. Wind had started sleep-fighting, and Legend was sure to have a black eye in the morning.

Still. It was worth it.

With one last look at the sleeping hero, Legend set off to find their resident cook. “Wild,” he whisper-shouted, “you need to make some soup!”

Notes:

Will I get through a day without one of the heroes being carried? Probably not. <3

Chapter 5: Preventative Measures (Not Taken)

Summary:

Legend: I’m too cool to take fantasy dramamine
5 minutes later: blaaargh

If the portal had put them a hundred feet in any direction, every single member of The Chain would have been dead. Given that, Legend probably should be grateful for where they landed but…

“How the fuck are we gonna get off this stupid goddamn rock!”

All 9 heroes are stranded in a tiny spit of land floating in the sky, with no way to get off except plummeting several thousand feet to the ground. A fate which the creepy giant bugs sporting an uncomfortable number of wings swarming in the distance look eager to send them to.

Rather than the appropriate response to having a microscopic speck of ground as the only thing to save you from a 10,000 foot drop, Sky perks up when he catches sight of their surroundings.

“This is my Hyrule!” He exclaims excitedly, “just wait here, I’ll get some friends to fly us to Skyloft!”

“There’s nowhere else to wait!” Legend calls after him, but it’s too late. Sky has already sprinted off the edge of the island and his freefall is rapidly approaching terminal velocity.

Time draws the attention of the group with a clap. “You heard the man! Take five, team.”

Rather than engage in awkward small talk he’s physically incapable of escaping from (a personal hell and recurring nightmare of his), Legend decides to reorganize his bag. His bag is as perfectly organized as always, he wouldn’t be able to always find the item he needs among the sprawling array of curiosities if not, but it’s better to take things out and put them back in exactly as they were for the fiftieth time than be forced to socialize.

Sky’s absence is blessedly short. Before long, he’s back at their tiny island with a miniature flock of other Skyloftians trailing behind him.

He recognizes Groose and Zelda from their last visit, but not the others. Although based on their similar age to the Chosen Hero and Sky’s descriptions of his times back home, Legend would wager they’re more classmates from the Knight Academy. They all look significantly lamer than Sky always described them as. 

With a flutter of feathers and wings, their eight loftwings settle on the island the heroes are standing on. If it felt small before, it’s now positively cramped. Legend notices Wild peering curiously over the edge and forcibly pulls him away from it before someone accidentally bumps him into an impromptu skydiving session.

“Okay, before we take off, here are a few ground rules!” Sky addresses the crowd. “Everyone is going to fly with a buddy today! No solo loftwinging! Secondly, keep your arms and legs on the loftwing at all times. Finally, Pipit reminded me that first-time fliers tend to get motion sick, so we’ve brought some herbs that should hopefully prevent that.”

A freckled boy standing just behind Sky nods smugly at that last point.

Sun is passing out the aforementioned herbs, and Legend looks at the greenery with a sneer. “I don’t need this. I traveled by bird my entire first adventure. And a bit of my fourth. Not to mention the tornados, flying broomsticks...”

A redheaded girl in pigtails sniffs imperiously. “If he’s not eating it, he’s not riding with me. I just washed my hair and I don’t want him barfing in it.”

“It’s okay, Leg can ride with me,” Sky offers.

Wind sidles up to Sky with an uncharacteristically nervous expression on his face. A light tug on his tunic brings the hero down to his level. Sky smiles gently at whatever Wind whispers in his ear. “It’s okay. You can ride with Sun. Her loftwing is a total sweetie. Just watch this”

Sky guides Wind’s hands to pet the neck feathers of the bird. It lets out a contented trill and melts to the floor in its best impression of a pancake. Wind giggles.

Sky gently lifts his hand away, leaving Wind to keep petting. “See? You’re going to be fine.”

The rest of the heroes have mostly paired off by the time Sky turns back to Legend with a worried expression on his face. “Are you sure you don’t want to take anything before we go?”

Legend walks past Sky without sparing him a glance. “Quit your worrying. I can handle way worse than this. Now let’s go already.”

———

BLAAAAARGH!

Legend empties the entire contents of his stomach onto the grassy ground of Skyloft. For the third time. Acid burns the lining of his throat and the muscles of his stomach spasm out of his control.

Sky hovers comfortingly at his shoulder, one hand holding him mostly-upright, and the other rubbing soothing circles onto Legend’s hunched back.

“I’m never riding a Loftwing again,” Legend moans.

“I know. It’s okay. Let it all out,” Sky hums in reassurance.

Legend coughs, and a few drops of spittle and bile fly out of his lips. “Did you really have to do a barrel roll?” He asks.

Sky at least has the good grace to look sheepish. “Skytails were coming after us, and I was worried about them attacking the group. I had to scare them off.” 

“What about the death dive? Was that necessary?” 

Sky cringes into himself. “We were falling behind. It’s the easiest way to gain momentum…”

“And who the fuck installed those floating rocks that shoot us out at light speed?! When I meet whoever thought those were a good idea-”

“Okay, okay, I get it! You don’t like my flying! Please stop talking and drink some water.”

Legend angrily takes small sips of the offered waterskin and shifts to sit cross-legged on the grass. He seems to be done throwing up for the time being.

But rather than move away now that Legend doesn’t need him, Sky pulls in closer and tucks his sailcloth around the veteran adventurer’s shoulders. The contact makes Legend’s whole body freeze, for just a moment, before he relaxes and allows himself to accept the comfort.

“You know, Sun also got really sick the first time she went flying,” Sky tells him when they’ve both gotten settled.

“Yeah?” Legend asks.

“Yeah. She was so excited for her first flight. When she landed, she was beaming from ear to ear. And then out of nowhere she just doubled over and barfed all over her dad’s shoes.”

Legend snorts ungracefully.

“I actually see a lot of her in you,” Sky tells him.

Legend looks at him like he left his brain on the floating rock they were stranded on. “how do you figure that?”

Sky tucks away a stray lock of hair that had gotten stuck to Legend’s sweaty forehead. “Well, you’re both extremely stubborn, for one.”

“I am not stubborn!”

“Says the guy who just spent 20 minutes puking his guts out because he swore he ‘could handle’ flying without anti-nausea herbs.”

Legend flushes to the tips of his ears.

“You’re also both total softies, even though you always try to hide it,” Sky continues. 

Legend jerks away from where he was already half leaning into Sky’s side. “I’m not soft either,” he hisses.

Sky just laughs and puts his hands up in mock-surrender. “It’s not a bad thing! You’re allowed to let your guard down sometimes, vet!”

Legend hugs the sailcloth tighter around his shoulders and looks away. “Adventuring alone doesn’t give you a lot of opportunities to be soft,” he huffs.

Sky’s grin is nearly blinding in its brightness. “Then it’s a good thing you aren’t alone anymore.” 

Ever so slowly, like he’s afraid the other will pull away, Legend lets himself drift back to leaning on Sky’s shoulder. If he’s still there an hour later, sound asleep, neither of them are going to tell anyone.”

Notes:

I am a ‘Legend is Sky and Sun’s descendant’ truther til the day I die.
(P.S. I reversed days 4 and 5 just for funsies.)

Chapter 6: Hiding an Illness

Summary:

Merpeople mean merproblems.

Of course it’s the ocean. Everything bad in Legend’s life always starts with the ocean.

Instead of putting them in any kind of reasonable location, any place that would actually help them, the newest portal dumped Legend face first into churning waves. Just great. Fantastic. Thanks Hylia.

The force of the impact drove the air out of his lungs in a single great woosh. It was fine, though. If anything it made the transition to breathing through gills easier.

He wasn’t always happy with his mermaid curse, but it did have its advantages sometimes, such as when he was unwillingly and unceremoniously dunked in the ocean by a goddess with a vendetta against him personally.

What didn’t make the transformation any easier was the cut on his leg. It was small, nothing serious really, just a small scrape from a bramble patch (not wearing pants did have its downsides sometimes), but transforming with an injury hurts like hell .

Damage to one form always transfers over to another, but depending on the placement, it may not do so easily. The way the skin stretches and pulls to merge two limbs into a single lithe tail, the way all the skin hardens and separates into glittering scales… it all came together to rip the tiny cut wide open.

Legend swore, his voice silenced by the blanket of water surrounding him.

He didn’t need to worry about most of his clothing getting in the way of his transformation, but as his feet finally flicked into transparent fins, his golden pegasus boots slid off and rapidly began to sink.

Legend dove after them and quickly shoved them into his magically enhanced bag. They were one of his most reliable companions on all his adventures, and he wasn’t going to lose them to the depths of an unknown ocean.

Okay. He needed to pause. Take a breath (metaphorically). Evaluate his situation and what to do next.

First step: he needed to find out where the others were. 

Ideally without revealing his mermaid curse to them but he didn’t expect Hylia to cut him any breaks. Today or ever.

With a powerful thrust of his tail, Legend swam upwards to breach the surface. He stayed there for a moment, rotating in a circle to try to catch any sight of his companions and keeping his gills carefully below the waterline to avoid fucking up his respiration. 

There was nothing. Zip, nada, zilch. Nothing but open ocean as far as the eye could see.

He knew Hyrule couldn’t handle the water, but Wind was a strong swimmer. Wild could keep himself afloat for a while, and Time always had a strange amount of tricks up his sleeves that seemed to let him handle anything. If any of them had landed here, he would have seen them. Unless one of them turned into a Zora and was swimming under the surface or something equally bizarre, but what were the odds of that?

So none of the strong/mediocre swimmers landed here with him, but that still left a lot of options.

With a flick of his tail, Legend reversed his direction and dove deep, deep, under the waves. He worked in a spiral pattern, going downward and around from where he landed. The water got deeper and murkier and colder the more he descended.

Just as he was about to give up, he caught a glimpse of something that did not belong underwater.

Fur.

Legend rushed forward to the large wolf as fast as his streamlined form would allow him. Twilight looked like he was unconscious. He probably had the wind knocked out of him as soon as he landed and couldn’t get another breath, maybe even fell from higher and was knocked unconscious on impact. Either way, his heavy fur had been dragging him downward for minutes and Legend knew he was rapidly running out of time.

With a great heave, he dragged the wolf upward. It was a long way to the surface, and the wolf was not light. The water dragged at him with every inch he gained, trying to pull his friend into a watery grave. He pumped his tail back and forth as hard as he could. It felt like he was running an underwater marathon.

Finally, he forced the wolf’s head above the surface.

There was no debris they could cling to this time, no floating supplies to hold them above the waves. Just Legend, barely able to keep his friend’s face above water.

He needed to find land, and fast.

He couldn’t see any rocks protruding in the distance, no brief spot of brown in the ocean of blue, but…

There, just where the sea met the sky.

A flock of seagulls.

They didn’t swarm like that without a reason. Hopefully, they were sticking close to the coast and land was just over the horizon.

He set off.

Several times, waves crested over their heads, despite Legend’s attempts to keep Twilight’s head above water.

Several times, Legend nearly lost his grip on his friend, and he sank briefly under the waves.

Legend’s muscles burned with the effort of dragging another so far through the punishing currents.

But finally, he made it.

Land.

Legend collapsed on the rocky beach.

(Better to be rocky than unrealistically perfect and pristine. All white sand and hibiscus bushes.)

His scales faded away and his limb spit back into two as the water sloughed off his body and onto the beach.

He wished he could just lay here forever, but his work wasn’t done.

He did a lot of research after being shipwrecked on his second adventure. He refused to ever be in that situation again, and he refused to let others be put in that situation, even when there was nothing to do for himself. It’s why he sought out the Mermaid Suit in the first place, to save himself from that fate.

But that didn’t mean he knew how to properly apply rescue breaths on a wolf.

Whatever, he could make it work.

It was basically like doing it for a human, right? Just… furrier.

The amount of water Twilight coughed up would have been truly alarming if Legend hadn’t been so relieved to see his friend was okay. 

Twilight shook his fur and his own transformation melted away like drops of water. 

Legend felt unnecessarily jealous of the fact that his clothes transformed with him. Being pantless was a personal preference, but it was also a necessary tactical choice when it came to his mermaid transformation. It must be nice to not have clothes get in the way of your changing form and to always have them waiting for you when you returned to yourself.

“Where are we?” Twilight rasped with vocal chords shredded from saltwater.

Legend shrugged noncommittally. “Shipwrecked,” he responded. Not strictly accurate, but the spirit was there. As well as the wound that was deeply entrenched in his heart with the concept. “On some island. Probably in Wind’s Hyrule based on the amount of water.”

Twilight clambered to his feet and stretched his back with a pop. He seemed to be recovering remarkably quickly from his near-drowning. Legend wondered how much his injuries transferred from one form to another. The now significantly larger open cut on his own leg twinged.

“So,” Twilight asked, “thinkin’ we should start some kinda signal fire? Let the others know we’re here?”

“Plus get food, clean water, shelter…” Legend ticked off each point on his fingers. They had their work cut out for them on this island adventure. Even all his research could only do so much.

“Wanna split up? Explore a bit, maybe swing round here by sundown?” The man was already gazing off towards the distance with every muscle tensed, like he was just waiting to spring out to assure their survival.

Legend gave a so-so motion with his hand. “Let’s try for four. Don’t know how long setting up camp will take, and I’d rather not have to deal with that without light. ”

“Don’t you worry bout a thing. I’ll see ya soon.” As Twilight stalked off, Legend slowly dug through his bag to pull out his discarded shoes, taking furtive glances after him every few seconds.

Once the other hero was around the bend, out of sight, Legend let himself examine the formerly small wound on his leg. He didn’t want to worry the hero or draw his mother-henning down on him, but it was starting to really throb with pain.

When he looked at the cut he was surprised to see that the skin around it was no longer just normal flesh. Even though his mermaid transformation was meant to be deactivated, scales lined the edges of the wound. Their normal shine was faded to a dull gray, and small, slimy white spots had formed on them.

That… probably wasn’t good.

Usually scales wouldn’t form unless the skin was dampened first, but - he rubbed the area with the edge of his tunic to absorb any possible moisture- nothing. He guessed he had to deal with this now too.

Rubbing it with the bit of cloth only alerted him to the fact that it had started to itch. An irritation that rose up from just under the surface. He raked his nails over the scales, but they were too tough and his nails were too soft to help at all. Part of him longed to tear at his flesh with one of the many rocks scattered along the shore, but he doubted that would be a good idea. He could always table the concept for later, when he was feeling a little more desperate.

For now, he didn’t think there was much he could do. They were on an island, far from any civilization or medical help, especially for a part-merperson. He rummaged around in his bag until he found a piece of gauze, slapped it over the cut, and went on his way. They did still need to survive here until help arrived, after all.

He found some assorted wild berries that probably weren’t poisonous and some dry branches that could be used as firewood. Not a bad start, but he hadn’t seen any fresh water, and that would become a problem sooner rather than later.

He didn’t think he could do much more exploring, though. It had only been a short while, but he felt strangely exhausted. Maybe it was just the exertion of getting to the island in the first place. It had been quite a swim after all, burdened down with the weight of a full-grown wolf. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that his leg now both itched and burned. Every step sent a shock of pain shooting up his leg, making it more and more difficult to push himself forward. Possibly even more worrying, more of his skin had transformed to scales against his will. Spread up and down, beyond the confines of the gauze that had once hidden it. All dull, all speckled with cottony white fuzz.

If he didn’t do something, Twilight would see the scales when they met up, and it would only be a hop, skip, and a jump from there to finding out about his curse. 

There was only one thing he could do. Only one way to prevent this calamity from coming to pass. Once again, Legend would need to tangle with his age-old enemy.

Pants.

Legend got exactly two things out of his trip to Hytopia. Firstly, a migraine, and secondly, lots and lots of fashion. Way too much fashion. A completely unreasonable amount of fashion. (Although he could admit several of the dresses were quite nice and became staples of his wardrobe.)

But like the legendary hoarder he was, he never got rid of something that might maybe one day come in handy, and it was coming in handy right now. He plunged his arm into his bag up to his shoulder and rooted around until he found something that would suffice.

Even on a good day, Legend despised the feeling of fabric on his legs. Something about the texture just rubbed him the wrong way. And today was not a good day. The rough fabric felt strange on his smooth scales and it seemed to exacerbate the existing irritation of the area.

It was fine though. He was a veteran adventurer. He could deal with one uncomfortable garment.

He took a step, felt the way it restricted his range of movement, and grimaced.

It was far before the time they agreed to meet when Legend arrived at the location they first washed ashore. He was simply too exhausted and uncomfortable to care. At first, he wanted to start a signal fire, but before he did much more than set the sticks down, he was already fast asleep.

He was awoken by a boot toeing his side.

“Sleepin’ on the job already, vet?” Twilight inquired with a single raised brow. Slung over his shoulder, he somehow had an entire dead deer.

“We can’t all be go-getters like you.” Legend gestured to his catch. On closer inspection, there were bitemarks on its neck and the faintest bit of blood still smeared around Twilight’s mouth. “How do you even expect us to eat all that anyway? It’s just the two of us here.”

“Hey, don’t knock a farm boy’s appetite,” Twilight told him with a grin, “if you don’t want your share, I’ll be happy to eat it for you.”

“I’ll stick with berries, thanks,” Legend replied, popping a probably-not-poisoned berry into his mouth. His stomach churned and he discretely spit it out. Okay, he rescinded the poison opinion.

“I think I found a good cave we could set up camp,” Twilight gestured to a ridge rising high above them. “Out of the elements, but a good vantage point.”

“Lead the way.”

On the walk there, Legend tried not to limp or fidget. If anything, his nap had only made him worse. Worse pain, worse itchiness, worse exhaustion. Twilight kept glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, and Legend really hoped he wasn’t letting any of his discomfort show.

“Hey vet, I’ve been wondering,” the rancher started.

“Keep wondering then,” Legend retorted sharply, hoping to end the conversation before it even started.

“What’s with the pants?” Twilight continued on as if he hadn’t heard him.

Legend mentally swore to himself. Of course doing something out of the norm for himself would be commented on. “You have a problem with pants?” He tried to deflect.

Twilight just gazed at him in confusion. “Nah, but usually you do. Is there something goin’ on?”

“Is this the cave you were talking about?” Drop the subject, please drop the subject.

“Yeah, I was thinkin’ we could set the signal fire on the ground above the cave, so it’s easier to see from all round.” Thank you Hylia, for cutting him her first break in his entire life.

Setting up camp thankfully did not take too long because even the short amount of effort left Legend drained. He sat down while Twilight began to butcher and cook the deer and quickly found himself nodding off.

It was fine. He wasn’t hungry anyway.

What felt like minutes later, Legend was awoken by the light of dawn shining directly into his eyes. He was feeling weak and shaky but forced himself up anyway. Can’t show problems, can’t show weakness.

Twilight was already up long before him, the sunrise illuminating his frame from where he stood guard in the mouth of the cave. Legend mentally kicked himself for sleeping through the night and forcing Twilight to keep watch all alone. Especially after a near drowning. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He didn’t know how to say any of that, so he just sidled up next to his brother and asked, “see anything?”

Twilight started at his presence and turned to look at him. The bags underneath his eyes stood out starkly in the morning light. “Maybe? I think I see somethin’ on the horizon, but can’t be too sure, ‘specially in this light.”

Legend shrugged. “Let’s go down to the beach, get a closer look.”

A suggestion he instantly regretted.

His entire leg burned. It would barely support his weight. His pants stuck to his leg in unusual places and he could see blood seeping through in spots, even far away from where the original cut was.

As soon as they reached the beach once more, he gave up the fight to keep himself upright and allowed himself to collapse. 

The glimmering waves stretched out into the distance. With the light of dawn cresting over the ocean like this, Legend could admit to himself that even with his personal hang-ups, Wind’s world truly was beautiful sometimes.

Wait.

This was Wind’s world. Or probably his world at least. 

Legend suddenly remembered a nugget of information Wind had shared with them over dinner ages ago and pieces of the picture rearranged themselves to form a startling amount of clarity.

Wind had told them that even with all that vast ocean, there was not a single zora in his world. There was something about the very nature of the water that was toxic to them. eventually they left the water and evolved to live in the skies.

In hindsight, maybe not the best thing for a merperson with an open wound to be swimming in either. 

Legend groaned and covered his eyes with his arm.

A shift of fabric let him know when Twilight moved to crouch down next to his side. “So,” his voice drifted down to him on the morning breeze, “you gonna tell me what’s wrong with you already?”

Legend uncovered one eye for the sole purpose of glaring at him. “Fuck off,” he said with no real heat behind the words.

“Gladly,” he retorted, “as soon as you tell me what’s up and how I can help.” At Legend’s continued glare, he huffed out an exasperated sigh. “You think you’re hidin’ it, but you’re not doin’ as good a job as you think.”

Despite his leg screaming at him, Legend forced himself to his feet. “Can’t you just let me have one secret to myself? Is that too much to ask?” 

Twilight followed him to his feet. “I don’t know why you’re bein’ so stubborn about this! Is it too much to ask to let me help you?”

Legend took a step back, closer to the ocean. “Well maybe I don’t want you to help!”

“Too bad! We’re brothers, that’s what we do!” Twilight took two steps forward. Legend took three back.

Just as Legend was about to open his mouth to respond, an especially high wave washed over their calves.

And Legend screamed.

As bad as transforming with an injury was, transforming with something in the way was unimaginably worse. The flesh rippled, and finding no way to merge around the fabric, merged through it. Muscles and skin unstitching themselves and restitching themselves with a foreign body lodged in between. He could feel the way the fiber threaded its way through his muscles, the way it pulled on his body with every minute twitch.

His collapsed to his scaly knees in agony.

“Vet!” Twilight yelled, all traces of his previous irritation now gone, only to be replaced by fear. “What’s happening, what do I do?”

“Water,” Legend croaked into the air he could not breathe. On his neck, his gills were working overtime to try and draw in water that was simply not there. “Get me out of the water.”

In one movement, Twilight heaved him over his shoulder like the dead deer from last night. He jogged out of the lapping surf and further inland, almost off the beach entirely. 

The scales were made to wick water easily, but his pants were soaked. He drew his sword and began to carefully cut them away. Sorry, Madame Couture, your pants weren’t going to survive this journey.

Twilight gasped as the fabric fell away to reveal what was underneath. 

Dead and dull scales, many of them fallen off to reveal, oozing, open sores. Large patches covered by cottony white slime. When enough water fell away that he regained some human skin (far less than he should) it was all red and inflamed. And in the center of it all, a massive injury bisecting his appendage where the fabric fused into the flesh.

Finally, he removed enough fabric that his legs separated again, taking the injury with them in another agonizing transformation. Now, he had mirrored open wounds on both of his legs, with fabric visibly ground deep into the flesh. Impossible to take out without taking bits of his leg with it.

Twilight took a deep breath to steady himself and Legend braced himself. “So. You were trying to hide the fact that you transform into a merperson.”

Legend cringed. “Right.”

“From the person who transforms into a wolf.”

Legend cringed further into himself. “That’s right.”

“What the hell, Vet!” He exploded. “I’ve seen a lotta stupid decisions. Hell, I’ve made a lotta stupid decisions! But this might just top the cake. What the fuck were you thinkin’? Did all them adventures scramble your brains or somethin’? As soon as the others come to pick us up I am marchin’ your skinny ass straight to Hyrule and not lettin’ you out of bed for about a month. You understand?”

“That’s fair.” Legend flopped onto his back and covered his face with his hat. It felt like every ounce of fight had been drained out of him, and with it, every bit of energy he had ever possessed. “Is it okay if I sleep til they get here? ‘M tired,” he mumbled.

Twilight huffed, but he guided Legend’s head onto his lap all the same. “Fine. But we ain’t done with this conversation, young man.”

Legend drifted in and out of a light doze for what felt like a long time. At one point it felt like someone was petting his hair.

A voice drifted down to him.

“You scare me some a the time, Vet. You don’t take care a yourself, but you don’t let nobody take care a you neither. What the hell am I supposed to do with you? I just wish you hadn’t felt you had to hide this from me...”

Legend drifted back down into a welcoming slumber.

He awoke to the arrival of Wind’s ship. With Twilight’s help, he got Legend to Hyrule for healing before too many questions were asked. Hyrule grimaced at the large wound with fabric inside, but he barely gave a second glance to the white-spotted scales before he cheerfully announced they already had a solution.

“Fucking what? ” Legend seethed.

“Yeah, it’s a fungal infection Time got when we arrived here. It’s why we took so long to pick you up. Did you know he can turn into a Zora?”

“ HE CAN WHAT?! ”

Notes:

This ended up being way longer than I intended it to be.
Btw Leg totally lost his favorite pair of Pegasus boots there at the end.

Chapter 7: Sick and Injured

Summary:

Set during ALttP. How Legend got his scar.

Notes:

Cw: needles

It was pouring down rain outside. Even nestled deep in the temple as he was, the echoing reverberations of distant thunder were enough to make Link tremble.

His breath came out as a pained wheeze. Every inhale took effort, feeling like he was breathing through a wet cloth.

A needle shook between his fingers, hovering inches above the hemorrhaging wound taking up most of his right arm.

The pitter patter of his blood onto the stone bricks blended into the sound of the rain outside until he couldn’t tell one from the other.

He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be in the depths of a dungeon stitching up his own wounds. He wanted to be safe at home, tucked into bed, with his uncle telling him a bedtime story. He wanted the hot chocolate and soup and extra blankets his uncle always gave him when he was sick.

But he was never going to get that again.

His body was suddenly wracked with coughs and the needle went flying out of his hand, towards the entrance of the tiny crevice in the wall he’d wedged himself into, barely big enough to fit his body. He froze with rabbit-stillness and forced himself to suppress the rest of the coughs.

In the room beyond his tiny safe space, a monster roared, setting the entire structure shaking and peppering Link’s head with tiny rocks that were dislodged from the noise. It sent a shudder of fear across Link’s skin. The light reflecting off the needle flickered orange, a surefire sign the beast was setting off more fireballs.

Link waited, seconds stretching into minutes, until he thought the monster might have calmed down. The only sound he made was the steady plip plip plip of his blood onto the floor.

Finally, he allowed himself to creep forward. Slowly, steadily, inch by inch. Until he could snatch the needle and retreat back to safety.

For just a second, he caught a glimpse of the monster that had wounded him and he hoped and prayed m it hadn’t seen him as well. It was massive, as large as his house. Hellish red with a barbed tail, like the demons he’d learned about in church.

And it was his job to defeat that.

He had no idea how. He was just a kid, thrust into this journey against his will. Link clutched the needle tightly between his fingers and fought the urge to cry. 

Snot trailed out of his nose of its own accord. He tried to wipe it away and only succeeded in smearing blood on his face.

There was only a little water left in his waterskin, but he used it to clean off the dirt and grime the needle gathered from its stint on the floor. It wasn’t much for disinfecting it, but it was all he was capable of doing at the moment. He probably wouldn’t miss the water anyway. His throat was too scratchy to make drinking anything a pleasant experience right now.

Link had never stitched up a wound before. He’d stitched up his own clothes several times, especially since he’d started on this adventure, but that was a whole different experience than sewing together human flesh.

He had his sewing needle threaded with the bright red thread he used to repair his tunic. Probably not the right kind of either material for his task. He wished he had the right kind. He wished he knew how to do this, or, better yet, had someone do it for him. 

Wishes were useless, they wouldn’t help him now.

With trembling fingers, he stabbed the needle directly into his arm. He had to bite down on his lip to keep himself from screaming and alerting the monster to his presence. This was only the first stitch. He didn’t know how he could manage to do this over and over again, up the entirety of his arm.

He tried to pull the needle to the other side only to fall. The angle was all wrong. He could only press it down, down deeper into his flesh, not sideways and out the other side. Trying to force it into position only succeeded in painfully tearing through his muscles under the surface of his skin.

He dragged the needle out and started again.

This time he knew what he was doing, at least a little bit more. He stuffed the upper edge of his tunic into his mouth, giving himself something to bite down on. To muffle his screams, his wheezing breaths, the coughs that threatened to burst forth from his ribcage with every moment.

He used his fingers to pinch the ragged edges of the wound together and pushed the needle in using the palm of his hand. He only made it through partway, so he pushed harder, harder. Until finally the needle popped out the other side. He pulled it through. One stitch down, only a bajillion more to go.

Pinch, stab, pull.

Pinch, stab, pull.

The stitches were crooked and vastly different distances apart. Maybe if he could use his right hand, it would have been better. Maybe. But his dominant hand was the one that had been injured, and much as he wished, he could not bend his hand around in a loop to fix his own arm.

He stitched again.

And again.

He was almost in a groove now. It was easier to do the stitches when the pain faded to distant static along with the rest of his surroundings. 

He let himself settle into a fugue state of stabbing and pulling.

He shouldn’t have allowed himself to get complacent. With how disconnected from his body he’d become. He didn’t even notice the burgeoning need to cough until it was already escaping from his mouth.

The force of the motion buried the needle into his arm all the way until the needle’s eye, and a scream reflexively emerged from his lungs.

In the outside room, the monster stirred.

There was no way it didn’t know where he was now.

Link had to work fast. He clutched the end of the needle with blood-soaked fingers and slowly, painfully dragged it back out.

The monster rammed its head into the wall, trying to reach where Link was hidden. The force jostled him, but he kept his grip in the needle and yanked it the rest of the way out in one go.

The wound was only stitched about ⅔ of the way up, with stitches probably too shaky and far apart to actually help. It would have to do. There wasn’t time for anything else.

He quickly tied a knot and cut the trailing thread with the blade of his sword. The needle would need to be abandoned to the crevices of the dungeon floor.

At the entrance to his hidey-hole, a massive paw appeared. Red, with wicked green claws, and as big as his whole body. It pushed forward, reaching and grasping for him.

Link tried to pick up his sword with his right arm, but it spasmed in pain and released its grip against his will. He tried again, holding it steady with his left, but the muscles were too weak to even grip it. He was worried that difficulty might not go away, even after it healed.

He grabbed the sword in his left. It would have to do, it would have to do. He felt like everything was less than ideal, but it was becoming his new mantra, it would have to do. 

He stood up, the low ceiling of the crack forcing him into a hunch. For a moment, he worried he wouldn’t be able to keep himself upright. Weakness washed over him, weather from the illness or the bloodloss, he didn’t know. He gasped deep breaths of excretion like he was running a marathon even though all his body was accomplishing was remaining standing.

The monster growled, echoing the sounds of distant thunder.

He tightly held on to his sword with blood-slick fingers and started forward.

He’d had enough rest, and there was only one way out of here.

Survive or die. Those were the only two options he had. And he didn’t want to bleed out on stone floors in the dark, far from his home, like his Uncle before him.

It was time to move.

Notes:

I’ve had this very specific image in my head for over a year now. Little baby Leg, sick and alone, stitching up his own wounds in the depths of a temple because there’s no one else to do it for him.

Chapter 8: “You’re a Jerk When You’re Sick”

Summary:

The Colors are in charge of a very sick Vet, who is determined to make sure they have a bad time taking care of them.

Red bounced on the balls of his feet from behind the Blacksmith Shop sales counter.

The ding of the bell above the door had him perking up, ecstatic for the arrival of a new customer. “ HELLO AND WELCOME TO- Oh! Heya Vio, welcome back! Did you have a productive trip to the library?”

Vio did not respond. Just looked at Red and silently continued on to the next room burdened down with a towering stack of books. It was okay though! When they were split, Vio always needed his “introvert time,” as he called it.

Red hummed a merry little tune and puttered around the shopfront, straightening up and rearranging the displays as he went. Anything more and he might accidentally break Blue’s Ban on Cleaning he’d had since the last time he attempted something similar. It wasn’t his fault! He didn’t know that brand of polish was flammable!

If he focused, he could hear Blue in the back room, attacking the spiderwebs accumulated there with a furious gusto normally reserved for swarms of monsters. To the side room came the sounds of the forge’s clangs from where Green was working on filling the backlog sword orders.

It was so nice to be home for once! And it was so nice to be himself again! He loved being Four, but sharing a body with 3 brothers could get a smidge too snug sometimes.

Today would be almost perfect except for one teeny tiny little thing.

A bell rang from upstairs. 

4 synchronized groans answered it from downstairs.

“Okay, who’s turn is it?” Green asked.

“Red” came Vio’s short reply, echoing up from… the basement? What was he doing in the basement? Actually, know what, this was his “introvert time.” Red just needed to just let him have this.

Red puffed up his chest and rolled up his sleeves, ready to get down to business. He had been called for duty and he would answer. There was a sick vet he needed to take care of!

He would just pop into the kitchen first, real quick.

“Hey Blue, I’m going to take some of these cookies up to Legend, okay?” He called out into the general air of the house, half-hoping he didn’t hear.

Like a flash, his brother appeared in the kitchen doorframe, blocking his only way out.

“Don’t you dare,” Blue hissed, “those cookies aren’t even close to cool yet. Do you want to burn his face off, huh? Is that what you want? Do you want our brother to die?”

Red rolled his eyes and squeezed past Blue with the plate of cookies in his hands. Blue lunged for him to yank it out of his hands, but Red just danced around him and darted out the door.

“Okay sounds great thanks for the cookies bye!”

Red hovered in front of the wooden bedroom door with his ill-gotten gains.

He had nothing to be worried about! This was just their friend; the lovable, grumpy veteran, super sick and in need of the loving tender care of his friends. Their grouchy and feverish and too sick to get out of bed and very much deciding to make that everyone else’s problem Veteran. Yup. nothing to be worried about!  

He toed open the door and poked one eye in.

“Heeeeey Vet, how’re you feeling?”

He was greeted with a towering mound of blankets, the only recognizable feature a pair of eyes glaring furiously at him. Red gulped.

“I feel like shit, thanks for asking. Just like the last fifty goddamn times you asked. Did you take so long to get here because you were trying to think of more inane questions to ask me?” The vet growled from inside his fluffy prison.

“No, I brought cookies!” Red bumped the door open with his hip to triumphantly hold the baked goods out in an offering.

Legend scoffed and huddled down in the soft mound. “I don’t want any cookies. I’m not hungry.”

“Are you suuuure? They’ll make you feel betterrrrr.” Red repeatedly tapped a cookie to the blanket in roughly the place he thought the vet’s mouth might be.

“I don’t want any of your stupid cookies!” Legend snarled, and with a soft surge of moving fabric, he knocked the entire plate out of Red’s hands, spraying cookies and crumbs all over the bedspread and floor.

Red stuck his lip out in a pout. “You’re a jerk when you’re sick.” 

“I’m a jerk all the time. Get used to it. This is what you’re signing up for when you decide you want to put up with me,” Legend hissed like a feral cat.

Red eyed the trail of crumble cookies. Blue was not going to be happy about that. Especially when he didn’t want Red to have the treat in the first place. “He’s going to be so mad he has to clean that up,” Read whined aloud.

“He? He who?” From the gap in the blankets, he could see the Vet’s eyes squinting at him suspiciously.

“I mean me! I am the only one here! Just me, Four, watching over my sick friend. Alone! No one else!”

Legend’s feverish, glazed eyes continued glaring at him.

“Soooo, what did you ring me up here for?” Red tried to change the subject.

“Blankets,” Legend told him, drawing every blanket in the house tighter around him as he did so.

“Blankets?” Red questioned, “but you’ve got so many already. What if they make your fever even worse…”

“I need blankets!” Legend shrieked, “I’m freezing cold, it’s like the bottom of the ocean in here!”

“Okay, I’ll find you more blankets, geez! Calm down.”

The other heroes wouldn’t mind too much if he stole their bedrolls, right? They weren’t here right now, and it was for a good cause.

As he jogged back with his arms full of fabric, red was struck with an idea! He had lots of stuffed animals in his room, maybe some of those would bring Leg some comfort. 

He grabbed three of his favorites, added them to the pile, and hurried back to his friend.

“I’m baaaaack,” he singsonged as he threw the door open.

Legend hissed and dove the rest of the way under the covers at the noise, leaving not even his eyes visible anymore.

“Here you go, now you can be nice and cozy.” He dumped the entire armful of bedrolls in a heap on the tippy-top of the peak of blanket mountain. “And here’s a little friend to help you feel better!” He took his favorite, Mr. Bear-Bear, and shoved it under the covers where it would hopefully meet with its recipient.

There was a slight shuffling and then silence for a very long time. Red mentally patted himself on the back for a job well done and began to gather up the discarded cookies.

“Is this some kind of joke to you?” Legend’s voice was glacially cold. “Do you think I’m some pathetic sniveling child who needs to be coddled? I am a veteran goddamn adventurer and I don’t have time to deal with this childish nonsense.”

He tossed Mr. Bear-Bear into the wall, where it tumbled to the floor with a pathetic squeak.

Even though he didn’t want to, tears burst forth from Red’s eyes. He knew it was just a toy, but Mr. Bear-Bear was super special to him. Was his friend. He just wanted to make Leg feel better.

The door slammed open with a bang.

“I DON’T CARE THAT YOU’RE SICK. YOU MADE MY BROTHER CRY, I’M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS.” Blue burst into the room, fueled forward by his anger. He dove his hands under the covers and dragged Legend out into the light. Now that Red could actually see Legend instead of a blanket mummy, he could see how awful he looked. Ash pale, soaked in sweat, and shaking all over.

Red tugged discreetly on Blue’s sleeve. “Pssst,” he whispered, “Aren’t we supposed to be incognito?”

Blue glanced to Legend’s face, where he was looking between Red and Blue with his mouth gaping open and closed in shock.

“Uhhhhhh,” Blue tried, “this… isn’t real. You’re so sick you’re… hallucinating. Yeah.” 

To both of their surprise, Legend instantly burst into tears.

“What did you do?” Red yelled at Blue.

“I didn’t do anything! He started doing this on his own!” Blue retaliated.

“Well you need to fix it!” Red wailed in distress.

“No! This jerk made you cry! He deserves a few tears of his own!” His grip tightened where he was holding the Vet.

“But he’s siiiiiiick. Just look at how pathetic he is.” Red gestured to their friend. 

He did look really pathetic. Tears and snot were streaming down his face in great rivers and merging with the sweat already present. He was completely boneless and limp in Blue’s bruising grip.

“Fiiine,” Blue grumbled. “I’m sorry I upset you Legend.” Legend did not stop crying. Blue looked to Red for help, who just shrugged. “I’m… sorry I said we weren’t real? Actually we’re… You’re seeing double! Cause you’re so sick. Yeah.”

Legend grasped blue’s wrists in trembling, damp fingers. “You’re real?” He asked.

“Really real,” Blue replied.

“Thank Hylia,” Legend responded, and promptly passed out.

Blue stood there with a limp veteran for a moment before tucking him into bed. “I don’t want to know what that was,” he decided aloud.

Red silently agreed as he gathered up Mr. Bear-Bear and the other stuffed animals to bring back to his room.

As they both went to leave the Vet to his rest, Blue’s foot crunched on something on the carpet. “Who the fuck left cookies on the floor?! Damnit, now I need to clean this up.”

 

Later that night, Legend awoke to a figure dressed in purple reading a book in the dark on the other side of the room.

“I am also a hallucination,” they monotonically informed him, and went back to their book.

Notes:

I originally tried to write this with Blue as the central character, but he Would Not cooperate with me (or at least not without sounding like Legend’s clone). It’s a good thing Red was able to step in with his plethora of exclamation points!

Chapter 9: Persistent Fever

Summary:

Set after Link’s Awakening. Link has an infection. He’s not getting better and he knows it’s because he doesn’t want to.
CW for suicidal thoughts.

The palace healer lays her hand on Link’s forehead. It is beautifully cool to the touch and he wants more than anything to lean into it and the relief it brings. To let it soothe the ache of his fevered skin.

So he pulls away.

Denies himself the kind and comforting touch he knows he doesn’t deserve. Just like he doesn’t deserve this luxurious bed in the palace, or these good people taking care of him, or his sister’s smiles and kind affection. They shouldn’t be giving a single scrap of kindness to someone like him. He wants to claw his skin off.

The healer had enough time to check his temperature. There had been times where he’d cringed away too fast, denied himself even a clinical touch, and they had to hold him down to force their care upon him. This is not one of those times. “His fever is still worryingly high. We can continue to give him medication and treatment, but ultimately it’s up to him to fight this off,” the woman tells Zelda.

Zelda kneels at his bedside, pushes his sweat-soaked hair off his forward. “How are you feeling?” She ask.

Like shit, he doesn’t say, Like the aching feelings in my heart are finally reflected in my body, and all I want is for them to consume me whole until there’s nothing left.

Like I want to die, he especially doesn’t say.

He keeps his mouth sealed. Fixes his gaze to stare hazily at the ceiling instead of his sister at his side.

Zelda places a gentle kiss on his forehead and retreats, knowing there is only so much touching he will tolerate right now (even though all he wants is to be held, to break down and shatter apart in someone’s else’s arms).

The healer takes Zelda’s vacated place. “It’s time to check your wounds,” she tells him. Zelda leaves the room. She doesn’t need or want to see this. Not again.

The healer pulls layer after layer of bandages off his chest, revealing the gaping hole underneath. His skin is shredded to tatters by a monster’s claws and surrounded by angry red skin. Oozing green-yellow pus seeps out of the injury and stains his bandages the color of bile.

She touches the unmarred but inflamed skin next to the injury, drawing a his from out of his teeth at its tenderness. She frowns at the warmth she finds there.

“You’ve been keeping up with putting on the ointment, correct?” She asks.

“Yes,” he lies.

“And making sure to regularly change the bandages?”

“Of course,” he lies again.

The woman sighs. “I just don’t know why it’s not getting better. This infection should have been healed by now.”

Link knows why. He knows it’s because he’s not taking care of himself. Because he just wants to die and be done with it all.

She pats him on the shoulder. Link shifts uncomfortably at the contact. “You can get through this. You’re a strong young lad. Don’t let one illness lay you low.”

He doesn’t respond. The woman applies the ointment, rebandages the wound, and leaves in silence.

He should probably rest to recover his strength. He does not. He sleeps as little as possible now. Afraid of dreaming and everything that comes with it. Just lays in his bed in silence with only his thoughts to keep him company.

Hours later, Zelda comes in with a tray.

“I brought you water,” she says.

“I’m not thirsty,” he lies.

“I brought you food,” she tries again.

“I’m not hungry,” he says. That one is a truth, for once. Days of starving while clinging to a piece of driftwood in the middle of the ocean seems to have killed his appetite for good. He doubts he will ever feel hungry again, and he is grateful for it.

She sets the tray on his nightstand in case he wants some later (he won’t) and sits next to his bed.

“Link,” she starts, and Link knows that tone of voice. She’s about to give him the lecture she’s given time and again since he’s been bedridden. By this point, he could recite it by heart.

‘Why did you go fight those monsters?’ 

Because he was sick of being locked up in the castle following his ‘accident.’ And he was sick of it being called an accident like he just broke a plate or fell off his horse instead of nearly dying and dooming a whole island to nonexistence. And because if deities were going to yank him around and force him to do their dirty work, he might as well save himself the pain of resisting and walk headfirst into trouble.

‘Why were you so reckless?’

Because he didn’t care if he lived or died and was somewhat hoping for the latter. Because if he threw himself into fighting wholeheartedly, maybe he could briefly stop the screaming in his head. Because despite everything, he still won, even injured as he was. His recklessness got results.

‘I just want you to get better.’

He didn’t. And that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Link endeavors to tune out whatever newest configuration of words she’s going with tonight. He’s heard it all before. Link lets his eyelids fall close and feigns sleep, even as he’s careful to fight it off. The pain of his nails digging into his palm keeps him alert. Eventually, Zelda leaves. And Link is alone yet again.

That night, his fever spikes. He can feel it.

The room feels ice cold, he shivers violently enough to shake the bed. His entire body is soaked in sweat.

Distant noises flit in and out of his consciousness. The room feels warped and hazy.

He knows if he just called out, he would have people here to help him in an instant. Healers, guards, his sister. Giving him comfort, medicine, water, compresses.

He remains silent.

This would be a fitting end to the Hero of Legend, right? Children could read in their history books that he was felled down by a great monster. A good story, to be told through the ages. He died as he lived, fighting.

They wouldn’t have to know about the great hole that opened up inside him. They wouldn’t have to know about that brokenness that consumed him, even now. They wouldn’t have to know that he wasn’t sure if he could keep being a hero anymore, but he also didn’t think he could stop.

He could just be done with it all, and finally get his rest.

Eventually, Link loses his ongoing fight for consciousness and falls into a deep and fitful slumber.

He dreams.

He is curled up on himself in a void of infinite darkness. From up above, a figure made of pure, golden light descends to where he is crouched.

“My child,” it starts, “it is too early for you to give up here. The world has need of you yet.” 

“I’m tired,” he mumbles and curls further in on himself. His body is thin, tiny, childish. The floor beneath him transforms to the rough stone of sewers, stained with blood.

“I know,” the figure replies. She lifts his face and lays a gentle kiss on his forehead. Tears pour down his face in twin streams. “I’m sorry. I wish there was another way.”

“Haven’t I done enough? Haven’t I earned my rest?” He begs, he pleads, he raves.

“You have done everything I’ve asked of you and more, my child,” she softly reassures him. One luminous finger reaches up to wipe the tears from his eyes. It feels like a summer breeze blowing across his face.

“Then why?” He asks brokenly.

“Because there is still much more to be done. And because there is no one else to do it but you.”

He breaks down crying in her arms, and lays there as he is held for a long, long time.

In the morning, his fever is completely cured.

Everyone is amazed. Some of the healers are even going so far as to call it a miracle.

But Link knows better.

He knows it is a curse.

Notes:

I had trouble thinking of what to write for this prompt, so I very nearly went with one of the alts. Today was inches away from being domestic Ravioli fluff. Literally polar opposite in tone to this. (Don’t worry, you’re still getting that later.)

Chapter 10: White Coat Syndrome

Summary:

Modern au. Time takes his foster sons, Hyrule and Legend, to get a checkup.

Notes:

Because I had to look it up, White Coat Syndrome is when you get a higher blood pressure reading at a doctor’s office than you would at home, generally because being around doctors is making you anxious and making your blood pressure rise. 👍

Legend tightly gripped Hyrule’s hand as they entered the doctor’s office. It was 100%, totally, only for Hyrule’s comfort and not his own. After all, ‘Rule had never been in a doctor’s office and was probably scared stiff right now.

At his side, Hyrule marveled at the bright cartoon animals painted on the pediatrician's walls in annoying contrast to Legend’s internal monologue.

Their new foster dad (“Call me Time!” He’d said, “or Mr. Lon if you’re feeling fancy”) trailed after them. A presence that was probably meant to be comforting but Legend would categorize more in the vicinity of ‘looming’.

“I don’t know why we need to come here!” Legend hissed for the upteenth time. His grip on Hyrule’s hand reflexively tightened, and Hyrule sent him a sunny smile in response. “I don’t need a checkup!”

Time let out a sigh. It surprisingly wasn’t irritation, Legend had more than enough of that directed at him to recognize instantly. He couldn’t quite identify what emotion it did contain, though.

“I’m sorry, Ledge,” Time told him, “But both of your medical records are really spotty. We need to get those updated and get you both up to date on your vaccines. I just want you to be safe and healthy, kid.”

By ‘spotty,’ Time meant practically nonexistent. He stopped having regular checkups when his uncle died at 10. None of his fosters cared enough to take him to the doctor or had him long enough that they realized they even needed to.

When they brought the subject up with Hyrule, Legend was both shocked and completely unsurprised to learn he hadn’t been to a hospital since he’d been… born? Did Hyrule’s mom actually even go to a hospital when she had Hyrule? Maybe she had some doula come to her creepy cabin in the woods where horror movie characters go to get murdered to help her have an “all-natural birth” in a hot tub. It sounds like the kind of thing she would do. And after that, Legend figured Hyrule got 10 years of hippie off-the-grid parenting where every sniffle got him 11 different herbs and spices shoved down his gullet in an attempt to cure him followed by an undetermined number of years rubbing his own cuts in dirt to try and seal them up.

Legend was smart and mature enough to realize they probably both needed to see the doctor at some point.

Didn’t make him like it any better though.

Legend sulked on an uncomfortable plastic chair (he was not getting onto the exam table until he needed to) while they waited for the doctor to arrive. Hyrule wandered around the room, poking at everything remotely interesting.

“What’s this?” He asked, picking up a red plastic bin.

Time hurried over to his side. “Please don’t touch that. They put needles in there.”

“Do skeletons really look like this?” He waved the arm of a plastic model.

“Mostly,” Time replied.

“Do you think I could be a doctor when I grow up?” Hyrule tried to peel a poster about the food triangle off the wall to see if there was anything behind it.

“If you study hard and don’t get into trouble.” Time gently pressed the corner of the poster back in place and shooed away Hyrule’s grabby hands.

Legend just sat in his chair and glowered in silence. Stupid Hyrule, betraying him by actually being excited for the doctor’s. He couldn’t rely on anyone around here.

Hyrule was way too chummy with every single person he met. He was everyone’s little BFF. Why couldn’t he understand that yoy shouldn’t trust anyone?

The kid seemed to think that Time was their dad for good now, but Legend knew better. He always knew better. It was only a matter of time until the guy got tired of them and kicked them out on the street. Legend had been through this whole song and dance enough times to know what to expect.

Legend actually had a secret theory. It had been brewing in his brain since Time announced this doctor’s visit. He hadn’t told Hyrule yet, although based on the kid’s carefree attitude, maybe he should have. His theory was that Time was actually looking to find something medically wrong with them so he’d have an excuse to get rid of them. 

After all, just think about it: the man only just found out he had a bio son. He had his own kid to care about! What use could he have with a couple of raggedy, emotionally damaged teens when he had real family who needed him? The younger kids had living relatives they wanted to get back to and Sky was off at college; it was only Legend and Hyrule who were in the way.

He only hoped they’d let him and Hyrule stay together when Time ditched them. The kid really needed Legend to look out for him. And if the system tried to separate them, well. He’d already run away from foster homes 1 and 4. What’s one more?

The office door softly clicking open distracted the residents of the room from where Hyrule was trying to break open one of the locked cabinets and Time was frantically trying to stop him.

A redheaded woman with a gentle smile in a lab coat greeted them. Hello. I’m Dr. Mipha. I presume you are the Lon family?”

Time held out a hand to shake. “I’m Time, these are Legend and Hyrule,” he said, neither confirming nor denying the ‘family’ aspect.

As the adults started to discuss their case, a nearly inaudible creak directed Legend’s attention back to where Hyrule had somehow managed to get one of the cabinets open while his watcher’s attention was elsewhere. Legend barely caught sight of him discreetly shoving something from the cabinet into his pocket before letting the door fall closed again with a sheepish grin at his foster brother.

Legend shook his head fondly. The kid was nearly as bad at hoarding whatever he thought might be useful as Legend was. To be fair, they both had their reasons.

“So Legend,” the doctor said from directly in front of Legend. He reflexively kicked out in surprise, just barely avoiding nailing her in the shin. Damnit, he can’t afford to let his guard down like that, especially around adults he doesn’t know.

“ Jesus, lady,” he swears, “don’t sneak up on a guy like that!”

She put her hands up in a pacifying gesture and chuckled lightly, seemingly unaffected by his lashing out. “I’m sorry for startling you like that, Legend. I was just asking if it’s alright with you if I take your vitals?”

Legend crossed his arms and glowered. “You can do whatever you want. It’s not like I can stop you.”

She brought out a cuff that Legend recognized from when he was younger and showed it to him. “This is for taking your blood pressure. I’m going to put this on your arm and it’s going to squeeze really tight, like it’s giving you a hug, and then it’s going to let go. Does that sound okay to you?”

Legend shoved out one of his arms. “Just get it over with already.”

The cuff went on and Legend fought the urge to bounce his leg. This was it. The beginning of the end. They were going to find something wrong with him and then he was going to be out of a home and a family. Again.

The cuff squeezed and released. Nothing at all like a hug in Legend’s opinion, although he admittedly didn’t have the most experience with them.

The doctor took a look at the number, frowned, and looked again. 

He knew it. Of course there was something wrong.

“This number’s a bit high. Are you stressed, Legend?” She asked.

“Wouldn’t you be?” He retaliated.

She offered him a comforting smile. “I understand that a doctor’s office can be kind of scary. How about you try your best to relax and let’s see if we can get a better result.”

Easier said than done.

As the doctor moved to start the machine again, Time crouched down in front of Legend and held Legend’s hands. His grip was feather/light, barely a touch, just enough to let Legend know he was there. “Hey Ledge, how about we talk about something fun. Have you watched any good movies lately?”

Legend blinked at the man. “…Wind finally convinced me to watch the Pirates of the Caribbean movies,” he admitted.

Time smiled encouragingly. “Oh yeah? How were those?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t stop talking through them.”

Time snorted in amusement.

“I thought the part with the giant monster was cool,” Legend said quietly.

“You mean the Kraken?”

“Yeah, that.”

The machine beeped next to him.

“There, that’s much better,” said Dr. Mipha as she wrote down the number.

Time squeezed his fingers lightly before he withdrew. “You did a good job, Legend.” 

Legend blushed and looked down at his hands that still contained remnants of warmth. Maybe, just maybe, things here could be okay.

“My turn!” Hyrule yelled, practically shoving Legend out of the chair.

Notes:

I somehow ended up with a lot of extra information in my mind about this au that I didn’t get to use here. So there’s a chance I might write more for it eventually.

Btw, literally at the exact moment Legend is angsting about Twilight existing, Twi is across town actively trying to acquire EVEN MORE younger siblings in the form of homeless teen Wild.

Edit 10/08: There is now a continuation here

Chapter 11: Fuzzy Socks

Summary:

Ravio is an unrepentant clothes thief but also a good boyfriend.

Notes:

I missed yesterday for family reasons, so this is the second chapter I’m posting today. Click back to read yesterday’s chapter if you haven’t already.

Link threw another pair of socks on the ground, adding to the pile now officially consisting of every single pair of socks he owned. He glared at the wood grain at the bottom of the empty drawer.

“Ravio!” He hoarsely yelled as loud as his body would let him, which wasn’t very loud, “where are my fuzzy socks!”

“Your what?” Ravio’s voice drifted up from the kitchen.

“My fuzzy socks!”

The merchant poked his head in the doorway of their shared bedroom. “Which ones are those?”

“You know!” He gestured wildly with his hands. “The ones I made when we were learning to knit together.”

Ravio frowned and dried his hands on a spare dish towel. “I didn’t think you ever wore those.”

Because originally he was making them for Ravio, but then he chickened out on giving them to him at the eleventh hour due to how lumpy and lopsided they turned out, but Ravio didn’t need to know that. Instead he said, “I only wear them when I’m sick,” and sniffled for emphasis. “They keep my feet warm.”

“You’re sick!?” Ravio exclaimed in shock, nearly dropping the towel.

Link looked at him like he was stupid. Did he really not notice he was sick until now? With how his throat sounded like he tried breathing in a cloud of sand? Apparently so, because Ravio seemed legitimately distressed upon learning this and quickly became a whirlwind around the room. He shoved the socks onto Link’s feet - where they came from Link had no idea but he highly suspected it was Ravio’s own dresser, where all his lost clothes somehow seemed to end up - and set about taking every blanket from their bed to bundle Link into a cocoon on the floor.

Link was just starting to go from feeling chills to feeling uncomfortably hot when Ravio sped out of the room with a “be right back!”

Link extricated the outer layer of blankets from himself and settled in to wait.

Not five minutes later, Ravio was walking back in with a cup of tea clutched in his hands. “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to!” He quickly explained before Link even had time to thank him, “but even the steam will help.”

Link gratefully lifted the cup up to his face and breathed it in. It was peppermint. Probably much more strongly brewed than he would have preferred normally, but with the way his tastebuds were deadened right now, it would probably be appreciated. The billowing steam rising up from the cup hit him like a punch to the face. The moist, minty air entered his nose and immediately his previously stuffy sinuses completely evacuated themselves all over his top lip.

Ravio handed him a tissue to wipe up the twin trails of snot trailing down his face.

His face suitably cleaned, Link took a sip of the drink. He was right about the strength of the tea. He doubted this would taste as good if he were well at the moment. He could taste a generous helping of honey in the beverage. Once again, it probably would have been grossly oversweetened if he was at his best right now, but as it was, the additive and the hot liquid both did a wonderful job of soothing the pain in his throat.

Link made a noise of appreciation in the back of his throat and Ravio’s face lost a line of tenseness that Link hadn’t even noticed until now. Ravio settled behind his boyfriend and started combing his fingers through his hair as he continued to sip. 

“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, babe,” he said. The gentle ministrations of his fingers soothed some of the tension in his skull.

“It’s my own fault,” Link replied, his voice already sounding a lot better, “I shouldn’t have been out adventuring in the snow.”

“Still.” Ravio snuck a gentle kiss onto the top of Link’s head. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, okay?”

Link hummed in agreement and relaxed into his boyfriend’s hold.

3 days later, once Link was all better, the fuzzy socks disappeared again.

But it was okay. Because before long, Ravio was gifting Link another, equally lumpy pair he had knitted himself.

Chapter 12: Beginner’s Guide to Faking Sick

Summary:

The Time Successor Trio of Twilight, Legend, and Wind need to make a distraction in order to steal something necessary. Twilight does not like this plan.

Notes:

This chapter coming to you somewhat late courtesy of the 14 hour nap I took yesterday.

A trio of heroes peeped over a low stone wall in a crowded marketplace. They were so close to what they needed and still so far.

The tiny, quaint store was filled with all kinds of curiosities. It looked like it would be a fun place to shop if only they could afford it, which they could not. Course, that normally woulda been fine, there were plenty of places they didn’t have enough money for on their journeys (a certain young shopkeeper from Ordon popped up in Twilight’s mind), but the problem was they didn't really have a choice right now.

“Ain't there any other way we can get inta this temple?” Twilight moaned desperately. This was important, he knew that, but he really, really didn’t wanna do Wind and Leg's plan.

Legend looked like he was thinking it over for a sec and Twilight felt a spark of hope light in his chest. Maybe the vet had some other kidnd idea. “Do you have any magical door opening items?” 

“No.” His hope dimmed.

“Did you notice any really thin slits that led inside?” Thin? Slits? What in the heck could Legend even use those for?

“No?” Twilight answered confusedly.

“Any weird portals?”

“Just the one that brought us here.” Twilight's hope sputtered and died.

“Then I’m out of ideas. Theft it is.” And there was the plan Twilight wanted to stay the hell away from.

He’d talked to the shopkeepers when they were scoping the place out! They were good, humble people! There was no way he’d wanna mess with their hard-earned livelihood!

“But- but- what about setting a good example for Wind!” Twilight gestured wildly at the boy who was practically vibrating outta his skin in excitement. Completely ignoring their conversation for the sake of eyeing the glittering wares on display. “And what if we get caught! D’you really want us all to be wanted criminals here?”

“It’s fine, I’ve been a wanted criminal before,” Legend waved his concern off as if having a criminal record ain't no big deal.

“YOU BEEN WHAT!” Twilight wished he were in his wolf form so he could literally bite Legend’s head off.

“So what? It was a long time ago, it’s no big deal.” Legend scoffed.

“Cool! you too?” asked Wind brightly, caving a hole into Twilight's chest.

“But, you’re like 12,” Twilight whispered, “How’d ya get a criminal record already?”

“Okay, first of all, wow that’s super rude? I’m fourteen and you know I know you know that. Second, pirate?” Wind gestured vaguely to his whole body. “‘Member? It’d be more surprising if I didn’t have a criminal record.”

Twilight let himself flop back on his ass and stick his face in his hands “It too late t’go back ‘n join the rest ‘a the chain?” he asked without a lotta conviction.

Legend clapped Twilight’s on the shoulder and looked him dead in the eye with a serious, “you’re already in too deep, rancher. If you left now, we'd need to kill you for knowing too much.”

“Yaaaaaay, murder!” Wind cheered with a vigorous fist pump. As Legend went to keep on talking, Wind chanted “Kill the rat! Kill the rat!” on a loop behind him.

“Well, rancher? You in or out?” (“Kill the rat! Kill the rat! Kill the rat!”)

Seeing Twilight’s continued reluctance even in the face of his (extremely unlikely, he knew his brothers'd never do that to him) murder, Legend tried to sweeten the pot one more time. “Without this item, we’ll never be able to get into the Water Temple where Dink is holding Time hostage! And who knows what tortures he’s undergoing even now!”

Meanwhile, in the Water Temple, Time glared at Dark Link in abject rage and clenched his fists tight enough to cause damage to what he was holding.

“Do you have any fours?” Time grit out.

“Nope! Go fish!” Dink replied smoothly.

Time swore and reached for the pile for the 20th time. “This is the worst torture you have ever created,” he intoned seriously.

Again in the marketplace, Legend pressed his advantage “Is that what you want, Twi? Do you want your father-”

“He ain’t my father.”

“-to die?” Legend finished.

Twilight let out a sigh, letting all his grief and his fear and his rage out with it. “Fine. We can rob these poor folks blind if that's what you really want.”

Wind and Legend high-fived. Twilight really didn’t think they got the gravity of the situation.

“So what do you think?” Legend turned to his new and quite literal partner in crime. “Should we go with the plan ‘Fly Me to the Moon’?” The two of them had plans? Since when have they already got plans? And there were names for them???

Wind wrinkled his nose like he just smelled a 2 day old goat fart. “No, that plan is dead awful.”

“I like it,” Legend grumbled under his breath.

“How about the Plague Plan?” Wind countered

Legend thought it over for a moment. “Yeah, that could work.” 

When did they have time to come up with these?

The two lil devils turned to Twilight with twin looks of mischief on their faces and Twilight got a really bad feeling in his gut. 

“We’re going to be the distraction-” Legend started.

“-Which means you gotta make the grab!” Wind finished enthusiastically.

“Why’s it gotta be me?” Twilight asked, gobsmacked.

“Because you don’t know the plan.” Legend let him know, unfortunately sensibly.

“Fine, fine. But we ain’t never doing this again, you got that?”

“Never!” Yeah, there was no way Twilight believed Wind actually meant that.

Whatever, he had a heist to get done.

Twilight situated himself next to the shop entrance, leaning back all casual-like as he waited for the promised distraction.

He didn’t have to wait long.

Legend disappeared around the corner then reappeared a few minutes later, half lugging Wind as he did. Somehow, they got Winds cheeks bright red and the kid was shaking like a leaf in a tornado.

“Please, someone! Anyone!” Leg yelled out, drawing the looks of everyone in the market damn effectively. “Is there a healer in the town! My son is very sick!”

Son? There's no way the vet was passing old enough to be the kid’s father. The crowd looked to be buying it though. They gathered round the two in obvious concern. 

Wind slipped down Legend’s arm, half falling to the ground. He opened his mouth and something gooey and brown fell out. Was he holding that in his mouth til now, just waiting for an opportunity to spit it out?

A woman in the crowd moved to put her hand on Wind’s forehead. “Oh, you poor child, you’re burning up.”

Legend nodded sagely. “He’s been like this all morning.”

“Does he have any other symptoms?” The woman asked, putting her fingers on Wind’s wrist to feel for his pulse.

“Yes.” Legend pulled up Wind’s sleeve to reveal - Twilight squinted - a buncha purple dots. Okay. Sure. “The only thing is, my wife had these same symptoms before she… before she…” And the Vet somehow managed to whip out real tears. Twilight found himself grudgingly impressed.

The woman whipped her hand off the kid’s wrist like she accidentally touched a hot griddle. “Oh dear,” she mumbled. “I’ll just… go and get the healer then.”

“Daddy!” Wind wailed like a tiny banshee and clutched both sides of the veteran’s face, “it hurts! Please make my hurty stop!”

The crowd murmured and subtly tried to push away from the duo.

The lady from before reappeared and gestured down a side street. “The village healer just this way! Please go to him, quickly.” 

Legend thanked her profusely and picked up the sailor like a baby. For his part, Wind clung to Legend and sobbed and shook as if the world was ending around him.

Twilight watched in bafflement as the pair hurried off and the crowd seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

All the people gathered around went back to whatever they'd been doing before before and a voice sounded near the back of Twilight’s head.

“Did you get it?” Twilight yelped and whipped around to view Legend staring expectantly at him, Wind at his side.

“I forgot,” he admitted sheepishly. Their dramatic performance probably did a better job of distracting him than the crowd.

“I can’t rely on anyone around here,” Legend scoffed as he pulled out a slingshot and a couple of seeds the likes of which Twilight'd never seen before. Okay, Plan ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ it is!”

Notes:

They get arrested and the rest of the chain needs to break them out of jail. Time escapes the Water Temple on his own.

Chapter 13: Old Wives Tale

Summary:

The chain gets drunk. It could have gone better.

There wasn’t anything particular that made today such a bad day. Legend just woke up feeling like complete shit. Not physically, or at least, not any more than the usual aches and pains. Emotionally shit. Maybe Hylia decided to frown on him today. Maybe he had a bad dream he forgot as soon as he woke up, just like every single other stupid dream since the one big one that ruined his life.

Maybe he was just a cold-hearted bastard who was angry at the world for no reason.

It didn’t help that over breakfast, Hyrule mentioned the potential end of their journey. Normally he’d be able to shake it off, let it slide off his back like water, but today was not a normal day. He knew that this was going to end, that he would lose everyone he ever cared about just like always, but it pissed him off to have it shoved in his face like that. He nearly bit Hyrule’s head off at the comment, and his successor was clearly hurt at his words.

He spiraled their entire walk that day. The happy chatter of his brothers crashed over him in waves of grief and pain and it dragged at his feet like anchors with every step he took.

He needed a drink.

Warriors didn’t seem like he was doing too hot either. He was way quieter than usual, not trading any of his usual friendly jabs with Legend. It was probably for the best, since with his current mood, Legend bet the usually playful banter would quickly transform into painful barbs designed to wound. Driving people away was basically all he was good for after all.

They were lucky their destination tonight was an inn. Finally, after days wandering in the wilderness of this unnamed Hyrule, they’d get a chance to rest, unwind, and hopefully let loose a bit.

Hylia knows he needed it.

His first stop when they reached the inn was to order a drink. He didn’t even bother to check out their rooms. It wasn’t important. What was important was getting anything alcoholic into his system.

“The drinking age is 18,” the innkeeper said. Legend got ready to rip the guy a new one for thinking he was some kid before he actually saw where the man was looking. Wind had snuck up behind him and was already looking through the drink menu. Wind stuck his tongue out at the man, further cementing his childishness, and scampered off. Legend doubted he was gone for good. There was about a 90% chance the kid would resurface with some amount of dubiously obtained alcohol before the end of the night.

Legend felt a surge of vicious satisfaction rise up in him. The drinking age varied by Hyrule, sometimes didn’t exist at all, but today the gods were in his favor. “Ha! I’m 19! Just old enough!” he barked out, “In your face, Wild!” Legend pointed dramatically at his brother, who glared back at him.

Wild loved to try any new area’s food and drink, alcoholic or not, and he probably could have passed for 18 if only Legend hadn’t so loudly called him out like that.

“ Excuse you!” Wild angrily hissed, “I am a hundred and seventeen!” 

“Oh yeah? Prove it old man. Tell us about your hundred years of memories. ” Probably a bit of a low blow, but it shut the kid up for now. If the way Wild’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment and rage was any indication, Legend was probably going to pay for that later. Whatever. That was a Tomorrow-Legend problem.

Legend didn’t actually pay attention to what he ordered. The taste didn’t really matter to him, just that it would eventually get him drunk enough to stop feeling like shit. He situated himself at an empty table and let himself unwind.

Legend didn’t usually drink very much. There were too many times he needed to make a split-second decision, too many times he needed to be constantly ready, too many times he couldn’t afford to let himself relax, even for a moment. But then there were some times when he felt he couldn’t afford not to drink. And here, in a cozy inn and surrounded by the brothers he would trust with his life, he felt like he could indulge.

Before long, Warriors took a seat at his side with several shots of hard liquor. In the background, Legend could hear Four unsuccessfully trying to convince the innkeeper they were actually 20 and just short. The inkeeper didn’t look like he was buying it, despite it being true.

Legend eyed Warriors choice of drink dubiously. “You sure you wanna start with that?”

“Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear; beer before liquor, never been sicker,” Warriors intoned, and downed three of the shots in concerningly rapid succession.

“Isn’t that just an old wives tale?” Legend asked.

“It’s always worked for me,” Warriors replied, already picking up his fourth shot.

“If you say so. Just slow down a bit, I don’t want to carry your heavy ass up to bed.” Even if he stopped right now, Legend would be slightly worried about him. The snell of the shots wafted over to where he sat and he could tell they were real hard stuff.

“I didn’t ask you to,” Warriors grumbled sourly, but he put the fourth shot down so at least that was something.

“So, you wanna tell me what crawled up your ass and died today?” Legend asked, deciding to breach the topic at hand with all the grace of a rampaging rhino.

“You wanna tell me why you’re such an asshole?” Warriors shut the topic down.

“Fair enough,” Legend conceded and sipped at his mystery drink.

Two tables over, Wild had a single drink situated in front of him courtesy of a very anxious Twilight. The rancher had his big brother mode fully engaged and was watching Wild like a hawk as the champion slurped down whatever fruity pink monstrosity Twilight had ordered for him that looked more like a dessert than a drink. Next to them, Time was sipping his customary single glass of wine, really taking the time to savor it like a sommelier, even though Legend was pretty sure the only wines he could tell apart were ‘red’ and ‘white.’

One table beyond that, Four was facedown on the table grumbling of a migraine next to the single drink they’d managed to purchase and didn’t even finish. This happened every single time they tried drinking. Legend didn’t know why they even bothered indulging. It’s like they skipped over all the fun parts of getting drunk only to arrive directly at hangover town; population: Four. 

Sky wandered into the room from upstairs and, upon seeing Four, decided it was table-nap time. He cuddled up to the diminutive smithy and within a minute was fast asleep. A tiny hand in a blue sleeve darted up from beneath the table and absconded with the half-finished drink, oblivious to the rest of the table’s residents.

Hyrule was the last one down. Legend knew he always made a big deal of checking himself for wounds and tending to them in private, so he let him have his space. Legend waved the wanderer over to his table. Hopefully, he could make up for this morning.

“Hyrule! Come have a drink with us!” he telled.

Hyrule wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like alcohol, it tastes nasty.”

Legend looked to his drink which did admittedly taste like ass. Then to Warriors’ shots that were probably 99% pure alcohol, and were now one fewer than the last time he looked. Then to Wild’s sugar monstrosity, already down to the dregs.

“I have an idea,” he told Hyrule.

As it turned out, Hyrule loved those beastly drinks. Probably a bit too much. He downed four and was on his fifth when he collapsed in the middle of the room. Right in the middle of some old folk song he was singing. Legend probably should have warned him of the power of those drinks. 

Even though he said he didn’t want to carry anyone to their room, he couldn’t leave him like this. He also kicked Four and Sky awake as he passed their table with Hyrule in his arms. They should probably sleep in their own beds. Four squinted blearily at him and Sky just mumbled and hugged Four like a teddy bear.

Legend made sure to take Hyrule’s shoes off, lay him on his side, and tuck him in. If the kid didn’t usually drink, he was going to have a killer headache in the morning. 

In the hallway, he flagged down Time, who was getting ready for bed. The old man promised to look after him and Legend felt a wave of relief wash over him.

Halfway down the stairs, Legend stopped. He’d been focused on Hyrule til now, but Legend had been no slouch either. Downing drink after drink to keep up with the kid. He could feel it catching up with him now.

He felt the buzzing under his skin, one he hadn’t paid attention to when interacting with other people but had been steadily growing all night. He could feel the way everything felt just slightly out of sync. Slightly distant, like it was part of another world. Like he was in a dream.

Legend needed air.

He burst out the front door of the inn with a gasp, sucking in the cool night air greedily, trying to ground himself.

Only to find he wasn’t the only one there.

Warriors was slumped in the grass against the inn, a bottle of beer clutched in his loose grip. Two more empty ones sat abandoned in the grass.

Legend swayed as he went to sit next to him. The world was spinning around him and he felt like he needed to hold tight to the earth to keep from falling off.

Legend half-collapsed next to Warriors, way closer than he normally would have. The soldier stiffened but didn’t move away. Legend grabbed on tight to his scarf like it was a lifeline.

“What are you doing out here?” Legend asked quietly. He knew he’d probably get no answer, it was personal, but he needed to talk right now, needed something to hold him onto the present.

Warriors chuckled dryly and without humor. “Just reliving memories.”

“Of all your romantic conquests?” Legend's attempted joke fell flat. A dead weight in the still night air.

“Of all the people I killed,” Warriors replied coldly. He turned to look at Legend fully now. Legend couldn’t make out what kind of expression he was making. The alcohol made his features swirl like a Rorschach test, impossible to discern. “You know, most of you fought monsters on your adventures, but I had to kill people too. People with lives and families. And all that ended at the point of my sword.” Warriors’ hands were shaking subtly.

Legend tightened his grip on Warriors’ scarf. “I had to kill people too,” he admitted quietly. Like speaking it loudly would make it more real. “On my first adventure, a lot of soldiers got mind controlled. Some of them were people I knew, people I grew up with, friends of my Uncle. I don’t even know which people I killed or didn’t”

All was silent and still for a moment before Warriors pulled him into a half-hug. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Legend allowed himself a brief moment to snuggle into his brother’s side. “You too,” he whispered quietly.

There wasn’t much else that could be said. Nothing that could undo what had been done.

Before long the two pulled away and Warriors levered himself up with the help of the wall. “You need help getting back to your room?” he asked.

“Nah, I’m good” Legend ignored the Warriors’ offered hand to stand up under his own power and immediately regretted it. The dizziness that had abated when he was sitting down returned in full force and the world spun wildly around him like he was stuck in a whirlwind.

Nausea struck Legend like a lightning bolt and he leaned over to heave into the grass. Warriors held him and rubbed his back, telling him, “that’s okay, let it all out,” until there was nothing more coming out but bile.

He did end up needing Warriors help to get to his room.

The next morning dawned with painfully piercing sun stabbing directly into Legend’s brain. It felt like someone had turned the dials for every single sensation up to maximum and broke off the knobs.

Legend tried to wake Hyrule, but he only responded with a wet gurgle and a refusal to open his eyes. Yeah, Hyrule probably wasn’t getting out of bed any time soon. Legend felt sorry for the kid. Last night was probably a mistake for both of them.

Warriors, on the other hand, was up bright and early, moving cheerfully around the inn’s lobby and looking eerily perfect, not a single hair out of place. There were practically sparkles trailing after him.

“What the hell are you looking so happy for?” Legend rasped as he slumped over one of the inn’s tables.

“Morning, Leg!” The Captain greeted, “how are you feeling today?”

Legend let out a miserable groan. He would go back to bed if he didn’t think the pounding in his skull and the nausea churning in his gut would keep him awake.

“Don’t worry, I have the perfect hangover cure!” He set two cups down in front of Legend. One held a red drink and the other held a yellow lump suspended in a brown liquid that looked like it might be alive. They both smelled absolutely foul.

“The hell is this?” Legend asked.

“Hair of the dog that bit you” Warriors pointed to the red drink. Legend took a deeper whiff and the thing smelled absolutely alcoholic. Did Warriors really start his days out with even more drinking? Before Legend could contemplate it more, Warriors pointed to the other cup and said, “prairie oyster.”

Legend poked the yellow lump dubiously, watching it jiggle. “And a prairie oyster is…?”

“Raw egg yolk, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, vinegar, salt and pepper.” Warriors counted off the ingredients on his fingers as he listed them. Legend’s face scrunched up even more with each one listed. Warriors just laughed at his expression. “Hey, don’t knock it till you try it. Just look at all the good it’s done to me.” He threw his scarf over his shoulder and it seemed to wave heroically in an invisible wind.

Legend swirled the concoction around in the glass. It looked as bad as it smelled, and that was saying a lot on both fronts. “More of your old wives tales,” he commented.

“Come on, give it a try. What could it hurt?”

Five minutes later, they were outside again with Warriors rubbing Legend’s back as Legend emptied the contents of his stomach into the grass.

Notes:

Do not take any of Wars’ advice. it is literally all incorrect.
I react like Four to alcohol, with just a little bit of Legend.

Chapter 14: Anxious Stomach

Summary:

Set during ALttP. Link does not take well to his forced transformation in the Dark World.

Notes:

Sometimes, while I’m in the process of falling asleep, I get vivid hallucinations. Like dreams except when I’m not yet asleep. Brainstorming what to write for today while drifting off gave me the full in-body experience of this, so here you go.

Stepping foot on the panel of glowing light made it feel like the ground fell apart under Link, swallowing him into the earth. For just a second, he thought it had. Death mountain was riddled with unstable footing and there were dozens of times the ground had nearly given way under his feet. Only a rapid escape with the pegasus boots had saved him all these times. When confronted by the sudden sensation of falling, Link thought he had just finally gotten unlucky and not not noticed the earth breaking apart beneath him until it was too late.

The only thing that convinced him any different was that even with eyes wide open, pupils blown with fear, he was surrounded on every side by darkness. Not a single speck of light to be seen in the sea of endless black. If he had fallen for real, he would have at least seen the dwindling light of the surface as it gradually fell away. Here there was nothing.

It felt like he fell for a long time. Like he was weightless and air was rushing past him for eons even though he couldn’t tell the distance he traveled. It felt like he fell for no time at all. Like only a single blink passed between the start and the stop.

He didn’t hit the ground. One moment he was standing in one place, then he was falling for infinity, and in the next moment he was standing somewhere else in the exact same position, like he was the one who had stayed still and the world had fallen away around him.

Still, the sudden unexpected feeling of ground under his feet and the swooping feeling in his guts leftover from his endless fall had him quickly collapsing to his side in the dirt.

The earth of the mountain was strangely warm beneath him in contrast with the crisp, cool mountain air. Like there was something heating it from within. Laying on it felt like putting his hands on the outer bricks of a chimney to warm them on a cold day.

Like curled up on his side and just breathed for a second. Trying to regain his balance before he continued onward. He wished he could just curl up here and sleep and forget everything that had happened in the past few weeks. Every trial, every tribulation, every terrifying fall. Let it all wash away like a dream.

But he had work to do.

Link put a hand on the sandy dirt in front of him in an effort to lever himself up and blinked.

That…

Wasn’t his hand.

The pink furry paw of some unknown creature reached out before him and Link’s stomach churned with nausea in response to the dread he felt rising from within. 

He tried to tap a finger. The paw tapped in return.

He tried to slap the ground. The paw carried out his motion.

He felt the shiver of goosebumps run up his whole body and watched as the fur prickled up along the appendage in response.

He stuck out his other arm, also bright pink and furred, he looked at his legs, he grabbed onto his suddenly long ears and rubbed his paws all over his face trying to feel out what he looked like.

This wasn’t him! This wasn’t what he was! This wasn’t his body!

Now that he was paying attention, he could feel all the ways this body was different and wrong from what he was used to. The way the weight was distributed, the way his hind legs were so short and stubby he would barely be able to walk normally, the whiskers twitching on his face, even the fluffy cotton tail (a tail! A whole extra appendage he had never controlled before!) twitching on his rounded butt.

His stomach cramped with fear. He retched onto the ground like he could extricate this evil from his body with the force, but nothing came out. No vomit, no bile. He just felt the horrible pain trapped deep inside his belly. 

Link stumbled away from where he landed, trampling over flowers in the process, until his back hit a rough stone wall. 

This place had the same geography of where he was before, he could tell, but it all seemed impossibly larger when he was a small defenseless rabbit. The cliff loomed high above him, reaching up to the sky.

His weapons. What about his weapons? He was tiny and useless and who knew what monsters were in this horrible place. His stomach gave another lurch and he coughed to try to relieve some of the discomfort, but nothing changed. It was a useless gesture that offered no relief.

Link tried to grab his sword, his hammer, anything to defend himself. 

His paws wouldn’t bend that way. They didn’t have thumbs. he couldn’t get a grip on any of his tools.

Ever since his journey started, even when things were darkest, when he was wandering through stinking sewers with only a candle to light his way, when he was fleeing from a town of people he thought he could trust with angry knights dogging his heels, he always felt like there was at least something he could do. Somewhere to go. Some way to fight, to defend himself.

Here, there was nothing.

Link curled into a ball with his back to the wall and retched uselessly.

It was eerily silent on this version of Death Mountain. Nothing like the normal one where there was the constant sound of animals, and of falling rocks, and of endless life.

Here, there was just the whoosh of a chilly breeze blowing through his fur and his own noises of distress.

He stayed there for what felt like a long time. He knew it was just his nerves, his horror, his fear, but it felt like there was something bad inside his stomach and he needed to get it out. Like if only he could expel it, he would get better. But try as he might, this cursed body of his wouldn’t let him. He coughed and retched and heaved.

Eventually, the feeling in his stomach changed from roiling to just shaking. His puffed up fur laid back flat.

He looked back to where he had landed. All barren ground with a few crumpled flowers instead of the soft grass on the other side. There was no portal back here. No clear return trip. He would need to find his own way.

Maybe he’d be stuck in this Dark World forever, in this cursed form. The old man he guided up the mountain said people had been going missing on this mountain.

Maybe he would just become one of their numbers. A tale to tell children to stay away lest they end up like him.

Link suppressed a sob and shook violently.

He was such a coward. Such a failure of a hero. Link was going to die here and be just like his predecessor. A warning to future generations about why you should never try to be a hero.

And it was all because he was so useless. So pathetic. He didn’t know why he’d been chosen for this, but it was a mistake.

He probably deserved the fate of being stuck here forever for trying to be something he’s not.

Link looked at his sword. Huge compared to the fluffy, useless paws that were not his own. In this body his soul had been uncomfortably stuffed into like an ill-fitting set of hand-me-down clothes. Like the role of a hero. He nudged it back into his bag, away from his sight. It was useless anyway.

Now that he was quieter, that he wasn’t filling his ears with the sounds of his own strained breathing and retching, he could hear something in the distance. A single, quiet sound, just one, against the rest of dead silence.

A rhythmic pounding, like a bouncing ball.

Link’s stomach twinged as hoped it wasn’t something that could murder him. In this pathetic form, he may have no choice but to let it.

Link forced his ungainly, unfamiliar feet to bear his weight, and he walked.

Notes:

Rabbits physically cannot throw up. This is a problem if they eat something that’s bad for them.
When I first played this game, there was a lot of time between when I got the dark mirror and when I entered the dark world so I forgot it existed. I wandered the dark world for so long trying desperately to find my way out until I finally caved and looked up a guide to tell me what to do.

Chapter 15: “I Shouldn’t Be Worried About You But For Some Reason I Am”

Summary:

Wild is under the weather when a portal strands him and Legend away from the rest of the chain. Legend frets, and Wild does not take it well.

Notes:

I fell asleep in the middle of writing this whoops.

Legend fell face-first from the portal into stinking swamp water. He sputtered and coughed in an effort to expel the foul liquid invading his lungs. As soon as his eyes stopped watering from the strain, he quickly swiveled his head around to try and take stock of his new surroundings.

Waist-high water stretched in all directions, broken up by small copses of trees and dense clusters of reeds hiding Hylia knows what. Occasional crumbling pillars jotted out of the water like jagged teeth.

He didn’t see the rest of the chain.

Anxiety simmered in his gut. He hated when portals separated them. He didn’t like the feeling that anything could be happening to his brothers, they could be in any kind of danger, and he wouldn’t be able to stop it. He didn’t like being in an unknown Hyrule, forced to navigate along without any map or any clue of what dangers he would be facing.

“Hello? Anyone there?” he called out unhopefully. It was probably going to be fruitless. Stupid as well, if there were any monsters around. But he had to check.

A nearby tree rustled and Legend tensed, gripping his sword tightly to face whatever creatures were going to emerge. Long, blond, strands of hair descended, horribly tangled and shot through with sticks and leaves. A familiar face emerged from the leaves, scarred features stretched into a bright, sunny grin. 

“Leg! You made it!” Wild called. Instead of climbing down like a normal person, Wild just released his grip on the tree and let himself splash into the disgusting muddy water. Legend wrinkled his nose at the thought of anyone submerging themselves in that willingly. 

“Are any of the others here?” Legend asked.

Wild shook his head rapidly, flinging droplets of mud from the tips of his hair in a semicircle around him. “Not that I’ve seen. I thought I was here alone! I was just scouting the area when you came along.”

“Seen anything?” Legend crossed his arms and settled back against a tree.

Wild beamed in excitement. “Yeah, there’s a big mountain to the west!” He gestured wildly as he was talking, holding his hands out to indicate the size of the mountain and using swooping gestures to indicate the direction. “I was thinking we could climb it, get a better lay of the land, and-”

“Absolutely not,” Legend cut him off. He squinted to where Wild was pointing and the thing was practically a sheer cliff face. There's no way he'd be able to haul ass up those rocks and he had no idea how Wild considered it a viable option either.

“Come on,” Wild goaded, “we would be able to see everything up there, maybe even where the rest of the gang ended up-”

“It’s still no,” Legend firmly declared.

Wild let out a huff of irritation but then his eyes lit up as he changed tracks. “I think I saw this cave…”

“A cave,” Legend deadpanned. “Are you actually insane or just stupid? That thing is sure to be absolutely crawling with monsters and probably ends in a dead-end with whatever treasure was stored there long-gone.”

“I like caves,” Wild muttered under his breath.

“Next option.”

Wild hesitated for just a moment before pushing onward. “Well there was this river we could swim across…”

“And get swept away by the current? No thanks.” Legend had enough near-drowning experiences to last him a lifetime.

Wild was fully pouting at this point. “Well what do you suggest we do?”

“Did you maybe happen to see any roads on your oh so useful tree-scouting trip?” Legend asked dryly. 

Wild scoffed. “Well yeah, but that’s boring. ”

Legend clapped him on the back and began pushing Wild to get him moving. “Boring keeps us alive, champion. Let’s go.”

Wild sulkily allowed himself to be pushed along by Legend for several minutes before the dead silence that had grown between them was interrupted by a loud, hacking coughing fit.

Legend to Wild with a frown on his face. “What, did that dunk in the swamp get you sick or something?” he asked. His words were twisted with sarcasm to hide the very legitimate concern bubbling in his gut.

Wild sniffled and wiped his snot onto his muddy sleeve, adding to the awful concoction housed on the fabric. “Nah, I’ve been feeling like this all day.”

Legend froze and thought back through the champion's actions since this morning. Scattered coughing, sniffling, an unusual weariness... He cursed himself for not paying attention until now. This could have been important tactical information. He needed to know when a companion was compromised so he could adjust, protect them if it ever came to battle, cover their weak spots. He'd only been taking care of the two of them for a few minutes and he was already fucking it up.

He looked at the Champion with a new eye. His drenched and muddy clothes and the gross water they were stuck in up to their waists.

He clicked his tongue in annoyance. “This isn’t going to do.” With one big heave, he picked Wild up and threw him over his shoulder.

“Hey, put me down! What gives?!” Wild flailed in Legend’s grip.

“The swamp water is cold, wet, and disgusting, and you shouldn’t be wading around in it if you’re sick” Legend told him.

Wild squirmed like an eel and slithered out of Legend’s hold to land back in the water, drenching both of them with a huge splash. 

“Lay off vet! I’ve handled a bit of water with a sniffle before! This isn’t a big deal.” He made a tiny kitten sneeze into his arm and pointedly marched ahead into the swamp.

Legend cursed and rushed after him, kicking up huge splashes of water in his wake. “At least put some dry clothes on! Those are soaked. Here, I have a bunch extra in my bag.”

Wild glared at him and tapped angrily at his slate. “No need. I have other clothes too, thank you very much.” Legend hadn’t even gotten his bag open when Wild’s shirt and hood disappeared in a flash of blue light only to be replaced by glittering earrings and a short sleeves shirt with ropes and a strap crossed across the chest. “Happy now?”

Legend still frowned at the outfit. “That doesn’t look very warm…”

Wild groaned. “I’m fine. Let’s just go find your oh so precious road.”

The continued on in silence, broken up only by occasional coughs and sniffles and sneezes by Wild. The water was thick and dragged at their legs with every step. With how quickly it was sapping Legend’s energy, he could only imagine what it was doing to the sick Champion. Legend could see him flagging and had to adjust his pace so the other could easily keep up. Multiple times, Legend opened his mouth to offer advice or a helping hand, but Wild glared him back into silence.

Eventually they reached the road which turned into a bridge with a town visible far in the distance on the other side.

Wild tried to scramble down the rocky cliff face next to the bridge only to have his movement arrested by Legend snatching the back of his shirt. Wild looked back at him with a scowl. “I was just gonna check if there was anything under the bridge.”

Legend scowled right back. “You were going to fall into the river and be washed away by the current. Stay on the path, champion.”

Wild shoved Legend off of him, releasing the other’s grip on his shirt with enough force to push him back several steps. “You don’t need to treat me like I’m incompetent! I’ve done all this before.”

Legend shoved Wild back in retaliation. His ankles displaced small rocks that clattered down the rock edge. “Maybe I wouldn’t need to spend so much time taking care of you if you weren’t so reckless all the time.”

“Oh, you think you have a right to criticize how I do things just because you’re Mr. Perfect Hero-” Wild threw his hands up and walked around the other hero, forcing him to constantly adjust his footing to keep him in sight.

“I never said I was perfect!” Legend shot back with gritted teeth.

“You didn’t have to! I’ve seen how you act! You treat us all like dirt just because we don’t have as much experience as you do! Well newsflash asshole! We’re all accomplished heroes in our own rights and I! Don’t! Need! Your! Help!” He punctuated each word with a finger to Legend’s chest.

Legend slapped the hand away. “Maybe I just don’t want to see you make the same mistakes I did!”

“Well MAYBE-” Both of them were frozen into stillness and silence as a loud noise cut through their argument. A glimpse of orange feathers showed them that all their yelling had just caused a flock of birds to take off, and they relaxed minutely.

That is, until the birds started dive-bombing them, wickedly sharp talons and hooked beaks aimed directly for their faces.

“Shit, get over the bridge!” Legend yelled, and Wild compiled without argument for once.

The rotting wood creaked dangerously under their feet as they fled. 

One foot after another, board after splintered board, until a piece of wood in front of Legend burst into sudden flames.

On either side of the bridge, skeletal fish leaped out of the water, a good 20 feet in the air, and spat out balls of fire that kept them from moving forward and lit the planks of wood aflame. Behind them, their movement was arrested by the flock of angry birds, still attempting to bite and claw at anything they could reach even amongst the growing blaze. The pair of heroes could barely take a step in either direction.

“How do we take these things out?!” Wild yelled as he blocked incoming fireballs with his shield.

“I don’t know! We don’t have any monsters like this in my Hyrule! But this bridge isn't going to last much longer if we don’t take care of them.” Legend reflected fireballs with his own mirror shield but failed to deflect them anywhere but open air.

Wild swore as his shield broke into shards of glittering light under the continued assault.

Legend and Wild’s eyes met across the chaos and floating sparks.

Wild took out his bow. Time seemed to slow as he hurled himself off the side of the bridge. One by one, arrows flew from his bow, each meeting their mark perfectly. Enemies screeched and fell until there was only stillness and silence on the bridge 

“Wild!” Legend yelled as his brother disappeared into the rushing current with a resounding splash.

He waited, breathless, for Wild to resurface, only to be met with nothing.

With a curse, Legend kicked off his shoes and dove into the water. It clawed at his clothes and tried to drag him under as he struggled against the current. Waves smashed him against hard rocks, knocking the air out of his lungs.

Out of the corner of his eye, Legend caught sight of a glimmer of light. The sun reflecting off of shiny, amber jewelry.

Legend dragged himself to the limp body the river was attempting to swallow whole. He heaved him over his shoulder, just like he did earlier when they were both conscious and on (slightly) drier ground, and dragged the two of them to shore.

Even after choking up all the water he’d inhaled. Wild was still barely conscious. He wouldn’t stop shaking and his eyes were hazy. Legend put his hand on his forehead at hissed at the heat he found there. He knew the kid had been powering through all day, but he didn’t even realize it was this bad.

The river had swept them way downstream. He didn’t even know which way the town was anymore, and there was no way they were going to reach it tonight, especially with Wild in this state. Instead, stripped the kid of his wet clothes and bundled him in blankets, built a fire to keep him warm, and started to set up camp. 

As the long shadows of twilight turned into darkness of night, Legend stayed up to keep watch alone. It was probably better to let the kid get some rest. Again and again, he twisted the rings on his fingers in endless loops. “I know you’re competent,” he told to the still night air,  “I know you’re capable. Hell, I don’t even know how you managed to deal with your journey. I don’t think I would have been able to accomplish half of what you did. You’re incredible, kid. I know I shouldn’t be worried about you, but for some reason I am.”

He was startled out of his reverie by a scarred hand on his forearm and softly smiling eyes. “It’s because you’re a giant softy, Vet,” Wild told him with a bright grin.

And for once, Legend allowed himself to accept that fact and let his own smile slide onto his face.

Notes:

I like to use an RNG to figure out where to send the characters. So a cookie to the first person who first guesses the game and location they're in. (Although I will admit I have taken some slight liberties with monsters)

Chapter 16: Sick in an Inconvenient Place

Summary:

Wind, Legend, and Four get stuck in a library while Minish-sized.

Rain steadily dripped outside, sliding off leaves and blades of grass until it puddled on the ground where it turned dirt roads into impassable mud.

The pounding of droplets against panes of glass and sturdy brick walls only made Legend’s head hurt more.

It hasn’t stopped raining for three days now, and he was getting sick of it. Sick of being stuck in this library. Sick of being stuck Minish sized. And also just plain sick.

He sniffled a drop of snot back up his runny nose and settled back into his makeshift bed. Dozens of stray scraps of fabric filled this matchbox, and Legend wondered where they got all of them. Some looked like pieces of clothing, torn off by stray screws or possibly tiny, grabbing hands. But his blanket was a fully-intact handkerchief that even had the prior owner’s name and address monogrammed on it, so someone could return it if they felt so inclined (which Legend did not).

“I’m booooored,” Wind whined from his bedside. The kid was ecstatic to visit the tiny village hidden in the library at first, but as hours turned to days, he quickly got restless. 

“Go read a book. There’s plenty of them around,” he gestured to their surroundings: the inside of a hollowed-out book the Minish were letting them stay in until it was safe to leave. 

Wind pouted and sunk back further into the eraser that was serving as his current chair. It was missing chunks from where Wind picked at it with his nails in boredom and now eraser shavings were littered on the ground around it. They would need to make sure to clean that up before they left. And possibly bring a new eraser later to replace the one Wind destroyed. It couldn’t cost more than a few rupees. “All the pages are too big for me to turn,” Wind grumbled.

“What about… reading the book we’re in?” Legend asked. He squinted at the wall directly next to him. His hazy vision and the blurry edges of the letters where it was possible to see how the ink bled into the fiber of the paper made it difficult, but this was more than made up for by the fact that each letter was nearly as big as his forearm. The word said ‘dirt,’ which was exactly what he felt like at that moment. 

Wind stuck his tongue out at him. “This book is boring! It’s all about… provincial mining laws or something! It’s no wonder anyone bothers to read it!”

As if to prove him wrong, the entire book jostled, putting both heros on high alert. No one had attempted to move their impromptu vacation home so far, but they couldn’t guarantee it would never happen. And if it did, they would have nowhere to go. They would just need to submit to being jostled around the inside of the book like the last few candy beans in a jar.

The book gave another lurch and the small bit of cut-out spine that served as the door fell inward. Four appeared in the resulting opening, dragging behind him a cracker nearly as large as his entire body with both of his hands. “I brought lunch,” he yelled out as he set the cracker gently on an used-up spool of thread Wind had found rolled under one of the bookshelves and which they had since been using as a table. The cracker went way over the edges of the spool, nearly double the diameter of the surface, almost making it look like it was some new, decorative tabletop rather than food they were meant to eat. His hands now free, he placed fitted the door gently back into its proper place to hide their little hole from view.

“Did you steal someone’s cracker?” Legend asked in amusement.

Four’s grin twisted in smug satisfaction. “I prefer to use the term ‘borrowed,’” he replied, intentionally leaving out the part where he had no intention of returning a slightly nibbled cracker to wherever he got it from.

“Four, I’m so glad you’re back!” Wind quickly pressed himself to Four’s side in what was half a hug, half a forceful lean that was in danger of completely toppling the tiny smithy over. “It was so booooooring here without you. Legend is so booooooring. Plus he’s so grumpy when he’s sick!”

“I’m not grumpy!” Legend yelled back grumpily.

“Well, let’s see if some food can make you better.” Four drove the point of his elbow into the cracker to snap a good size shard off and brought it over to Legend’s sickbed, shuffling awkwardly because Wind was still clinging to his side, and gently placed the food into Legend’s shaky hands.

Legend’s stomach gave a lurch at the sight. Normally, lightly salted crackers would be a perfect sick food. But there was nothing light about this salt. It had white crystal grains the size of his fist scattered on top, looking the opposite of appetizing. Plus, while the fine layers of dough with air pockets in between might create a flaky crunch while regular-sized, at the size of a Minish it acquired roughly the textural experience of attempting to gnaw through a stack of dry lasagna. No thanks.

“I’m not very hungry,” Legend said, pushing the cracker piece away.

Four frowned, popped a single massive salt crystal off and began gnawing on it whole. “That’s a shame. I hoped you were getting better today.”

Wind tugged on Four’s sleeve and looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Hey Four, when do we get to leave ? It’s so boring here!”

Four continued sucking on his salt and reached way up to pat Wind’s hair with his other hand. “As soon as the rain lets up, squirt. We wouldn’t want the water to wash you away.”

“Hey!” Wind angrily puffed up to his full height, “I’m taller than you!”

“You both look tiny to me,” Legend rasped from his sickbed.

“We’re all tiny because we’re minish sized!” Four exclaimed in exasperation. 

“Yeah, but I’m one and a half inches and you’re one and a quarter inches,” Legend replied smugly.

“And neither is tall enough to do anything fun.” Wind flopped to the floor in apparent despair.

Legend looked at Four and pointedly gestured to Wind with a complicated series of facial movements. 

Four rolled his own eyes and squatted down to the moping sailor. “Hey, do you know what libraries have in them?”

“Way too many books I can’t even read.” The ground his face was smooshed against muffled Wind’s voice.

“Yes, but… they also have evil rats living in the walls! They attack the minish village and steal from them all the time and at this size, they’re as big as horses!”

“Yeah?” Wind lifted his head up hopefully.

“And there’s massive bats living in the attic! I rode on the back of one once!” Four continued.

“Woah, cool!” Wind was starting to look genuinely excited now.

“Plus, you can steal stuff from people and they won’t even notice because you’re so tiny.” 

“Heck yeah!” Wind popped off the floor with a fist pump and ran to the door. “Let’s have tiny adventures.

Legend half-pushed himself off the bed, caught between worry and exhaustion. He caught Four’s eyes and mouthed to the smithy, ‘keep him safe.’

Four smiled back, his eyes glittering a rainbow of colors and mouthed back, ‘of course.’

Legend collapsed back onto his mishmash of fabric and allowed himself to rest. He drifted off to the sounds of his brother’s excited chatter and the pounding of rain.

 

Notes:

I have not actually played the Minish Cap game but I have read the manga and found it immensely charming.
I ate some ritz crackers after writing the cracker section and went “Wow. I sure am glad I’m big-sized so I can enjoy these properly.” Forget about all the actually terrible things I’ve written for these sicktember stories, I’m pretty sure the biggest tragedy in this whole fic is Legend’s inability to experience the simple joy of the humble cracker 🍘

Chapter 17: Consulting Web MD

Summary:

Direct continuation of chapter 15 (with a completely different tone). Wild is sick in Hyrule’s Hyrule, but it’s all okay because the Traveler promises to take them to the greatest and most powerful healer in a 5 block radius: Web MD.

Notes:

The jig is up and the location is revealed, but y’all can have cookies anyway 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪 (please only take one)

Legend stayed up all night keeping watch as Wild dozed. Eventually, he got tired of waiting for the champion’s sodden clothes to dry and wrestled him into some of his spare clothes from hytopia - a comfy outfit that was essentially striped footie pajamas (minus the ridiculous hat that came with it). That should keep him warm for the time being.

Legend fed the dying fire with twigs and bits of leaves and tried his hardest not to nod off.

The light of the morning sun cresting over the rolling green hills cast a shadow over the camp. Pointed ears stretched long across the grass, painted by the steadily growing light. Legend grabbed his sword to defend himself. With the way the figure was backlit by the morning sun, it was impossible to tell what it was other than that it wasn’t human.

That is, until it gave a familiar ‘woof’ making Legend relax instantly.

“Wolfie! You found us!”

The giant animal bounded into camp in joy and practically bowled Legend over as he snuffled him in greeting. His tail was wagging a mile a minute and slamming hard against anything near it. It whacked into Legend’s hugging arms. It knocked his bag over. It forcefully sent Legend’s discarded sword skidding several feet away. Legend worried they would need to further away from the fire lest he end up with 200 pounds of burned and upset wolf in his arms.

Its tail stilled when it got tired of being overjoyed to see him and went to investigate the other member of the camp. When it saw the way Wild was fitfully dozing with labored breathing it whined loudly and laid its head down on Wild’s lap. Large, oddly intelligent eyes gazed at Legend with a pleading expression.

Legend squatted down next to them to pet the animal’s head. “Yeah, don’t worry. I’m taking care of him. Your human will be back up to normal in no time.”

Another long shadow informed them of a second presence incoming to their camp. Wolfie lifted its head up and its tail beat hopefully, fully nailing Legend in the face and forcing him to sputter for air through a faceful of fur.

“Wolfie!” called the familiar voice of Hyrule as he raced down the hill. “You found the others!”

“Hyrule!” Legend yelled back. He got up from his crouch to meet Hyrule with a hug at full speed. No slowing down, just two running figures letting their bodies crash into each other full force and wrapping each other into a tight grip.

“Do you have anyone else with you?” Hyrule asked anxiously.

“Just Wild,” Legend responded. “And he’s sick. Do you have any magic that can help him?”

Wolfie gave a whine of agreement.

Hyrule put a hand on his chest where Legend knew his pulsing magic core rested. “No. my magic only heals physical injuries, not illnesses. However, there’s a ˚✧₊⁎ Magical Healing Lady ⁎⁺˳✧༚ ,” as he said his words, he waved his hand over his head and let magical sparkles fall from the palm for effect, “in every town in my Hyrule!” 

“That sounds awfully convenient,” Legend deadpanned.

“It is!” Hyrule replied brightly.

“So what can you tell us about this ‘Magical Healing Lady.’” Legend tried to mimic his hand gesture, but it looked much more like Legend was trying to swat an invisible fly.

Hyrule stuck his tongue between his teeth to think. “Well, we’re near Saria town, so we’re going to see… Miss Mayo? No wait, she’s farther east. Saria town is… right! We’re taking him to Web MD!”

“That’s the name of the healer here?” Legend confirmed.

“Yep! Web MD! Now we just need to get ourselves there.”

Wild was marginally more awake and eagerly petting Wolfie, seemingly as delighted to be reunited with the beast as Wolfie was. Rather than making Wild walk the whole way, they had him ride the wolf, which surprisingly had no pushback from either of them. The whole ride, Wild laid forward on Wolfie’s back and whispered the details of their last day’s adventures in its ear.

The path to the town took them through wide open fields of gently rolling hills. There were few monsters that got in their way, and those that did were quickly dealt with thanks to Hyrule’s expertise with the era.

Just before they entered the town gates, Hyrule stopped their little group. “Before we go in there,” he informed them, “there’s one important thing you need to know. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t talk to anyone unless I say it’s okay. Do not interact with people other than the healer.”

Legend laughed nervously. “That’s a bit extreme for just a town, isn’t it Roolie?” He asked.

Hyrule leaned in close with a dead serious expression on his face. “We have to be careful.” He whispered directly into Legend’s ear, “The Eyes of Ganon are everywhere.”

Hyrule pulled back with a loud clap, shattering the tense silence that had descended upon their group. “Okay!” he said brightly, all trace of his previous seriousness gone, “Let’s get going to see Miss Web MD!”

Their gang trailed after them through the unfamiliar town, shifting uncomfortably under the distrusting looks the locals sent them.

Hyrule led them to a quaint wooden cottage with a woman in a long red dress already sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, working hard on her knitting.

“Miss Web!” Hyrule yelled, knocking on the side of the house in a semblance of politeness. “I brought a patient for you.”

The woman set down her knitting and smiled warmly at the four of them. “Oh, you poor soul. Please let me help you. Come inside.”

She quickly ushered their group into her house. It was filled to the brim with baubles and trinkets to the point where one could barely move inside without being in danger of knocking something over. Wolfie pointedly sat on his tail and looked nervously around.

There was a strange scent in the air. Almost like someone was burning multiple kinds of incense at once. It just made Legend’s nose itch, but he could see Wolfie sneeze a couple of times.

“Okay dearie,” the healing lady sat him on a chair, one of the few clean surfaces in the house. “Why don’t you sit here and tell me what’s wrong with you?” 

Wild ran down his list of cold and flu symptoms. And at her repeated prompting, he added a few more that had been bothering him for some time. His feet hurt from all the walking they did yesterday. His scarred left side didn’t experience as much sensation as his right. On and on, she kept prompting, and he kept adding.

Finally, she picked up a large glowing crystal off the desk and stared deeply into it for several minutes.

“You have AIDS,” she finally declared.

Hyrule and Legend sputtered in surprise, but Wild just looked thoughtful. “I don’t think that’s transmissible from Zora to humans,” he finally said.

“You’re sleeping with a ZORA?! ” Hyrule screeched, “the terrifying, murderous RIVER MONSTERS?! ”

Wild did not respond.

“No?” The healing lady asked. She looked at the crystal again and poked it a few times, “have you been eating a lot of lead?”

“Not recently,” Wild replied.

Hyrule grabbed Wild’s shirt in two fists and pulled him in close. “ Please do not tell me you have ever eaten lead.”

Wild shrugged off his hold. “Gorons have a different diet from us and it took me some time to figure out what was safe for Hylians to eat.”

Hyrule made a small sound like a dying whale in the back of his throat.

The woman looked at her crystal again, looked suspiciously at the other two humans and single wolf in the room and leaned in close to Wild to whisper, “are you being poisoned?” 

“I don’t think so,” Wild replied easily.

At this point the woman finally put the crystal down for good and looked at Wild with an expression as serious as the grave. “Then you absolutely, 100% have lung cancer. There is nothing I can do to cure you.”

“Well that sucks,” Wild replied blandly.

“However, there is one thing I can do to ease your suffering…” The woman opened her mouth, wider, wider, revealing a maw full of massive fangs. Her skin turned blue and her reaching hands distorted into gleaming talons.

In a flash, Wolfie was off the floor and ripping the woman creature’s throat out. The noise she made as she died was something not quite human and not quite animal. A thick stream of blood sprayed all over her transparent baubles, turning the sunlight that shone through them red and making the room look twice as full of blood as it actually was.

“Huh,” Legend stated unhelpfully.

“Guess she was one of the Eyes of Ganon,” Hyrule said, wringing blood out of the end of his sleeves. “That’s too bad. I liked her. She was way better at this stuff than Miss Mayo.”

“I don’t think I have lung cancer,” Wild said from where he got a front-row seat to the splash zone.

“You probably just have the flu,” Legend told him. “Take some naps and you’ll be all better.”

“Okay.” Wild crawled into the woman’s newly-unowned bed and fell fast asleep.

Notes:

A bit of a weird chapter but whatevs, I’m just vibing ✌️

Chapter 18: “Wear Your Coat, You’ll Catch a Cold”

Summary:

Legend stargazes in Skyloft.

Notes:

I flipped days around again.

Legend let his legs dangle off the edge of the floating island. In the dark of the moonless night, the space beneath his feet looked like an infinite void one could fall into forever with no end. 

Above, the sky was awash with stars. Far more than he’d ever seen in his lifetime. Reaching out in every direction with no mountains or trees to block the view. Legend scanned them, trying to see if there were any of the comforting constellations he recognized from home. Stories his uncle would tell him while he tucked him into bed or while they laid out on blankets under the sprawling night sky, all about great heroes and monsters who died and were commemorated in the stars to live for all eternity. No matter how he looked, he couldn’t find them. This sky was completely foreign to him. And all those ancient heroes who Legend used to define himself by probably hadn’t even been born yet.

The Skyloftians probably had their own constellations, their own stories scattered across the night sky, but without someone guiding him through them, pointing them out and explaining their stories in a deep rumble like his uncle had, they would all just be little shiny dots to him. Disconnected from each other. Alone. The void between them held the stars eons apart.

He’d compared the space below Skyloft to an infinite void, but he knew that wasn’t really true. He knew that below his feet sat the cloud layer, even blanketed in darkness as it now was, and trees, and desert, and mountains, and monsters, and animals, and miles upon miles of dirt. Up above was the real infinite void. All these stars, so many more in this era than what he’s used to, only give the illusion of fullness to the sky. That it’s anything other than a vast expanse of nothingness, barely broken by the few spots of somethingness too tiny for them to even matter.

Just like how the stories his uncle told were all fakes and lies, told to instill a sense of duty and honor in him from a young age. And a trust of the royalty, and the knights, and all the people who claimed they knew what was best for him. All just pretty illusions. There are no heroes living in the stars. Just the ones spilling their blood in rivers upon rivers tethered here to the earth. 

The sky held no meaning for those who desperately sought out its guidance while covered in blood and holding a sword too big for such young hands. For those who gazed up at it, too tired and dehydrated to do anything but search for a single answer in their guiding light as the remains of a broken ship rocked them to sleep. For those who sat on the edge of Skyloft at early o'clock on a winter morning when they really should have been asleep. It had nothing there for him. Space was just huge, and empty, and cold.

And when he sat on the edge like this on a clear night, it felt like if he didn’t hold tight, bury his fists in the grass to keep them from shaking loose, he’d be liable to fall up, up into the hungry waiting void. Miles from Skyloft, from his friends, from any nearby stars. Just adrift in nothing forever.

Legend’s could see his breath every time he exhaled. It shone in the faint starlight, forming tiny false stars of its own where the warmth he sent into the world met the cold winter night. 

If they were any lower, the island probably would have been blanketed in a thick layer of snow. But floating above the cloud layer as they were, no snow could form high enough to reach them. That didn't stop a thick layer of frost from forming on the grass and digging into his rapidly numbing palms.

“Legend, there you are!” A voice called out from behind him, nearly startling Legend into falling off the edge. As if summoned by even the potential of an accident, one of the Skyloft’s many knights flew by on his loftwing, giving him a hard look as he passed to make sure Legend was staying safe.

Legend gave the man a half-hearted grin and wave as he passed and turned to see who had called out to him.

Running up to him was a woman in a red dress with ribbons intricately woven through her hair. Sky’s Zelda, Sun.

She reached his reflection spot and leaned over to pant for breath. It seemed Skyloft wasn’t a good place to practice your cardio for anyone.

“Sun,” he greeted her while she regained her ability to speak, “what are you doing here?”

“Link - I mean my Link, Sky - saw your bed was empty and he was worried. He’s off checking the other direction.”

Legend raised one eyebrow. “Well you found me. Go tell him I’m fine and leave me alone.”

Sun frowned and worried her lip between her teeth. He eyes darted between his reddened face, his fingers trembling faintly with cold, and the nearby ledge. Face, fingers, ledge, face, fingers, ledge. “It sure is chilly out tonight,” she remarked carefully.

“Don’t worry, I have a ring that helps with the cold.” He held his hand up but then frowned at his fingers. Where he could have sworn he put on his snowshoe ring, but instead it was his steadfast ring. It looked similar, red and angular, but instead it increased his knockback. Kept others far far away from him, let him keep up that life-saving distance around himself.

Instead of responding to him, Sun unfolded a garment from her arm and shoved it into his chest. On closer inspection, it was a coat he recognized from Sky’s place. “Wear your coat, you’ll catch a cold.”

Legend huffed and rolled his eyes, grudgingly putting his arms through the sleeves. “Whatever you say, mom ,” he said sarcastically.

And then he froze. 

As if the morning frost existed in his bones rather than just under his hands. She didn’t know, she couldn’t know, he couldn’t let her know.

Sun just laughed lightly and settled herself down next to him. Legend gradually let himself untense.

Right. He didn’t accidentally clue her into anything. It was just a common turn of phrase. She was still in the dark.

If he could have his way, nobody would know. He would erase his own memories and be blissfully ignorant of the fact he was of the royal bloodline, of Sky and Sun’s bloodline. It brought him nothing but heartache and pain. Forced distance between him and the people he cared about. Made him hunted and hated in his own land. But still. It created this glimmering thread of connection between him and Sun and Sky. Precious and delicate.

He couldn’t keep it. Couldn’t keep them.

Their little constellation of heroes felt so close when they were adventuring together but they were really so far apart. Divided by eons of time and the space of dimensions. Gaps so wide they would never be able to reach each other again when this was over. Talking to Sun, to his ancestor like this, was like seeing the light of a long-dead star. It seemed so real, so present, but it was gone before you came into being. All you got was its slow-moving light.

“Do you think stars are lonely?” He asked Sun, suddenly, breaking the silence and stillness of the night.

“I don’t know,” she hummed. Eyes that were far too intelligent peered deeply into him and he retreated into the fluffy lining of the coat. “Are you lonely?”

He doesn’t have an answer.

Wearing the coat made him realize exactly how cold he really was, sitting out here in the frozen night air for hours. He was fine before, when he didn't have anything, but now that he had warmth, he just couldn’t stop shaking. Sun didn’t say a word, just sat closer and rubbed his arms with her palms to warm him up. He leaned close against one of the few family members he has and let her warmth seep into him. 

Eventually, Sky came running up to the two of them, frantically asking where he was, checking him over to see if he’s okay, and ushering him over to one of the nearby buildings to warm up. His presence is familiar and soothing.

As Legend stood up, his joints aching from the cold, a tiny sneeze startled him as it escaped his mouth.

“See!” Sun shoved him playfully, “I told you you’d catch a cold!” Her smile and her eyes were so so warm. Twin stars shone in her face, melting a portion of the ice settled in his soul. 

Notes:

Originally this was suppossed to be very fluffy and take place at sunrise. I changed it entirely because of logistical reasons (sunrise in winter would be later so everyone would probably already be awake), and then Legend wanted to sadly ramble about stars for 8 paragraphs. So this became the ‘Leg rambles about stars’ chapter despite originally containing 0 stars.
At one point while writing this, I accidentally wrote “clown layer” and let me tell you, that is a horrifying mental image. Or a wonderful one depending on your feelings vis-à-vis clowns. My bedroom could probably be described as a clown lair because I have like 15 different clown statues in here (for funsies).

Chapter 19: Curled Up With a Pet

Summary:

Wolfie cuddles Legend when he’s sick, so Legend returns the favor.

Notes:

I still haven’t finished day 17 :(
But here’s day 19 in the meantime.

Fever dreams kept Legend tossing and turning all night. He awoke time and time again, soaked in sweat and shivering with chills. Blinking memories out of his eyes of something he could no longer quite recall. If one of the others was awake, they would coax some water into him during the few blinks he was awake, before unconsciousness would steal over him again.

He woke up again, his body trying to shake itself apart with the cold seeping into his bones despite the numerous blankets piled on top of him. The rancher was at his side, gazing distractedly into the distance. But when Legend’s subtle movements caught his eye, he quickly snapped to attention. 

“How’re you feelin’, vet?” He asked as he levered Legend into a partially upright position so he could drink.

“C-cold,” Legend shivered out.

Twilight looked thoughtful for a moment before his hand reached for the dark crystal he always kept on his body. His face elongated into a snout and canine fur burst forth from human skin. Before long, Wolfie was standing before him, whining in worry and snuffling at his hands.

Legend underwent the monumental effort of lifting his hands to rub his head. “Aww, buddy, you d-d-don’t need to w-worry about me.” Even knowing Wolfie was Twilight, it was hard not to talk down to him like an animal sometimes. Especially when he was sick.

Wolfie just whined and crawled forward until he was fully on top of Legend, all 200 pounds of solid wolf muscle weighing him down. Big, round, doggy eyes gazed expressively at Legend’s face.

Even with how heavy he was, Legend smiled contentedly at the warmth the wolf brought him. He hugged him close to his chest with hands buried deep in long, shaggy fur, and drifted back to sleep as the morning sun crested the horizon.

For once, he didn’t dream.

Even as Legend got better, sickness tore a trail through the camp. Legend got transferred from bed rest directly over to caretaking duties, despite a few lingering symptoms that clung to him.

Another late night, Legend was keeping watch over the camp as well as the sick heros when his attention was drawn by a noise. A nearly-inhuman sounding whine emanated from Twilight’s bedroll, and with it accompanied a single leg kicking directly into the air. Legend shifted, waiting for it to abate, but the rancher only seemed to get more restless.

Legend sighed as he walked over. Twilight had helped him before, the least he could do was return the favor now. Besides, he could always turn back before anyone else woke up. He reached for the crystal around Twilight’s neck.

Legend shuddered at the feeling of dark magic sweeping over him. It felt as grimy as it always did and he swore he would never get used to it. The transformation warped and shrunk his body, leaving him fluffy and perfectly cuddle-sized.

He hopped his way onto the squirming rancher’s chest and tucked his legs under him, getting comfortable.

Twilight stirred and opened his eyes blearily, staring at the bright pink bunny situated on his chest.

Legend gave him the best flat stare he could manage in this form, trying to force all his thoughts and feelings into it silently. Don’t comment on it. Just go back to sleep. Cuddle the rabbit, don’t ask questions.

Twilight smiled and wrapped an arm around him, drawing him close to his chest like a stuffed animal. His eyes slid shut again and he slipped into a much more restful-looking sleep.

Except Legend was trapped now. Shit.

Well, being forced to cuddle with one of his brothers until they decided to let him go wasn’t the worst fate in the world. He could put up with it for a few hours. If he had to.

He knows they’d do far worse for him.

Notes:

🐺🐰

Chapter 20: Magical Remedy/Healing Potion

Summary:

I’ve been thinking about Dark and Twilight Realms and Worlds and the distinction between all of those. So Hyrule and Legend get slorped up by one of those for a chapter and it doesn’t sit well with Hyrule’s fairy form.

Notes:

Yeah, the reason this one in particular took so much time to write is because it’s LONG. Happy (late) day 17.

It didn’t look like any of the portals Legend had seen before (and Legend had seen a lot of portals). It was all mirror-smooth black glass perfectly set into the ground as if it belonged there. No seam between it and the greenery on either side of it. Just living growth merging seamlessly into void. A black hole in solid form sitting directly in their path.

“Huh,” said Warriors. 

“Has anyone seen anything like this before?” Time asked the group to a chorus of ‘no’s’ (some more definitive than others).

Wild picked up a stick and poked it. 

It emitted an eerie ringing noise, like a wet finger run around the rim of a wine glass. Except it got louder and louder, even without contact, and echoed around the area strangely, making the place seem more wide-open than it actually was, sinking deep into every nook and cranny. And then, abruptly and all at once, it stopped.

Twilight slapped the stick out of Wild’s hand.

“Should we try to find a way around it?” Warriors asked cautiously.

“We got ourselves boxed in real good here,” responded Twilight, gesturing to a tall stone wall on one side and a sheer cliff on the other. There was enough room to maybe squeeze by on one side for someone small and careful, but a big guy in armor like Time had no choice to go over. “We could try and backtrack, take the long way round, but that might take us a hot second.”

“It seems perfectly safe to me!” said Wind, already standing on the black glass. It was emitting a new noise now: high and faint and warbling. It sounded impossibly distant, even though the source was theoretically right next to them. Like the sound was carried to them across miles and miles by the breeze.

“Sailor, get off of there!” Warriors yelled, his voice taking on a bit of his ‘commanding officer’ edge.

“No look, it’s fine!” Wind jumped up and down a few times, ran around in a circle, and then stepped off on the opposite side, away from them. The sound stopped and started at odd points and the source seemed to randomly change directions around then. First drifting from the south, then coming from the north before it died away completely.

In unison, the Chain looked at Time for guidance.

Time shrugged. “Guess we're going over.” He stepped on after Wind. For him, there was a deep bass note that rumbled in all their chests and seemed to perpetually descend to lower and lower notes, deeper and deeper. But at the same time it never changed tone. Just a single, constant tone.

As he walked over next, Sky was given a clean and pure note, ringing out powerfully like a bell over the land.

Four had a chord. Multiple notes playing in harmony.

Legend didn’t hear a noise for himself. Just felt a vibration deep in his bones as he walked over the oddly smooth glass. It felt like trying to walk over fresh ice while his bones vibrated like it was trying to suck something out of him. He looked at the faces of his companions and couldn’t tell if they experienced a noise for him or not. Couldn’t tell if they had the same experience as him when they walked over. So he kept it to himself.

Hyrule was next. His successor had been hanging near the back of the group ever since he’d wandered off earlier on his own private adventure and needed to be dragged back by Twilight. Legend suspected he was keeping to the edges so he could make a break for it when no one was looking and go off to investigate whatever he’d found again. That was probably why Twilight was ushering him onto the black glass first , instead of letting him hang back like he clearly wanted to.

The thing made no noise when he stepped on it. None at all. Not even the regular sound of footsteps echoed out. The rest of the chain was relaxed, already chatting and looking ahead since the intrusion proved to be safe, but Legend tensed.

Right when Hyrule reached the middle of the circle of black glass, there was a ripple in its surface, and Legend had already taken off running.

The material stretched, growing and forming into reaching, grasping hands, as black as a starless night sky.

“Roolie!” Legend yelled as he raced forward. Hyrule was frozen with an expression of shock and terror on his face.

Legend grabbed onto Hyrule at the same time as the black hands. Flesh limbs fighting against limbs of pure darkness.

The surface had changed from the hardness and stillness of glass to the sinking, churning thickness of mud. The two of them were already sunk in it up to their knees.

Legend couldn’t pull Hyrule out. The shadowy limbs were already encasing his whole body and dragging him deeper and deeper into the liquid void. It was all Legend could do just to hold onto him.

“Legend!” Hyrule yelled in a panic.

“Don’t worry!” Legend yelled back, his own heartbeat threatening to break out of his ribcage with uncontrolled fear, “I’ve got you! I’ve got you!” And the inky limbs had them both, and pulled them under the surface.

It felt like sinking to the bottom of the ocean. An increasing pressure all over his body that made his ears pop and forced the air out of his lungs. His grip on Hyrule felt like the only thing that was keeping Legend grounded.

All at once, gravity reversed. Even though their actual direction hadn’t changed, it felt like they were rising up, higher and higher, instead of sinking down. Their heads burst through the surface of the tar-like material and Legend drew in a great gasp of breath. He could hear Hyrule coughing for air beside him.

The pool under their feet shrunk, sucking itself into a single point, and then winking out of existence, leaving them kneeling on the bare ground.

Legend caught sight of his hands bracing him up and groaned. Pink rabbit paws. Again. Just great.

No matter how many times this happened to him, he hated it every time. The way it was forced on him. The defenselessness. The cuteness. Why couldn’t Hylia at least have given him a cool Dark World form, like it did for Twilight? Sure there were problems that came with that too, but come on!

No matter. Legend had the solution in his bag, he could fix himself and Hyrule in a jiffy. Speaking of…

He looked over to where his successor had landed and saw a diminutive fairy, faintly glowing gold. Well, at least Legend’s transformation didn’t make him that tiny. He was pretty attached to his single foot of height, thanks.

It was difficult to rummage around in his bag with only paws. It was enchanted to have infinite space on the inside to hold all his junk, but that didn’t make it easier to reach things with his stubby little rabbit limbs. Plus he couldn’t grab onto things without fingers. More than once, he heard a crash from inside the bag and winced, hoping he hadn’t knocked anything important over.

Finally, he found the round, smooth stone he was looking for and drew it out, cupped carefully in his fluffy paws so it didn’t fall back into the depths of his hoard. 

He grabbed the Moon Pearl, clutched it tight to his chest, and channeled his magic into it. 

Nothing happened. 

He poked it. He rolled it around. He gnawed on it with his long teeth. Nothing. Beside him, Hyrule loudly sneezed.

“You okay there, Hyrule?” Legend asked distractedly, batting the pearl between his paws.

“Yeah,” Hyrule replied, sniffling and wiping his nose on one diminutive sleeve, “the magic around here just smells weird.”

Legend hadn’t always been good at sensing magic, but he got better with time and exposure. And in his bunny form like he was now, all his senses were magnified tenfold. He sniffed the air to get a feel for the magic of this place.

It reminded him of his time in the Dark World during his first adventure, but not quite. Then, he could feel the Sacred Realm’s natural magic emanating from beneath the surface, corrupted as it was. Dark magic pooled on top of it like a thick film of oil on water, suppressing the holy magic it and hiding it from view.

Here, it almost feels strangely like Lorule before the triforce had been restored. They had different goddesses, but their magic had been similar to Hyrule’s own, and he could feel the way their holy magic had been slowly but surely seeping out of the land, leaving nothing but absence in its wake. A land where no goddesses’ light could reach and the earth was left barren and dead without it.

This felt like that. Not a speck of the goddesses power that infuses and shapes the world could reach here. Just empty void left behind, with a deep darkness that burbled far below the surface.

Hyrule sneezed again.

“Are you gonna be alright, ‘Rule?” he asked again, just in case, just to be sure, “because it looks like my Moon Pearl doesn’t work and we’ll need to put our heads together to find a way out of here and fix ourselves back to our big size.”

Hyrule sniffled again and frowned in deep frustration at the sleeve he’d wiped his nose on as if it had personally offended him. “I’ll be good. I just need a few minutes to get used to it,” he replied unconvincingly.

Legend shrugged and decided to let the issue lie. Hylia knows every single one of them had downplayed their own problems before, and he figured if it became really serious, Hyrule would speak up. “So it looks like the portal disappeared behind us. Not sure if this is a one way trip kinda deal, or if there’s a portal we can find for a way back.”

“Look at this,” Hyrule said, lifting off of the ground using his fairy wings with a surprising dexterity (Legend remembered when he first became a rabbit and could barely figure out how to move his newly-shaped body without difficulty). Hyrule flew off the side and made graceful loops around a set of shimmering shadows to emphasize their presence.

“Huh,” Legend replied. The figures looked like statues, sitting at the bottom of a deep, cloudy pool of water that distorted and hid them, but those were unmistakably the silhouettes of the rest of The Chain, running around in a panic as they searched for their two lost members.

“If we can see them, do you think they can see us?” asked Hyrule thoughtfully as he hovered in the air.

“Maybe,” replied Legend. He aimed a kick powered by a bunny’s tough back legs at Warriors shins as he passed by. Unfortunately, it felt like kicking solid rock, and the captain didn’t react at all.

Hyrule flew right up in Time’s face and started yelling, “Hey! Listen!” Time didn’t react at all. Hyrule flew back to the ground, where he sat cross-legged just an inch over the dirt and huffed. “Guess they can’t see us. Or Time’s just being a big meanie today.”

“I don’t think they can tell we’re here,” said Legend, hopping up and down directly in front of Twilight in an unsuccessful attempt to get his attention, “and not just because we’re tiny.”

“So, you think we should find a way out?” Hyrule asked.

Legend hesitated, running through dozens of plans and scenarios in his head. He hated having to be in charge, but it was clear his successor was looking to him for guidance in this situation. “It looks like they’re splitting up,” Legend finally said. “I  think we should stay with one of the groups so we don’t get too separated, even if they can’t see us.”

Hyrule rose up into the air to follow. But his fragile wings seized of their own accord, making Hyrule lose a foot of altitude all at once.

Legend surged up to catch him before he hit the ground, but Hyrule managed to right himself just in time. He hovered in the air, doubled over and heaving for breath. 

“Are you okay?” Legend asked once more.

Hyrule frowned and held up one palm. A golden light appeared in it, but it sputtered and flickered like a dying candle. “I don’t think there’s enough ambient light magic here to fuel me.”

“And that means…?” Legend asked leadingly.

“I feel like I’m sucking every speck of magic out of the air in a five mile radius just to keep myself aloft.” Hyrule chuckled self-deprecating.

Legend eyed Hyrule warily. He could already see the visible exhaustion pulling at him, weighing him down. It was like watching a man trying to swim after days adrift in the ocean. “You could always ride on me,” Legend offered. 

“Really?” Hyrule perked up so much that his previous weariness seemed almost like an illusion and zipped over to rest on Legend’s head. “Your fur is so soft,” he marveled, gently petting the top of Legend’s skull in a way Legend refused to admit felt rather nice. “I don’t think I’ve felt anything like it. Even Warriors’ scarf doesn’t feel this comfy.”

“Don’t get used to it, fairy feet,” Legend said, setting off at a gentle lope after the trio of what appeared to be Time, Wind, and Wars, if the heights of the shimmering shadows was anything to go by. He had to work hard to limit the height of his hops, careful not to jostle his tiny passenger overmuch. Still, he could feel miniature hands grabbing tight into his fur to avoid getting bounced off and occasionally felt the sudden decrease of weight that meant he had accidentally sent his passenger airborne. He winced when it happened and endeavored to further gentle the ride, even though it was difficult to keep up with the others with his stubby rabbit legs compared to their long Hylian strides.

“So, a rabbit?” Hyrule asked, a touch of amusement coloring his voice.

“So, a fairy?” Legend echoed, a hard edge to his tone intended to shut the conversation down.

He could feel the way Hyrule’s hands left his fur, presumably making a gesture he couldn't see above his head. “I didn’t mean anything by it! It’s just, you’re really cute like this.”

Legend pointedly jumped a little bit higher and smirked in smug satisfaction when he heard a yelp from his back, quickly followed by hands desperately clutching back into his fur.

“So, where do you think we are?” Legend asked. He was intentionally changing the subject, but it was a good question. Their surroundings looked roughly the same as before, but in grayscale, as if all the color had been sapped out of the world. All the grass was gone from the ground and the trees were all barren. A thick haze kept them from seeing too far in any direction, making it even more difficult to keep up with the warped shadows of their companions. And the sky was a deep brownish-orange, like if seen through clouds of smoke from a blazing wildfire.

“I don’t know,” Hyrule said, hands gripping tight enough into Legend’s fur to pull uncomfortably, “I’ve never been anywhere like this on my adventures.”

Legend hummed in agreement, hopping around several rocks he wouldn’t have even noticed in his Hylian form but which were now as large as his entire body. “I’ve been a few places somewhat similar.” He made it around the last rock and used the open ground to speed up a bit and close the ever-increasing distance. “But nothing quite like this.”

“The magic here feels bad,” Hyrule said solemnly, “I-it hurts. Like it’s trying to drill into my bones and hollow me out.”

Legend’s stomach sank rapidly. He thought of the way the portal had left the rest of them alone, seeming to target Hyrule specifically. He was getting a really bad feeling about this. Even more than he had before.

“Hyrule,” he said, cautiously, invitingly, an offer to let the other open up, “how are you feeling back there?”

A quiet hitch of breath, right by his ears. “Legend?” he said, his voice quavering just slightly, “I think something’s wrong.”

Legend came to a dead stop. They could catch up to their companions later. Or they wouldn’t. This was more important right now. It’s not like the other heroes even could see or interact with them or anything. 

“What’s happening?” He asked, slightly breathless and not just from the run.

“Look,” Hyrule replied, and he climbed further forward onto Legend’s head to thrust his hands into view. Legend had to go slightly cross-eyed to get a good look at them, directly in front of him as they were, but once he saw them, his blood ran cold.

Hyrule’s fingertips were completely black . Practically necrotic-looking. His skin was cracked, with large flakes peeling off, like a spent log from a campfire. Beneath was red, raw skin.

And it wasn’t just the fingertips. Legend could see the way the black had seeped into Hyrule’s veins, making them more visible beneath the skin then they had even been before. They almost seemed to pulse with his heartbeat. They were most prominent on his hands, but Legend could even see one gray-blue vein extending up his neck, getting darker by the second.

Legend let out a breath to steady himself. “Okay, new priority,” he said, “we need to fix… whatever that is. Then we focus on getting out of here.” The group they had been trailing was long gone by now anyway.

“Maybe…” Hyrule said, then trailed off. Legend bet five rupees his successor would be blushing if he could see his face.

“Yeah?” Legend prompted.

“Well, when I was off… scouting,” Hyrule continued, which Legend mentally translated as ‘wandering off from the group without reason or warning.’ “I think I saw, maybe a Great Fairy Fountain?” 

“That could be really helpful,” Legend mused thoughtfully.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure what direction it was,” Hyrule said and Legend snorted, despite the dire situation. Leave it to Hyrule to get lost in a straight line.

“Well, it’s probably back the way we came, somewhere off the path, right?” Legend prompted.

Hyrule hummed in agreement, then “there was a stream. Then an open field.” 

“Path, stream, open field, got it,” Legend confirmed. “Let me know if anything looks familiar. You ready to head off?”

There was the silence, followed by a quick “yeah,” of someone who nodded, forgetting the other couldn’t see their face. Tiny hands gripped his fur.

Legend hadn’t been loping away for long before Hyrule’s voice sounded again by his ear. Quiet this time, barely a tickle. “Is- is it okay if I rest a bit? I’m really… tired.”

A pulse of alarm thrummed deep in Legend’s chest, but he carefully kept it out of his voice, keeping it gentle and caring. “Course, ‘Rule. Take a quick nap and I’ll wake you when we get closer.”

The weight on his back settled himself in and Legend slowed his stride even further, even though there was a force itching under his skin and prickling under his fur telling him to go faster, faster. Get Hyrule to safety, to a cure. If Hyrule was already this exhausted, the lack of holy magic in this realm must be affecting him even worse than he thought. Which meant it was even more important to rush him to the great fairy fountain, but also more important for him to conserve his energy.

The place they found themselves was eerily silent as Legend hopped along. Not a single bird call or rustle of a blade of grass. Even Legend’s padded footsteps seemed oddly muted on the hard-packed earth. Only Hyrule’s quiet breaths, soothed into the gentle rhythms of sleep, convinced Legend he wasn’t the only thing alive here, and that was small comfort considering the state of the boy. 

Legend passed the place the portal had brought them here, now empty and still with quiet, and followed the path they had taken in reverse direction. When he reached the spot Twilight had dragged a sheepishly grinning Hyrule out of the trees, he reluctantly shook the slumbering traveler awake.

“Huuh? Whazzat?” Hyrule asked muzzily. 

“We’re near your wander-path. You recognize anything?”

There was silence for several moments as Hyrule thought it over. “I’m… not sure. It all looks different when the trees are dead.”

“I’ll just go. Let me know if you see anything. Path, stream, field.” Legend restated. Hands returned to his fur, clutching for balance, but the grip was far weaker now, just barely holding on. Legend’s heartbeat thrummed painfully in his chest.

It was harder to navigate off the path. The tangled roots of the dead forest offered infinite obstacles for someone at bunny-size and he didn’t even know where he was going. The weight on his back kept slipping and sliding off to the side, and Legend had to constantly course-correct to make sure his passenger didn’t slip off completely. It was so quiet there, Legend half-feared Hyrule had fallen back asleep.

His fears were soothed when Hyrule’s voice drifted up to him. “Listen to that.”

Legend stopped trying to remove his foot from where it had gotten slightly wedged under a root and cocked his head to listen, his rabbit ears raised high to catch all possible sound. The adaptation of a prey animal that had to be aware of everything to keep itself safe.

The faint rushing of a stream reached his ears, bringing a wave of relief with it. They were going the right way.

“Let’s go,” Legend told his passenger and yanked his leg out from under the root with enough force that it left scrapes on the appendage and removed a chunk of fur. It was fine. It wasn’t what was important right now.

A burst of speed brought them to the stream. Legend was almost surprised it had water here instead of being completely dried up. It seemed odd for even a single thing to be moving and making noise in the dead silence.

The stream would have been nothing for a Hylian. Something that could be jumped over easily without even getting wet. But not so for a bunny rabbit.

Legend gulped at the sight of the rapid current, imagining other waves, a larger expanse superimposed over it. Floating for days on the ocean with only a plank of wood to save him from his watery grave.

Legend physically shook himself, earning a small, startled yelp from behind him. He could do this. It wasn’t the time to get lost in memories.

“Hold on tight,” he warned.

The stream was ice cold around them. The wetness seeped into his fur and dragged him down with its weight. The rocky bottom of the stream was just close enough that he could kick against it with his hind paws, but it left his head barely above the surface, gasling for breaths between splashes of waves.

He collapsed on the other shore, shivering with cold and heaving for breath. “You good back there, Hyrule?”

No answer.

Legend twisted as much as his lapine body would allow to get a look at his back. He couldn’t judge based on weight anymore with his whole body weighed down by the stream’s wetness as it was.

He couldn’t see anything back there.

Legend swore and raced to the water. Just a little bit downstream, he could see a faint glow, barely pulsing beneath the dark water.

Legend dove after it with reckless abandon. He didn’t care if he drowned here if he could get Hyrule out.

The current pulled and pushed him, trying to drag him away from his target, but Legend forced himself onward. He only had one goal in his mind and it was a tiny fairy struggling for breath.

He couldn’t even see Hyrule’s body properly through the water, just the glow. There was no way Legend could grab onto him with his useless paws, and Hyrule was in no state to grab onto him. His only option left was his teeth.

Legend carefully clutched the body behind elongated, sharp incisors. Keeping the force at the lowest possible level to hold him in place without completely crunching through the limp body.

Legend paddled to shore.

Hyrule looked worse than ever. The blackness was spread over his whole body. Large patches of skin were missing, leaving him raw and bleeding. Most of his fingernails had fallen off, and the few remaining were hanging on by a thread. His wings were crinkled into balls and useless, looking more like dead leaves than functional appendages. But he was breathing.

Legend couldn’t do cpr on Hyrule at these sizes, with these forms. Not without crushing him to death.

Instead, he snagged the back of his tunic with his front teeth and ran.

They had to be close to the Great Fairy Fountain, right? They passed the stream, so the field was next, right? There was still time to fix this, right?

Legend burst out of the treeline like the trees themselves threw him out. It was a plain, cracked and rocky, but just like hyrule had said. And in the distance, he could see a small rounded hill with a cave set in it, a perfect location for a Great Fairy Fountain. He set out at a sprint.

Without needing to worry about how high he bounced, his powerful legs quickly ate up the distance between him and his goal. He was so close, so close he could almost taste it.

Until a shadow grew in his path.

Darkness bubbled out of the cracks in the earth, liquid shadow in solid form. A pair of red eyes gazed out at him. 

“So it appears I have a hanger-on,” the thing said, “I was only expecting one of you. No matter. It shouldn’t be too difficult to take care of you as well.”

The creature burst forward fluidly, faster than anything Hylian possibly could. Just coiled its mass up and sprang, cutting through the space between them like an arrow. Legend only had time to drop Hyrule and stumble backwards in shock before he was completely engulfed.

He felt it slide into his mouth, down his throat. Slimy and cold, like trying to swallow a live eel. It forced itself up his nostrils, arresting his breathing entirely. He knew he could hold his breath, that he should. But he couldn’t stop his panicking rabbit brain from telling him that he needed to BREATHE. He felt every inch the sludge wormed it way down his throat. Forcing itself deeper and deeper. Until it split to either side to pour itself into his lungs. His chest filled with liquid ice.

Legend had drowned before. As much as he cursed its name, the only reason Legend was alive today was because the Windfish deigned to bring him back from certain death. But he still remembered every second of it. Of liquid filling his lungs. Of burning pain that was still impossibly cold down to his core. Of the way his thoughts went hazy and muddled, and he just felt so tired and couldn’t help but think it would be easier to rest .

This was exactly the same.

And he was here now with liquid darkness wedging itself deep into his lungs, but also still back there. Pieces of a shattered boat floating above him as he sunk to the depths. Glittering beaches flashing in the corners of his eyes, getting more real with every second. The aftershocks of lightning still buzzing across his skin.

Until the lightning suddenly became much more real. Legend soundlessly screamed as white-hot pain lanced over his entire body, forcing his muscles to seize in a painful rictus and tracing a path down through his mouth into his throat and lungs, burning him alive from the inside out. 

The lightning vanished.

The shadow vanished.

Legend collapsed to the ground.

In front of him, the tiny fairy Hyrule stood, a single hand outstretched and sparks dancing from his fingertips. Two of his fingers crumbled into ash in front of Legend’s eyes. Hyrule’s expression was determined, but his gaze were distant and hazy, like he wasn’t fully there. He was barely holding himself upright.

Legend took in a deep gasp of a breath, and it burned in white-hot pain in his chest even still. His chest was moving, trying to draw in lungfuls of air, but it felt like he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. He was gasping for air, desperate to get enough as if he was running as fast as he could even though he was just lying there motionless. Every single frantic inhale lanced more pain through his chest, so painful that he almost wanted to stop breathing entirely just to ease himself of the pain for a moment.

Hyrule started towards him on unsteady legs, the golden glow of magic dancing between his remaining fingertips. A chunk of flesh fell out of his arm.

“Hyrule, don’t ,” Legend used his limited breath to wheeze out. It was quiet, barely louder than his breathing, but still audible.

Hyrule did not listen. He continued forward. One of his wings snapped off at the base and tumbled to the ground like a dead leaf in Autumn. Hyrule didn’t even acknowledge it.

“Hyrule, your magic, ” Legend pleaded desperately. Hyrule was barely holding himself together as it was. He couldn’t afford to spend any more on saving Legend’s worthless life.

One of Hyrule’s knees crumbled completely into dust, detaching him from his calf and forcing him to pitch forward into the dirt. He was just close enough. He strained himself forward, forcing one outstretched hand just a little bit farther…

The familiar feeling of Hyrule’s healing magic washed over Legend. A refreshing cool mint wave, knitting his body back together strand by strand. Meanwhile, Hyrule was falling apart right before Legend’s eyes. Bit by bit, his body was crumbling to ash.

Even as the hole in his lung was painfully knit back together, the air not yet fully returned to his lungs, Legend scooped Hyrule’s disintegrating body up with one of his paws, trying to get as much of the discarded particles as possible, and he ran.

Three legs propelled him forward with the fourth clutching his delicate cargo close to his chest. His paws skidded on the suddenly smooth stone as he barreled into the Great Fairy’s cave at full speed.

He could see her, right there, standing above the fountain, beautiful and resplendent. 

She was an immaterial shadow, not really there, just like all their companions had been.

He still had to try, he still had to do something . Hyrule’s delicate, failing body was clutched in his paw. “Great Fairy, you have to help us. Please, my brother is dying!”

No response. 

It was like she wasn’t even there. Like she didn’t even see them.

Legend sobbed.

He couldn’t just let this happen. There had to be a solution, some way to fix this. Hyrule couldn’t just die. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.

The water of the fountain shimmered, casting light and shadows over the walls of the cave.

The water of some of their Great Fairy Fountains had healing properties, right? He wasn’t sure where they were, but it could work, right? This could be the magical remedy that cures him? Maybe?

He tipped what was left of Hyrule’s body into the pool.

Legend wasn’t sure if he was even breathing anymore.

The seconds ticked by with no response. Not a single splash from the water.

It was a long time since Legend had been religious. In fact, he had a personal grudge against Hylia. But he was desperate enough to try anything.

Legend kneeled down and he prayed.

“Hylia, I know you don’t like me. And rest assured, it’s mutual. But please, Hyrule doesn’t deserve this. He has always been good to you. He has always been your loyal soldier. He deserves a good life. Not to die in a cave far from home. I know you want to punish me, and you can do whatever you like when we’re out of here. But don’t damn Hyrule alongside me. He’s good. Way better than I am. He’s the hero you deserve. Don’t let him die here.”

There was the splash and gasp of a head breaking the water. Legend nearly cried tears of relief. A helping paw pulled Hyrule out of the water and safely onto the ground. Hyrule was shaking, and Legend was shaking right alongside him, even though there was no real reason to.

“You’re okay,” Legend whispered, curled up to fully encase Hyrule in his fluff on all sides. A velvety-soft rabbit hug from all directions. “You’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” Hyrule reassured. His miniature hands were spread as wide as possible to hug as much of Legend as he could at his diminutive size. He had all his fingers, all his fingernails, both legs, all four wings. Restored back to himself and hugging his brother for all he was worth. “We’re both okay.”

Notes:

I want you to know that I literally flipped a coin to decide if Hyrule should die or not, so Hyrule’s life was only saved by the grace of the rng gods, all praise.
Also, while writing this, I literally went “It’s a shame I’m making Hyrule sick instead of Leg. I think I’ll drown him, electrocute him, and deflate one of his lungs. As a treat.”

Chapter 21: Cramping Pain

Summary:

I trans The Chain’s genders.

Legend groaned in pain and curled up on his bedroll. He couldn’t believe this journey made him run out of his weekly potion from Syrup without a chance to restock. And now his period was back. Two years of slurping boy juice gone down the drain, just because Hylia couldn’t wait five freaking minutes to ship his trans ass off to the edge of the universe.

Of course, it wasn’t really down the drain. A few missed weeks wouldn’t shoot his voice back up to a soprano or get rid of the three whole hairs (three!) he was capable of growing on his chin. But he hadn’t had a period in nearly the whole time he’d been taking potions, so getting it back now felt like a personal blow. A step backwards.

His stomach ached and he tightly squeezed his arms around his abdomen as if he could physically force the pain out. The scent of Wild cooking dinner drifted over to him and the normally delicious smell of fish stew only made him nauseous. 

Legend decided that periods were the single worst part of being born with a uterus. If he stopped taking his potions for good right now, most things he wouldn’t miss. Slightly less muscle mass? He was active enough it didn’t really matter. Lower energy levels? He was exhausted all the time anyway. No more beard hair? He was unreasonably proud of the three he had already, and they weren’t going anywhere. Most of the changes he wanted he already got, and most of the ongoing effects didn’t matter enough to care. Hell, he would even get clearer skin and be less likely to go bald if he stopped. But the one thing that always kept him from going off it for good was that he just couldn’t . Deal. With. Periods.

He was glad for his enchanted binder at least. It had the same enchantment as his bag to have infinite space inside so he could comfortably flatten his chest. And with the way it always became painfully sensitive during his time of the month, even just having his tunic touching his skin would have been torture without the void-space keeping him safe. He wasn’t sure if he could stand taking it off at all right now.

Wild brought him a bowl of dinner and Legend grimaced at it. The smell was unbearably strong and his stomach churned at the thought of it. The cramping pain in his abdomen always just registered as ‘tummy bad’ to his nervous system. Just a general abdominal yuck. And he couldn’t manage to convince his brain that it was his dumbass uterus preparing to make dumbass babies he didn’t want and not his stomach falling apart because he ate something bad and now needed to never eat again.

Wild scrunched up his nose at him. “You getting sick?” he asked.

Legend waved off his concern. “Nah, it’s just my period. Nothing to worry about.”

Wild just looked confused. “Your… period?”

Legend didn’t introduce himself with ‘Hey, I’m Link and I’m a trans man,’ but he also didn’t exactly hide it either. He talked about it if it came up and the rest of the time it didn’t matter. So it wasn’t that big a deal to say, “yeah, you know, my time of the month? My visit from Aunt Flo? There’s other euphemisms too but I honestly can’t be assed to remember them right now.”

“Oh!” Wild brightened up in understanding. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

Legend would prefer not to move for the next several days anyway, thank you very much. The fetal position was his only true friend right now.

Legend watched as Wild returned to the cooking pot and boiled a lot of water. He put a bit of it into a teacup and the rest into a hot water bottle, both of which he brought back to Legend.

“The tea’s ginger,” he explained. “I have several friends who swear by it.”

Legend sipped the tea slowly. He wasn’t sure if it would help at all, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. And curling around the hot water bottle felt positively heavenly. Little by little, the pain abated, although it didn’t completely go away. What he wouldn’t give for one of Syrup’s potions right now. It didn’t even have to be one of the boy potions; he knew she made stuff to make periods suck less. He wished he had five of those to chug down right now.

Wild watched Legend expectantly the entire time he drained his tea. Just sitting there, staring at him.

When Legend reached the bottom of his cup, he cleared his throat and said, “thanks,” as he handed the teacup back to the champion.

Wild just nodded earnestly and continued sitting there, staring at him.

“So,” Legend began awkwardly, “do… you want something else?”

“So you were born a girl?” Wild asked quickly and Legend flinched a little at the question.

“Yes,” he said carefully, forcefully, with no room for argument, “but I’m a boy now.”

Wild nodded enthusiastically in agreement and a smidge of invisible weight drifted off Legend’s shoulders. He didn’t think Wild would have a problem with it, but there was always that latent fear. “I have a friend kinda like you! I just didn’t know it could go the other way.”

Legend nodded slowly. “It can go all ways. Gender is weird. I’m not the only trans member of The Chain either.”

Wild’s eyes sparkled. “Really, who else?”

The others were all out, as far as Legend knew. In fact, he was surprised Wild had’t known about this before now. Sometimes the kid’s priorities were weird. “Well Time has repeatedly said that the Kokiri have 64 distinct genders, most of which do not have a direct correlation to Hylian genders. But calling him a boy is ‘close enough.’”

Wild looked thoughtful as he mused this over.

“And then there’s Hyrule,” Legend continued before raising his voice to yell at his successor, “HEY HYRULE! WHAT’S YOUR GENDER?!”

“NONE FOR ME, THANKS!” they yelled back.

“See?” Legend said, “and then there’s whatever’s going on with Four’s gender.”

“Why, what’s going on with Four’s gender?” Wild asked, leaning forward in his eagerness.

Four snorted from a ways away from the two of them, evidently listening in. “Do you have a couple of hours to discuss it?” they asked.

Wild might, but Legend did not. “In conclusion, lotsa gender weirdness going on in the chain,” he finished.

Wild worried his lip between his lips for several seconds, seeming to work up the courage to say something. Finally, he said, “so, say if I… maybe preferred to be a girl… that wouldn’t be a problem?”

“Yeah, no worries,” Legend replied. He patted her hair and all the tension seemed to leave her body all at once. “Glad to have you aboard, little sis.”

Wild grinned and her smile was as bright as the sun.

Notes:

Time and Four are playing 4d gender chess off to the side.

Chapter 22: “But If You Stay, You’ll Get Sick Too”

Summary:

Malon takes care of Legend when he’s sick at the ranch.

Lost in the twilight between sleep and wake, red hair danced in the corners of Legend’s vision. He didn’t know what he needed to do, which direction to travel, up or down to reach her, but he knew he would give anything to spend even one more moment with her. He would rip his own soul out of his body if he thought it would allow his soul to stay together with hers.

“M’rin,” Legend mumbled out, reaching to tangle fingers in her glorious locks, blazing orange strands that shone like the sunset.

A pair of hands gently settled around his wrists. Rough and calloused from years of hard farmwork, not porcelain smooth from years of being sanded down by white beaches.

“Malon, sweetie. You’re at the ranch.” Her face slowly swam onto view, and even though it was far too similar to bear, Legend could pick out the small differences in appearance.

Just like every other time, Legend felt his heart shatter. He really needed to give up allowing himself to feel hope for good. All it brought him was pain. Hope was a pathetic and useless emotion for people who just couldn’t accept reality.

Malon’s gentle hand swept across his forehead, a cool rag wiping away the sheen of sweat that had gathered there.

“You’ve been givin’ all a us a real worry, hun. This sickness of yours just will not quit.”

He hummed in agreement and leaned into her touch. The soothing temperature of the cloth combining with the comfort of human touch to ease pain he didn’t even know he had.

She ran long fingers through tangled, sweet-soaked hair. “Go back to sleep. You need your rest to fight this off. I’ll be right here when you wake.”

Legend wanted nothing more than to listen to her, to let the gentle ministrations of her fingers in his hair soothe him back into unconsciousness but something about that wasn’t right. He had to warn her away. Had to tell her that she couldn’t stay around him. That he was no good and that his presence would only bring her pain. “But if you stay, you’ll get sick too,” came out of his mouth pathetically, sounding more like a weak child than the seasoned adventurer he was.

She snorted in amusement. “You Links are all the same. Always so self sacrificing.” Another comforting pass of her hand through his hair silenced all his thoughts, making his mind go blank with bliss. “It’s okay to let someone take care of you once in a while. You can’t do everything all on your lonesome. You gotta let others prop you up from time to time.”

It sounded like something she would say. Always worried about how much he was taking on all by himself. Trying to get him to rest and relax and spend time with her. Telling him that he had done enough, that it was okay to leave problems unsolved or let someone else deal with them. And in the end he hadn’t done enough. Or. Maybe the problem was that he had done too much.

Try as he might, Legend was rapidly losing the fight to stay awake. It felt like he couldn’t let himself fall asleep, like there was something important to be said, to be done before he could allow himself to rest. Sleeping calmly without worries and problems hanging over his head was a luxury he couldn’t afford. He just couldn’t figure out what the problem, what the unfinished task was right now.

Legend flung himself into a sitting position using all the energy he had left in his body. He grabbed Malon’s wrists, tightly grasped in his own in an echo of her position earlier. He stared desperately at her, knowing that he needed to say something but he wasn’t sure what. Instead, he just pleaded her with his eyes, hoping she would understand.

Malon froze at his sudden movement, but then a fond but bittersweet smile slowly grew on her face. As the brief burst of energy left Legend’s body and he began to sag, Malon gently guided him back into bed. “Did I ever tell you boys the story of how I met my Link?” she asked.

Legend shook his head mutely. His brain latching onto this new topic and all previous thoughts flowing out of his head like water.

“Well you see, there was this cucco egg…” She tucked the blankets snugly around him and continued with talking in a low drone. Her words washed over Legend’s head in waves.

He fell asleep to dreams of blazing red hair.

Chapter 23: Pounding Headache

Summary:

Legend takes a hard hit.

Notes:

I was only able to finish this chapter today thanks to my migraine medication. Everyone say thank you to my migraine medication.

“Legend! Vet, can you hear me? LINK!”

Legend blinks white spots out of his eyes and tries to focus on the voice speaking to him past the ringing resounding in his ears. A person swims in and out of his vision and he feels like he should know them, that there’s something familiar about the blue scarf draped around their neck, but his head hurts too much to put the effort into figuring it out.

“Vet, thank Hylia you’re awake. You really took a nasty blow to the head there,” the figure says.

Legend lets his head drift to the side. All he really wants to do is to close his eyes until the pounding in his head ceases.

Fingers snap in front of his nose. “No, no, no, come on, you’ve got to stay with me. No falling asleep.”

Legend squints at the person in front of him. He swears he knows them from somewhere, he just can’t figure it out. Trying to think feels like wading through molasses at the moment, and waves of pain pulsing through his skull keep derailing his train of thought. A trickle of something warm and wet drips from his hairline down one side of his face.

“Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?” the mystery friend asks.

Legend tries to focus on the appendages swimming and multiplying in front of his eyes, but finds it impossible, so he just shakes his head. The motion sends him reeling and nausea works its way up his throat. He clamps his jaw shut tight to keep anything from forcing itself out.

He can’t tell much about the expression the person in front of him is making, but what little his brain can process seems to categorize it somewhere in the vicinity of ‘worried.’

“Okay, that’s fine,” the person says, even though it very much does not sound fine. “Do you remember where we are?”

Legend tries to focus past the nausea, past the blurry doubled vision and the ringing in his ears and the pulsing pain to what’s going on around them. The clanging of weapons and yells of both Hylians and monsters ram into his skull like daggers, each noise sending a spike of pain screeching through his skull. The whirling movements of the figures are impossible to follow and only make him more dizzy. He has to briefly close his eyes to fight off the nausea.

“B’ttlefield,” he mumbles out to the best of his ability.

“Good, that’s very good,” his watcher assures, but Legend’s mind is already moving forward. Because it’s not good. Because a fight is going on and he needs to be there, not here.

He doesn’t know where his sword is, it must have been misplaced somewhere, but he has his bag with him always. He reaches in and wraps his fingers around the first thing they come in contact with. One of his half-dozen boomerangs. He draws it and does his best to stand up, trying to fight down the nausea that comes with the motions. He feels like instead of raising up a few feet, he was suddenly launched several hundred feet in the air. Like his head was floating in the stratosphere and his stomach was struggling to catch up. His legs sway under him and threaten to buckle, but he locks his knees in place. Staying upright only through sheer willpower.

“Legend, Leg, sit down, you’re going to fall over.”

Legend weakly tries to push past the person, but he’s more using them to prop himself upright than actually getting past. “G’tta go… need m’ help,” he mumbles out weakly.

The swimming face in front of him gentles. “Leg, it’s okay buddy. They’ve got this.” A large rock flies towards them and smashes into the ground to their right, shattering into a thousand pieces and exploding into his brain with the the agonizing force of its sound. Legend falls partway to his knees from the pain and it’s only the person in front of him that keeps him even marginally upright. “And we’ve got to get you out of here. C’mon buddy.”

Legend is half guided, half pulled away from the action. He doesn’t have the energy to do anything other than comply. He kind of wants to take a nap.

“Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep,” the person warns him.

Half-slumped against their armor, he gets a good look at the scarf wrapped around their neck. It feels familiar. Something about it spells home to him. Speaks of comfort and caring and family.

“Y’er a good brother,” he slurs out drowsily.

The person stiffens in shock. Legend stumbles with the abrupt halt to their movement. They minutely shake themself and continue forward. “You’re a good brother too. Please don’t give me a heart attack like this again.”

Legend chuckles and allows himself to slump further against the comforting presence. “‘ll try.”

Notes:

This is mostly what I felt like today, lol. ✌️

Chapter 24: Coughing Fit

Summary:

Legend tries to get cough medicine in Wild’s Hyrule, but struggles because he lost his voice.

Legend burst into Hateno’s General Store, not really caring about the way the door slammed into the wall. He was much more focused on heaving for breaths between the seizing of his lungs as he rode out his fifth painful coughing fit of the hour. 

His chest ached, his throat was completely shredded, his voice was gone, and all he wanted was to sleep. But he couldn’t do that because if he tried, his body would keep him awake by forcing cough after cough out of him every time he closed his eyes. So. General store. Cough medicine. Yeah.

He couldn’t force any words out of his throat louder than a whisper and doing so would feel like trying to swallow a boxful of nails, but luckily he picked up a lot of this era’s sign language from traveling with Wild.

‘ Cough medicine, ’ he signed to the proprietor of the shop and tacked on a ‘ please ’ as an afterthought, shifting his expression into something he hoped was appropriately polite and pleading.

“What?” the man asked.

‘ Cough medicine, ’ Legend signed again, slower this time. He hoped he was doing this correctly, that he got the sign right. He knew his own world’s sign language way better than Wild’s. And he didn’t have as much practice at actually using Wild’s Sign as he did at reading it. His fluency was only barely above his Subrosian sign. But he was pretty sure he got this right and really didn’t understand why the man didn’t seem to recognize it.

The guy just shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t recognize your hand-thingy,” he said, “buy what you want or don’t.” 

Legend silently huffed and walked around the store. He really wished he was in bed right now. Multiple times, he had to stifle coughs into his elbow and he could feel the owner shooting nasty looks at him, especially when he was near the food. He probably should have forced one of the others to do this. He didn’t care if they were busy, he was sick. They were required to take care of him.

Finally, he found some cough medicine stuffed into a back corner and brought it up to the counter to ring it up. When the man gave him his change of 2 rupees and the bottle he purchased, he signed ‘ thank you ’ even though he knew the guy wouldn’t properly appreciate it. Because he is polite.

The man rolled his eyes at him. What an asshole.

Legend burst into the Inn they were staying at with his medicine in hand and immediately beelined for Wild. ‘ Why shopkeeper not know sign? ’ he asked. He just needed to know. Practically everyone in his Hyrule knew how to sign. It was taught in every school. It seemed unheard of to him that the shopkeeper didn’t understand and was so dismissive of it.

Wild looked at him in shock for a moment before bursting out into raspy, nearly silent laughter. ‘Not Hylian sign,’ they signed back, ‘ Zora sign. Calamity destroyed Hylian sign. Not many Hylian know Zora sign.’ Wild gave an exaggerated contrite frown and shrugged in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture, but the twitching of the corners of their mouth gave away that they were trying not to laugh.

Legend let out a frustrated scream that sounded more like the whistling of a teakettle than anything else and which quickly sparked another round of coughs. Wild patted his back comfortingly until his lungs stopped seizing.

When the coughing fit finally died down, Legend asked ‘How you know Zora sign?’ 

‘Learned at Zora Domain. Twilight learned too.’ Wild used their sign name for Twilight, the sign for the moon and then the sign for a wolf, but put extra emphasis on the wolf to let Legend know it happened when he was in his wolfie form. If anything should have let them know that Twilight was Wolfie before the big reveal, it should have been how Wild signed about him.

‘ Hylian stupid. Should learn sign, ’ Legend gesticulated wildly, still heated about the subject.

‘ Agreed, ’ Wild signed back simply.

‘ Should give cough medicine when I ask. ’ Legend was fully pouting now.

‘ Agreed ,’ Wild signed, fighting to keep a smile off of their face.

Notes:

Headcanons:
-The initial purpose of Zora Sign is communicating underwater where sound doesn’t travel as well. It has larger and more expansive gestures than Hylain Sign so it can be seen better at a distance or through possibly murky water.
-Holodrum and Labrynna Sign can be considered different dialects of Hylian Sign.
-Subrosian Sign is slower and more emphatic than Hylian Sign to allow easier reading in low light conditions.
-Time and Hyrule know how to nonverbally communicate with fairy dances, which are very similar to bee dances. They rely more on changing position and have a lot more physical movement than sign language. Fairy dances do not utilize facial expressions at all but do use exaggerated posture to convey emotion.

Chapter 25: “Did You Just Sneeze?”

Summary:

Sorry, Legend’s husband says he can’t do adventuring today. He’s sick.

Notes:

I thought this work should have a bit more Ravioli, so here’s some Ravioli.

“Okay. Here’s the plan for the day,” Legend said, spreading out one of his way too many maps on his table. He had another virtually identical map tucked under an arm. “I’m going to take Warriors and Time to the castle to see if my Zelda has any information on what’s been going on while I’ve been gone. The two of them should fit in there and if we’re lucky, Warriors can get some gossip from the other knights.” He pointed to the drawing of the castle in the middle of the map. This map was a bit yellowed from the years that passed since his first adventure, but it was still in good condition. Once everyone got a good look, he moved his finger over to a grove of trees on the right. “Sky, you take Wind and Four to Syrup’s hut. She knows a little bit of everything that’s going on in Hyrule and should at least be able to give some advice. And she’s got a real soft spot for kids, so having Wind and Four there should encourage her to open up.”

“I’m not a kid!” Four squawked. “I’m older than you are!”

“Yeah, and I’m not a kid either.” Wind folded his arms and pouted like the kid he was.

“Doesn’t matter,” Legend told them, “all you need is to look small and cute.”

Four muttered to themselves angrily. Legend caught them saying, “when I finally get my growth spurt, it’s all over for you suckers,” despite them being way past the age where they should be capable of getting growth spurts.

He decided to ignore them. “Continuing on, Twilight should take Wild and Hyrule to see Elder Sahasrahla in Kakariko. He’s a Sage and he might know something about the kind of magic we’re dealing with here. Hyrule, hopefully your knowledge of magic will help get the conversation moving.” Legend left out that he was intentionally sending Wild and Hyrule to the closest location with only a simple road to get there so that they couldn’t wander off and get lost. He shuddered to think what would happen if they discovered the twisting labyrinth of waterways that composed Zora’s Lake located just to the East of Syrups’s place.

“Twilight, Sky, use these maps. I’ll be guiding Time and Wars myself.” He handed the newer map to Twilight and the older map to Sky, whose group he trusted to take care of it a bit better. “And if that’s everything, we can be off.”

“Not without breakfast you can’t!” yelled Ravio. The bunny-hooded merchant burst into the room carrying stacks upon stacks of cinnamon pancakes, homemade jars of apple butter wedged under his arms. Over his usual robe, he wore an apron that read ‘Kiss the cook: 20 rupees.’ Most of the pancakes were cooked into various shapes with varying degrees of success. Ravio shoved a plate in front of Legend and refused to move on until Legend grabbed the offered knife and fork. Legend’s pancake was clearly one of the marginally more successful ones. A large circle with two tall lines coming off the top, only slightly burned at the tips, evoked a clear image of a rabbit’s head. Legend stifled a chuckle of amusement. He didn’t want anyone to know how cute he found it.

Discussion turned to other matters as everyone at the table scarfed down the food carried out to them. Ravio ended up needing to make several trips back to the kitchen to feed all of the hungry heroes.

Legend tried to enjoy his pancakes, he really did. But the slight soreness in his throat that had been bothering him since he woke up did not make it easy. Every swallow was a chore. And even the food didn’t taste as good as it usually would.

Right as everyone was wrapping up, a tiny sneeze crawled its way out of his throat. He tried his best to suppress it, but it burst its way past his defenses.

“Achoo!”

Ravio’s eyes lasered in on Legend and he hastily put down the last round of pancakes to hurry to his husband’s side. “Did you just sneeze?” he asked.

Legend tried to wave it off. “It’s nothing. I just accidentally breathed a little cinnamon up my nose.”

Ravio clearly wasn’t having it. He pushed the back of his hand against Legend’s forehead with a frown despite his protests. “You’re a bit warm,” he said, “you should stay home today.”

“But I need to lead my group to the castle!” Legend whined, “Twilight and Sky have my only two maps, and they need someone who knows the princess to get in!”

Ravio huffed and crossed his arms in determination. “If that’s the case, I can take them.”

“But what if something happens, an ambush or something, and you need to fight?” Legend worried

Ravio rolled his eyes. “I can handle it, I’m a hero too! I’ve even worked with Mr. Captain Hero, and he can vouch for me!”

“He does have a very big hammer,” Warriors confirmed.

Legend still didn’t look convinced, so Ravio dealt the finishing blow. “What’s our rule about sick adventuring?” 

Legend sighed and slumped down in his seat. “Monsters don’t care if you’re not at your best. Sickness means staying home.”

Ravio clapped his hands together, commanding the attention of the room. “So! Guess you’ll have a different Hero of Courage accompanying you today! Is everyone ready to go? No one needs any more pancakes?”

Wind hastily shoved an entire pancake into his mouth and nodded his head in excitement. 

Legend snagged the tip of Ravio’s sleeve as he moved to leave. “Promise you’ll be safe?” he asked quietly.

Ravio placed a single, gentle kiss on Legend’s lips, his skin soft and warm against Legend’s own. He only pulled back enough to separate their lips, staying close so that every exhale was a whisper against Legend’s skin. “I always am,” he breathed, and the force of his words ghosted across Legend’s face.

Legend grinned to himself. “You’ll get sick too if you kiss me like that,” he told his husband without pulling away a single millimeter. 

“Worth it,” Ravio teased, and he closed the gap between them to pull Legend into a longer, deeper kiss. One of the ears on his bunny hood drifted forward to brush against Legend’s cheek.

“Eww,” Wind whined.

“Get a room, you too!” Warriors called playfully.

The two of them pulled away, both beet red. Ravio hurried to gather a small amount of supplies for the trip, and they were quickly off.

It was a fairly nice day, all things considered. Legend drank some tea, took a nap, and read a book all swaddled up in blankets in his favorite rocking chair. He was just starting to doze off for a second time when he was jarred awake by a knock at his door. It hopefully wasn’t any of the other heros. He’s told them he would leave the door unlocked so they could just walk right in.

Legend untangled himself from his blankets, marked his spot in the book that had already been drifting out of his grasp, blew his nose one last time, and finally made his way to the door.

Behind it was a knight in glimmering armor, already raising his hand up to knock a second time.

Legend crossed his arms and leaned against the wooden doorframe. “You need something?” he asked coldly.

“Ah! Li- Mr. Hero… sir!” the knight fumbled his words and raised one arm into a sloppy, unsure salute, “I’m so sorry to bother you, but, um. We need you to come to the castle. Your… special friend and his two companions are in the castle dungeons, and your presence is needed to bail them out.”

Legend snorted. Leave it to them to get in trouble in just the few hours they were gone. He wondered which one of them got them tossed in there. His money was on Ravio “Lead the way,” he told the anxious knight.

They weren’t even past the end of his front walk when Wind ran up, looking frazzled.

“Leg! Listen, I know you’re supposed to have a day off and I’m really sorry about this, but a second witch named Irene showed up, and she said she knew we had something to do with the magic of your disappearance, and she wanted to know where you were, and she wouldn’t let us leave until we told her, and then she started fighting with the first witch, and I snuck out when she was looking away, and... Um. We might need your help.”

Legend sighed and looked between him and the knight. “Sure. Fine. What’s one more disaster?”

Just as he was about to turn to the knight and ask if they could deal with the mess his witch friend was causing before the mess his husband caused, Wind’s necklace started ringing. Wind pressed a button, and Twilight's worried face swam into view on the blue stone.

“Listen,” said the hero. He was clearly moving and there were trees flashing bu in the background. Way more than there should have been for Kakariko. “I don’t wanna alarm ya, and you don’t gotta come if ya don’t want to, but we may ‘ave taken bit of a detour and ended up… I don’t know, we’re somewhere. In some blasted woods. And we ain’t got a clue how to get back cause a buncha lowlife scum stole our map and a couple of our rupees.”

“You’re in the Lost Woods,” Legend deadpanned.

“Maybe?” Twilight hedged.

“You waltzed into the Lost Woods and immediately got lost.” He knew he shouldn’t have trusted Wild and Hyrule to be in the same group, even with a babysitter and a straight. Goddamn. Path.

“Sorry?” Twilight tried.

Legend let out a sigh that he felt down to his bones. “Fine, I’ll come get you. But I may have a few things to deal with first.”

Twilight’s face brightened. “Thank you Leg-” Legend ended the call.

He went back inside his house to grab his adventuring gear. 

Even while sick, a hero couldn’t have a day off.

Notes:

Warriors punched a guard who said something shitty about Legend.
Time defaced a painting depicting the Fallen Hero.
Ravio tried to pull a Very Illegal scam on a noble.
It wasn't one of them that got them thrown in jail, it was all three.

Chapter 26: “I Could Really Use a Hug Right About Now”

Summary:

Pre-LU. There’s a shipwreck section in Oracle of Ages so here’s that.

Notes:

Generally I like to put Link’s Awakening on the timeline after Oracle of Seasons/Ages for a lot of reasons even though it’s not the current official timeline (actually my current fav for LU purposes is to fuck around and make it ALttP->ALBW->OoS->OoA->TFH->LA even though I rarely get a chance to use that), but today I am putting Link’s Awakening first exclusively for angst purposes. 👍

Again. What were the odds that it would happen again. And he hadn’t even bothered with a proper boat this time. Just a dinky little raft that splintered apart into so many twigs when it was hit by the storm. Hylia, he was so stupid.

Why did he think he could be a hero? Why did anyone think he was cut out for this job, think he could solve all their problems, that he could free a friend from mind control, even when his first adventure proved he didn’t know how to do that and was only capable of mercilessly cutting down swaths of innocent people who were only acting against their will. 

He’s not even capable of crossing a tiny swath of ocean without getting struck down by the goddesses for his hubris. They hate him. He knows they do. Why else would they make him suffer like this? Why else would they punish him again and again for not being good enough, strong enough, courageous enough? Why else would they send him on adventure after adventure even though they should know he’s tired down to his bones and just wants to rest.

That’s why his mouth tastes like vomit and seawater right now. Why his arms still shake with the aftershocks of electricity coursing through his veins where they lay spread out on the rough sand. Because he’s a stupid failure of a hero who the goddesses rightfully despise.

He forces his eyes open, squinting against the midday sun to see a figure looming over him. For a moment, he sees triple. Gets deja vu on top of deja vu. There’s sun backlighting someone in front of him, and for a moment it’s Marin again, leaning over him on that beach just as she did on that first day. And then at the same time, he’s mistaking her for Zelda and it’s taking him even further back. His whole body feels numb and distant and he has no idea where he is.

The creature in front of him gives out some sort of half-grunt, half-squeak, and Link forcibly clears the memories out of his vision to get a good look at them. They’re some kind of weird lizard thing. Kinda small, kinda cute. There’s more of them, clustered around him in a half-circle and vibrating with curiosity. It’s not her. Not Marin. He’s not back there again.

He opens his mouth to say something, he’s not sure what but figures it’s only polite, when the one that was leaning over his face stiffens up. 

“Scatter!” It yells, and the little lizard guys go scurrying off in every direction, crawling up cliffs and into caves and under bushes. Link lets himself slump back into the sand.

It’s hard to breathe. There’s a rattling in his chest that just won’t go away and it’s difficult to draw air into his lungs. He’s not sure if it’s because of the near drowning (again) or getting struck by lightning (again).

He’s not sure if this is real. He’s not even sure if he is real. Everything feels kind of distant and muted. Like there’s a wall between himself and the world. He’s touching the sand, and he knows it’s beneath his fingertips, but his whole hands are feeling sorta numb and tingly. Like he sat on them until they fell asleep. 

But the thing is, when he was there, Koholint had felt real, right? There was no way to tell that it was a dream when he was inside it.

Right?

It feels absurd to think that this is all a dream. What are the odds of getting trapped in a dream world twice? (Probably about even with getting struck by lightning twice, a small voice in the back of his head whispers). But at the same time, how big of an idiot would he have to be to fall for the same trap a second time. He really doesn’t want to care again, only to have it all ripped out of his grasp without warning.

He hates that this is even a consideration. A thing he needs to worry about.

There’s a lichtenberg mark, starting on his right shoulder and trailing down his arm, branching into spiraling patterns like trees, or trickles of water. The skin is red and raw from the heat of the electricity tearing through his flesh. He should probably treat that if he doesn’t want it to get infected. When he woke up on Koholint, there were no marks. No, burns, no pain, no lingering issues from literally being struck by lightning and thrown into a cold and unforgiving ocean. Just white sands and gentle ocean breezes. That should have clued him in that something was wrong. When he finally woke up for real on that tiny spit of wood, barely enough energy to keep holding on and questioning everything, constantly thinking, ‘ Is this real? Am I still asleep? ’ the new mark was the one thing he could use to keep himself grounded. To convince himself things were really real this time. He was really injured and adrift in the open ocean and slowly dying of dehydration and exposure. He dug his fingernails into his burns again and again and used the pain to keep himself present. The distinctive marks had faded by the time a ship plucked him out of the wreckage, and he was left floundering, barely clinging to the few scraps of reality he had left. 

He looks to the new marks now, the same as the old ones. Makes them the true north on his mental compass. He is really here. He has really been shipwrecked on an island for the second (first) time. He has really been laying on the sand in the baking heat for Hylia knows how long. And he really - Link checks his bag and the scabbard on his back - has lost all of his items. Again. Just great. He doesn’t even have the zora slippers he could have used to swim away from the goddessforsaken island (and which he had been planning to add to his steadily growing pile of zora slippers back home).

There’s nothing for it. All he can do is traipse all over this island and hope he can get his stuff back. Hope he doesn’t wake up in the middle of the ocean with a sunburn on his back and a name that doesn’t exist dying on his lips.

He forces himself to his feet, but one of his legs spasms under him and sends him careening to the sand. It flies up, smears all over the front of his tunic and over his face in a way he knows will be difficult to get off later.

Link takes a deep, rattling breath. It wheezes in his lungs and his chest doesn’t inflate quite as much as he wants it too, but it settles him slightly. Fine tremors run up and down his arms no matter what he does and full feeling still hasn’t returned. It’s probably good he doesn’t have his sword right now. He doubts he would even be able to hold it, let alone use it.

He places his shaking hands on the rough sand, and pushes himself up, slower this time. He wishes he could just lay there, just relax until his lungs let him breathe normally again, but he knows he can’t. He’s vulnerable here, especially without his gear. If 3 adventures have taught him anything, it’s that he’s never allowed to stop moving, even when his body is falling apart around him.

His heart flutters randomly in his chest a few times as he walks along the beach. Each time, it comes without warning and knocks the air out of his lungs, leaving him momentarily breathless. He continues on.

Link learns that he’s on a place called Tokay Island (not Koholint, he repeatedly reminds himself), that the little lizard creatures are called Tokay, and that they totally robbed him blind when he was lying unconscious on the beach. Still, they’re cute and friendly and he can’t help but love them a little bit. Wants to befriend them and help them out. Except that they’re on an island. The echoes of waves sound in every conversation he has with them. He refuses to let himself get attached.

One by one, he discovers his hidden items, trades with Tokay to get his own stuff, and gently threatens Tokay who want to hold onto important items. By the time he’s finished, he’s tired, breathless, and barely holding himself upright. His body feels like it’s breaking down around him. 

It’s a long way back to the mainland. He has his zora flippers, but the idea of trying to swim back scares him. What if he has another muscle spasm? Would he just sink like a rock to the bottom of the ocean? Should he try to make another raft? That idea frightens him even more than the idea of trying to brave the ocean waves.

Link walks himself back to the place where he first shipwrecked on this island. He sits himself down on the sand for a long time. Just watches the tide drift in and out and lets buzzing overtake his thoughts.

He’s not sure how long he sits there.

His salvation comes in the form of a boat with a familiar pompous noble in a cape posing dramatically on the prow just look cool.

“Where the hell have you been?” Ralph yells as he jumps down to join Link in the sand. “I heard you got a raft and then you disappeared off the face of the Earth? Obviously I’m going to be the one to save Nayru, but you could at least put in the effort!”

Ralph offers Link a hand up, pointedly not looking at his face. Link lets the motion draw him to his feet, and then further forward, collapsing all of his weight onto his sort-of friend.

“What are you doing?” Ralph sputters, his hands awkwardly held out to the sides.

“I could really use a hug right about now,” Link murmurs, muffled by the soft blue fabric of Ralph’s cape he’s pressing his face into like he wants to disappear into it forever.

Ralph slowly raises his arms and gently runs his hands up and down his back. Link relaxes in his hold.

“Don’t expect this to happen again,” Ralph warns.

“Of course.” Link closes his eyes as leans into the grounding touch of something he knows is real. They’ll get off this island soon and both go their own ways, but for now he’s happy to give himself a break, just for a moment. 

Ocean waves echo, and seagulls squawk in the distance.

Notes:

In the manga, this whole long-ass sequence of the game is changed to take like 2 pages and include Ralph: So I decided to merge the two and have Link alone until Ralph swoops in to rescue him.
I love writing Little Leg. I feel like I have to spoon-feed him his daily dosage of angst so he grows up into a big and strong socially maladjusted hoarder with trust issues.

Chapter 27: Uncooperative Patient

Summary:

Time, Four, and Legend get hit with a baby beam. Meaning Twi is forced to be The Adult.

Twilight blinked the burst of light out of his eyes, feeling like he’s been staring at the noonday sun just like Aunti Uli and Uncle Rusl always told him not to.

“Huh,” he said to the sight in front of him. It was real odd, to say the least.

Where before he’d been seeing three accomplished heroes, now stood three tiny tykes, for sure not old enough to be in a dangerous dungeon like this one.

The stone floor below them was still sizzling like a hot pan fresh off the burner, and Twilight once again reminded himself how glad he was he didn’t fuck around with magic. Legend could mess with his fancy gizmos all he wanted, Twilight would stick to his dark crystal and that’s it, thank you very much.

Time and Legend both lost at least a foot of height, although Four looked just about the same besides the addition of a whole lotta baby fat. Maybe adult-him got stunted growth or something. Could be cause of one of his adventures?

Even before Twilight was done seeing spots in his vision, baby-fat Four fell flat on his ass on the dungeon floor. He scrunched his tiny little body into the fetal position and covered his face.

“You okay, kid?” Twilight asked with all the shaky awkwardness of a Ordon Goat taking its first steps. Twi may know how to deal with the adult heros, but he didn’t have a fart’s chance in the wind of knowing what to do with these pint-sized versions.

The kid just groaned and drew into himself more, making an awful good impression of the world’s shyest turtle.

“A’ight, just let me know if you need anything,” he reassured the kid, just to say something.

A sword came out of its scabbard and pointed itself at Twilight’s face. On the other end of it was Legend, judging by the familiar pink hair. He didn’t know why Leg was so ashamed of it as an adult when he didn’t seem to care much about it right now. Without the distinctive color change brought about by the dark crystal incident, he might not have properly recognized the kid. It was weird seeing the vet all short and adorable. The scowl present on the kid’s face was all Leg, though.

“Who are you and why have you brought me here?” The kid tried to sound intimidating, but the squeaky high voice kinda ruined the effect.

“Hey hey, let’s settle down now.” Twilight tried to pacify the kid with his hands held up. “I ain’t your enemy. I’m in the dark here, same as you. Somma my pals just got too close to a trap in this here dungeon, and when it went off, it switched alla them with alla you. I ain’t had nothing to do with it. I’m just lucky I was standing far enough away it didn’t zap me too.” He figured it was easier to keep all the ‘you used to be a wholeass adult’ stuff to himself to avoid freaking the kids out.

The kid lowered his sword slightly and stared in his eyes like he was trying to judge the weight of his soul. Twilight kept his expression open and honest until the kid relaxed and lowered his sword.

“Fine,” the kid huffed, “but don’t think this means I trust you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Twilight responded and resisted the urge to ruffle the kid’s hair. A kid who was probably too young to be holding a sword like that, if he was being honest. Speaking of which, “How old are all you kids anyway?” He asked.

Little Leg held himself up proudly. “I just turned twelve!”

Babyface Four didn’t respond aloud and kept one hand pressed tight against his eyes, but he pointed to Legend emphatically, pointed to himself, and then held up a thumbs up. Which Twilight was taking to mean that he was the around the same age as Legend? He guessed?

Tiny Time started trying to count on his fingers for a disconcertingly long period of time. Finally he looked up at Twilight with an unusually somber expression on his face and asked, “by what measure are we counting?”

Yeah, Twilight was gonna assume he was 12 too. 

Now that he wasn’t pointing the damn thing at Twilight, the rancher could see that Legend was leaning heavily on the hilt of his sword, practically using it to prop himself up. Driving the tip into the ground like that was probably awful for the blade.

Twilight frowned at the hero. “Ya feelin’ alright?”

“Yeah,” the kid said unconvincingly, “I’m just feeling… weirdly dizzy.”

“That’d probably be a side effect of the magic,” Twilight guessed. His eyes roamed over Legend, barely holding himself upright, Four, who failed at that just about right away, and then over to Time, still looking perfectly normal and put together despite being a miniature munchkin now. “How ‘bout you?” he asked. “Got any symptoms I should be worryin’ about?”

The kid sneezed. A single trail of snot slid down his face. Slippery and wet, like sweat on the back of a greased hog.

Twilight quietly lifted a single eyebrow. “D’ya wanna tissue for that?”

Not talking or breaking eye contact, the kid slowly wiped his nose with the sleeve of his tunic.

“Alrighty, then!” Twilight clapped his hands together. “Since nunya are s’possed to be here an y’all clearly ain’t feelin’ well, here’s the plan: magic can’t stick around forever, so we’re just gonna hang out in here and wait for it to wear off. Y’all’ll be back home before you even know it. Sound good?”

Four gave a thumbs up from the floor, Time looked contemplative, but Legend looked ready to pitch a right fit. “But that’s so boring!” He yelled, levering himself up from his sword and nearly toppling over right off the bat. He waved his arms around madly to keep his balance and then glared at Twilight. “Look at where we are! We’ve got a whole dungeon to explore! Why would we wanna stay here?”

Twilight gently tapped the kid’s shoulder. He swayed dangerously in place, fit to topple over from just a light shove. He frantically fisted his hand in Twilight’s tunic to stay upright. “Y’see. That’s why,” he told him.

The kid glared up at him and clicked his heels together, starting up a familiar whirring noise.

“Oh no, don’t you dare-” Twilight started, but the kid was already off, shooting across the room with the speed of his pegasus boots.

And straight into a wall.

Either he was way worse at this as a kid, or his equilibrium was even worse off than Twilight thought.

The kids stumbled back a few steps, shook his head as if to clear it, and then whirred away again, this time fitting proper through the door frame.

Twilight swore to himself. He couldn’t just let the kid go off alone through an unknown dungeon when he couldn’t even hold himself upright. He scooped up Four under one arm like a big old sack of flour. The kid just let it happen, his legs dangling in the open air behind Twilight’s back. The rancher also eyed the young version of the old man contemplatively, but the kid just glared at him, letting him know exactly what would happen if he tried to hoist up a second kid.

Twilight decided to trust tiny Time would follow after him, so he took a deep breath and ran down the corridor the baby vet had disappeared into, hoping he hadn’t already gotten himself into some kinda trouble.

The kid was already gonna need someone to bail him outta danger, wasn’t he?

Twilight ran faster.

Notes:

I would have liked to write more for this, but I’m already running behind today (plus there’s an earlier day I missed that I still need to make up for, whoops), so I’m just gonna make a soft promise to write a continuation for this post-Sicktember.
Also, if you asked me what I thought I would make as the plot/tone for this prompt even one day ago, I would not have guessed this, but it was decreed by the Whims of Fate*.
*Like 6 random number generators and my own labyrinthine thought process.

Edit 10/08: There is now a continuation here

Chapter 28: Side Effects/Adverse Reaction

Summary:

The Chain is in a tough spot in battle so Legend uses an item that relies on magic when he’s already low and ends up facing the consequences.

“Why in Hylia’s name are your monsters so difficult, Sky?” Legend yelled across the din of the battlefield. He raised his shield arm just in time to block a two-sword strike from one of the Chosen Hero’s stalfos. He grit his teeth against the powerful shock that vibrated up his arm, threatening to tear the shield from his grip. He only barely managed to hold on until the skeleton disconnected and stepped back. Taking the opportunity presented, Legend rushed in to retaliate with a strike of his own, only to be repelled by the monster’s own dual swords. It swung them both, twisting Legend’s sword out of his grip and sending him skidding away, scraping his bare legs against the hard dungeon floor.

“They’re not that hard!” Sky yelled back. “You just need to come at them from the right direction!” He tried to demonstrate by attacking a Lizalfos whose armored arm appeared to be out of the way, only to be surprised when its spiked tail flicked forward to nail him in the gut, briefly driving the wind out of him.

“Of course! The direction of being face-first of the floor, why didn’t I think of that?” he snarked from his own prone position. 

At least Hyrule didn’t seem to be doing too badly. He struggled with left and right, but did well at crouching low and jumping high to get behind the enemy’s defense. Legend didn’t think his own knees could work like that. He’d try to squat once and then be stuck in that position until someone helped him up at the end of the battle. He could feel his body objecting just to standing up right now, despite getting laid flat on his ass and needing to stand back up again being practically a daily occurrence on his adventures. He was getting too old for this, never mind the fact he wasn’t even twenty yet. He found himself relating more and more to what the Old Man said every day, especially on the matter of bone pain.

Once he finally accomplished the accursed ordeal that was getting himself upright, he looked around for his sword, but it was far out of his reach. That was alright though. The Chain didn’t call him the legendary hoarder for nothing, and the sheer amount of tools he had to back himself up had saved his life on more than one occasion.

He reached into his bag and drew out one of his many fire rods. When in doubt, kill it with fire. That had always been his motto.

A gush of flames rocketed of the tip of his rod, engulfing the stalfos he was fighting in a wave of fire that flowed around and in-between it’s bones, turning the surface black and cracked.

The stalfos inhumanly screeched and raced against him with both blades drawn. Without stopping his stream of flames, Legend raised his shield to block the attack. The monster pounded at it over and over again, back and forth with its two weapons like it was trying to play a drum. But a drum it intended to shatter in half with brute force. Legend set his feet and ramped up the force of his flames.

Legend had once read that fires of 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit were needed to fully cremate a body. It’s why burials tended to be so much more popular: creating a fire that burned so hot was no easy feat. He probably didn’t need to completely obliterate the creature like that, just cause enough damage to disrupt the magic granting it this cursed state of unlife, but he let the magic the rod was drawing out of him urge the fire hotter and hotter, just in case.

Sweat poured down his face in great rivers. He had to close one eye so he wasn’t partially blinded by the liquid. His shield had heated up painfully hot, and he could feel the blisters developing on his fingers from the heat. 

Finally, the monster let out an echoing screech and toppled to the floor, just lifeless matter once again.

His opponent now defeated, Legend frantically scanned the battlefield trying to find his companions. Sky was doing well despite his slight misstep earlier and Hyrule continued to hold his own the best he could, but everyone else was visibly floundering. Even as he watched, one of the monsters managed to pick up and bodily throw Time, full plate mail and all against a wall. The Old Man slumped against the stonework, taking painful looking breaths.

Legend’s heart stuttered in his chest. They weren’t winning. There were too many enemies and too few of them, and all their opponents were way more skilled than they were capable of dealing with.

A towering stalmaster fighting with four deadly blades had backed Wild into a corner. The kid tried to take another step back, only to stumble over uneven flooring and tumble to the ground. The massive monster loomed over the skinny teenager, dwarfing the body below him. It’s swords sliced through the air, aimed unerringly at Wild’s face, who only barely lifted a shield up to block it.

The shield shattered. A million glittering pieces falling like snow around Wild’s now completely defenseless form.

Legend ran.

He didn’t have his sword, the fire rod had already used up most of his magic defeating a single weaker enemy, and he didn't have time to grab anything else from his bag. But he was a veteran adventurer. Which meant that he always carried a trump card.

Legend reached into his tunic and pulled out his favorite of the three medallions he keeps nestled there for emergencies just like these.

When in doubt, kill it with fire.

He clutched the round disc close to him and poured every scrap of magic he had left into it.

Unrestrained fire burst forth from his chest, whipping and writing like a living thing. A dragon made of pure flames, spiraling outward from and around him. He could feel it sucking energy from out of him to keep itself sustained, energy he really couldn’t afford to spare, but at this point he wouldn’t be able to stop it. It let out a great roar.

The air had heated up to unbearable degrees. Legend’s skin blistered and peeled just from standing in it. He tried to form passages in the magic to protect his companions, shape and channel the force that was flowing from him with all the inexorable flow of the ocean.

The air shimmered and sparkled around them. The sheer amount of unused fire magic saturating the air around them enough to become visible even to the naked eye.

Then, a spark. And the world caught aflame.

Explosions happened blanketed the dungeon floor, bursts of flame with no fuel, powered only by intense concentrations of pure magic. The room rocked from the force of the blasts, raining tilework from the floor above down onto the heroes and monsters. None of the enemies escaped from the rapidly expanding conflagration. Skeleton monsters tried to run away only to have their legs blacken and turn to ash under them, leaving the rest of them helpless to escape the growing flames. Lizalfos screamed as their faces melted off, filling the chamber with the sizzle and smell of burning meat.

Legend metaphysically held the fire away from his friends. He was doing this for them. He couldn’t allow them to get hurt. 

Except he was already running on empty, and attempting magic with nothing to fuel it always comes with a price.

Legend could feel the same fire that burned outside burning through his insides at a rapid pace. He screamed as the fire invaded his lungs, setting every nerve ending inside ablaze. Destroying his body inch by inch. His voice cracked and broke. No more noise came out, but he couldn’t stop screaming. He could smell more cooking meat, but this time closer, coming from his own sizzling flesh. The flame made it’s home under his skin. He could feel the way it set fire to every single inch of his being. There was no part of him that was free from the burning pain.

Even beyond the feeling of being burned alive, legend could feel something vital being destroyed inside himself. Some essential part of himself ripping and tearing in a way he could never get back. A rubber band that had been pulled too far and finally snapped.

Legend collapsed to his knees. The fire everywhere went out as soon as its magical fuel was extinguished. All the enemies were dead. His friends ran up to his collapsed form. They were all safe.

Wild was the first one in his face. There was a slight nick in his cheek from where the stalmaster just barely hit him before Legend managed to take it out. Wild’s huge smile pulled at the wound, reopening and allowing a single drop of blood to trickle down his face. It cut a path through the soot staining his face and clothes. Wild’s carefully maintained long hair was singed at the ends as were the sleeves of his precious Champion’s tunic. “That was awesome!” Wild yelled, “How did you do that!? Where did you learn to do that!? Can you teach me to do that?!”

Legend raised one shaky, barely functional arm to rest on Wild’s shoulder. He noticed absently that his fingertips had turned black from burns and his current fingernail count was down to zero. In a raspy voice that was so quiet it was mostly just the sound of air coming out of his lungs, Legend told him, “Wild, you are wonderful and I love you, but I’m going to pass out now.”

And then he did.

He awoke to a completely different room, although it looked like they were still in the dungeon. All the entrances had been blocked off with wood and a makeshift camp had been constructed on the false grass this section of the dungeon housed.

Hyrule was sitting next to him and instantly noticed when he was awake.

“Oh, you’re awake! How are you feeling?” Hyrule asked, his words so saccharine-sweet it instantly put Legend on guard.

His entire body ached terribly. He did’t think be would be able to move an inch even if he wanted to, which he really didn’t. And every single breath was a labor to draw in that set his lungs on fire anew. But he couldn’t just tell Hyrule that. “Fine,” Legend tried to say, but no noise came out of his destroyed lungs.

Hyrule glared at Legend like he was trying to set him on fire for a second time and lightly slapped the side of his head, just enough to shock and sting. “Stop that. Do you want to mess up your throat more?” he hissed, dangerously soft. The whisper of grass of a stalking tiger, preparing to pounce on its prey.

Legend shook his head frantically, forcibly silencing the part of his brain that wanted to point out that Hyrule was the one who asked him a question.

“Wonderful!” Hyrule clapped his hands together, fully back to his enthusiastic false cheer. “So, would you like to tell me why you thought it was a good idea to overextend your magic so dangerously that it had side effects like this? Especially when that’s exactly what you always tell me not to do? You gigantic hypocrite?” It was honestly scarier that Hyrule said all that without an ounce of anger entering his tone. Just completely calm and pleasant like they were discussing the Sunday weather. And all with an undercurrent that Legend would die for real if he answered wrong.

Legend opened his mouth, realized that he couldn’t speak to explain himself, and then shut his lips and slowly shook his head again. This wasn’t a diplogue anyway. It was an interrogation.

“I’m so glad you’ve finally learned the error of your ways!” Hyrule cheered. “And I’m the one nursing you back to health, so I’ll make sure to remind you not to be this stupid ever again. And I will remind you again and again until it finally sticks through that thick head of yours.”

Legend gulped. It burned on the way down.

Notes:

Also in other news I only just now finally made an index for this fic.

Chapter 29: “I Should Have Stayed Home”

Summary:

Legend gets recruited into the chain and teleported into the Depths.

“So? Are you coming?” The young sailor the others had called Wind stood there, hand outstretched, directly in front of the ominously swirling portal currently oozing darkness onto Link’s favorite rug. He really hoped that didn’t stain. He tried throwing small objects (sorry about your figurines, Ravio) at the portal t o see if they would have any effect, but nada. They just plopped into the void of infinite darkness and failed to plop out.

Linm sighed and roughly ran his fingers through his hair, tugging painfully at his scalp. “Do I have to?” he asked, practically begging for Hylia to let him take a break and rest, just for once. Hell, Hytopia was meant to be his vacation, and look at what happened to that! And then he just barely got home, hadn’t even unpacked his bags yet, and already there were four chuckleheads crowding into his house insisting there were worlds needing saving when all he really wanted was to take a nap.

The cape one - Sky, chuckled and sheepishly drew into himself, rubbing the back of his head. “Well, Wind and I wouldn’t stop arguing when the portal came for us-”

“I wouldn’ta thought you were trying to kidnap me if ya didn’t have a trained murder-bird flapping around ye all the time!!” Wind yelled back from where he’d wandered off to the next room over, his accent much thicker in his anger. There were a few suspicious thumps coming through the walls and Link really hoped the kid wasn’t messing with his stuff.

“-and we took so long the portal decided to just suck us in,” Sky finished.

“And dropped them directly into my chimney,” said the short hero in the multicolor tunic who looked painfully familiar in a way Link really didn’t want to think about. The others called him Four, which - Four, Palace of the Four Swords, yeah he was definitely going to put that in his mental lockbox and refuse to think about it ever.

“So my choices are to go willingly or be dragged?” Link clarified.

Sky smiled apologetically. “Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”

Link groaned. “Story of my life. Whatever, let’s just go. I’m ready packed because apparently some goddesses are allergic to the idea of giving breaks. ”

Sky coughed awkwardly.

Wind ran out of the side room, pockets a tad bit bulkier than before. Legend eyed him suspiciously and resolved to search his things later. Actually, he might need to search all these so-called-heroes things. He still didn’t know who they were or what they were capable of and it made him uneasy.

“Wait, before we go,” said the fourth hero, who had yet to speak in Link’s presence and mostly clung to the sides of the group. He’d only heard them use his name once: Hyrule. “What’s your hero title? We can’t just go around calling everyone ‘Link.’”

Link thought about it for a second. He had a few titles. He was called the Hero of Essences of Time and Nature, but that name was way too long. He was once called the Hero of Hyrule, although they clearly already had one of those. He got called Castaway and Dreamer on Koholint, but he’s give just about anything not to use one of those as his name. Which only left- “I am the hero of Legend.”

Hyrule’s eyes practically bugged out of his head in a way that made Link feel way too seen. He shifted his gaze over to Sky, who was beaming widely at him. “Welcome to the team, Legend!”

“Uh, guys?” came Wind’s voice from over by the portal. “I don’t mean to interrupt this meet n greet, but I think the portal’s getting angry. And I’d rather not be thrown in a chimney again.”

The portal was indeed roiling and shaking in an increasingly worrying way.

Link - Legend now - took a deep breath to steady himself and walked forward. “Let’s go.”

Every kind of portal had a different feel. Portals to the Dark world felt like falling, portals to Lorule felt like getting turned into spaghetti, and portals created by the Harp of Ages felt like lying down for a five minute nap only to wake up and realize hours had passed. This portal felt like walking through freezing mist on a moonless night. He could feel the dark magic floating in the very air around him and prickling uncomfortably at his skin, but he couldn’t see or hear anything else around him, not even his new travel companions. It felt oddly disorienting. Like he had already been completely turned around and if he stayed here too long, he would forget everything about who he was and where he came from.

The only sign he exited the portal was the sudden lack of the tingling pressure around him. If not for that, he would have thought he was still in the void by how dark it was. Not a single speck of light as far as his eyes could see. It was like walking around with his eyes still closed. 

He took out his lantern and fed a small thread of magic into it to illuminate the surroundings.

It only lit up a tiny circle around him, far less than it should have. He couldn’t see any cave walls next to him, but the light did reveal strange marbled green and blue earth overgrown with plants the likes of which Legend had never seen before. In the corner of his vision, he could see his companions emerging from the portal and the last remnants of its magic winking out of existence.

“So, what kind of hero do you think lives here?” Sky asked brightly.

“Maybe we’ve already picked everyone up?” guessed Hyrule hopefully.

Wind shook his head. “Nah, we need to find at least two more. I’ve met them before!” 

Hyrule’s face fell.

“Well, we’re not going to find anyone just sitting around here gossiping about it like a bunch of bored housewives,” Legend told them, “we should get moving.”

Legend’s words quickly killed off conversation and the others felt distinctly more awkward around him after. Good. He wasn’t here to make friends, and he didn’t want to get close to a bunch of randos just to lose them at the end of the adventure.

Four and Hyrule pulled out their own lights and the other two fell in line, using the tiny rings of light the devices provided to avoid tripping on the uneven ground.

“Do you think we’re in some kind of cave?” Hyrule asked.

Legend tilted his head. “Maybe. It would have to be a pretty huge one though. The echoes are all weird.”

Legend listened to the crunch of alien plants under his feet, the way the sounds seemed to sound out for a great deal of distance before being suddenly stopped.

He really hoped this wasn’t what all of their future member’s Hyrule would look like because that would suck.

There was a feeling in the air before anything changed. A gathering tension building under the surface, a hot pot about to boil, the static before a lightning strike. 

Red ooze spread across the ground in a wave, appearing like an open wound in the earth. An echoing, screeching scream sounded out, partway between a human dying in agony and a monstrous bird on the hunt. Five massive hands heaved themselves out of the soil, and as one, they opened inhuman eyes to stare directly at the group of Links.

“What the fuck are those!” Legend yelled at his teammates, already readying his trusty gilded sword in front of him.

“I don’t know! They don’t have these in the Great Sea!” Wind replied, his voice edging worrying close to panic.

None of the others responded. Hyrule just mutely shook his head.

Legend gritted his teeth. He didn’t know how to defeat these things, but he’d dealt with plenty of unusual monsters over his adventures and always came out on top. He just needed to figure out what works, by process of elimination.

And his first strategy was always ‘hit it till it dies’

With a battle cry, Legend rushed forward, swinging his sword to connect with the trunk of the great beast. His companions were floundering to catch up with them, but they didn’t matter, Legend’s mind only had room for the monsters and himself.

He got a few good hits in, but they were fast, too fast. 

One of them grabbed onto him, lifting him high off the ground and wrenching the sword from his grip.

The massive hand felt cold, clammy. Like the hand of a corpse enveloping him in its grasp so it could drag him to the underworld too. He watched as the red tendrils of energy that animated the creature burrowed under his skin, feeling like so many insects trying to dig tunnels through his flesh.

There was a pulling sensation, below his skin, below his flesh, down into the very heart of his being. A great gasp of air left Legend’s lungs all at once, and he struggled to get free, but he was getting weaker by the second as the hand stole his vitality and all his efforts were for naught. Legend felt a coldness spreading across his body. Starting deep inside, from his lungs, then expanding out to swaddle him in a blanket of cold that left his fingers and toes tingling and numb. Legend’s thoughts drifted and his brain grew slow and sluggish.

“Aim for the eye! Giant eyes always mean weaknesses!” yelled Sky from the edge of his hearing.

“I know how to shoot things,” replied Four snidely.

There was the twang of a bowstring and Legend hurtled unceremoniously to the ground, landing in a painful heap on the hard dirt.

“Grab him! We need to get out of here!” Sky’s yelled. A few more rings of swords and twangs of bowstrings sounded out.

There were hands on his body again, smaller and human this time, but he couldn’t stand the feeling of the flesh pressing against his own. He couldn’t rely on others. He could only trust himself. 

He wrenched himself out of the hands that had only just gotten him upright. Legend swayed on his feet for a few moments before his knees buckled and he crumpled back onto the ground. He had no energy left. He was exhausted, like he’d been going for days without sleep and was already leagues past his limit. Which wasn’t all that different from how he usually felt, except this time it was all consuming-and felt like it was completely impossible to fight. Just exhaustion, dragging him further and further down. None of his muscles would hold any of his weight. They all had the consistency of jelly. He tried to push himself upright, but couldn’t even move his hand into a position to do so.

Hyrule’s face swam into view above him and the hands returned. “Legend, it’s okay. I’m getting you away from these things, but we gotta go fast.”

Legend didn’t have the energy to fight him away this time even though he hated being carried like a helpless baby. Helpless was basically all he was right now. 

He leaned his head against the kid’s tunic. “Why are you helping me?” he asked, a little bit angry, a little bit desperate. 

Hyrule looked surprised. “Because you needed help,” he responded.

“I should have stayed home.” The fabric of Hyrule’s tunic muffled his words.

Hyrule laughed quietly, laced with a touch of bitterness. “You and me both.”

“I don’t care if it’s not his fault, I’m going to punch the next hero for his Hyruls being like this,” Legend quietly promised.

Notes:

Hooray, Leg gets gloom sickness! And they do not have any cures so he does badly the whole time it takes to find Wild.
How did I choose which Links appear here? If you guessed completely randomly, you guessed right! I somehow got rid of most of the really essential for group survival and competent leader/adult members of the team.
Also, the portal teleported them to the exact same spot as Wild… except the wrong elevation. He’s in the overworld, whoops!

Chapter 30: “I’m so sorry”

Summary:

Pre-LU, post-ALttP. Link’s uncle is dying for a second time.

Notes:

One last Little Leg. :)

His uncle’s breath wheezes in his chest with every exhale he makes. It’s getting more guttural and gurgling by the minute. A sound Link now knows all too well. The sound of someone choking in their own blood. It’s a sound he’s heard in his nightmares every single night since the one his uncle had died.

Link hastens his search of their cupboards, sweeping aside bottle after empty bottle, not caring about the way they shatter on the ground. He needs to find this and he’s running out of time.

Finally, in the back of the cabinet, he finds his prize: a single red potion, covered in cobwebs. Link has to wedge the whole top half of his body between the shelves to reach it, and his toes briefly leave the ground. It was probably his uncle who put it back there in the first place. Back when he was doing better and able to freely walk around the house and go about his day as he pleased, only interrupted by the occasional bout of coughs. Back when he thought he’d be able to take care of his illness himself and not rely on a child to crawl into cabinets for him.

The surface of the bottle, once smooth, is now gritty with dust under Link’s fingers. A monument to the time that’s passed since then. The glass that is meant to be whole has a barely noticeable hairline crack marring its surface. The discontinuity in the  facade has cost them, dearly. Over time, most of the potion had trickled out and been lost for good. Even now, red liquid trickles over Link’s fingers as he tries to stopper up the fracture. Like blood flowing over a 10 year old’s hands as he tried to hold the blood inside the body of the only family he’s ever known.

He carries the potion over to his uncle. It’s not much, but it needs to be enough, it has to be. The bedridden man’s eyes don’t even focus on him. Link just holds the bottle up to his lips and hopes he gets the message to drink.

Red liquid pours out of the bottle, drop by drop. Crimson beads on the man’s lips. Little by little, his uncle’s breathing smooths out, but it still does not sound easy. Too much of the potion had been lost for good, unable to be gotten back.

Link leans against the bed and clutches his uncle’s hands tightly. “Listen, Uncle. I’m going to go to Syrup’s place to get us more medicine, okay? Then you’ll be all better.”

His uncle’s eyes focus on him for just a moment. “ Link, ” he says insistently, but then his eyes glaze over and no more words come.

“Yeah?” Link prompts, clutching large gnarled fingers even tighter between his own.

Eyes struggle to focus, drifting between lucidity and absence. “Be careful,” he manages to get out before losing the thread once more.

“I always am!” Link tells him with false cheer in his voice. He toes on his trusty Pegasus Boots, one of the very limited things he’s learned he can rely on in this world, and is out the door at a speed that cannot be achieved by humans without a some amount of supernatural assistance.

Trees and rivers and mountains blur by on his way to the witch’s hut. Something is squeezing his lungs, an anxiety that feels almost like a living thing.

He doesn’t want to watch his uncle die.

Not again.

The first time was bad enough and he thinks going through that again would break him.

He doesn’t think he has a choice.

His wish on the Triforce brought his uncle back, but it wasn’t enough.

The holy magic raised his uncle from the grave, stitched back the slash that had torn his torso asunder, and put light back into his eyes. And for a while, Link could pretend that was enough. Pretend that they were just a normal family again, that nothing had changed, that he was still the naive young boy that had left on his journey, pretend that he hadn’t cradled his uncle’s body as blood stopped flowing and the flesh went cold with the bone-deep knowledge that he would never see him again.

He thought it was within the Triforce’s capabilities to fix it all, to make it like it never happened and was just the memory of a bad dream, but maybe he was wrong. Or maybe he was right, and he just didn’t do good enough, didn’t wish hard enough, didn’t word it correctly, didn’t fit the Triforce’s requirements of a hero worthy of reward. 

Because the blood seeped back in.

That first time his uncle had died, it wasn’t the sword strike that had done him in. It was the blood. He choked on it, drowned to death in his own fluids. Link held onto him as he gasped his last breath.

And even though the wound never returned past his resurrection, the blood invaded his lungs again and again, leaving him weak and short of breath, triggering coughing fits, and slowly but surely choking the life out of him.

The potions help. Clear out his lungs so he can breathe easy for a while, but they can never fully erase the past or change what has been done. Recently, he’s had pneumonia symptoms all the time, even after the potions have drawn the pooling blood out of his chest.

Link fears he’s running out of time.

He doesn’t have the money to pay for the potion when he reaches Syrup’s place. He hasn’t for a long time. He’s used up all of their savings keeping his uncle alive. Syrup gives it to him for free, as she always does. Tells him to pay for it when he gets the chance, gives him a kiss on the cheek, and makes him promise to come to her if he needs anything. He lies and says that he will.

The race home is a blur. 

His uncle is a little more lucid when he arrives. Sitting up in bed and staring directly at him. He wants to tell his uncle that he should lie back down, should get his rest, but something inside of him is just so relieved to see his uncle acting almost normal that he’s afraid of ruining the illusion.

His uncle pats the space on the bed next to him, and Link crawls up. Curls against his side like he’s a little kid being read bedtime stories again, even though his body is now too big to fit like it used to. His uncle curls one arm around his shoulders in a one-handed hug, and Link wants nothing more than to bury his face in the man’s chest and sob. 

“I’m so sorry, Link,” he says, “you’re doing so much work to take care of me when I’m the adult here, I’m supposed to be taking care of you.” 

“I don’t mind! I’m happy to take care of you!” Link says forcing brightness into his tone he does not feel. He’s lying. He wants nothing more than for his uncle to make him lunches, to tuck him into bed and kiss him goodnight, to tell him that everything will be okay because he will take care of it and Link doesn’t need to worry about anything.

His uncle chuckles and brushes the hair out of Link’s face. “I’ve raised such a responsible young man. Look at you, all grown up and taking over as the man of the house.”

Link feels just as young as the night he charged out into the rain with only a lantern and the remnants of a fading nightmare, but he doesn’t say that aloud.

“I’m sorry I won’t be there to see you get old. To get married and have kids of your own. I’m sorry I don’t have the energy to get out of bed and make more good memories for you to hold onto.”

“Don’t say that!” Link shrieks. He raises himself up onto his knees and grabs great fistfulls of his uncle’s shirt in his hands. “You’re going to get better! We have lots of time left to make good memories! We’re going to pick apples in the autumn and make pies to bring to the blacksmith’s family, and you’re going to show me that shield technique you’ve been putting off, so you’ve got to get better, okay?”

His uncle chuckles, but it comes out wet, gurgling. Choking, like in all of his nightmares. It probably won’t be long before he needs a potion again. “Of course. Just remember that I’ll be with you, no matter what, okay?” Link can’t help but think he isn’t talking about his failing body, but he lets himself pretend otherwise.

“Right.” Link leans forward into his uncle’s broad chest and wipes the tears that threaten to fall in the soft fabric where no one can see them. Two sturdy arms wrap around his torso, holding him close and safe.

He curls up in his uncle’s grasp and lets himself imagine for just a little while that he’s allowed to be nothing more than a child.

Notes:

Bonus chapter so I can post the last chapter on time!*
*Only if you count the "end of the day" as "the time I fall asleep," not the calendar date.

Chapter 31: Confused/Disoriented

Summary:

For the final day, I just run a delirious Legend through the full congo of reliving every single thing that’s ever traumatized him.

“Wait, give me a try, give me a try!” Marin pushes him away from the crane game controls, her wavy red hair bouncing with the force of her laughter.

“No!” Link shoves her back weakly. “I promised you I’s win you a toy, so I’m gonna win you a toy!”

She holds tight to the controls, refuses to let his ineffectual shoves push her away. “No hold on, I have an idea!”

The claw slides inexorably along its path, not being swayed from its directed course. It descends like a vice, ensnaring the shopkeeping in its grasp. He is lifted high above the floor in the machine’s grasp.

“Quick!” Marin yells, “grab it!”

Not needing to be told twice, Link vaults over the counter and grabs the first prize he can lay his hands on. On his way back, he grabs the pretty island girl’s hand and drags her out of the shop with him, both of them giggling too hard to walk properly.

“Banned!” The shopkeeper yells at their retreating backs, his legs kicking wildly in the air. “You’re both banned! Forever!”

They collapse in the sand together, both still wracked with laughter, both still holding hands. Link turns to gaze at her, and just the sight of her takes his breath away. The way the sunlight sparkles in her eyes. The faint smattering of freckles on her cheeks. The way her hair fans out, wild and untamed across the sand.

He grazes a finger across her cheek just to touch her, just to confirm she’s real.

“Hey Link?” she asks, an embarrassed half-smile twitching across her lips.

“Yeah?” he breathes, almost afraid to raise his voice, as if too loud of a noise would collapse this beautiful illusion.

“Can you promise me something?” She strokes a single finger along the bottom of his lip, and it sets his nerves alight, like sparks popping against his skin.

“Anything,” he promises, and he means it. He would tear the world to pieces if it would make her happy.

She smiles and draws her hand away from his face. He mourns the loss, but she has shifted now. Leaning over him so her hair cascades in waterfalls around the two of them and cocoons them in their own secret hollow. It is dark now in their private haven, the girl shading the two of them from the noonday sun. “Please don’t leave me,” she pleads. Her words hold a measure of grief for things that have yet to come.

“Never,” he promises. It’s what he would want even if she didn’t ask for it. Every moment apart from her is agony. He doesn’t know how he could live without her by his side.

She laughs, slightly wetly, slightly bitterly. She doesn’t look convinced. He wants to soothe her, to show her the steadfast truth to his words, but her face gets closer and closer to him and all thoughts leave his head.

The subtle floral scent she always carries around him fills his nose, intoxicating him and overwhelming his senses with her. One of her hands comes to cup his cheek. He can feel every grain of hard sand picked up from the beach interspersed with the soft smoothness of supple flesh. Her breath dances across his lips, making the flesh tingle with the anticipation of touch. Plush, pink lips brush against his own, setting his nerves on fire.

Link wakes up to the sound of waves and seagulls in the distance. No one is in the room with him, though that isn’t that unusual. Tarin is frequently busy, and Marin was never one to sit still. Odds are she’s probably in her secret spot right now. He should go join her.

Link levers himself out of bed with odd difficulty. He feels strangely achy and sore. He should probably relax more, take a break from monster-killing like Marin is always telling him to. His thoughts feel hazy and unfocused, but he knows the most important thing is Marin, he needs to go to Marin.

The wooden house gets left behind him and he is on the beach, breathing in the fresh ocean air. Sand squishes comfortingly between his bare toes, and salt spray whips into his face.

It feels like home. He wants to live here forever.

But he doesn’t know where Marin is. For some reason, he can’t see the path to her secret hideaway. He feels lost and ungrounded. So he just picks a direction and walks, hoping that he’ll see her soon.

He blinks and he’s somewhere else. Another unfamiliar patch of beach, the path forward lost to him. And there’s a kid there, one he didn’t see approach and who he feels he should recognize, but he can’t. It’s probably one of Papahl’s children. He has so many, Link can never keep track of them.

Link smiles beatifically at him. “Have you seen Marin?” he asks.

The kid frowns in worry and reaches for his arm. “Leg, what’re you doing out here?” he asks, “You should be in bed, recovering.”

Link’s smile falls from his face and he wrenches his arm from the child’s grasp. “No, I should be looking for Marin,” he informs him. “You should know her, right? She’s your neighbor?”

The kid shakes his head slowly, hesitantly. “I don’t know a Marin. No one with that name lives on this island. You’ve never talked about anyone like that before…”

Link doesn’t know why, but his hands are shaking. He feels an alien bubble of rage and seething hatred expand in his chest and force its way out of his mouth. “You’re lying! You know where she is, where are you keeping her?! Marin is real, I’m sure she is! Bring her back to me!” It does’t feel right, it doesn’t feel like him, but it feels important anyway.

The kid raises his hands in a gesture of nonaggression and slowly backs away.

Another person gets drawn to the site by the yelling. Gleaming armor and a trailing scarf crest the sandbanks surrounding them. “Good job, Wind! You found him!” the new arrival yells.

Link tenses. Because he knows what that armor means. He’s been hunted long enough to learn that he can’t trust soldiers as long as he wants to remain alive.

Behind him is the ocean, so the best route out is forward, past the knight. Link wishes he had his pegasus boots on him right now, but he still has the element of surprise.

He races forward like a shot, startling the soldier as he bolts past him. He shoulder checks him on his way out, making the knight stumble and lose his balance. A yell sounds out from behind him as he leaves the two scrambling on the beach.

He needs to run. He needs to hide. 

He makes his way into a forest. Those were always a good place to disappear when he was being hunted. Lots of ways to make people lose his trail, lots of crevices he could squeeze his body until they lost interest. Rocks and sticks tear at the exposed skin of his bare feet. He hears yelling in the distance and runs faster. He knows better than to follow the yells, to respond to the threats or the offers to help. That only ever led to him bound and gagged, with a knife to his throat or a sword to his chest, facing certain execution. 

He finds a small hole in a rock and he wiggles his body into it. A small burrow he can be safe in from the world.

The forest birds quiet. There are soft padding footsteps and heavy panting breath. There is a predator loose in the woods. Link burrows himself further into his hidey-hole, all of his prey instincts acting up. He’s only a tiny, helpless rabbit. Whatever it is, he can’t face it.

A massive wolf pads into the clearing. It opens its mouth to scent the air and great ropes of saliva pour from beneath its deadly sharp teeth. Those could kill him in one bite.

Link freezes. He couldn’t move now, even if he wanted to. All he can do is hope the wolf doesn’t catch sight or scent of him hiding away and decide a rabbit would make a tasty meal.

The wolf cocks its head, sneezes, and moves on.

Little by little, Link lets himself relax. When he’s sure the great beast is gone, he drags himself out of his crevice. What if the creature comes back and finds him this time? Link takes off in the opposite direction, hoping that will be enough to lose it.

Every step is shaky and difficult. Sweat is pouring off him, despite the cool shade of the jungle. Blood pumps sluggishly out of the wounds on his feet.

Once or twice, his vision goes black for just a moment.

At the edge of the woods, a familiar face swims into view. Wearing four colors: green, red, violet, and blue. He remembers those colors separate, welding weapons poised to kill.

“Legend!” they yell, waving their arms back and forth.

Link pulls his sword. He remembered to bring that with him at least.

He knows this person. Knows them because he killed them. Ran his sword through their heart four times in a row. Listened to their dying screams and their begging for him by name again and again.

Except there’s only one of them here now, right? Link looks around frantically, trying to find where the other three are hiding. They could jump out at any moment. Try to slaughter him with more skill and less mercy than any other opponent he’s ever faced. Come back to themselves and have clear eyes only at the last second, when it’s already too late.

“Legend? Is everything alright?” They ask, drawing closer, making a path through the undergrowth.

Legend decides to make the first move, swinging his sword down with a yell.

It is repelled by a wall of magic, powered by a new person. Not another copy of the dead hero sealed away in a tomb from ages past, someone different, someone new.

The person eyes him critically, open worry on his expression. “Legend, are you okay? Where have you been? You’re hurt, please come back with us!”

Hands reach closer, unfamiliar magic dancing around their fingertips. Link can feel it reaching into his aura, latching onto his magical signature and altering his body by force.

His breath leaves his body.

All at once, he is frozen, stuck on a wall by alien magic. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Unable to feel his heart beating. Just an inanimate painting, abandoned in a dungeon where no one will ever find him. He’d seen what the magic had done to the others Yuga had used this on. They were frozen, unable to move, completely helpless. And now he is too. There is nothing he can do and no one coming to save him.

He blindly slaps away the hand trying to force magic into his body, trying to force him to change.

The person the hand is attached to looks confused and hurt, but Link doesn’t care. His breath is coming in panicked gasps and his whole body is shaking.

A third figure emerges from the trees to join the group. The tropical sun reflects off the white blanket on his shoulders, making his figure almost blindingly bright, especially with Link’s vision adjusted to the shade of the trees.

“You found him?” asks the new person.

“Yes, but he is acting very strangely. He even slapped away Rule when he was trying to heal him,” replies the walking ghost from his past.

“Here, let me try,” says the new person. He walks towards Link with his arms held outstretched, almost like the offer of a hug. “Legend? Link?” the person says and something in Link’s chest is soothed at hearing his name. “I know you’re scared, but you’re really sick right now, and we need to get you back to bed.”

As the person draws closer, something in Link’s chest finally pings him as ‘family,’ and he allows himself to collapse into the person’s gentle hold.

He is picked up, swaddled in the white blanket, and carried out of the forest, secure against his family member’s sturdy chest.

“Hey uncle?” he murmurs against the fabric of his family member’s tunic.

Close to him as he is, Link can feel the way his whole body tenses at the words, then forces itself to relax, bit by bit. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough. I’m sorry I was a bad nephew.”

The person gently brushes his hair out of his face. “It’s okay. I forgive you,” he reassures.

Link is tucked back into bed in the wooden house, and the white blanket is left with him.

Link can hear waves crashing in the distance, again and again, a constant melody drifting through the house with the songs of seagulls as their accompaniment.

Scarred hands lift a bowl to his lips and Link drinks automatically, but then sputters and chokes. It’s a liquid, but it’s salty. Link knows he can’t drink it.

His throat burns and he knows it must be from the dehydration. But there is nothing to drink. He’s been abandoned on this scrap of wood for days now, slowly dying with no land in sight. He hates how tempting the seawater looks right now. Hates how much he longs to swallow it down to sate his thirst, but he knows he can’t. The saltwater will only make him thirstier.

“It’s only broth,” a voice reassures, but Link refuses. He is a survivor, and he knows that if he drinks that he will die.

Link is alone again, and he drifts, waiting for someone to save him. 

A large man in armor sits next to his bed. Link does his best to force his eyes to focus on him.

A hand lays on Link’s hand, warm and comforting. A single concerned eye peers down at Link. “You need to get better, Vet,” the man says solidly, practically an order, “everyone’s really worried about you.”

Laughter bubbles out of Link’s chest, painful against his sore throat and twinged with hysteria. “Nobody’s worried about me!” He chokes out, “there is nobody left! They’re all gone!”

The man looks concerned, tightens his grip around Link’s hand, but Link knows it’s an illusion, knows none of it is real. “I’m right here for you Legend. Everyone else is right outside. We’re all here for you.” 

Link shakes his head desperately, frantically. “They’re all fake, they’re all dead and gone. I killed them with my stupidity. The only people who could care about me. There’s no one left.”

The man draws him into a hug. Cheek smooshed against cold and rigid armor. “I’m here. I care. I won’t leave.”

It’s a lie. All of it is a lie. Is a fake, is an illusion. No matter how much he wants this, he can never have this. The goddesses have cursed him to wander this earth forever alone. “You’re wrong,” he insists. “I’m alone. I’m always alone.”

The man’s pointless soothing murmurs and the distant crashing of the waves lulls Link back into a deep sleep.

“Stay with me?” asks the girl of his dreams. The sun shines behind her, lighting her hair up in the color of burning flames. She holds her hand out in an offering.

“Always,” Link agrees, grabbing her hand between two of his own. It is warm, and soft, and it is real.

Notes:

Well, this is the final chapter! I want to personally thank each and every person who stayed with me on this journey. Every time I faltered, I just looked at all the bookmarks, and kudos, and wonderful and kind comments, and they gave me the strength to continue on. This fic wouldn’t exist without all of you. ❤️
The secret purpose of doing this challenge was to get me more comfortable and confident with writing and posting fanfiction, and I would say that it is a rousing success! I have more plans for the future, including a continuation of the modern au story and the de-aging story. I hope to see you there too. I’ll catch you on the flip side, and I love you all. ✌️