Chapter Text
Legend cursed as he ducked behind another tree, a flaming arrow shooting past him, missing his wing by just a few inches.
Why, why did Hylia keep tossing them through portals like this?!
It was all so fast! One minute, they were chilling on Skyloft, enjoying the high altitude, their swords still covered in black blood from the infected monster camp they had just defeated, then BOOM. The goddess decides to drop them in the middle of ANOTHER monster camp, filled with unknown creatures with weapons that can set shit on fucking fire.
So no, Legend was not having a good day.
He swerved out from behind the tree he was hiding behind just in time for a short, uglyass pig thing to come smashing through the entire trunk, sending splintered wood flying in every direction.
Curse Hylia, curse this dense and cramped forest, curse uglyass jacked up pigs, and fucking curse this Hyrule for having a dense cramped forest with uglyass jacked up PIGS!!!
“Legend, stop complaining and dodge these things!!”
Ah, he was saying that all out loud, fuck—
“We really need to get out of this forest, we’re sitting—”
“DON'T SAY DUCKS,” Warriors shrieked, cutting off Sky. “NEVER SAY DUCKS!”
“—if we stay here!” Sky grimaced, tucking his wings close to his back as he hopped a large rock, which was immediately scorched by a fire arrow. “The faster we get into open air, the faster we can leave them in the dust!”
“Well it would be a lot easier to leave if we actually knew where the FUCK we are, Sky!”
“Language!” Twilight shouted, who was running side by side with Warriors, looking quite annoyed. “The pirate’s right though, I don't recognise these woods!”
“Same here!” Hyrule yelped as Sky forcefully shoved his head down as a bright red arrow shot right over them.
Legend watched as the arrow buried itself into the bark of an old looking tree, and not a second later flames exploded from its insides. The heat was so intense Legend had to make a sharp right to avoid getting burned, almost colliding face first with Four.
That's when the group started to actually run.
The monster's screams got louder at the sight of the flames, and with them Legend’s frustration only grew. The wings on his back craved for open sky, where he could glide freely above the treeline and take out these annoying pests with his bow one-by-one, watching as they scrambled on the ground, unable to ride the winds up to him.
But no, they were stuck in a tightly knit forest, in a yet-to-be-recognized Hyrule, with barely enough room to dodge. Simply put, Legend was annoyed, and with a glance at the others he could tell they were in the same boat.
Hyrule spun in a quick circle, completely ignoring the spreading fires around them, and before choosing a direction and bolting forward, only stopping for a quick second to see if his confused comrades were following.
“This way is north! Hurry up, it's better than nothing!”
“So you recognise this place!?” Warriors piped up.
“Nope!”
“Then how the heck do you know which way is north!?” Twilight shouted, kicking a pig-thing out of the air as it lunged for Wind, only for it to jump right up like nothing happened.
“It involves moss—I’ll tell you later when we aren't about to get killed!”
“Ah yes, fair point.”
“Less talking, more escaping!” Four yelled, flaring his humming bird wings out wide when a monster got a little to close for comfort, trying to scare it off.
Legend tried to hide a wince as one of the multi-colored wings smacked harshly against a tree.
It continued like this for Hylia knows how long, weaving through trees and dodging monster attacks, along with throwing a well aimed rock or two.
But when Wind let out a joyous shriek in front of him, the only thing Legend could do was grin.
And at the first sight of blue, eight sets of wings snapped open, and into the sky they went.
Legend let out a joy filled “ WOOP!” as the monsters shrieked in fury, their arrows not able to reach them as they spun and flipped out of the way, retreating out into the sky.
“Fucking finally! I thought I would never be able to fly again!” he shrieked, shaking his head as the wind whipped his hair into his eyes, it felt great.
“LANGUAGE!” Time snapped, his huge bald eagle wings flapping threateningly.
“Let's just focus,” Twilight sighed, “we got away from the pigs, but we still have no idea where we are. Does anyone recognise anything?”
“Well, we can obviously cross out my Hyrule!” Wind chirped, happily dive bombing Twilight, who squawked in alarm. “No endless ocean in these parts!”
“No, really? I hadn't noticed.” Four rolled his eyes, gesturing to the vast green valleys and forests below.
Wind—either oblivious to the sarcasm or just ignoring it—merely smiled and rolled out of the way of Twilights counter attack, cackling.
Time sighed, ignoring the chaos, and kept his attention to the horizon, looking for any familiar landmarks. It seemed that the land truly just went on for forever. He didn't seem to recognize any of it. There were no villages or towns, just rivers and large rocks in the places barren of trees.
He didn't see anything from the other Hyrules either. There were no temples to be seen from Legend’s era, and Time felt a now familiar pain in his heart when he didn't see Lon Lon Ranch in the distance.
It was just so huge.
Time was snapped out of his head when the feeling of someone's feathers brushed against his own.
Warriors was flying side by side with the older hero, though for how long, Time didnt know, flying in a way that made the tips of his primaries brush against his own, a worried expression etched onto his face.
“You don't think—”
“We don't know yet, War,” Time interrupted, beating his wings twice before returning to a glide. “We have been at this for months now, I don't see why Hylia would just drop another on us this late…”
Warriors shrugged, an impressive feat as he was flying.“Hylia likes to play Her sick games. Maybe we're just in a between zone; it's happened before…”
Time couldn't tell if that was a statement or he was just trying to make himself believe it.
Time smiled softly and brushed his wing tips against Warriors’ before returning his sights to the ground, watching as trees flew by (heh) and animals ran for the cover of shadows.
Everything seemed…quiet, overgrown. Like an abandoned garden, free to grow in whatever way it wishes.
But, once again, Time was forced to leave his thoughts as a blur of gray, blue, and blonde zoomed past him, nearly colliding with his left wing.
“Wind, wait up!” Hyrule screeched, his black kite wings straining to catch up with the little blur—now acknowledged as Wind—who was flying forward at astounding speeds. Who knew northern fulmars could fly that fast?
Just as Time was about to yell at them, a large shadow fell over both Time and Warriors. Sky easily had the largest wingspan of the group, the frigate bird in him easily giving him that advantage. His wings, long and dark, almost completely covered the two males from above.
Sky smiled down at the two and answered Time before he even asked the question.
“Twilight saw something up ahead,” he said, “Wind decided to go investigate before anyone could grab him.”
“That little shit is fast—OW!” Legend yelped, flapping his raven wings away from Twilight, who had swatted the back of his head. “THE HELL MAN—!”
“Boys!” Time snapped, “stop bickering and move; we're going to lose Hyrule and Wind at this rate.” He squinted at the two shapes on the horizon. Damn, they really were fast.
“Twilight?”
“On it,” he said, trying (and somewhat failing) to get ahead of the group, his wings beating heavily. “It looks like some sort of spire or column of some sort…”
Warriors looked ahead, only the slowly creeping mixture of tropical palms with pine and oak visible to his eyes. How Twilight was able to see that far was beyond him.
Soon, the flock was gliding over a large tropical forest, with bottomless ravines and towering red stone cliffs.
Monsters kept popping out of seemingly nowhere, waiting for the group to fly closer to the ground to strike, like that was ever going to happen.
Four chirped happily when Wind and Hyrule came back into view, circling over what looked like not exactly a stone column, but more of an ancient looking tower.
The structure looked like it was made of crumbling yellowstone and old ladder-like vines. It seems like the only way to get up to the top was to fly or climb, three ledges built close to the top like resting pads. Directly above them were holes, like entrances.
“Is this… is this thing glowing blue?” Four raised a brow, looking at the tower up and down.
Indeed, the structure did have a strange blue light glowing from inside the tower, like it was sealed inside by the old stone.
“Well, blue usually means good right?” Legend chirped, angling his glide toward the top of the tower. “What's the worst that can happen?”
Sky made a small noise in the back of this throat, circling the tower’s base and looking closely at the stone. “Well for starters, we have no idea what this thing could do. It could be a monster beacon or a shield projector, and we are out of potions and arrows, so we aren’t exactly prepared if we get attacked. Also, most of our weapons are damaged and Smithy here doesn't have enough materials to fix them...or even—”
“Okay, okay!” Legend grumbled, cutting off Sky, still making his way to the top. “But still, maybe there's something useful up here? It won't hurt to check,” he said, feet lightly touching down on the edge of the tower terrace.
Warriors whistled to the two circling heroes above them all before following Legend. As the others touched down they found...
Nothing.
Literally nothing.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Sky said softly, placing a hand onto a stone pillar. There were six of them in total, stationed in pairs by the three holes in the ground, and connected to the ceiling like support beams.
As his hand touched the old stone, it seemed to slightly crumble. Dust lighty fell where his hand touched.
Sky decided to tread carefully.
Twilight and Four walked over to the two center pillars. One was hanging from the ceiling and was made of dark, black stone. Rivlets of blue softly pulsed across its surface, connecting to a glowing blue eye at the bottom.
Underneath the pillar was a circular pedestal. It was about as tall as Wind, made with both black and yellow stone; the same veins of blue in the grain of the hanging stone ran through the pedestal, but here it looked as though a chunk had been carved out, revealing a rectangular spot of pure blue light.
Time stayed by the edge of the tower, looking out at the land beyond. It was a marvel to see, now that he had the opportunity to stand back and admire it. To the north, all Time could see were large hills and mountains, the outline of Hyrule Castle plain as day in the middle of a field. Even further away, too far away to see clearly unless he squinted, he could make out a silhouette of... a giant bird?
He shook his head, feathers fluffing up. That was weird.
To the west was what looked like another tower—there was more than one, curious—and what looked like desert cliffs. He elected to ignore the giant camel sitting on the top. The east was just a continuation of the tropical forest they flew over, a large waterfall or two softly audible in the distance. Lastly, to the south, a large ocean could be seen, and Time whistled lowly in wonder. It was a marvel Hyrule had managed to stop Wind from bolting down there before they had caught up to him.
Speaking of which—
“Wind, Hyrule, did either of you see anything on the way here?” Time said, gently folding his wings behind his back, ignoring the feeling of ruffled feathers.
Wind grinned, gray-white feathers fluffing up a small bit as he walked over the west edge. “There’s a strange looking monster dancing around down there, had a weird yellow robe and stuff.” Wind squinted at the ground, huffing. “Hyrule dragged me up here before I could get a better look though…”
Time nodded his head, trying not to grin at the pride dominating Hyrule’s face.
“But!” Wind piped up, wings flaring out slightly, “we DID see some things southeast of here, some weird glowing rock things, and then Hyrule saw a giant horse head!”
Legend’s head snapped away from the hanging stone (why the fuck did it have an eye!?) and looked at Wind with an expression of pure confusion, which made Warriors start to cackle, and which Sky in turn dropped to the ground laughing, trying to keep his wings from flaring out and hitting anyone.
“You WHAT?” Legend asked, his voice somewhat high pitched.
“Hyrule saw a giant horse head!” Wind chirped, wings flaring. “It was huge, the size of an inn, I swear! And I could have sworn I saw little things crawling in and out of it, though Hyrule’s eyesight is far better than mine.”
“WhAT—”
Hyrule,no longer able to hold in his amusement, started laughing right along with Sky and Warriors, brown and black feathers fluffing up in mirth. “Dear Hylia, Legend!”, he said, “we saw a freaking stable!” Hyrule laughed, hugging his sides. “Did you think we found some sort of living horse head?!” he laughed out.
Legend, still confused as hell, felt heat rise to his face and whipped back around to look at Wind. “Why didn't you lead with that?!”
Wind, the smug lil’ shit, just shrugged and grinned. “I thought it would be funny to answer in the dumbest way possible?”
Wind’s carefree laugh turned into a surprised squawk as Legend charged him, black crow feathers ruffled in frustration.
The two ended up jumping off the tower and engaging in a game of tag-to-the-death, with Time yelling at them to stay close, clearly already done with their shit.
Sighing, Four stood up from where he had been kneeling by Twilight, ignoring the chaotic sounds of Legend and Wind chasing each other around the tower. He had no idea what the hell this thing was for, or what that glowing rectangle was about, but it didn't look like he was going to get any answers here.
“Angering Legend aside, a stable might be our best bet at the moment. We might get some information. For example, I don't know, where we are” he cut himself off, trying not to bring up the obvious again. “I just don't see what an old lookout tower is gonna do for us.”
“You have to admit, it does have quite a view,” Warriors said, looking out at the ocean, leaning over the side just a little. “I mean, just look at this place!”
Time tore his gaze away from the distant castle and let out a shrill whistle, signaling Wind and Legend to get their butts back to the group.
Once every member’s attention was on him (and once Twilight pried Legend off of the pirate), Time squared his shoulders and puffed out his brown and white feathers, showing authority.
Leader mode: activated.
“All right,” he started, looking at Hyrule. “Are you sure this stable looked safe?”
Hyrule’s wings flared out slightly at the sudden call out. “I, uh, I think so? I only got a quick look at it before catching the seagull—”
“HEY!”
“—but it looked relatively peaceful, no weapons to be seen except some farm tools.”
Warriors snorted. “We all saw what Time can do with a pitch fork, so if these folks are anything like him, we’re doomed.”
No one missed the way Sky shuddered “Never again…”
With a smirk, Time hopped up into the ledge, looking over his shoulder at his younger comrades. “Well then, let’s not give them a reason to use pitchforks, shall we?”
-
It turned out that the stable hands DID think they had to use pitchforks.
And for the life of him Time could not figure out why! As far as he knew, they didn't do anything wrong.
Honestly! Not a single possible offense came to mind.
The only thing they did was land on the stable’s landing deck, a rather small one might he add; Sky had to stop Four from falling off the edge due to lack of space.
So when a pitch fork (kind of ironic considering the topic a few minutes ago) flew over their heads, almost impaling Warriors, there was only one thing on Time’s mind.
Shit.
“Get your asses down here and face me like men, yiga scum!”
“The fuck did he just call us—!”
“Language!” Time growled for what felt like the millionth time, resisting the urge to cuff Legend over the head with his wing. “We don't want to seem even more threatening than we already do.”
Sky slowly stepped forward, hands raised and wings lowered in a non-threatening way. He was always labeled the peacemaker of the flock, and now he really needs that in his favor.
“We don't mean any harm!” he shouted down to the ground, trying not to tense up upon noticing another pitch fork in the man's hands. “We have come to rest, we have been in the air most of the day. All we want is a place to sleep is all! Regroup ourselves!”
The man below was hard to make out. Sky’s eyesight was probably the worst out of all of them when it came to distance, so the only thing he could see clearly were the deep brown of the man’s wings and the dark green of his outfit.
“What do you think of bananas?”
Sky blinked. “Excuse me?”
The stranger stepped forward, brandishing his weapon up to them. “I said, what do you think of bananas?” he growled, each word as clipped and sneered like he was shooting them off of a taut bowstring.
“What kind of stupid question is that?” Time, no longer holding back the urge, not so gently smacked Legend over the head with his massive wing, making Legend stumble slightly with a yelp.
Sky, still trying to keep up his calm demeanor, felt his wings perked up slightly at the random question. He didn't want this to go down a path of embarrassment, for both him and the stable hand, so he answered, “not my favorite, and the little one over there is allergic to them—”
“Call me little one again and I swear to Hylia—” Four got smacked with Time’s other wing.
“—so our tastes kind of vary on that subject, may I ask why?”
The man seemed to relax somewhat, Sky’s words easing whatever thought was playing in his head. He lowered his weapon and stabbed it in the ground. “All right then, you can come down, just don't do anything shifty!”
With a quick nod and mumbles from the rest of the group, Sky, Wind, and Hyrule started to climb down the ladder to go for a “we are the peaceful ones” vibe, while the others decided to just jump off the freaking 30 foot landing and glide softly to the ground, sending out the “we can totally take you out but we don't feel like it” vibe.
Sky scoffed. Typical.
The man’s hand twitched slightly to his weapon as the boys dropped heavily to the ground, eyeing their wings as they furled and unfurled.
Honestly, he looked like a typical stable boy, or at least from the ones Sky had seen from the others’ lands. Dirt and hay clung to his green tunic and trousers. His dark hair was up in a style that looked like a cross between ponytails and side burns, carefully framing his face as if to say “hey look at me please!” A small goatee that looked somewhat like a splotch of dirt on his chin completed the look.
He was also extremely skinny, making him look like an easy target for any monster that passes by, so he was either very brave or very stupid to confront eight heavily armed strangers.
Though, there was something strange that stuck out to Sky, the man wore some sort of strange, leather armor over his wings, unlike anything he had ever seen. It attached at the shoulders like shoulder guards, and ran up the base of his wings all the way to the curve, where it got thicker around the joint and then thinned out all the way to the tips of his feathers.
Sky had no idea what they were used for, and honestly, he was too nervous to ask at the moment.
“Sorry about that,” the stranger said; he couldn't be older than twenty years at most. “Please forgive me, but you can't be too careful these days, Yiga sightings have been skyrocketing as of late.”
Sky tilted his head, confusion clear on his face. “Well...”
“What's a Yiga?” Wind pushed past the ruffled feathers of Four and Twilight. “And why are you so worried about them?”
The stranger looked at Wind with an expression that was just full of confusion, like the pirate had just asked him what a tree was. “How in Hylia's name do you not know who the Yiga are?”
‘Good to know they know who the goddess is,’ Sky thought with a sigh, watching as Time stepped forward.
“Forgive my friend's bluntness, we have... been overseas for a long time, living out on the open water and what not.” He gently nudged Wind’s arm with his wing. “We haven't heard anything about what has happened on the mainland in a very long time…”
The man relaxed again, but not as much as before; his wings twitched softly, showing that he was being vigilant.
At least he's smart.
“We... we can speak of those scumbags later,” he spat out, like just mentioning them left a bad taste on his tongue. “Right now I need to let people know it's safe, you gave us all quite a scare. Have a look around if you want.” He turned around and walked into the horse shaped tent.
Sky didn't realize how empty the area was until people started slowly pouring out of the building, travelers and stable hands alike. Had they really scared them all that bad? Sky didn't think they were that scary!
Though... with a quick look at Time’s armor and Legend’s pink hair and grumpy expression, he could somewhat see where they got that impression from.
“Alright,” Time spoke up, drawing everyone's attention onto him. “We all need to spread out and gather as much information as possible without alerting anyone.” He looked worriedly at the old man now standing in front of the horse tent, looking straight ahead unblinkingly. “We don't want to cause any more problems…”
After everyone gave their respective sign of agreement—Warriors saluted, while Wind said “aye aye, captain”, making Four snort—they all split away from each other, going off in small groups. War and Legend went to talk with pitch-fork boy, Time and Twilight went to talk to the old man, ratheror Time did; Twilight saw a fluffy dog by the horses, screeched, and bolted to it, completely abandoning Time. Four, Sky, and Wind all went inside, presumably to go pay for beds for the night.
So that left Hyrule, who had no idea what the heck to do.
After a few moments of contemplating his possible choices, he decided to go talk to some travelers by a cooking pot when someone's soft cursing made its way to his ears.
Bingo.
Hyrule slowly walked around the building, leaving the sounds of Legend’s shreeching behind (“BUT WHY DOES IT HAVE TEETH!?”) and followed the sounds of heavy cursing and grunting until he saw a young girl, maybe 15 years old, trying to lift a barrel twice her size.
She was kind of short, with dirty blonde hair done up in the same hairstyle as the pitch-fork man. She also had the same dark green uniform and weird leather lines on her blue jay-like wings.
“Need some help?” he asked gently, trying not to startle her.
Sadly, that did not work. As soon as the words left his mouth she whipped around, the heavy barrel forgotten. Her black-blue wings flared out, and her hand went straight for the knife sheathed at the small of her back.
Not a great start if you ask him.
Hyrule stepped back, ruffling his feathers in an apologetic way, trying to calm her down with wing movements alone. Luckily it seemed to work, her hand dropped away from the hilt of her knife and her wings quickly folded back to their resting position.
“Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you,” he said, flashing a quick shy smile.
“No, no need to apologise, I shouldn't have been so jumpy,” she sighed, blue wings slumping slightly. “Do you need help with anything?” she asked.
“I was going to ask you that.'' Hyrule walked over to the barrel. ''This thing looks like it's giving you some problems.”
The lady sighed, looking like she wanted to kick the thing. “Indeed, it's some special horse feed, but as you can probably tell, it weighs, like, two tons.”
Hyrule looked up at her and smiled. “Well, I might be able to help, my friends all kind of ditched me, so I have nothing to do otherwise.” Okay that’s... not really a lie.
“I mean, that would be great! But only if you’re up to lugging this a small distance.”
Hyrule looked at the barrel, then at the horse pens, a few yards away, then at the barrel again. He made a small noise of “why the heck not” and lifted the barrel onto his shoulder in one swift movement, not noticing the sound of surprise the lady made when he picked it up.
“So, um, what's your name mister?” she asked, leading the way to the horse pen.
“Hyrule,” he said shortly, trying to find balance with the heavy weight now on his shoulders, his wings flaring slightly.
“Your folks must really like Hyrule, huh.”
“I get that a lot.”
The lady chuckled, leading the way to the pen. It had three horses in total, all with different coat colors and patterns. Twilight was on the ground petting a fluffy dog happily, eyeing Hyrule curiously as he walked closer.
It surprised the young hero when she walked right past them, only sparing a single pat on the nose for the dog before continuing on, heading towards a beaten path.
“I’m Cima,” she said, starting down the path.
Hyrule gave Twilight a quick glance, and Twilight looked at him somewhat worriedly.
He gave the other hero a quick nod and jogged to catch up, careful not to knock into delicate bluejay wings with the unsteady barrel over his shoulder. As he walked, he looked around with curious eyes, wondering where they were headed..
“What—”
“You’ll see. Watch your step, the paths uneven,” was all she said, keeping her eyes ahead.
She was right. The path was big enough for a horse or two to walk back and forth comfortably, but the loose stones and roots made him stumble from time to time, almost making him drop the barrel and breaking it.
“I'm sorry about Kampo earlier,” she said after many moments of silence. “We always tell him “ask first, shank later” but he never listens.”
“So that's his name,” Hyrule mumbled, dodging a tree root.
“Yeah, he's super overprotective, but he has a big heart, just... an aggressive one.”
Hyrule shifted slightly “So why did he think we were Yiga?”
The deep blue of Cima’s feathers puffed up at the name. “Yeah... sorry about that as well, it's just that we don't get many visitors coming in from the sky. Most just come in on horseback or on foot, so when you and your friends decided to land on our watchtower… let’s just say he freaked.”
Hyrule winced. “We thought it was a landing pad, to be honest.”
Cima laughed. “Wow, your friend wasn't kidding, you guys really are from far away. Hylian stables haven't had landing pads since the Calamity first struck.
“What now?”
A dark look over took Cima’s face and she shook her head. “it was a century ago, so don't worry about it. it's all over now, anyway.” She tried to change the subject swiftly. “We converted the pads into watch towers, so we know if any monsters or yiga clan members are close.”
Hyrule nodded, trying to push the Calamity thing out of his mind. Something told him that Cima was not going to tell him more on the matter, so he decided to just drop it.
For now, at least.
“Oh!” Cima picked up the pace slightly. “We’re here!”
Hyrule quickened his pace to match hers and was surprised at what he saw.
It looked like a large section of forest had been chopped down and turned into a meadow of sorts, old tree trunks still sat buried in the ground. A large pen was built in the center of the clearing, big enough to have seven horses roam around inside. Freshly bloomed flowers grew on the inside of the pen in a multitude of colors, and the trees surrounding it let both shade and sunlight through in perfect amounts.
To put it simply, it was a really pretty place.
“You can put the barrel over by the trough, she usually will eat right out of it.”
“She?”
Cima smiled and pointed over to one of the sunny patches of the pen, and that's when Hyrule saw her.
A large mare was lying down in the sun, her head drooping slightly as if she were about to fall asleep, her coat was a mix of pink and white splotches, mane a bright blond color; from this distance Hyrule could see pretty pink and red flowers braided into the mane.
“River!” Cima yelled. “River! Chow time!”
The pretty mare slowly turned her head toward the two Hylians, letting out a loud whinny in response. Hyrule had almost forgotten to put the barrel down.
“Why is she out here all alone?” he asked, watching as the mare got closer.
“Well,” Cima started and pulled out her knife. “She normally has a couple of others out here with her, like that big one last week or the white stallion, but she was the only one to come here this time. River is a special horse, the hero’s first steed as the rumors go, so she gets special treatment whenever put into our care.”
She dug the knife into the lid of the barrel and started to shimmy it around, trying to open it.
Hyrule’s eyes widened. “T-the hero?”
Cima nodded, still trying to pry the stubborn lid off.
No, it couldn’t be. The hero’s? That couldn't be right, but could it? Hyrule thought he and the others were the only ones. The only heroes Hylia created.
Could he be wrong?
‘Stop it,’ he thought, ‘don't think that far into it, you don't want to have another mental breakdown. Especially in front of a stranger!
Yes, they have met people in between timelines that have called themselves heroes, people with daring stories of saving a small town or slaying a monster, but none had spoken of the Master Sword, and none had mentioned the hero’s spirit dwelling inside of them.
This could just be another one of those times.
Hyrule felt a soft nudge against his wing and a snort. River has made it to the fence, and started nudging him, almost as if she was trying to get him out of his deep thoughts.
He laughed softly and petted her nose, noticing the faint scars running along her snout and hide, and he wondered faintly where she got them.
“Hey there sweet girl, whatcha’ doing?” He laughed when she let out a large snort and bobbed her head into his hands, like she was saying hello.
“Wow, she really likes you, huh?” Cima huffed out, struggling with the lid. “She's never that affectionate with me and I feed her—AH HA!” she cried out in victory, holding the lid high over her head.
River smelled the scent coming from the barrel and walked over, immediately nibbling at the massive supply of freshly cut apples, oranges, strawberries, mangos, some different types of melon and sweet potatoes.
This horse was living like a queen over here.
While watching River’s reaction to the food was adorable, it didn't make the uneasy feeling in his stomach go away.
What if there was another. Another Link who had suffered the same grief and heartache as they did at the hands of Hylia.
The very thought made his wings bristle painfully.
“Come on,” Cima said, not noticing the change in Hyrule’s mood. “Let's leave her to eat. Your friends are probably wondering where you are.”
Oh right, Hyrule did just kind of leave without telling anyone… and went into the woods with a random girl without telling anyone…
Ah fuck, he was screwed.
“R-right,” he stuttered, petting River’s mane once more, carefully avoiding the flowers braided into her hair. He wondered who put them there.
With a sigh, the brown feathered boy started his way back up the trail following right behind the blue-jay stable girl, and swallowed, he had only learned a few things and yet he had hundreds of questions for each of them.
But there was one thing Hyrule knew.
He really needed some freaking sleep.