Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Link was put in the Resurrection Chamber, he was already dead.

It shouldn’t be a surprise. With injuries so extensive, so severe, it shouldn’t be so shocking to say that those wounds were fatal. But who would’ve thought that, when this was the person who everyone called Hero?

This was the person the entire land of Hyrule had placed their hopes on. A warrior predestined to save them from Calamity. Wielding the Master Sword, with the goddess Hylia standing at his back. Surely such a person would be beyond something as mundane as death?

Certainly, heroes can be wounded and bloodied, but in stories they’ve always gotten right back up. They have never failed to strike down the evil at the end of the day, no matter how great the obstacles or how grave their injuries are. In those stories, the hero never dies.

Things were hectic towards the end. The corrupted legion had wrought utter destruction, and armies of monsters still roamed freely. Zelda had returned to Hyrule Castle to face Calamity Ganon alone. The Sheikah were spread thin, trying to follow their orders and protect survivors simultaneously.

So when the legendary blade dulled, divine light draining away in the hand of the hero who still gripped it in death, and the Triforce mark upon that hand also waned – no one noticed.

The Shrine of Resurrection is said to be capable of healing and restoring anything put in its Bed. So what happens when the shrine is activated, but what was to be resurrected has already gone?

Repairing the body is easy enough. Flesh is sewn back together. Bones realign and fuse. Blood levels rise and equalize, failed organs are restored back into operation. All chemicals kept in perfect balance. The brain churns out new neurons and synapses fire automatically. A dead body kept alive in flawless condition, living in all senses of biology.

But a body empty of life, nonetheless.

The Shrine’s programmed intelligence considers this empty vessel placed upon its Bed, and thinks this will not do.

It waits, at first. Technology does not understand how to create life out of nothing. There are no equations or formulas, no software ever written to quantify the existence of a soul. The Shrine has done all it can within the parameters of its intended function. Perhaps if it waits long enough, something will develop?

Decades pass. Nothing happens.

This shall not do, thinks the Shrine once more. It has been created for a purpose: to restore anything put in its Chamber into perfect functionality. It has kept this body in prime physical health, but if there is no life to move this perfect body, it has no functionality.

The Shrine is failing its directives. This shall not do.

The Shrine is a piece of technology created at the height of a highly advanced civilization. It has been designed to be intelligent, capable of learning and solving problems that inevitably may be encountered in the complex organic matter it is meant to heal. It will follow directive. This new obstacle will not be the cause of first failure.

If it’s impossible to create a life out of nothing, then perhaps there is a way to make one out of something that already exists?

So the Shrine reaches out for materials to make a soul. Reaches far, far out.

Finds nothing. No records of successful cases in producing life. No evidence of any real object or artifact capable of such a thing, though there have been a few historical occurrences where attempts have been made. Those have only resulted in disaster.

It does not give up. The Shrine stretches itself out, past the realm of Hyrule and into the vast unknown, searching… searching…

...searching…

It reaches out further than it probably intended to do so in its initial calculations. Past the unknown and into somewhere… unremembered.

The shrine’s search stirs up ancient dust of the infinite beyond. Rustles the fabric of the primordial void. Its data-structure fingers dip into parts of the universe that have lain untouched for hundreds of thousands of years.

It brushes against the edges of cosmic cesspools filled with old knowledge, old wisdom, and old Things that have not touched the perceivable plane since creation was born. It attracts the attention of these Old Things, because it has been a long time since something has wandered so close to the Verge, and the single-minded focus of ‘I must fill the empty vessel, I must find something, I must restore, this is my directive’ intrigues them ever so slightly.

The Old Things decide to indulge this fledgling, earnest creation of another creation. It is nothing to them, after all.

They peek upon the reality from which this small existence grasps for them unknowingly. See the conflict, the violence, the tiny little lives that exist in it. The cyclical history from which this piece of world rises from, the aged spirits saturating its dirt. They see journeys and quests and adventures, as it continually expands for more exploration. They see the deities that have been worshipped, their priests and priestesses, and the goddess who watches over these small lives preciously. They only peek, very carefully, because even simple glances may shake apart those loose foundations called time and space for these little world nests.

Strife. Curiosity. Devotion.

They think, ah yes, this is what we can work with, because reaching into fragile things like mortal realities is terribly delicate work.

So the Old Things craft the soul with what they are familiar with. The thing that has not changed since the birth of time: the Wilderness. The spirit of true nature – the slow but steady progress of natural growth, adaptable and untamed and unstoppable.

They use the quiet sift of wind through grassfields, the soft ambience of critters singing in the underbrush and over treetops, the silent and stubborn growth of oaks and cedars and maples, and the pitter-patter of rain falling upon the leaves of those trees. The call of deer running through the forest, the howls of wolves in the mountains, the whinny of wild horses in the fields.

It seems that this puny vessel has a purpose, the Old Things infer, though they’re not sure what the purpose is for or why it would so easily snuff out this vessel’s previous occupant, being so far beyond the puny matters of mortal concepts. Still they think it would be nice if the life they are constructing will last longer than that. Perhaps if they make it out of sturdier things, it will be better for this purpose?

Therefore into the soul goes also the spontaneity of lightning sparks in a thunderstorm, the violent squall of highwinds, the savage whip of ocean spray against marbled cliffs. The marvel of the sunrise hitting the peaks of towering mountaintops, snow glistening in young light, the fatal beauty of barren icescapes and frozen rivers. The all-consuming rampage of wildfires. The searing heat of molten lava. The life persistence of ferns growing through cracks in pavement and fungi sprouting on rock faces.

This is good, the Old Things think. What are they missing?

It needs a gift, whispers one of them. So that it will not be lonely.

That’s right. It will be the only one of its kind in existence, after all. With this taken into consideration, they distillate a blessing out of an infinitesimal fragment of their own essence.

They say unto this new, infantile soul: May your life be overgrown with wonder. May your heart fill with babbling creekwater and your mind swell with the lullabies of forgotten magic. May you breathe the ashes of dying stars and speak the language of infinite galaxies. From the dust of us you are born, and when the time comes, to us you will return.

On the day of the Great Calamity, Link, the Hero and blessed champion of the Goddess, bearing the soul of warrior’s courage, was placed into the Shrine of Resurrection.

One hundred years later, something else emerges from it.

Chapter Text

They open their eyes with the heartbeats of galaxies pounding away in their eardrums and constellations blooming in their veins, thrumming a deafening tune that makes their bones quake. It sounds vaguely familiar. But they can’t imagine why it would.

They’re so distracted by this that they almost miss the voice who is actually speaking to them. This one doesn’t sound familiar at all. But it’s a pretty voice, they think. She speaks to them with urgency, impressing upon them a duty they are meant to fulfill. They don't understand.

A purpose. This soul has been built with a purpose in mind. What is their purpose?

“Please, you are our last hope. You are the Light of Hyrule,” she says, and they don’t understand this at all, either. Is that their purpose?

She calls them Link.

A Hero, the name whispers through its consonants and phonetics. He was a champion, says the single syllable. A fearsome fighter. A beloved comrade. A young man whose life was spent away too fast and too early.

They suppose... that can be their name. His name. The Sires hadn’t thought to give him a name, since names are so fleeting, so small. Minor conventions of the mortal planes. The name Link feels as right to him as any other name.

“Thank you for coming to us,” the voice says at the very end, just before he feels her attention shift away and depart from him.

There’d been an odd note in her tone, a bit like sadness. He wonders if this means that she knows he isn’t the one who was originally put here. Does she know how he’s come to be here? Is he a substitute after all? Merely a last-minute replacement? He isn’t sure if he wants to be something like that.

But still he climbs out of the capsule and takes the Slate, because the voice had said please and something in him responds to that word. Strife, curiosity, and devotion – these are the foundations that his existence has been built on, and that word please comes from at least one of those things.

Please is something uttered hopelessly on the battlefield, surrounded by enemies and dead allies. It’s gasped out in vain beside the sickbed in the middle of a plague and murmured by desperate mothers with starving children. It is a word whispered fervently by children waiting for their precious older people to come home safely, curled over their storybooks with their tales of heroes and savior gods. Please is a prayer, and he understands that, at least.

He feels strangely raw. Soft. Still pliable, like clay that hasn’t yet had the time to set. Like coming out from a warm covering and into cold air. Still dripping with capsule fluids, crawling from the womb of the Shrine, shaky with the feeling of being vulnerable and exposed to something he can’t see. It’s not cold, but he feels like shivering anyway.

His skin chaffes from the silent air and the scars twisting over his body prickle with oversensitivity once every so often. He wonders about the Champion this body used to be. It is a tapestry of past hardship and unspoken pain, with so many of the scars denoting narrow escapes from death that he can’t keep track of them all. He wonders what this body would mourn if it remembered what it lost.

He also feels incredibly hungry.

There are two chests holding strangely shaped pieces of cloth with wide holes sewn into them. The Slate tells him these are called clothes, which people wear to protect their skin from the elements. And also that these particular ones are apparently worn down and slightly ill-fitting. He puts them on with minimal difficulty, despite that. It seems to help him feel a little better.

The moment he comes out of the shadows of the shrine and gets a good look at the world he has been given unto, he knows what love feels like.

The sun shines down through fuzzy white clouds against a backdrop of pale blue, warming the chill that still lingers in his lungs. A breeze blows gently past, sending a lock of his hair to tickle his cheek and making waves glisten across the verdant grass, trees swaying and leaves rustling. Now this, he knows, is what beauty looks like.

The cloaked man by the fire seems startled to see him. He sees the wide eyes in the shadows of that hood, staring at him with something like shock. This, at least, he understands very much. This beautiful world is startling. Everything is so terrifyingly, wonderfully new to him.

“You are…” the old man starts softly, then trails off in a disconcerted manner. Those shadowed eyes of his look at the one called Link as if he could tell that this is not who he’d been waiting for, that he is looking at something sewn from things wholly different from his perception of recognized reality.

The old man seems to get an inkling of it, as the alarm crests in his expression – and then the man is turning away and blinking his eyes like he’d looked into the light for too long. He looks at Link again, and there is no longer any confusion or uneasy recognition, just the guile of a grandfatherly elder who invites him to sit at his campfire and offers a baked apple.

There is the entire far-reaching cosmos steeped right into his marrow, but somehow a single baked apple makes him feel full.

He doesn’t find the Koroks. They come find him. He has barely wandered onto the map on the Sheikah Slate when they start popping up, one by one at first, and then when word seems to get around, they start ambushing him in whole crowds.

“Who are you?” they ask, so endlessly curious. “Where did you come from?”

“Who’s your Tree?” Is the oddest question he gets, because he can hear the capital-letter officiality of the word. It seems to mean something to the Koroks, but he doesn’t know how to ask about it.

He also gets showered in compliments, for some reason.

“You’re pretty!” many of the Koroks tell him enthusiastically. “We love the sound of your heart’s voice! You feel so familiar! You feel like home! And your soul is the nicest one we’ve ever seen!”

“You look like Mister Hero!” some of them exclaim, “Are you doing his journey for him? Mister Hero can’t come back, after all.”

They are excitable, lovely little creatures. Children of the forest who hail from a little patch of forest, aptly named Korok Forest, in the middle of somewhere called the Lost Woods. Link thinks that maybe he’d like to visit it sometime soon.

The Koroks also seem to have taken it upon themselves to show him all the wonders of the land.

They bring him seeds of all kinds, and he gratefully accepts them into his pockets. They bring him curiously-shaped twigs, shiny jewel-looking beetles, and clumps of dirt that are apparently very interesting. He also accepts these. Then they bring him actual jewels – rubies, opals, topaz, and sparkling sapphires still embedded in their chunks of ore. He’s quickly discovering that he has quite the weakness for shiny things.

He receives a broken farmer’s hoe, a rusty sword, and one very pristine cleaning mop in bewilderingly good condition. The weapons don’t stop there. His slate fills up with polished halbergs and viciously spiked boomerangs and bedazzled broadswords taken from the royal family’s own arsenal. He receives more than five times he can carry. Soon he has to ask his little friends to ease up on the pointy things.

“Big brother Hestu can help you with that,” one helpful Korok whispers to him. “Hestu is the best with space magic! But we hid his maracas! It was just a joke but he was really upset.”

With this new information, some of the Koroks start giving him little golden seeds so he can return them to the one called Hestu in their place. He is told to keep these seeds away from food. They do smell a bit.

In another instance, he gets a pile of acorns. He roasts them over a fire. They’re delicious.

Soon he grows accustomed to hearing soft giggles in the foliage, the jingle of their bodies as they move, the quiet clicking of leaf propellers, the occasional poof of leaves as they come and go. The sing-song voices of Koroks is his lullaby as they trail after him, bouncing weightlessly on the wind.

The lasers shot from the broken machines embedded near the ruins of the Temple are easy enough to deflect, even as his scars burn faintly from a history he doesn’t know, but seeing the Statue of the Goddess makes him flinch. He doesn’t know why.

“She’s called Hylia!” The Koroks tell him enthusiastically, when they notice how he looks at the statue. “She watches over Hyrule! We don’t know her very well though.”

The Spirit Orbs he receives from the Shrines must have some sort of use, instead of just feeling like over-large marbles clinking around in his chest. He has an inkling they must have something to do with the Statue in the temple. They have the same sort of energy around them. But the thought of going back there and confronting the smiling stone face of the Goddess again makes his knees lock up.

So the orbs remain, a metaphysical weight that takes a while to get used to.

The Great Plateau drops out into dizzying distances, and he’s struck with the vastness of the lands beyond, stretching all the way into the horizon.

The only person-shaped being he has spoken with so far is the cloaked old man, who had turned out not to be a man at all, but rather the spectral once-King of this land called Hyrule. The deception bothers him, and so does the story the ghost King tells him – imparting upon him the same duties and oaths that the voice from before had told him about.

He finally gets a name to go with that pretty voice he hears in his head sometimes. Zelda.

He hadn’t understood when he first opened his eyes inside the Resurrection Shrine, and he still doesn’t now. But one thing he has learned since then is that this world is incredible and filled with life. If this thing called Calamity Ganon is threatening to take that away, then he won’t hesitate to fight. Also, the King gave him a warm doublet. So he can’t be all that bad.

He doesn’t know what lies ahead of him. He can guess – more monsters, more shrines, and more towers to map. Those don’t concern him. What he can’t help but be a little apprehensive about is everything in between. He’s discovering what butterflies are, what tree branches are, and all the different types of mushrooms he can pick. There are still many things he doesn’t know about, though, and that unknowingness expands impossibly out before him.

But the laughter of Koroks follows him everywhere he goes, and he is never alone.

He finds the fairy fountain first, before he even knows there’s a village nestled right next to it.

It calls to him the same way that nearly-complete Korok circles, woodland waterholes, and hidden ore deposits do, like magnetic poles, or gravitational push.

He has barely stepped onto the luminescent orange toadstools before he feels a tug from deep within, and he stumbles, just barely catching himself against the giant plant bulb. He feels something expand just beneath his solar plexus, almost painful, and the mental poke he gives at it ends up causing it to burst out of him in a crest of power.

It’s a heady warmth that rushes down his spine, through his toes, into the mushrooms beneath his feet, into the plant fibers against his hands, where it spreads outwards from him in a nearly-tangible wave. The fountain blooms.

“What’s this?” exclaims the Great Fairy who had just reawakened from her faint slumber, having not expected such a dramatic rejuvenation when she hadn’t even received the rupees she should have required. She coos when she sees him. “Oh, aren’t you a beautiful child?”

She reaches out to brush the tips of her fingers over his hair, his cheeks, his shoulders, as if she could not help herself from touching even if she wanted to. She seems to take even more delight in the way he blushes furiously under her attention.

“Whoever made you has done a splendid job,” Cotera tells him. “You are a masterpiece. If you will, please, seek out my sisters. I’m sure they would love to meet you.”

The lesser fairies surrounding the fountain giggle and chime as they dance around him, preening before his eyes like they want to impress him somehow, despite the fact that he’s already staring at them with what must be pure awe on his face. He claps for them anyway, and the little fairies flicker brightly, pleased with themselves.

Like their greater variant, they help themselves to him, playfully tugging at his bangs or hiding in the folds of his clothes much with the same manner that Cotera had touched him. He may have been founded on three cardinal aspects, but it is raw nature and untamed growth that patchwork him together. Fairies are somewhat similar to that, so he wonders if that’s the reason they’re being lured so close to him.

He promises to restore Cotera’s other sisters, scattered as they are about the land. And bring her actual rupees, next time, since she seems to like the shiny things as well. After a moment’s thought, he blows her a farewell kiss in a mirror of the way the Fairy had done when she enhanced his clothes.

She laughs, soft and musical, ever so delighted by his silly gestures.

“Blessings on your journey, sweet child,” she croons.

Coming into Kakariko Village is… a little bit terrifying.

It’s entirely different from the stable at Dueling Peaks, where mostly everyone is a temporary fixture, and the staff is used to dealing with eccentric personalities of every type. There are only other travelers and merchants coming and going, focused on their own businesses. There’s a certain comfort to be found in the liminality of stables, these places of betweenness. There, he is only a drifter, just like everyone else.

Talking to the Sheikah is not like talking to lone travellers on the road either, where most people don’t blink twice at someone behaving just a little off. The small handful of people he’d encountered all seemed to be too busy to really notice the gaps in his social mannerisms.

But here, everyone is so… established. Affixed to their place in this world.

Still, he finds it charming. He loves the torii that seem to lead him into the village and the numerous wooden windchimes hung on rope clacking in the gentle gust, as if announcing that he’s crossing the boundary into another’s territory. The smell of plum blossoms drifts pleasantly in the air, along with fire smoke and cooking and garden dirt. He can’t help but gaze in wide-eyed amazement at all the buildings, nestled into rock terraces and surrounded by dirt paths. There’s the inn and the produce shop, but the most exciting mercantile stores are the fletcher and the armorer – he wants to touch everything.

Thankfully, he has already discovered early on that other people don’t seem to be able to see the Koroks. It would’ve been embarrassing to have to explain again to strangers why he’s talking to thin air.

The moment he walks into the building, Impa opens her eyes fully, old creases and pockmarks stretching across her wizened face as she blatantly stares at him. There’s the same disturbed confusion in her expression that the old King had when he saw Link for the first time, like she doesn’t know what she’s looking at and she isn’t sure if she should be wary or not.

“You have... changed, Link,” is the first thing she says, and he doesn’t say anything when she asks him if he still remembers her. They don’t know her.

The conversation with Impa is just as confusing as all the previous times he’s heard about his apparent destiny, the history he’s forgotten, and the duty he must honor. He knows now the identity of the face he wears. But it isn’t his, because they are something new.

She asks him if he’s ready. He is about to say yes – what is the point in delaying? It doesn’t mean anything to him either way – but a tug in his chest stops the word from coming out.

It’s the same tug from before, when he restored the fairy fountain, the same instinct that gives him his awareness that he is something Else. But this time it has a hint of warning to it. Cautionary, like a voice saying tread very carefully woven into the subtle force.

Impa has made it clear that the Hero that this vessel used to be was blessed by the Goddess. If he is to embark on this quest for this dead Hero, then by extension he will be taking on the mark of the Goddess herself. That he still hasn’t come up with the gut to face Her properly strikes him wrongly on many levels.

The Spirit Orbs clack uncomfortably within him, nestled somewhere near his heart. He’s sitting on a lot more of them now, having found Shrines along the way, and the hum of them makes his teeth clatter at night.

He says no. Impa looks upon him with disappointment, but he can’t bring himself to be affected by it much. When he descends the steps leading up to Impas’s home, he studiously avoids looking at the goddess statue gazing benevolently down at the water lillies in the pond.

He departs from the village soon enough.

He knows, rationally, that they only see a hylian teenager with blond hair, the only notable thing about him is the slate on his hip. But he also knows that the screeching reptiles that live in the back of their brains taste something different in the air. These are the basic instincts that all people have, no matter how far they’ve evolved from their ancient forms. The part of their hindbrains that still remember, in long-forgotten ages, of living as prey for higher beings and cowering beneath uncaring gods.

Staying in this kind of place, so grounded in itself and crowded with people, makes him feel too big for his skin, boxed in and cramped. It makes the seams holding himself together feel loose and shaky. It makes his teeth itch. Thinking people thoughts as he tries to immerse himself in the different bundles of arrows in the fletcher’s shop seems to help, but it’s hard to maintain it for too long.

Soon he returns to the rough mountain paths of the open world. He has the chatter of the Koroks trailing after him and bird song in his ears. The wind seems to sigh its relief alongside him, as he feels his joints settle again. All is right again.

Despite all the beauty this world has – with its pouring rains and lively forest glades and animals of every kind flitting about the foliage – he still can see all the ways Malice has sunken its claws deep into the flesh of the earth. The land looks sometimes as if it is choking on its own ashes.

There's a sort of darkness to the landscape, and it isn’t just because of the whorl of Calamity Ganon around the castle looming on the horizon. It’s heavy, like the winds are laden with unseen sickness. Like rot creeping up from deep within the earth, poisoning the rivers and spreading everywhere like an infectious fever.

He isn’t getting anywhere in running away from the goddess statues. Not when this heaviness is everywhere around him, crawling out of the very frameworks of Hyrule.

The Blood Moon is the final strike.

When he wakes up in the middle of the night with the ashes of his campfire swirling around his face and the black-magenta wisps of Malice rising out of the ground, the world is bathed in red. He tries to blink it away, but the moon is a bright, eye-searing vermillion that seems to pierce through his eyelids and soak into his skin. He tries to catch his breath but instead he chokes on the thick soot of Malice.

Everywhere he hears the roars and cries of monsters, growing in number and surging to a crescendo as they’re resurrected from the beyond. The song of the crimson moon echoes in his ears as clearly as those monstrous screams, chanting stand up and destroy. Rise at my call, serve me. Destroy all those who refuse to bow.

He hears it buzz in his veins. Seethe between his ribs. He can taste it on his tongue. His blood sings with it. The melody of this horrifying red moon roars so loudly in his mind that he doesn’t register anything else.

Destroy he hears, and before he knows it, there’s an entire river’s crossing of monster camps burning behind him. Blown to smithereens. The remains of decimated monster populations strewn around him. The moon is its familiar pale-silver self again.

“Blood moon,” he hears from the next traveller he meets, when he asks about it, and to his horror he finds out how frequently it happens.

This cannot happen again. To lose himself like that, so overwhelmed by this insidious magic drenched into the land, not even knowing what he has done until after everything is already over – no. He can’t allow that to happen again.

This time he had been in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but empty wilderness and monster nests. What if the next Moon rises when he is camped near a stable? Or in the middle of a village?

Using the warp function of the Sheikah slate, he goes back to the Temple Statue. A bit shame-faced, he has to admit.

The back of his neck prickles as he lowers himself to his knees before the weathered monument of the Goddess, feeling a thousand eyes watching him from every angle. The spirit orbs he’s collected clatter almost excitedly against his ribs.

Trying to ignore the unseen inspection, he looks heavenward – not downward, not lowering his head, when this is not his goddess and he has no right to bow before her. He whispers a prayer:

Goddess Hylia, Divine Radiance of the Heavens, this lowly one begs for your regard.

At first, nothing happens. The air remains still, dust motes swimming lazily in stray pools of light. He begins to think that he’ll never get a response. Perhaps the goddess doesn’t even want to acknowledge his existence.

And then.

The world stops.

Time suspended in the air. The thousand pairs of eyes condense into one, and the sensation of being watched increases by a hundred fold. It comes down on him like a physical weight, nearly intoxicating, so overwhelming he thinks he may faint from bearing the attention of a higher being.

She is here. With difficulty, he draws himself together and continues with his appeal, pulling the words out of his mind with nearly palpable strain.

I know I am not one of yours. I am the servant of another, and it is not my place to ask for your help. But still I come to plead for your blessing. Your people need a savior and they believe I am still their Hero.

There is the flurrying sound of birds taking flight, just at the edge of his focus, just out of sight. His ears twitch, he feels feathers brush lightly against his cheek, radiating warmth like a summer day, and he has to resist the automatic urge to turn and see what it’d been. He knows he won’t find anything there.

“Child.”

Her voice, when it alights upon him, is tender and soft, like a ray of sunlight, like a spring mountain breeze. It shines down from an invisible above, warming his face and shoulders. It is so powerful it rattles him to the core.

“You are woven together by the Old and Unknown, held firm by the Wilds. The hands that made you precede me.”

He startles at this, but she does not give him the chance to dwell on that new knowledge.

“Though you wear his body, you are not my Champion. I cannot claim you as my chosen Hero. You carry the sanction of another, and my sacred Blessing is not yours to have. You cannot hold my Mark.”

He lets out a slow, careful breath. Hylia’s voice is toneless and without inflection, but the words she uses sounds like she doesn’t like him. Perhaps she’s displeased by his presence in her domain. Is he an intruder in her eyes, walking around in the stolen flesh of her favorite child?

Are you mad that I’m here? He tries not to tremble as he sends this little inquiry up, squeezing his eyes shut in preparation for a goddess’ wrath to descend on him.

He’ll do it even if Hylia refuses to give her blessing. Her world is beautiful, and it is not Hyrule’s fault that all they have is an imposter in their hero’s body. It is not even Hylia’s fault that her champion has died and they now walk with a dead boy’s footsteps. He will help them anyway, because he wouldn’t be able to take it if he saw all the wonders of this land snuffed out by Calamity’s wanton hatred.

It will be almost impossible, if the Goddess does not give him the divine aid that this journey requires. He isn’t sure how hard it will be, just that his gut rolls at the thought of facing those trials alone. But he is sure he won’t fail. He’s made too well for that.

To his surprise, a warm wind blows past him, taking the locks of his hair to lift with it.

“Peace, child,” is the response, so very soft and tranquil.

His breath hitches as unseen feathers caress his face and the sunlight streaming down gently wraps around his shoulders, like the Goddess herself breathes her reassurance to him.

“I mourn my fallen hero. But I do not hate you. You are a wondrous, new thing. I see the devotion shine brightly in you. I see your love for my realm. The hands who made you are beyond me, but I know the wilderness and old magic you are pieced from are mine.”

His breath catches in his throat again, and this time he cannot help the tears that come to his eyes. To hear acceptance from a voice he has long expected to reject him. To know that he is doing something right, when all he has is a vague instinct to guide him through this unknown, unlearned world… It means something more than he can ever describe, even with countless cosmic languages humming in his mind.

“Though you are not born of the weft of my children, I grant you my Favor. Know that wherever you journey, the Goddess Hylia will always smile upon you.”

The tears wet his cheeks, and he lets them trail down his face and neck as he still kneels with his face raised to the carved facade of the Goddess. There’s no shame to be found in crying, he knows, when these are tears of celebration and he is overcome with gratitude.

“Go and bring good to Hyrule.”

Chapter Text

Sometimes, it gets a little too much.

The stables are bright. Loud with the braying of merchants’ mules and horses in the stalls. The clatter of spoons against pots, dishes being cleared away. There are at least over half a dozen people at every stable, each one a little shining pinprick of life even against the illuminated backdrop of campfires and lamps.

People are different from Koroks and animals, and even the iridescent great fairies and their lesser counterparts. They’re loud with themselves, overflowing with life. Like they’re constantly coloring outside the lines just by existing. Where Koroks simply babble with the rustle of leaves, and fairies peal softly like stars in the night sky, people sound like they’re shouting into the mountains even when they whisper.

They carve out their places in the world, building up structures and stables and villages, instead of blending with it. Sometimes that impresses Link – the way Hylia’s creations are so strong in their existences that they simply part the sea of reality just by walking through it, instead of finding empty spaces where they can fit in.

But other times, the noise of their busy minds and bright presences only serve to fog up his mind and blind his senses. Even the transient liminality of the stables isn’t enough to make it better. Sometimes the world of people becomes too much and all Link wants to do is hide.

There’s a stable coming up ahead. Link knows, because already he can feel the clamor of conversation and cattle bells buzzing against his skin. He’s been on the road for several days at this point, seeking out shrines and their spirit orbs, with nothing but the Koroks and the occasional monster encounter to keep him company. The chill that has never really left him has set itself deep in his joints, aching with every movement. The thought of a stable’s hearth-warmth should appeal to him.

But he can hear people talking in the distance and suddenly his feet won’t take him a step further.

Instead they take him to a nearby tree, and then up it, until he’s sitting high above in its branches. He curls his knees to his chest and jams his cheek into the tree’s bark, feeling the ridges of it press into his scars through the fabric of his hood. His fingers ache. His stomach shivers with that ever-present chill. He realises he’s trembling. But the tree is strong and sturdy, deeply rooted into the ground, with many decades aged into its thick trunk. It holds him steadily and tucks him safely into its foliage.

There’s the faint poof of Koroks, and their little feet clamber over his head and shoulders as they investigate this strange behavior. They peek under his hood, trying to figure out if this is another game he’s playing with them.

“Yaha! Are you okay? You don’t look so good,” they chatter around him, not quite understanding why he’s doing this but nevertheless catching on to how he has folded into himself like he wants to escape from the world. “You’re all shaky.”

“You feel like a sapling in a storm,” one Korok whispers, their tapered elm leaf face tilting in worry.

Link manages a small smile, a thought of reassurance half pushed out towards the Koroks. He’s grateful that creatures of nature are much easier to communicate with, unlike people. Things are bright right now, he tells them. Then he closes his eyes and turns back to shake against tree bark.

The Koroks seem to understand his need for less, and so they stop speaking and quiet themselves. The flutter of their presences diminish and smooth away until they just feel like a pile of leaves around him. If he could muster up the mind for it, he would’ve felt the usual amazement at their ability to hide themselves away in plain sight. At the moment, though, he can only feel relief and gratitude.

He tries to wait out the tremble of his body, but it doesn’t seem to be getting better. He tries to shut everything out, but doing that just makes the slime of Calamity coating over the world all the more obvious to his senses. Wrapping his arms around his head as if that would protect him, Link scours about in his head for something better to focus on.

At first, he finds nothing but the blinding lights of the people at Woodland stable, less than a hundred steps away. They clamor at his senses, battering against him. He tastes the bitter of Malice’s stain on the wind. The acrid smell of corruption in the night. There’s nothing but more things to wear him down.

Nothing, except… there. Far to the north and slightly west, there’s a spot that hums with pure energy, vivid and clean. And very, very old.

It’s a beacon in his heart.

His knees creak when he uncurls himself and drops from the tree to the ground, but his mind has tunneled in on that little spot in the distance and he has no attention to give to anything else. He moves blindly towards it, putting one foot painstakingly in front of the other, already tasting the purity of that place on his tongue.

It’s nighttime and there are monsters roaming in his path, and monsters that sprout from the dirt in his path, but he doesn't falter a single step.

When he arrives at the Lost Woods, it’s dawn, and he is overcome with the thought of I know this place. It should’ve made him apprehensive. He knows he’s never been here before, but no other location he’s travelled to has ever struck such familiarity into him the way this eerie, misty forest does.

He catches shifting silhouettes in the fog, small shadows flitting about in the swirls. Noises echo a little too loudly and for too long, and woodland animals, half-obscured in the haze, approach curiously to stare at him as he passes them by. The branches of leafless trees twist into a new position every time he glances away.

The feeling of being watched lingers on his back, but it isn’t the deer or foxes. It isn’t even the same as coming before one of the Goddess’ sacred statues, silent and solemn. These eyes feel much more... mischievous. Neither malicious nor benevolent, but simply filled with the desire to play. Laughter rises out of the white fog every once in a while, gleeful and directionless, and he hears the whispering song of spirits, just out of sight. The urge to join them in dancing in the mist rises so swiftly it takes him by surprise.

But the tug from before rises to the forefront again, and his feet follow its guidance instead, taking a winding path past the eerie revelry and deeper into the woods.

The moment he steps into Korok Forest, it’s like finally coming home.

Trees towering over him, casting a canopy of leaves over his head. The sunlight dappling the verdant ground, painting the air with golden rays. He smells wet soil and ferns and pollen. He can feel how fertile the land is here, how rich it is with life. It is comforting and inviting and natural in a way that the quiet din of stables or busy bustle of villages have never allowed him to feel. Here, he feels like he can finally breathe.

He’s never had a home, he doesn’t come from one, and he’s only heard of the term from passing travelers who tell him how they miss their home village. But if he were to ever call a place home, this – this would be it.

There are more Koroks than he can count, and they all chitter excitedly at the sight of him. Some of them dart back into the grass and disappear, but most of them come up close to greet him.

“Yahaha! You’re here, you’re here!” they cry in delight. They tug at his sleeves and poke his ankles, urging him forward. “We’ve been waiting for you!”

Link lets himself be ushered along, trying not to trip over the little creatures as they skip at his knees and tumble over each other and float along with their tinkling twig propellers. One Korok decides that it’s better to simply sit on his head and direct him forward by waving their little berry stick around.

A laugh of his own bubbles out of him, something airy and warm rising in his chest, expanding until he begins to feel like he just might float on the air like the Koroks surrounding him.

The enthusiasm and happiness the Koroks express at his mere arrival is so endearing, so enchanting, he can’t help but give in to the temptation to join them in their frolic. He shucks off his shoes and his socks, feeling dirt squish between his toes and small pebbles embed themselves into his soles.

He leaps into puddles. He twirls in the falling leaves. He tumbles and skips and laughs into the sunshine – dancing as the Koroks do, playing as they play.

At the center of it all, where they all lead him to, is the biggest tree he has ever seen. It is unreal. He looks up and up, trying to comprehend the size of this magnificent tree, but he doesn’t seem to be able to even fit the entirety of it into his line of vision. It rains cherry blossom petals down, its roots are colossal monuments he has to climb over or simply walk under. This is the guardian of all the Koroks, he realises. The heart of Korok Forest.

Then it breathes and comes alive.

“Hoh? Did I doze off again?” the Tree murmurs, while branches shift and shower down petals, as if awaking from a long nap. Even with just these careless words, Link has to close his eyes against that deep, ancient rumble. Like the creaks and groans of thousand-year-old wood, reverberating thickly in the air. “Well, well, so you have finally decided to come visit me. I had started to wonder…”

The weight of the being’s attention comes fully down upon him now, and though it is worlds away from Hylia’s devastating divinity, it still leaves him breathless.

“I am known as the Great Deku Tree. I welcome you, Changeling.”

His ears flutter a bit at the tips, and Link nearly shivers. So this is the voice of a being more than ten thousands years old, who’s been a part of this land since it was named Hyrule. No wonder he can feel this place from halfway across the continent.

A word bubbles to his mind and it’s out of his mouth before he can think twice about what it means or why he knows it.

“I greet you, Grandsire,” he says, trying not to get distracted by the discomforting rasp in his throat, speaking with vocal cords that have not seen use in weeks.

“Ah… a title I have not heard in quite some time,” comes the creaking reply, sounding somewhat nostalgic. “The ways of Old faded from this land long before kings and queens made their mark upon it. That they return with you brings back some… echoes of memories I thought were lost.”

He can’t help but ask, because he knows great entities such as the Deku Tree do not use their words haphazardly. “Lost, not forgotten?”

“Lost, indeed. Some memories become so old they can only echo, across great distances of history. Lost to the ages, you may say, though now I realise that things such as the Old cannot be entirely gone – simply adrift, until they eventually find root once again.”

There’s a pause, then a deep rumble, as if the turning of the Deku Tree’s focus from sentimental topics is a physical event. “Tell me, young one,” he says, “What have you come here for?”

Link thinks about it, very carefully. “I was seeking sanctuary,” he begins, furrowing his brow as he struggles with finding the right words to describe the singular focus he’d felt on his way to these woods. “But now I think I am here for another reason.”

“Hm… Could it possibly be the object behind you?”

The prompt takes a second to register, then he whirls around. He catches sight of a stone pedestal, sunlight streaming down, pale flowers glowing brightly around the clearing, and – a sword. His breath catches.

Struck into the triangular facade in the ground, the sword bears countless of chips in its edge, a hundred scratches in its hilt. The winged crossguard no longer retains its polish and the blade itself is filthy with age, rust clinging and mud darkening the metal. Yet all the dirt in the earth could not hide how the sword pulses with imposing power.

He wonders how he could have ever possibly missed it when he entered the forest. It feels like the Goddess herself has been imbued into the very atoms of this weapon.

“Grandsire,” he whispers, afraid that a volume louder than that would disturb the ancient spirit resting within the blade. “What is that?”

Overhead, the Deku Tree tells him, “This is an archaic relic of ages past. All the Heroes of this world have wielded it at some point in their histories, to strike down the great evils that afflicted their lands. In fact, one hundred years ago, those very hands of yours swung this sword with great skill… though it matters not, now.

“It has known many names. The Blade of Evil's Bane. The Sword that Seals Darkness. The Sacred Sword of Legend. But the most common moniker, I believe, is the Master Sword.”

Link stares, feet rooted to the ground. Master Sword. Even the name itself resounds with innate power. He can’t decide whether to look away out of respect or keep watching this sword as if it would pull itself out of the stone and run him through, even without a hand to swing it.

After a few moments of frozen silence, the call of the Deku Tree is what finally pulls his eyes away.

“Young one.”

Jerking a bit as if coming out of a dream, Link turns halfway and looks over his shoulder to see the Deku Tree gazing at him solemnly. There is a deep understanding in those hollows, overshadowed by branches laden with cherry blossoms in semblance of brows, which takes him by surprise.

“You are not the Hero that body once was, but you have still decided to take on the Hero’s unfinished duties.”

Link nods, though he wonders where the Deku Tree is going with this.

“Yet you do not confront this journey alone. I sense that the Goddess has laid her touch upon you.”

Again Link nods. He has prayed to the Goddess many times since his first meeting in the temple ruins. Every time, he comes out stronger, more durable. He feels his body being tempered like live steel with every spirit orb he offers up. At the end of every prayer, he thanks the Goddess and he feels her tender response. Hylia’s Favor warms his skin, like a kiss on his forehead, or a diadem on his head, made of pure light.

“Then I believe you have received the right to wield the Master Sword.”

A hum has started up in his ears. It is a song, ancient and mesmerizing, echoing from somewhere in his heart, someplace he will never be able to fully comprehend, with a flesh mind and mortal life, but will always follow him wherever he goes.

“I don’t know if I’m worthy,” he says with a voice shaky with uncertainty. The song buzzes like static beneath it all, a layer of white noise that makes him feel as if his vision was drifting three inches too high above his eyes.

The rumbling voice of the Deku Tree comes again, floating through the noise. “How many boons has the fair Goddess bestowed upon your spirit?”

He’s not sure. Too many to keep track. The call of the shrines is like a compass in his mind, their sacred presences burning bright even when they’re completely buried underground. He has been very thorough. A third of the map in the Slate hasn’t yet been filled in and already the blue diamonds of shrines are taking over the screen.

“Pull the sword when you are ready, sapling. Let it tell you whether you have been judged worthy or not.”

With the hum of the ancient song loud in his ears, and the voice of the Deku Tree guiding him, there isn’t anything to do but to follow the tug at his feet and walk up to the stone dais.

The moment he reaches out and takes a hold of the grip, with its green-and-violet cross wrapping, the spirit of the blade stirs awake and rushes up to meet him. His eyes fall half-shut as he focuses. The song falls away, note by note. Instead, another voice comes chiming like a distant bell heard over the mountain range. It is faded like the polish on the pommel, or the shine on the blade, less of actual words and more like a collection of intent and inquiry.

You are not the Master I know.

He sucks a breath in and holds it, trying to figure out if the spirit is displeased with him. He can’t quite tell, not when the voice is so small and faint he almost has to strain his ears to hear it. “I’m not,” he answers truthfully. “I’m sorry, your Master is dead.”

Why do you have the hands of the one who once wielded me? Why do you speak with his voice?

“The Shrine needed something to refill the vessel. Your Master left before it could bring him back.” He can’t help his voice turning apologetic. Perhaps he should know better, but it is hard to remember when he is the only one of his kind. When he thinks about how he came to be, it is all too easy to feel like he’d stolen something he shouldn’t have. “It found me instead.”

The blade spirit is silent for a long, contemplative moment.

“I’ll understand,” he says when the lack of response becomes unnerving, “If you don’t want me.”

Silence for a bit more. He resigns himself to waiting, all he has to say having already been spoken.

Then the chime comes drifting close again, and it tells him, I am the Goddess blade crafted from her own divine steel. I was forged in the flames of the three Golden Deities by the hands of the chosen Hero’s first incarnation. You and I are not dissimilar.

He startles at that. It is a strange analogy to use when the source of his origin is so far from everything in Hylia’s domain. He is no sacred blade, for sure.

As if knowing his confusion, the blade spirit continues, I sense the care and attention that was put into your creation. It is no insignificant amount. You were forged with the best of everything your makers used.

“Oh,” he breathes, feeling surprised and reassured and deeply flattered all at the same time.

My Master died too early. But he was tired in the end. It would have been cruel to make him return only to face his failures.

He hesitates, then he says softly, “I think so too.”

He’s seen all the ruins of villages and towns strewn about in his travels. The tragedy of Hyrule is present everywhere he goes, and he’s not unaware of all the people who had died in the Great Calamity. It is hard to miss when he finds rows of rust-marked graves in the fields and tiny grass-covered mounds at the bottom of hills. Still, it is only unattached knowledge, and he finds more beauty than ruin. He loves this quiet, untamed world, but he thinks that if he were the old Hero, he’d only be able to see all the ways his defeat had destroyed the Hyrule he’d once known.

Though you have no Blessing, I sense the Goddess has granted you something else. Your faith is steady. Your strength is worthy…

And your soul, the blade spirit finishes, It is beautiful.

This time he can’t help it. He ducks his head and blushes. His eyes water and he blinks rapidly, because he feels the open candor with which the spirit speaks.

You are permitted to wield the Master Sword.

“Thank you,” he says, heart in his throat. “I will use it with honor and care.”

Affirmative.

With that closing statement, the spirit of the blade leaves him and he finds himself alone in his head again. There is no longer any song, no hum in his skin. Everything is quiet except for the rustle of wind through leaves and the barely restrained excited chatter of Koroks in the foliage.

He rises, and the sword comes free of stone as easily as pulling a blade from a sheathe. He blinks down at it, discovering that all the rust and dirt have been scrubbed from it, and though a few nicks and scratches still marr the metal, its surface now shines with new polish. As if the sword has woken up now, he thinks somewhat idly in the stillness of his mind.

“Well done,” says the Great Deku Tree, and like that, the spell is broken. The Koroks rush forward to surround him, jumping and tumbling and floating, to tell him their own congratulations.

“Well done, well done!” They chant, repeating their Tree’s words as if to mimic him in their musical voices. “We knew you could do it! We’ve always believed in you!”

He looks down when one Korok tugs lightly on the fabric of his pants. “Now that you have the sword, does this mean you have to leave?” The Korok asks shyly. “Will you play with us again?”

This gets them going again with new vigor. “Let’s play!” They all start saying, poking at his still-bare feet and pulling at his shirt. “Don’t leave yet!”

A laugh bubbles out of him, light and happy, and he swiftly sorts the sword in his hand into the Slate, leaving all his weapons unequipped. How can he refuse them?

“I’ll stay a little more,” he says, and the Koroks cheer, launching themselves into a flurry of excitement. They pull him into their midst, and once again he lets his feet move into the dancing rhythm of their movement, lets his arms move freely to the pattern of their little red berry sticks. They climb all over him, and he’s cajoled into tossing a few of them high up into the air, where they catch the wind with their leaf propellers and come floating gently down.

A few fairies come floating over, and they twirl around him playfully, adding their musical voices to the laughter of Koroks. Even Hestu comes to join in, when Link skips over to the big Korok and shakes his hands like he was holding maracas, smiling wide when he seems a little bashful in front of the little Koroks. Only a bit of encouragement is needed before Hestu’s percussions are ringing through the air.

Above his head, he can hear the deep, rumbling chuckles of the Great Deku Tree. He’s surrounded by laughter and little leafy faces and he has never felt more like he belongs than he does in that moment.

Eventually, all great things come to an end. But it’s a sweet end, because he knows he can always return, and the Koroks will inevitably follow him everywhere. He leaves the Forest and saunters back to Hyrule, feeling positively serene.

And indeed, all great things come to an end.

He frees all the divine beasts, uncovers all the shrines, greets the four Champions and endures their too-long, too-knowing ghostly gazes. But they seem to understand, if a bit sadly, and their gifts are tucked preciously into his chest, right alongside his heart.

He goes to Hyrule Castle. Malice in the throne room, pulsing like the guts of a bokoblin.

Calamity Ganon is a monster the likes of which he has only gotten a taste of from his battles with the Blights. But the Champions are ready. And so is Link. He readies his shield, draws the Master Sword, and feels it sing in his grip.

Evil swirls into the gargantuan form of Dark Beast Ganon. Zelda sends him the Bow of Light. His teeth rattle with its divine purity.

The core of Dark Beast is exposed by Zelda’s power, and Link lines up his sights.

He breathes in, holds it. Time slows to a crawl.

His arrow flies true.

Ganon is torn asunder.

He sees Zelda for the first time – haloed with light, power of the Goddess shining so bright in her it pours out of her eyes and pools in her veins. She feels like a star going supernova. He has to squint to see her. Zelda raises her hand against the whorling mass of Calamity, and then he can’t see her at all.

All great things end, and Link’s great journey ends with the howling wail of Ganon as it is banished from the world.

Chapter Text

Zelda knows that when Link came back, he came back… different.

She remembers the stoic, duty-bound soldier the Hylian Champion had been a century ago. They’d gotten off at a rocky start, but by the time they arrived at Mt. Lanayru, there was something of a close friendship being nurtured between them. Or at least as much of a friendship as Zelda hoped to believe, when one friend was the princess of the kingdom and the other was her appointed knight sworn to silence.

When she ordered Link to be put into the Resurrection Shrine, Zelda had fully expected his memories to disappear, but his core personality to stay intact. Her expectations couldn’t have been more wrong.

Certainly, there are a few likenesses. Link’s hoarding tendencies have remained, if not gotten stronger. His ability and willingness to eat anything is another similarity. He still fights like a sword is simply another part of his body, and now it seems that the skill has expanded to unconventional weapons she hadn’t seen in his previous arsenal, such as bone clubs and pot lids.

But there is something about Link that simply doesn’t add up. Maybe it is the way he smiles, or the way he walks. Always just left of normal. It isn’t so obvious if she looks at him solely by himself, but place him next to another person, or even herself, and the peculiarities suddenly become all too clear.

Perhaps the easiest to catch, she thinks, is the way he stares too long at ordinary things. The Link of a hundred years ago had never looked at things like that, so unsettlingly still, unerringly unblinking, with a sort of alien awareness in his eyes. This Link has a gaze that pierces right through her soul.

“You don’t really remember me… do you?”

The silence she gets is all she needs to confirm her fears.

She knows she should’ve been prepared for this. The possibility that Link is a completely new person, that the friend she knew has gone away for good, that he had indeed died for her on that wretched battlefield in Blatchery Plain.

But still her heart twists up unexpectedly in her chest. She grips her hands harshly, urging the awful feeling to go away, telling herself to endure it, because she’s being so unreasonable and weak when she is the incarnation of a goddess –

Link wraps his arms around her and pulls her into a hug. She blinks in uncomprehending shock for a moment, her distress freezing in place just from the sheer unexpectedness of this action. She has half the automatic urge to pull away.

But Link is warm and his hair smells like wildflowers beneath all the dirt and ash that cover the both of them from the battle with Ganon. Even after a hundred years, he still stands shorter than her by half a forehead – he’s laid his cheek on her shoulder, his arms hugging around her back like he wants to chase away all the bad in the world from her.

And it works, however ridiculous it is. She can’t muster up the will to resist, so Zelda falls into the embrace instead. Her arms are trapped, but it doesn’t matter when she can still bend her elbows enough to clasp her hands behind his waist. Link doesn’t even protest when she tucks down and presses her forehead gently into his neck – he only squeezes her a bit, as though telling her that it’s alright to do so. Her eyes water at the gesture.

“Sorry,” comes the quiet whisper into Zelda’s shoulder, a little hoarse and ragged at the edges from disuse. “I don’t remember.”

(The memories were not theirs to remember, and so they never saw.)

“I made you sad,” he says, and he sounds so mournful, so empathetic, like he regrets ever doing anything to cause her pain.

It is in this very moment that Zelda finally understands. She sniffles, feeling a few tears slip down her face and wet Link’s tunic. She pulls away to look at him, and he lets her go easily. She studies him for a silent, extended moment.

“You’re – not actually him,” she says haltingly, and it’s less of a question and more like a verbal affirmation of a feeling she’s always had since she had sent her voice over to the Shrine when Link first woke up.

For one hundred years, she was saturated in the glory of the Goddess in an endless battle against Calamity. Her physical form no longer mattered, when she could feel the fabric of the world crease and bend as she endured. She breathed, and she was the air in the breath. She was the sun that shone on Hyrule, she was every plant that took its energy from the sun, and she was the insects that lived upon those plants. In that state, she had an awareness of the world so great and so complete that her mind right now would cave under the pressure of trying to comprehend it.

The awareness is gone now, and all her atoms have drawn back together into the shape of a teenage girl. But the memory still echoes.

And he looks at her with that gaze of his. He whispers, “I’m not,” with an awful dread on his face. “I’m sorry.”

This is what makes his eyes so unsettling, she realises: the way he doesn’t hide a single emotion from them. The way he leaves the windows to his soul wide open and obvious for anyone who bothers to notice, everything he feels laid bare just through a glance at his blue eyes. She isn’t used to seeing eyes like his, either in Hylian high society or in casual interaction. Almost everyone has an instinct to hide what they feel to some degree. His completely vulnerable gaze leaves her feeling rather exposed herself.

“It’s okay,” she decides after a moment, and though she still has tears on her face, she offers him a kind smile. “Please, don’t – you don’t need to apologize.”

She draws in a breath, now just air and oxygen and nothing divine, holds it. Releases. “I suppose… this may have been for the best. That he didn’t have to go through all of this again.”

Here he seems to hesitate, so careful with his next words. “The sword told me the same,” he murmurs.

A spark of intrigue skitters across her grief. “The Master Sword?”

He nods, then tips a shoulder in an awkward gesture. “She said it would’ve been mean to bring him back. And I… agreed.”

Zelda sighs and tries to smile, though she feels that it comes out more like a grimace when her mouth twists a bit bittersweetly. “I imagine that you both are right. I can only hope the Goddess has brought him to a happier place now.”

Link nods again, a jerky movement. It will take some time to get used to this, Zelda thinks sadly – seeing the face of her knight while yet knowing that he is an entirely different person. She will have to try very hard not to make comparisons between the two.

A thought strikes her, and she asks, “If I may ask, why do you still call yourself Link?”

Now his gaze darts away, towards his boots, and the tips of his long ears tinge pink.

“You named me,” he tells her simply.

“Oh,” she says in response, a sound punched out of her by surprise.

It is so unexpected, Link’s reply so precious and his reaction so pure, she can’t help but burst into laughter. “I apologize,” she manages to get out between giggles, “I don’t mean to laugh at you, it’s just…”

There’s a sweet smile on Link’s face when she looks again. Not a single hint of offense. He simply looks happy to make her laugh. Her own responding smile is so wide it makes her cheeks ache.

Once again, she is proven wrong, when she thought that it would take a while to adjust. She can’t help herself from falling into friendship all over again. It is so easy, so quick, how she comes to love him – this new, strange Link, so soft and open with his heart.

They stay together for a bit, after that. They travel to Kakariko to rest and recover for a few days, where they’re welcomed with cheers and awestruck praise, because everyone had seen the lightshow of that final battle. Then they ride to other settlements to spread the news. Now Zelda sees for herself how young Hyrule’s savior is, as he constantly stares in wide-eyed amazement at everything in the world as if he could not possibly believe it is all real and he gets to touch it.

There are people to gather, word to be given out, and an entire kingdom to be rebuilt. Zelda watches the future stretch on far, far ahead.

But she also watches how Link walks this land reclaimed by nature, so at peace with himself when they’re out on the open road.

How eager he is to show her all the flora and fauna that have repopulated the fields and forests, how happily he talks to the Koroks that pop up wherever they go. She follows him indulgently whenever he seems to automatically wander off the road without any real thought put into it. She notes how every time he does this, he ends up finding some kind of rare material, hidden treasure, special location, or even someone who needs help.

And even now, on their way to Hateno Village, Link catches sight of a butterfly and starts to follow it, slowly veering off the path. Zelda veers with him. She doesn’t even bother to question it, at this point.

They wander around a hill, into a patch of forest on an incline, and then off to the edge of it, where there’s a tree with a hollow gnarl in its trunk. A Korok floats on their propeller next to the tree, and at the base of it is a sprinkling of flowers, glowing palely in the evening shadows.

Silent Princesses, she identifies with a bit of shock. The endangered species had been in danger of going extinct when her Hyrule still lived, but now the flowers seem to be making a steady revival in the wilds. Perhaps due to the lack of civilization to stunt its growth, she speculates.

Wonder lights Link’s expression when he spots them, and to the Korok he asks, “Did you plant them?”

Though she can see the Koroks as clearly as Link can, the language of the forest children remains beyond Zelda’s understanding. Their musical voices are reduced to unintelligible noise in her ears. She can only communicate with their guardian the Great Deku Tree, and even then it is by virtue of the old entity’s amassing of countless languages over the ages. Only Link, it seems, is privy to the words of the Koroks.

Even so, she hears the enthusiastic response the little Korok gives, surely a confirmation to the question. And she sees how a smile spreads across Link’s face, something sweet and filled with awe, as he kneels down to brush his bare fingers against a delicate petal. The flower curls very slightly towards him like he’s the sun, stems reaching and leaves rising.

Zelda watches this all silently. She thinks of the village just east of this tree, over the rocky ledge. She thinks of how restless Link had been after just two days spent in Impa’s home. She thinks of the future she envisions in her path, once again.

She walks over and sits down beside him. Silent Princesses are her favorite kind of flower, she admires them idly while she tries to figure out what she wants to say.

“Link,” she begins, and instantly, he snaps his attention to her. Sensing the decision in her voice, she imagines. She says, “I relieve you of your duties.”

He looks at her, not as much confusion in his eyes as she would’ve expected. Yet another thing she is wrong about him. “Zelda?” he asks softly. He sounds so trusting, so openhearted, as if nothing she can say next will harm his opinion of her. This is what gives her the courage to continue.

“I know your place is not with me,” she says, like a confession. “My Knight died a hundred years ago. It is wrong of me to expect that you will follow me just as he did. I’ve made a great and long agenda for Hyrule’s restoration, and it would be hubris to think that you would be happy to stay with me through all of it.”

Her hands twist in her lap, as it is her habit. “Whatever sense of debt you may feel, if there even is any to begin with, I want you to know that you’ve paid it twice full. You didn’t have to take on this burden, but you still did so readily. Your service to Hyrule is greater than anyone will ever know.”

When she glances toward him again, she finds Link smiling quietly at her. There is a tender mirth that sparkles in his eyes, along with complete understanding. “I did it,” he tells her, “Because I fell in love with this world. No duty involved.”

Zelda waits, but no further elaboration seems forthcoming. Feeling truly baffled, she can’t help but blurt out, “It was that simple? Could it have been that simple?”

Link nods, still with that small smile on his face. “This world was one of the first things I saw and I wanted to protect it. Calamity was a stain. I was told I needed to fight to get rid of it. So I fought.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Zelda murmurs.

He shrugs. “Fighting is easy,” he replies.

The fight comes naturally to Link, she knows. She has seen it firsthand. For all that he seems forever frozen at a height where most people tower over him, Link is a beast of battle. She shakes her head, feeling a bit dazed. “I keep forgetting that, somehow,” she says. “I suppose it’s because all other times when there isn’t a sword in your hands, you are the most peaceful and agreeable person I have ever met.”

Link shrugs again. Looks endearingly embarrassed about it. The sight of him makes Zelda smile, so very fond.

For a while, they sit in companionable silence under the tree. The sun sets and the sounds of the night emerge, along with little bright spots of fireflies, flying lazily in the air. Around them, the silent princesses give off a subtle, ethereal glow.

“You’re right,” Link says, eventually. “I don’t think I was ever going to stay.”

He sounds contemplative, wondering, despite the fact that the decision seems to already have been made long before they ever met up with each other.

“Where do you think you’ll go, after this?” Zelda asks out of curiosity.

Now he smiles again, and this time it is bright and wide and unabashed, like he’s thinking of good memories. “Home... I think.”

Zelda stares, stunned despite herself. For whatever reason, she can’t ever imagine Link happily settling down into a cozy little house in a village. He catches the look and lets out a little chuckle. “Korok Forest,” he clarifies for her.

“Ah,” she says. It… fits him, in an odd way that feels so natural it takes her by surprise.

“You can take me to see Purah,” Zelda suggests. “Then, I suppose in the morning we can say goodbye and go our separate ways.”

This pulls a frown out of him. “Not goodbye, Zelda. You can visit me if you want,” he says, a bit petulantly. “I don’t like goodbyes.”

Zelda laughs. “Of course, and you can come see me at any point in time. Though I expect I’ll be doing some extensive traveling soon enough.”

He doesn’t seem worried. “That’s okay. I’ll find you,” he tells her, and he says it with such certainty that Zelda doesn’t have any doubt about his apparent ability to track her down across Hyrule. It reminds her of all the times he’s found things in obscure places seemingly out of coincidence.

It doesn’t make her uncomfortable the way those implications usually should make her feel, coming from any other person. How can she, when it is Link? This is the one who woke up with nothing, knowing nothing, and decided he would fight the physical culmination of an ancient evil more than ten thousand years old for a world he’s never seen before. This is the person who almost single-handedly saved Hyrule without expecting anything in exchange, shedding blood and steel and sweat, who saw her for the first time in his life and softly apologized for making her wait for so long.

There isn’t another person she would trust more than Link.

Soon after that, they head into Hateno Village, and then to Purah’s Lab on the hill. Zelda is suitably shocked when she’s greeted by an exuberant six-year-old rather than the elder she’d been expecting. Link had apparently forgotten to mention that detail.

They stay overnight at the lab, and in the morning, Link gives her the Slate.

“It used to be yours anyway,” he tells her. “And now you need it more than I do.”

“But,” she tries to protest, when she knows that she’ll most likely appreciate the help of the slate in her coming mission. Her mind latches onto the most obvious problem – Link’s legendary hoarding tendencies. “What about all your things? What are you going to do with all of it?”

There’s a new addition to Link’s gear. An unassuming leather bag, boxy in shape and finely crafted. One which Zelda vaguely recalls seeing a few times, as Link spoke to a couple Koroks at various points in their brief travel together. Now that she thinks about it, they’d seemed to be discussing something in great detail. The bag, she now realizes. He turns to the side to show it to her, and pats it pridefully.

“Korok dimensional magic,” he declares. “Hestu helped.”

Zelda stares at the bag. It looks like a normal, everyday bag, not even that large. “And everything fit in there?”

“Just enough,” Link says easily.

So Zelda accepts the Slate when it is firmly placed into her hands. There are functions installed on it that hadn’t been there when it was last in her possession, and Link takes the time to show her how to use every one. It will be useful for sure. Especially the shrine warp feature, invaluable for the cut in transportation time alone, unless she needs to travel with company.

“Thank you, Link,” she says, when the sun is high in the sky and Link decides it is finally time for him to leave. “You’ve done more for me than I’ve ever asked. I don’t know how to ever repay you. Just… know that no matter what, you’ll always be my most trusted friend.”

Link nods, and returns her sentiments with a warm, all-encompassing hug. Zelda wraps her arms around his back. Link gives the best hugs.

“Don’t forget to visit,” he reminds her. “Or I’ll come visit you.”

It sounds like a threat. A very nice threat. She laughs, he smiles with her. They part.

Link takes a long, meandering path back to the Lost Woods. It is a bit strange to travel so long again, with no real urgency biting at his heels. Before the battle with Ganon, by the time things were getting down to the wire, he’d been shrine-warping himself all over Hyrule. It is nice to allow himself to enjoy the simple leisure of an unpaved road once again.

The Master Sword lies against his back, though it isn’t the weapon he reaches for when he has to fight a few straggling monsters in his path. Calamity Ganon is gone, and his correspondence with the divine blade has come to an end. Probably, he thinks he can still use it, but it won’t sing to him the same way it had before.

Instead, he whispers to the sword, “I’m taking you back where you can rest.” And the tired, quiet chime comes as the only response.

“Welcome back, sapling,” the Deku Tree greets him warmly when he emerges into the warm ambience of Korok Forest. All around him, the Koroks echo their hellos. They watch as he steps up to the triangular pedestal and pulls the Master Sword from its sheath.

He lifts it with both hands, pommel to his heart, blade tip pointed straight down. It slides into stone with a burst of starlight that brightens the grove for a heartbeat.

Thank you, he tells the sword, and feels an echo of a cool touch brush against his cheek, before the spirit of the blade sinks back into slumber. Slowly, the shine of the Master Sword fades until it seems nothing more than an ancient relic sunken into weathered stone.

“So… you’ve returned the sword to its rightful place. A wise decision.”

Link nods. It wouldn’t have felt right to deny it peace when Ganon is gone and its duty has been fulfilled.

The Deku Tree asks, “Are you thinking of visiting us longer this time?”

Link looks up. “Is that okay?”

There’s a whisper of leaves, and the Deku Tree chuckles, great creaks of wood bending with wind. “Most certainly. The forest will alway be open to you, dear sapling. You needn’t ask.”

A warmth blooms in his chest, and he smiles. “Thank you, Grandsire.”

He feels a light touch at his knee, and looking down, he sees the leafy face of a Korok staring back up at him. Wordlessly jingling, the Korok waves their nubby arms up in the universal pick-me-up gesture. Link obliges.

When he rises, the little body of a Korok tucked comfortably in his arms, he catches the impatient look that’s somehow being broadcast on their alocasia leaf face, despite the lack of muscle to make any sort of facial expression. He blinks. “Hm?”

At another meaningful wave of their arms, he lifts the Korok higher and leans his head to the side.

“Everyone wants you to stay for a really, really long time,” the Korok whispers into his ear. “The others are all too scared to tell you. But I’m not! You feel like home, and this is home too, and we want to be close to you all the time.”

Wide eyed and feeling something tremble in his heart, Link asks, also in a whisper, “Why is everyone scared to tell me?”

“Because… because your roots feel restless. You have the Wandering.”

That’s a new word. But Link gets the general gist of it. “Doesn’t Hestu have the Wandering, too?” Hestu had taken such a long time to go back to Korok Forest, despite repeated excuses about getting lost, that Link had been starting to think the big Korok didn’t actually want to go back to his home.

“Yuh-huh,” the Korok in his arms nods. “That’s why we can tell. We were scared to say anything because we didn’t wanna make you feel stuck here. But… still.”

There’s a pause. Then Link buries his face into the Korok’s tummy, heart trembling, chest tight. “It’s okay. Don’t be scared,” he says softly, “I’ll stay as long as I can, before the Wandering takes me away again.”

He sniffles a bit, and feels little hands move about in his hair, as the Korok tries to pat him better.

“Ah!” comes the startled exclamation of another Korok. “Tiggs blabbed!”

More little bodies start crowding in, as Link just stands there hiding his face into Tiggs. He feels the other Koroks poking at him, clambering over his shoulders, as they try to figure out what’s happening, and then the gasps as they see his reddened cheeks.

“You were too mean!” One of them accuses. “Link is sad now!”

“Nuh-uh!” Tiggs wiggles in his hands indignantly. Then hesitates, reconsidering it. “Are you sad? Did I make you sad?” they ask with rising panic. “I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry if I did!”

Link finally lifts his face to look at the worried Koroks. He sees them, all pressed up against him and hanging in the branches above him, peeking out from the ferns around him. Hestu dawdles in the back, the leafy tops of his head swaying as he leans over in concern. The Great Deku Tree gazes down at the scene with a general air of affectionate bemusement.

A smile spreads wide across his face as he takes in the sight of them. His precious ones. “I’m happy,” he assures Tiggs, and tucks them under his chin to dispel any left over alarm they may still be feeling. The Korok reaches up to pat uncertainly at his neck, as if making sure that he really isn’t upset. “I’m very happy,” Link repeats, this time for everyone listening in. “I think I’m going to stay here for a long time.”

There’s a single joyful, musical note that rises into the air, and then all Koroks cheer. They jingle with movement as they tumble toward, pulling him back into their midst with the same eagerness as before. Link laughs, feeling that warmth spread from his chest. It chases away the chill that’s clung stubbornly to his lungs, and it eases the background ache that has lingered in his joints for so long, ever since he opened his eyes in the Resurrection Shrine, so many months ago.

He’s finally home.

The smell of blood is hardly anything out of the ordinary in the misty depths of the Lost Woods. There are predators that live here, and plenty of prey. It’s hardly uncommon to stumble across the scent of a fresh kill somewhere among the twisting trees, especially since animals aren’t affected by the mind-trickery magic that protects the woods from any unwanted intruders.

Though the physical forms of the Skull Kids have long withered with the centuries, their spirits still linger in the mist. Befuddling the unsuspecting traveller, cackling in the trees. Playing their eternal game.

Link finds them rather charming, despite the occasional incident when the Skull Kids can’t seem to draw a line between play and real danger. That’s simply part of their nature, he knows.

After half a year spent in these woods, he’s gotten used to playing along with their mischief and navigating through their little amusements. In turn, they seem to have grown fond enough of him that they usually let him walk their mists untroubled, unless whimsy strikes.

Only today, Link senses a sort of tension in the air, twining around the foggy swirls. There’s a note of discontent in the echoing laughter he hears, and he thinks that maybe it’s because of the scent of blood. It smells like there’s a lot of it. And it isn’t going away.

Link breathes it in, letting the sense of existence in the scent cement in his mind, so it can pinpoint a direction for him. Once the beacon is clear, he breaks out into a sprint.

His bare feet make little noise in the forest underbrush. He deftly leaps over fallen branches and tangled roots, such skill built up with practice that he doesn’t even bother to look now. He slides through the thick mist with hardly a disturbance, careful not to ruin any pranks the Skull Kids have put up throughout the woods.

Lesser forest spirits scatter around him, most whirling out of sight or darting into the unseen plane before he can catch more than a sideways glance at them. Just a few lag behind, and they stop to watch him with eerie intelligence as he passes by. He waves to those he knows don’t mind a little acknowledgement.

He’s drawing near to the entrance of the Lost Woods, just around the bend where the twin torches are. That’s strange, because he knows most animals avoid that spot. Too bright for eyes that have grown used to the dim haze of spirit light.

There’s enough blood in the wind to imply a fight, but he doesn’t hear any noises of struggle now. He can’t imagine that one of the animals had dragged a kill all the way out here…

There is a wolf lying beneath the roots of a tree.

Link freezes in his tracks, feeling his eyes go wide. It is the largest wolf he has ever seen. Even the ones in the Hebra mountain range don’t come close in comparison.

A mountain of dark fur collapsed into a pile at the base of the tree, where it looks like it dragged itself to shelter under after being wounded, judging by the trail of dark stains on the ground leading up to it. Mud and twigs mat its thick fur, and its underbelly is pale, though now stained with blood. The wolf’s entire body looks battered twice over.

There’s also no mistaking the holy mark inscribed into its fur.

This animal has been blessed by Goddess Hylia.

Link rushes over, ignoring the wet patches that form on his knees when he drops to the ground to inspect the wolf’s wounds. He carefully picks through the tangled fur, trying not to reopen anything that might have coagulated. The injuries look almost a day old, if he has to guess from personal experience, though he has no frame of reference for the healing capabilities of a creature such as this.

He isn’t sure why a divine beast has appeared in the Lost Woods. Sent on a holy hunt by the Goddess, perhaps. He may even be seeing the last dredges of its quest, where the great battle is over and the wounded wolf has dragged itself to a quiet place to take a final rest.

Or maybe the wolf was delivered by the hand of Hylia herself to a place where Link would inevitably find it, with such grievous injuries… because he knows that allowing the wolf to bleed out on the forest floor would be unforgivable.

Link straightens up, still looking at the heaving flanks of the beast. He can see its breath slowing, the great beat of its heart weakening. There are only mushrooms and a large assortment of herbs stored in his bag. Maybe a few honeyed apples. Nothing he can administer to an unconscious wolf.

Concentrating, he reaches deep within himself. He reaches – until he can feel his senses start to expand into the beyond and something shifts in his lungs.

There. The glimmering star-sparks of fairies drifting in the distance, that’s what he’s looking for. Not the stationary meteor shower of the greater fountains, far, far out into the corners of the land, just the small, fluttery ones. Cradling those little pinpricks of light in his mind, Link opens his mouth and Sings for them.

They respond promptly to the call, coming whizzing towards him through the misty air no more than a few seconds later. Three glowing fairies land weightlessly on his shoulders, their tiny hands tangling in his loose hair. Hummingbird-wing whizz of inquiries already in their twinkling melodies.

You Sang for us, they say. We love it when you do that. Why did you need us? Your voice is so pretty. You sounded like you needed us to come quickly. What has happened?

I need your help, he tells them. He gestures to the divine wolf.

This one is dying, I need him to be better, he tells them.

Please? He asks.

Shining jewel, the fairies say, a little exasperated. Only because you ask so sweetly. Our little young star. We heal the big beast for you.

Link offers them a smile, bright and happy. “Thanks,” he whispers out loud.

And the fairies don’t bother replying, simply skipping forth from his shoulders to twirl around the wolf’s hulking form. Fairy dust falls like pollen from their bodies, sparkling as the particles fade into healing energy, and all the bloody gashes on the wolf’s body vanish into unbroken fur. Link watches as the wolf’s strained breath relaxes and his heartbeat eases back into a regular rhythm.

They don’t stop there – one of the fairies whirls off to do her dance around Link once, twice, and a third time, sprinkling dust onto him. The minute chilly ache that he’s long tuned out disappears, and the tension in his knees unravels.

Once they’ve done everything they wanted to, the fairies come close again, brushing their wings against his bangs. He closes his eyes and lets them trail their luminescent fingers along his eyelids, feeling the tickle as they caress the feathery softness of his eyelashes. He still hasn’t quite figured out why he is apparently so irresistible to the fae folk, but he doesn’t mind indulging them in their temptations. Even if it does make him feel a bit… pampered.

Sing for us sometime again, the fairies say against his cheeks. We will come whenever you want to see us. Always for our little treasure. So pretty and polite.

As always, the never-ending endearments of the fairies go to his cheeks, and he feels the blush burn hotly on his face. The fairies titter when they see this, their delighted laughter pealing out like a bell.

You are precious, they say like a reminder, just before they depart.

Then Link is left alone in the clearing, his cheeks rosy and an unconscious wolf at his knees. He should probably… move the wolf someplace else. Maybe Korok Forest, where the Skull Kids won’t be tempted to play mean tricks on the beast.

Getting back to his feet and crouching down, Link wriggles his arms beneath the mountain of fur and limp muscle. As soon as he tries standing up, a surprised grunt falls out of his mouth and he nearly falls over. So heavy! He can barely lift the great flopping weight of the sleeping beast into his arms, much less carry any of it in any sort of respectable manner.

Link sighs, resigning himself to slinging a Goddess-blessed divine beast over his back like the spoils of a hunt. It will be a long trip back to his forest, he thinks.

Chapter Text

Words. They bother him, oftentimes.

He understands that the spoken word is usually how most people communicate, but the languages of mortal beings have always felt too restrictive. Too inadequate, when there are so many pitfalls that can and have frequently led to misunderstandings.

People talk, shout, and call out, using their mouths to communicate, or their bodies, using everything in their known disposal – inflection, volume, facial expression, the position of their body parts, the movement of their eyes, the choice of their words and what context they say them in. And still sometimes they don’t manage to get the message across well enough. Somehow there is always a fault in understanding, some sort of difference in culture or misuse of contextual knowledge. There is always something.

Link also knows a lot of things that can’t be explained in the way that voices or hands convey things. Things that have no name in mortal languages, and no words to explain the full breadth of their concepts. Personally, he much prefers how fae and spirits talk. Nothing but intent, simple and instant, pure and honest, complete in meaning with every exchange.

This is why he doesn’t say a lot when he has to talk out loud to other people. Just a few words here and there, all very straightforward. He likes simplicity in communication in these cases. And in return, he has learned to watch for information that isn’t what he hears.

To be fair, he has to admit that he does have an advantage in this area. Where people can only judge by what their dull tellurian senses capture, Link takes in information several levels more than that. Like the way people walk the earth and what the land has to say about them. What sorts of spirits cling invisibly to their backs. How the wind blows around their heads. What happens in a building when people think the walls aren’t paying attention.

Like the other creatures of wilderness, Link usually doesn’t need words to know whether someone means to harm him or befriend him. Although at times, he just tends to forget that other people need to hear those spoken words.

And other times… well.

Other times, he leans too far into those otherworldly senses. And he entirely misses the fact that perhaps those mortal conventions and contexts matter just as much.

“Are those teeth?”

At Wind’s startled yelp, Time looks over to see him stopped in his tracks off to the side of the road. Wind is half-crouched over a couple of worn down bricks which look like they used to be a part of something more, staring at something in the dirt. Time walks over to inspect the ground himself. Sure enough, there are a few scattered bits of yellowed molars and incisors, half buried in upturned soil.

It should be alarming to him, the fact that there are a small handful of very recognizably hylian teeth just laying around. But really, the first thing that pops into his head is, “Where’s the rest of the skeleton?”

Nearby, Legend leans over. He makes an incredulous noise. “Hm. Those look pretty old. The rest of it is probably gone by now.”

“Yuck,” Wind says, sticking his tongue out.

It reminds Time of a place he’d visited when he was younger, so many years ago. A dark and narrow place, one that he found after wandering through a graveyard. He can still remember the ominous whispers that had echoed off the catacomb walls, the suspicious brittle crunch beneath his boots that came with every other step. There had been bones in the Shadow Temple, too.

“Teeth last longer than anything else,” he agrees out loud. He wonders how long these ones have been left to decay in the dirt.

It’s been a few hours since they were dropped unceremoniously onto a grassy hill, right in the middle of the battle they’d been engaged with in Twilight’s dimension. The jump had disoriented them, scattering them all over the rocky incline. It had taken a while to re-group, and then realise that Twilight isn’t anywhere in sight. It’d taken even longer to realize that they had no idea where the nearest town was… or if there even is one.

They crossed a bridge not too long ago, but it doesn’t seem like there’s any more evidence of civilization. The abandoned structure they’d stumbled into just a few minutes down the road, covered in the signature piles of indeterminate bones that monsters seem to be partial to, hadn’t been very encouraging either. Still, the fact that there is a bridge at all must be proof enough that they aren’t entirely alone in this strange, vast land. (Teeth don’t count.)

Wind is walking with a limp – he’s trying to hide it, but Time has dealt with those silent sufferer tendencies in himself and he’d recognize his boys putting on a tough face a mile away. But he doesn’t say anything, because while Wind has a low-grade sprained ankle, Hyrule still hasn’t woken up from the last battle’s knock to the head. And they’re out of consumables.

Now, Hyrule is currently being carried on Warrior’s back. Sky is looking droopier with every step he takes. Time himself is dealing with what feels like major bruises over the entire right side of his rib cage. And Twilight…

Time is worried. They’re all worried. Twilight had been the furthest away from them in the fight. They’d seen him take a hard hit just before the world flickered like a sputtering candle and warped around them. They don’t even know if he’s still alive.

“So…” Legend starts after a while of relatively silent walking. “Anyone care to take a stab at why we’re stranded in the middle of nowhere? This doesn’t look like any of our Hyrules.”

“Way too many mountains for mine,” Four agrees.

“Thought we could’ve landed somewhere in mine,” Time remarks idly, “Except that no monster I know builds treehouses like those. And there isn’t nearly enough water for Wind’s.”

“Definitely not my Hyrule,” Sky says from the back of their group, where he’d been lagging further and further behind the longer they traveled. His breath wheezes slightly in his throat as he speaks. “Though I’ll let you know if I find any oversized mushrooms.”

“So it’s a new one! You think we’re gonna get another Hero?” Wind pipes up, managing to drag up some excitement at the prospect of meeting a new friend despite his current exhausted state.

Legend raises an eyebrow. “One who’s awfully late to the party. What are the chances there’s another person called Link running around here?”

“In any case, it can’t hurt to ask,” Warriors says suddenly. He shifts his grip on Hyrule’s sleeping body, getting a hand free, and points. They look.

There, in the distance, is a pavilion. Whoever designed it must have had a bizarre sense of architecture, but it’s warmly lit with lamps and campfires, and as they get closer, they can hear horses and farm animals in their pens. Even closer, and they hear people talking.

“Oh, finally,” Sky breathes out, before he stumbles over a stray rock so hard Legend has to lunge for his arm and practically drag him upright.

“Watch it!”

Time looks over his tired, battered group. They need to rest and recover, and get more information about this new Hyrule they’ve found themselves stranded in. Hyrule needs a red potion badly. Time needs to take a look at Wind’s ankle. Sky needs somewhere safe to at least sit down.

“Come on then,” he says. “Let’s go ask if they’ve heard of anyone named Link.”

“Everyone knows him,” says the first person they ask at the stable.

Well. That’s… weirdly easy. Relieved and slightly suspicious that something seems to finally be going right for them, Time is about to ask more questions when the stablemaster continues with, “Who doesn’t know that kid? He’s insane. Also very helpful and friendly. But insane nonetheless. Did you know that he once tried to register a bear at one of the sister stables?”

“Heard it was a stalhorse, the other time,” mutters a person off to the side, and suddenly the group realises that they’ve attracted the attention of half the people in the area.

Yet another nosy traveller is shaking her head, as she comes to join the conversation. “Scratch out all that,” she says, a pained look in her expression. “I’ll never forget the sight of him riding into Outskirt Stable on the back of the Lord of the Mountain.”

The stablemaster they’d originally been talking to widens his eyes comically. “That happened?” he asks, almost reverently. “I thought it was just an exaggeration.”

“Listen,” She stares at him with deadpan eyes. “With Link, nothing is ever an exaggeration.”

Time and the others exchange meaningful looks. Seems like typical chosen Hero business to them. Goddess knows what sorts of shenanigans they each got up to in their own adventures. So far, all the info pointing to this guy being their new hero checks out. Now they just have to find him.

Warriors inserts himself into the conversation, flashing a winning grin at the two. “Any chance you might know where he is?”

There’s a pause, as the traveller suddenly falls quiet and the stablemaster’s smile turns slightly wooden. He draws himself up, now eyeing them up in a different light. “Who wants to know?”

Time feels his head slowly tip to one side in bemusement. “Just a family passing through,” he deflects, though he isn’t exactly lying. “We heard we might have a cousin in the area.”

“Mighty well armed for a family,” the stablemaster comments.

Warriors thinks of the monster camp stationed casually on the side of the road and takes an educated guess. “These are dangerous times,” he says vaguely.

The stablemaster makes an idle, thoughtful noise, still staring at them in that funny way. Then he says, almost too nonchalantly, “Don’t suppose I might interest you in some banana bread? Fresh out of the oven. My niece baked it herself.”

“Hrm.” Warriors looks almost comically caught off guard by the sudden change in subject. Time is pretty certain they’re all wearing similar expressions. “No thanks? Though I’m sure your niece’s baking is splendid. We’re really just... interested in seeing if Link might be family.”

The stablemaster looks between them for a bit more, suspicion palpable. Then he seems to relent, tension releasing out of his posture.

“I can see the resemblance, at least. If Link and your group don’t share at least one distant relative, I’ll eat my hat,” he says candidly. He gives them an apologetic look. “Can’t blame me for being leery of a group like yours. I haven't seen gear like that in a while. Thinking of going off to some war I don’t know about?”

Warriors takes a quick glance back. He can sort of see what the man is getting at – a group of visibly armed, battle-toughened travellers. Not to mention that Time is wearing full-plate armor, which, judging from the people congregating around the stable, isn’t very common. Still, he has to wonder what banana bread has to do with all this.

“Nope. Just an adventure,” he replies charmingly.

The stablemaster laughs. “Bah! This must be what it’s like to be young. Must’ve been one hell of an adventure so far,” he says, gesturing to Hyrule, still slumped on Warrior’s back. “That one doesn’t look so good. Thinking about renting beds? Though I reckon some of you will have to share.”

“We’ll take what we can get,” Warriors says gratefully. Sixty rupees later, Warriors finally gets to lay his precious cargo down. The rest of them drop their packs at the foot of the beds, thankful to at least have a surface to sit on that isn’t just hard dirt. Sky collapses into the second bed, soon joined by Wind, while the third is occupied by Legend, cursing under his breath about creaky knees.

The most able-bodied of the group divide their tasks. TIme immediately goes for Wind’s ankle, and Warriors sets out to ask around for health replenishers. Four stays behind and keeps watch over Sky and Hyrule.

“No red potions? Heart potions?” comes Warriors’ disbelieving voice near the pavilion’s entrance. He’s talking to the nosy traveller from before. There’s a pause, then he asks tentatively, “Apples?”

“Potions… are you talking about elixirs? And what are you hoping to do with apples?” The woman is shaking her head, a confused furrow in her brow. “If you’re looking for medical aid, I’ve a fairy tonic on me. It should help your friend. That’s a nasty bump on the head, from what I can see.”

Warrior mouths the new term silently, taking half a second to adjust to the differences in this new Hyrule. Still, it isn’t like any one of their Hyrules are the same, either. They’ve all gotten quickly used to taking any unexpected differences in stride.

He cocks his head to the side and grins. “Anything I can offer to take that off your hands?”

She puts a hand to her chin, chortling. “Oh, I just love you straightforward types,” she says. “Take it, won’t you? I can always get more fairy dust. It’s like two rupees a vial.”

“In exchange,” she adds, as she’s handling the tonic over. “When you see Link, tell him to take care, alright? We haven’t seen him a while, but the last time anyone heard of him, he was headed up north.”

Warriors takes note of that, and decides that the next goal is to get a map of this place. Currently, none of them know which direction north even is. “Certainly,” he agrees. Then he can’t help wondering, “You people seem close to Link.”

She shrugs. “The Calamity may be gone, but those rotten Yiga are still scurrying around. That kid has gone through enough already without worrying about Yiga rats still going for his spleen at every cross section.”

Then she’s bidding him goodbye and walking off before Warriors can ask anything about that particular load of information. None of the names ring a bell, but none of it seems like good news, either. Warriors has a fairy tonic in hand, though, so that’s one problem solved.

Going back to the beds where they’d settled down, Warriors finds that the others are already engaged in a conversation with an old man about local geography. Well, at least Time, Wind, Legend, and Four are. Sky’s apparently dropped off into sleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

“Yes, yes,” the old man is saying, as he points to particular spots on a map roughly drawn on a sheet of parchment laid out on the table near Hyrule’s bed. “We’re stationed here in Woodland Stable, which borders the Eldin region… here… and Hyrule Field… there. Also, just over yonder, is the Great Hyrule Forest.”

“That’s north,” Warriors observes, as he gently slides hand beneath Hyrule’s head and tilts it back. Time shifts to help him coax the tonic down their sleeping friend’s throat.

The old man looks quizzically at him. “It is.”

“The lovely lady who gave me this fairy tonic told me Link was headed up that direction.”

“Ah,” says the old man, “I did happen to hear your group is looking for that youngster. Family, hm?”

There’s something about the way he said that, while looking at them, that strikes a familiar bell.

“That guy at the counter already gave us the banana bread question, y’know, in case you’re wondering,” Wind tells him. There’s a neat little wrapping around his ankle now, courtesy of Time’s ministrations, and he already looks like he’s ready to start bouncing off the walls. “Weirded the shit outta us. You folks sure have a thing against banana bread.”

“Anyone with too much of an interest in bananas is worth being wary of. You can never be too cautious these days.” The old man chuckles in good humor, like it’s common knowledge that an unassuming yellow fruit is a surefire mark of the enemy. Which, they realise they’re in no position to judge. Maybe around here, it is. “But you’re an honest bunch, ain’t ya?”

At their blank stares, he laughs. “When you get to my age, you can tell just by lookin’ at people’s faces. And none of you are from around here, either, eh?”

“For people managing a mere waypost, you guys ask a lot of questions. Shouldn’t you be used to unusual travellers by now?” Legend shoots back.

The old man isn’t phased by him. Instead, he gives them a toothy grin that all elderly people seem to gain access to when they’ve lived enough decades and have seen enough of the world – the kind that’s packed with humor and uncanny knowingness and nothing nice. I’m nice to you now, that grin says, because I like you for the time being. It says, I’m just a harmless old man, but do something that threatens the things I care about and you won’t like how mean old men can get.

“We here at the Stables take care of our own. Though our network is few, we’re well-connected across all of Hyrule. We also see many travelers… but none so much like Link.

“Haa… He’s an odd one, certainly, but he has also helped us countless times, boosted our economy, and taken the time to humor our children. It would be... quite a shame to hear that he was mistreated by someone who passed through the network,” the old man trails off, voice turning just a bit thoughtful, though there isn’t anything vague or mild about the implications behind what they’d just heard.

Legend draws himself up, not taking well to being threatened at any degree in any context, but Four cuts in before he can do anything drastic.

“We understand, elder.” he says respectfully, shooting a meaningful look at Legend to restrain himself. The threat is there, yes, but there really aren’t many things that can truly endanger people like them. Ostracizing an entire social network may make things rougher for them, but they’ve gone through worse before. Still, this is an easily avoidable inconvenience.

The old man just smiles, turning back into that genial grandpa that gives lost travelers directions. “If you’re looking to go to the Great Hyrule Forest,” he starts, back on track with the previous topic, “I must caution you. In the heart of the forest, there sits a terrifying group of enchanted trees called the Lost Woods.”

Suddenly, some of them are very interested. The Lost Woods they each know aren’t exactly the same, but the name has always meant something significant, or led to someplace important to their journeys.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I tell every other traveller. There’s something dangerous hiding in those Woods. Try to avoid wandering in there.”

Time makes a little noise of acknowledgement. “Alright, thanks for the heads up,” he says, but the rest of the group knows what he really means.

Looks like their next destination is clear. If there’s anything their adventures have taught them, it’s that if anyone tells you not to go someplace… then obviously, you go there. The common sense of heroes.

The old man nods, then soon departs from their midst, seeing that he’s given them all the info he has to offer. Whatever these strange adventurers do with the knowledge is up to them.

“So, new hero of a new era?”

The sudden question has all of them turning to the source, and the sight of Hyrule sitting up in his bed without a hint of the previous concussion in his demeanor fills them with relief.

“Hyrule! You’re awake!” Wind exclaims. He launches himself at the bed, and Hyrule chuckles, wrapping an arm around the younger hero’s shoulders and ruffling his hair with the other.

“I feel fantastic,” he smiles, a bit confused. He runs his tongue over his teeth with a thoughtful look on his face. Whatever they used to heal him tasted… very familiar. Very close. “What was in that potion?”

“Fairy dust, apparently,” Warriors answers. “Seems like around here, getting fairy dust is easy enough that folks treat it like the common green rupee.”

Ah. That may explain it, at least in part. The part where the potion had tasted like home – not the caves and the desolate lands of his world, but rather like the comforting thought of a place to belong… not so much.

“Anyway, let me take a look at that ankle,” Hyrule says, choosing not to dwell on it too much. “And don’t think I don’t see you sitting on those bruised ribs of yours, Time.”

Time raises his palms up, acquiescing easily to their resident healer.

“When’d you wake up, traveller?” Legend asks.

Hyrule shrugs. “Around the time the old man threatened to socially exile us if we weren’t nice to their Link. People in this world are protective of their Hero, huh? How novel.”

“Yeah, well, he sure seems like a social butterfly,” Legend remarks dryly. “And people don’t just know him – practically everyone seems like they’re absolutely confused by that guy’s existence, or perfectly willing to die to defend him, or both, and in any case, they all have a lot to say to us about it.”

Hyrule blinks, looks to the others for an explanation, but really, Legend had summed it up quite well. “Now I’m very curious about this hero,” he says. “I hear we’re going to the Lost Woods? And where’s Twilight?”

Time sighs, and oh look, there’s that tired and concerned expression on his face – the one they’ve all identified by now as the face that Time gets when he’s giving himself an aneurism worrying over everything all at once. Time is a young-looking man, despite their teasing, but the extra years really show when he starts piling all the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Twilight hasn’t met up with us yet, but we can’t afford to sit around and wait for him to show up. With any luck, the Lost Woods might lead to something that can give us a hint about where we might find him or the new hero,” Time says, wearily rubbing the skin between his brows.

Legend shrugs, and pointedly does not mention the fact that their luck has a reputation of being legendarily bad. Warriors rolls his eyes and Hyrule smiles knowingly. “Sounds like a plan.”

There are intruders in the Woods again.

It’s the Skull Kids who tell him. Directly, this time, and without the same tolerance they had with the divine beast. He’s just wandered out of the warm glade in Korok Forest when the fog rolls in thick around him, carrying the agitated call on their swirls.

Strange, familiar, not one of our own, they whisper, sounding exactly like the unsettled spirits they are, none of the usual whimsical laughter masking their nature. We know them from a dream, but not our dream. Does not belong!

We loop them. But they learn the Path, comes the quiet hiss in his ear, childish and upset. They follow the Rules.

And… that’s concerning. It sounds like there’s a whole group of trespassers. The Skull Kids aren’t usually so bothered by travellers in the forest, because they can always whisk them back to the entrance whenever they wander outside the boundaries of the torch-lit path. They usually aren’t even bothered when travellers do happen to follow the embers, because that means they’re still respecting the game the Kids have devised.

If these peculiar travellers are doing everything they’re supposed to, playing the game, and the Skull Kids are still unhappy that they’re in their woods – it must mean something bad. An omen.

So Link goes out and investigates, because he does not want anything like an omen making its way to the pure grounds of Korok Forest. Especially when he harbors Hylia’s divine beast there, who now slumbers peacefully under the watchful protection of the Deku Tree and all the curious little Koroks.

When he reaches out and searches for that beacon, he finds it immediately. Almost too easily. Almost as if it comes to him, instead of making him work to pinpoint it. He frowns, a bit disconcerted.

He almost doesn’t need the beacon, as it turns out, because the fresh footprints in the topsoil are unmistakable. Crouching in his perch on a tree root to more closely inspect the prints, the first thing he wonders about them is how all of them are Hylian in make. No pointy Gerudo heels or giant Goron feet. No Rito talons. And the Hyrule Forest is too isolated from any rivers for the Zora to bother coming out here.

Heavy boots, he thinks next. Confident in step and familiar with fighting. Thick soles. Worn, he identifies. Well traveled, with the dust of lands he doesn’t recognize.

Not from Hyrule? His brow creases deeper under his hood, because while he’d explored all the edges of Hyrule, he’s never once dared to go beyond. He isn’t sure what would happen if he ever took this body out of Hylia’s doman. That these are intruders not only in the Lost Woods but also on Hylia’s land itself does nothing to reassure him.

The skin on his nape prickles, tiny hairs standing on end.

An owl spirit in the branches above his head ruffles its feathers out in offense, and then takes off into the mist. He grows still and quiet, only now realizing how close those beacons have drawn while he’d been distracted. His ears twitch when the sound of footsteps tromping haphazardly through the underbrush reach him. The Skull Kids must have looped them again.

He shifts carefully, rolling his weight onto the balls of his feet and trusting the flex of the root to serve as his spring if he needs to move fast. The sounds of the travellers grow ever louder, twigs snapping and pebbles tossing and dirt churning. He hears the clanks of armor and sword sheaths, the metallic crinkle of chainmail. No wonder all the animals and spirits have disappeared from the vicinity, if this is how they move through the forest. He decides to let this noisy crowd come to him, crouched with his toes curling into bark.

Soon the orange glow of a torch eats through the cool ambience of the fog. There’s a scuffle like someone had tripped over something, followed by a muffled curse from a young voice.

“I’m a godsdamned pirate,” that voice is in the middle of saying. “I have sea legs, not – not fuckin’ tree root legs.”

The warm torch flame floods into Link’s clearing, blinding him for a moment as his eyes adjust to the harsh glare of man-made light.

“Maybe you just need to lift your feet higher,” another voice chuckles teasingly. Older, smoother in cadence. “Although I’m not sure how much that would help, considering your – “ A sharp intake of breath. “Who are you?”

Link blinks, tilting his head so the shadow of his hood would fall over his face and provide some shade against the brightness. He looks at the group emerging from the mists. Sees seven Hylians, colorful clothing of all textures and material, the shine of armor and swords across all their backs. His blood turns abruptly cold, and he becomes very, very still.

They look just about as startled to see him as he is to see them. But Link is sure that he is the only one staring with mute horror in his eyes.

The Goddess’ Blessing burns its bright brand onto every one of the intruders, marking all seven of them as Her chosen Heroes.

He knows the legends. The people of Hyrule have been very eager to pass on what they know about the tales of the old Heroes whenever he asks. The stories are admirable for sure, but for someone to go so far in their reverence that they would cross such a line…

“Imposters,” he snarls almost soundlessly in his rage. This is worse than the Yiga traitors have ever done. This is an insult greater than he could have ever imagined.

He has no idea how they found a way to mimic the Blessing of the Goddess so thoroughly, but the fact that they’ve managed to make it feel this authentic only makes their disrespect more criminal. The sacrilege these pretenders commit by wearing such false divinity upon their skin, spitting on Hylia’s sacred name.

“Sorry, what was that?” asks the tall one with the blue cloth around his neck. His smile is friendly, but his blue eyes are icy, searching for weak points. “Didn’t quite hear you.”

“Did we run into some kind of weird forest goblin?” mutters another. Flinty eyes, hair an odd shade of pink on one side. Rings of all shapes looped through fingers, each emanating subtle magic.

And the one who towers over them all, wearing a shining suit of armor and a scar sealing one eye closed. He lifts a hand to the rest as if to quiet them down. That one’s the leader, Link thinks.

“Hello there,” the man greets, smiling affably. Beyond the red haze of fury, there’s a small part of Link that wonders what the colorful drawings on his face mean. “We’re sorry if we’ve frightened you, but we’re trying to find our way through these woods. Perhaps you can help us out?”

He makes them sound like a couple of harmless lost travellers, but Link notices the way he stands, how he’s ready to reach for his sword the moment he sees a threatening sign.

They all move like that – utterly aware of their surroundings and themselves. They know how to fight for their lives and how to protect each other. He sees how they have spread themselves out, surrounding him in a loose formation while still giving the illusion that he still has an escape route. Experienced warriors, every single one of them.

He doesn’t know what they see when they look at him, but he must strike a suspicious figure in their eyes.

(This is actually what they see: a small silhouette crouched atop a thin tree root, looking weightless and otherworldly. The torch just barely catches the dark fabric of a cloak, covering any distinguishable features. Two dirty bare feet and two similarly bare hands peeking from the cloak serve their only indications as to whether this stranger is even humanoid in shape, the edge of scars barely visible, creeping up one cuffed pant leg.

What they see is a fey creature half shrouded in pale fog and cloak, favoring them with a gaze so heavy they can nearly feel it, despite the fact they can’t even see a face beneath the shadows of that hood.)

Link shifts slightly, and observes how they move with him, not moving a hair and still adjusting for the possibility that he might attack them. He nearly snarls again. Disrespectful. Deceitful. Shameless pretenders.

“Why do you seek the path?” he barely manages to hiss out.

The one who’d spoken last hesitates, and Link can taste the lie crawling up the man’s throat. “Don’t lie,” he says, anger making his voice soft and whispery.

As the one-eyed man sucks in a startled breath, another one of his companions speaks up. The one in green and brown, with humble eyes. “We’re looking for the Hero of this Hyrule,” he says quietly, as if to placate a wild animal.

Link twitches. “The Hero is dead.”

This makes them blanch. “Then, has Ganon triumphed in this land?” asks the humble one, sounding a bit horrified.

“Ganon has been defeated.”

“Who defeated him?”

There’s a long silence, as Link tries to figure out why these imposters are asking these bizarre questions. Why they are so specific in wording. Why they’re searching for him. In the end, it remains a stalemate, and he gives them their answer just to move along.

“I did,” he says plainly, “But I am not your Hero.”

He hears the shift in demeanor when he says the first two words. How they suddenly look at him with curiosity and excitement, more open than the guarded wariness from before.

“It can’t be,” says one of them, “We found him that fast?”

“Our luck cannot be this good,” comes the responding mutter.

The small one in blue who’d tripped earlier furrows his brow in confusion. “If you fought Ganon and saved Hyrule, that means you’re the Hero,” he says.

“And it makes our job a lot easier,” the one with many rings interjects, propping a hand on his hip. “We’re fellow Heroes of the Goddess, just like you. All of us are on a mission to fix a series of interdimensional issues caused by a common enemy to all the Hyrules, and as another Hero, you’ll be joining us on it.”

Many-ringed one says this all with a weary expression, which may even be called bored. As though it is obvious, a script line read too many times. As though it is the simplest and most self-evident thing in the world.

“No.” Link speaks, and this time he can’t control the way a part of his voice drops several octaves deeper, reaching frequencies that should not come from mortal vocal chords. The single word ends up coming out as if two voices are saying it, overlapping each other in a way that is unmistakably Other.

“I am not the Hero. And I do not listen to fake heroes,” he continues, just barely drawing his voice back together into something vaguely Hylian. “Turn back. You have no place here.”

This makes a few of them splutter. “What – fake?!”

Their leader is shaking his head. “We have the Master Sword to prove it,” he says calmly, like this is all expected. He gestures to another at his side, one with an embroidered white cloth draped over his shoulders. “Go on, Sky.”

The one they call Sky reaches up for the sword on his back, as Link grows ever tense. “Only the Hero of Hyrule can wield the Master Sword. No other person may touch it,” he tells him as he unsheathes the blade. “Surely you’ve wielded it yourself in your quest? Don’t you recognize her voice?”

He holds out the shining sword, and Link wants to physically recoil from it. Immediately he can tell he doesn’t recognize any of it. Certainly, the appearance is accurate, all the colors correct, all the shapes formed rightly. But still he bristles at the sight of the fraudulent sword.

The Master Sword he knows has never felt like that. So young, so unfledged. Newly forged, so recent it may as well be still warm from the fires. Atoms just beginning to settle into place. Her song so loud and clear it rings like an alarm in his ear. Where is the ancient wisdom of the blade spirit, so infinite and raw with power? Where are all the thousands of years that have lived in the blade? No, this cannot be the Master Sword. This is a fake, too.

Link hisses. “No,” he repeats, not knowing what else to say in the face of such atrocity, feeling so very confused and horrified. How Hylia does not smite these lying deceivers where they stand for insulting her heroes so far, he does not understand. Perhaps she has always been a gentle goddess.

The many-ringed one heaves a sigh, looking exasperated. “Listen here, you brat,” he snaps, stepping closer to Link’s space. “Just because you know how to say a word really scarily doesn’t change the fact that we’re on a goddess-given quest –”

“Legend –” The one with the blue scarf starts to warn.

“No, Warriors, this needs to be heard – and it’s your duty as the Hero to help us. You can deny it all you want, but you obviously recognize the Master Sword and you admit it yourself that you defeated Ganon,” Legend jabs out a finger out towards Link’s face, “So that makes you the gods-be-damned Hero, and – GYAH!”

The group jumps at his sudden yell. They see Legend backing up several steps, clutching a hand to his chest. “The punk bit me!” he exclaims, sounding more shocked and indignant than anything.

They turn their attention back to Link, but he’s already moving. Springing nimbly off his perch, he lands in the middle of the group, aiming for nothing more than to disorient them enough to create distance. It doesn’t exactly work, because he hadn’t been expecting the group of warriors weighed down by armor and mail to react just as quickly as he does.

When someone takes the first swing, he almost feels relieved, because this is finally something that makes sense to him.

The new hero is fast. The fact that the all-time paranoid veteran Legend hadn’t been able to avoid getting bitten – which will never not be funny from here on – is enough of a testament to that impressive speed.

Four thinks he’d be able to appreciate it more if they weren’t trying to catch the slippery guy at the moment.

‘No swords!’ Violet tells Blue, ‘We’re trying to get this guy on our side, not chop an arm off!’

‘Come on, all I’ve seen is a spoiled little shit,’ Blue scoffs. ‘Giving him a lesson in respecting peers seems pretty called for.’

Red sighs. ‘Can’t we just stay calm and talk it out? We’re all heroes, we should be able to get along.’

It doesn’t exactly matter what Four argues about in his head, though, because the next moment, he catches the glint of sharp steel, and – uh huh, there’s Warriors with his knight’s blade in hand, grinning like a loon. Then there’s a poof, a sprinkling of leaves, of all things, and suddenly a sword has appeared in the cloaked hero’s hand, too.

‘Aw, jeez, Warriors,’ Green grumbles, even as Four reaches for his own sword. ‘Way to pump the bellows at the flaming forge!’

It’s messy. It’s chaotic. Seven of them against one squirrely rascal isn’t as easy as it sounds. The trees keep getting in the way and it’s cramped with so many people in such a small area. Warriors had dropped the torch the second he drew his sword, so the fog keeps coming in, obscuring their visions and making it all the harder to navigate in the confusion.

The new hero is still prancing around barefoot, for crying out loud.

“That. Is. Enough!” Time roars explosively, after he’s finally gotten tired of trying to de-escalate in a calm manner. “Put your swords away! We are not fighting each other!”

It’s a bit comforting to know that Time’s trademark Gaze of Absolute Disappointment doesn’t just work within their known circle, because it makes the cloaked figure in their midst freeze in place for a quick second. Four spies the opportunity and flicks his sword around, using it to twist the weapon out of the hero’s hands. Metal clatters to the ground, and the hero unfreezes.

Seems like if fighting isn’t an option, then running away is the final decision.

As the cloaked hero streaks by him, Wind lunges out to make a blind grab. “Wait!” He doesn’t even look where his hands are going, just reaching for whatever he can get a hold of. “Hold the fuck up! We just wanna––”

His fingers snag a handful of the guy’s hood, wrenching it off in the next moment. Wind nearly feels his feet leave the ground when he isn’t quick enough to let go, and the momentum yanks his arm forward. He stumbles, catches a glimpse of tan skin, golden hair, before his face smashes into the stranger’s back.

“Oof!” he grunts, and then he’s being pushed back as the hero retreats to a safer distance. Warriors catches him almost absently before he falls again. Wind blinks rapidly in bewilderment, wondering what the shit just happened.

The rest of them stare in silence.

Sky finds himself the closest to the hero, and therefore facing him down most directly. He looks at that scarred face, those bright eyes, the long hair woven loosely into a braid. Strands have fallen out, fluttering freely by his face. There’s a sluggishly bleeding cut on his cheek, nicked by someone’s sword in the confused scuffle from before. Sky is suddenly struck by how very young the new hero looks. The teenager can’t be much older than Wind.

Then he looks straight at Sky. Unnaturally blue eyes. So bright it flies right off the spectrum, practically glowing in the swirling mist. A heavy gaze, looking right into Sky’s soul. All the air in his lungs escapes him, as he finds himself breathless, feeling something immense and unconquerable suddenly loom up invisibly before him.

It's a second that lasts an eternity, and for one of the few, rare times in his life, he truly feels what it's like to be prey. Even final dungeon bosses have never managed to make him feel so insignificant, so utterly small.

Beside him, Hyrule makes a noise like he’s been punched in the gut.

There’s a glimpse of light through the fog, peeking through the wisps, and a light jingle they all recognize. A fairy comes floating out into sight, and she heads straight for the still-unnamed hero. They watch in somewhat fascinated bewilderment as he lifts a hand to receive the fairy, and she tucks herself close to him.

All that frightening presence just a moment before falls away, like it never even happened in the first place. And they end up looking at a boy with tender eyes whispering softly at a fairy, who twists her tiny hands into his hair and flutters her wings against his fingers. She makes an unhappy little chime at the blood on his face, smoothing a hand over his skin, before she presses a kiss to his cheek. The cut seals itself up right before their eyes.

The hero closes his eyes half shut, tips his head a little, as if in a dream. The fairy pets his hair as he breathes slowly in. Then out. He opens his eyes fully to fix them with a glare, keen as the edge of a knife and just as lethal.

Those scars warp and twist, as the strange hero of this strange Hyrule bares his teeth at them.

“Leave.” Out comes the word, nearly bitten to shreds before it’s even through the barrier of clenched teeth. “Never come back.”

Then he turns his back on them, followed closely by the fairy, and vanishes into the mist.

Chapter Text

Twilight wakes up to the smell of green stuff. Tree sap. Fresh leaves. Flowers. Grass. There’s a vague sense of movement around him, feeling small and — excited, for some reason. His right ear flicks reflexively when he feels something pass quickly over his head. Finally, he decides to open his eyes.

“Yah-ha!” A strange little creature in front of him squeaks out in surprise, before it spins on a stubby foot and poofs out of existence.

Twilight blinks at the empty spot where it’d just been.

He’s not alone, however. There are more of these things, in all shapes and with different leaf faces, hidden in the foliage and crowded in the branches. They’re practically buzzing in excitement at him as he slowly gets up. Twilight stares back, feeling so utterly bewildered. Something’s on his head, he realises, when a flower petal slips down over his snout.

He finds himself in one of the most peaceful, most lively places he has ever seen, a leafy grove bathed in ethereal light, golden rays spilling from the thick canopy overhead. Tiny pink petals twirl unharried to the ground, though he can’t see the tree they come from. Bizarre pea-pod lights glow softly beneath some of the biggest tree roots he’s ever seen. They’re so big he nearly doesn’t even recognize them as such.

He has no idea where he is. He’d been wounded hadn’t he? Pretty badly, if he remembers correctly.

He must have transformed after he went down. In his wolf form, pains of his body become… less. No more healed, but at least it takes off the edge of agony, just enough so he can move a bit more on four paws than he can on two legs. He remembers the fuzzy pain, his fur becoming wetter and heavier with his own blood, the ground wavering beneath his limbs as if the world could not stay corporeal for more than two seconds.

He doesn’t know how he’d been able to drag himself into the woods, but he remembers smelling living wood and damp roots and the musk of content animals and it had all registered into some vague sense of I will be safe there. He’d latched onto that scent and followed it just as he has done so many times before, trusting his nose to lead him to safety when all his other senses are slowly falling away from him, taken by the haze of blood loss.

Somehow, he must have made it. Somehow, he was found by a group of benevolent forest spirits.

He’s heard the stories from his village. Every backwater village has their own slew of folk tales and local ghost stories to tell their children, to scare them in hopes that the naughty ones would behave. How effective it actually was, he can’t tell, seeing how it never quite stuck with him when he was young. But still, Twilight remembers the ones they told about the Lost Children.

Disobedient children will get taken away by the forest, they’d said. Play too many tricks, tell too many lies, and the mischievous forest imps will think that you’re one of them. Children who wander too far away from their parents won’t be able to find their way back home. They’ll be kept by the trees, doomed to wander the woods forever. Stumbling over the brambles, hungry and hopeless, until their hair turn into weeds, their little feet grow roots, and they eventually become a part of the forest itself.

Don’t listen to the laughter on the wind, the stories warned. Don’t look for eyes in the leaves. If you ever find old stone stairs that lead up to nowhere, don’t go climbing them.

Twilight had never really taken much stock in those stories, which the gossipy aunties passed around the water well and superstitious elders liked to spook the village kids with. At least, not until he arrived at the Sacred Grove, looking for the Master Sword. There, meeting the Skull Kid and following their giggles in the fog as he ran through twisting, winding paths that all seemed to blend into each other after too many turns – it made him suddenly question just how much of a fairy tale all those stories really are.

Still, none of them mention that those forest spirits like to weave flower crowns and make little offering piles of nuts and berries to a giant wolf.

There’s a rustle off to his right, and then a soft patter of feet against ground, announcing the arrival of –

A kid.

Teenager, if Twilight’s being honest. Older than Wind, at least. Still, the way the cloaked teen tumbles out of the ferns brings to mind the way foals run around in springtime pastures, or how the kids of the Ordon goat herd used to skip playfully around his waist.

Though he feels no wind blowing in the grove, there’s something… astir about this one. In motion. ‘In play,’ Twilight might even say. Even with dark fabric hiding half his features in shadow. Perhaps it’s those loose strands of golden hair drifting out of his hood, like he has his own current wrapped around him. Maybe it’s the way he moves, fluid grace and childish stumble combining together to make something profoundly empyrean.

Or maybe, above it all, it’s the scent of him. The smell of wildflowers and sweet pollen, decaying tree bark and fallen acorns. The kid smells exactly like the spirit grove Twilight has woken up in and he has no doubt that he’s looking at another one of its residents.

“You’re awake,” says the maybe-spirit, sounding surprised. A smile full of delight brightens his face, even under the shadows of the hood, crinkling at the corner where a scar runs over his jaw.

There’s another one of those little tree creatures sitting comfortably in his arms. Though not for long, as he carefully sets the wiggling thing atop a tree stump. It droops sadly from where it’s been left and makes disappointed noises at him.

He pats it fondly on its head. “Sorry, we’ll play later,” he laughs, and the sound echoes like a song in Twilight’s twitching ears.

They keep twitching. Twilight can’t seem to get his ears to stop flicking back and forth, swiveling on his head and trying to capture all the sounds. There’s something like ethereal music threaded into the very fibers of this place, which would otherwise be silent to his human eardrums. He has to remind himself not to activate Sense to look at his surroundings. He’ll probably blind himself trying to do it.

“They’ve been restless. Worried about you,” he tells Twilight, turning back to him.

Twilight just sits on his haunches, studying scattered patches of light dance over that hooded head as the kid moves. Some of his confusion must show, somehow, in some way, because the explanation comes readily:

“Koroks. They care for all the trees in Hyrule. They’re curious about you.”

The words are said so lovingly, so tenderly. Twilight silently questions if he’s also looking at another one of the forest ilk, and if so, why it has decided to take on the form of a Hylian teenager.

Those scars catch his attention again. They’re deep, raised, and extensive, crawling all up his neck and the left side of his face, disappearing into the cloak’s hood. Judging by the exposed skin from his cuffed sleeves and pants, the rest of his body hasn't been spared either.

Twilight wonders hard at them, wonders why someone so young would have scarring so old, and how he could have ever survived them. Perhaps Twilight isn’t meeting another forest spirit from the tales. Perhaps this is a ghost of those stories – a child who died somewhere beneath a lonely tree and got adopted by the wilderness, his lost spirit fated to play with the other forest critters until eternity’s end.

The spirit child draws near, coming no more than three paces away before settling down on his heels. He crosses his arms over his knees and sways languidly back and forth on his feet, toes curling into the grass. Like this, crouching with Twilight sitting attentively before him, the top of his head comes only up to Twilight’s pale-furred chin.

“This is the edge of Korok Forest,” the kid tells him. He uncrosses one arm to brush his fingers through the grass on the ground, full of restless movement even while stationary. “I brought you here. It’s safe.”

Oh, Twilight thinks when the realization hits. Well… this is awkward. He’s been spirited away, hasn’t he?

Twilight can’t help chuffing a little in amusement. Never did he think that he would be one of those children in those stories had warned about, especially at the age that he is now. He gets up to his feet, and the kid sits back, watching Twilight with those piercing eyes of his.

These spirits seem rather benign so far, accepting him into their home like this, but Twilight isn’t so sure if they will allow him to leave just as easily. Spirits like to keep the things they’ve taken a liking towards, he’s heard.

He takes the few steps to close the distance, and the kid simply holds still while Twilight sniffs the air around him, trying to find any bad intentions or deceit. But no, he merely smells honest and pure. No bad blood on him. And his reaction to Twilight… it’s an uncanny one.

Most people usually don’t like an oversized predator getting so close and in their faces. He’s used to the frightened looks and the reflexive lashing out, the screaming while running away. He isn’t so accustomed to the open trust this one so freely gives him.

“Hylia must have a purpose in sending her divine beast here,” the kid murmurs softly, face so close that Twilight feels the flutter of warm breath against his fur. He lifts his hand, slowly enough to give Twilight the chance to move away, and when Twilight stays where he is, runs scarred fingers gently through the fur on his scruff.

“Your journey feels… finished. But you’re still Hunting,” he seems to think out loud, a little thoughtful furrow to his brow.

Rather than responding to any of his words, Twilight finds himself closing his eyes and leaning in. The kid makes a small, happy sound, his hands wandering up to pet Twilight around the ears.

Ridiculous. Twilight isn’t a dog. He’s a big wolf with a mouthful of pointy teeth. He’s a Hylian ranch hand and master swordsman marked with the Triforce. He’s… allowing himself to be scritched behind the ears by a forest spirit because it feels absolutely amazing.

It feels like someone running their fingers through his hair. It’s gentle, soothing, and without a trace of unkindness. He isn’t even alarmed by the fact that this kid seems to recognize what he is, or at least the form he’s in right now. What can he hide from the eyes of a spirit, after all?

This isn’t precisely the same as the Spirits of Light, he’s somehow aware. Rather than physical beings, the province guardians are more like concepts given visible form, respectively vaguely shaped into a monkey, owl, snake, and deer. But still, it’s similar. Because when he catches sight of those eyes once more, Twilight can easily tell that this – whatever this kid is – is not entirely as young as his appearance and behavior suggests.

It’s something unquantifiable, something like too old or too colossal, too much to comprehend. When Twilight regards him with the instincts of a beast, instead of a Hylian man, that is the sense he gets about the kid, who now fully sits on the grass happily burrowing his fingers all into Twilight’s fur without a care in the world.

It’s a good sense, though, and that’s why he sits still when he feels the kid bury his face lovingly into the fluffy underside of his neck. Twilight is very glad none of the others are present. He will never live it down if any of them knew that Wolfy the big ferocious battle companion has been reduced to a giant stuffed animal in the face of an ancient spirit child.

“You’re warm,” the kid whispers, and Twilight feels the words, rather than hearing them. “And… you feel kind. I wish Hylia will let you stay longer.”

Somehow, it sounds like he knows the Goddess personally. As if he’s on a first-name, casual conversation, friendly basis with the all-knowing deity that the lands of all the Hyrules have worshipped since conception. It’s strange. Almost concerning. But then again, everything that’s happened since Twilight woke up has been so far bewilderingly alien to him. Perhaps this is just another peculiarity of this place.

Which, he realises, very likely means that this is a new Hyrule. He hasn’t heard about anything like this before. Although… Koroks do sound familiar. He needs to find the others. Hopefully this warp has been easier on them than it’s been for him.

Twilight turns his head, nudges his cold wet nose into a soft cheek. He gets a giggle out of it, airy and bell-like, like he’s hearing a second voice underlaying the sound. Taking the hint, the kid retreats and stands, allowing Twilight to get to his feet again. He looks around, trying to discern a path out amongst all the lush greenery around him. Perhaps it would be too easy to have a clearly labeled sign that said ‘exit’?

A few of those Koroks floating weightlessly on little leaf propellers drift closer to them. One of them titters out something that rises up at the end like a question. The smile slips a little on the kid’s face, and he murmurs in reply, “I think so. They’re gone for now.” A troubled edge appears in his voice. “The Kids are helping me keep them out.”

Seems that wherever Twilight had landed himself, the inhabitants aren’t without their own slew of problems. He really needs to regroup with the others before he gets caught up in a battle without any sort of back up.

Twilight wanders over to the cloaked teen. Nudges him a little to get his attention, and then – pauses. How to ask for directions with wolf vocal cords? A mystery Twilight hasn’t been able to decipher yet, unfortunately. And he can’t possibly transform right in front of strangers. Spirits or not, there’s no telling what will happen if these beings suddenly discover a Hylian man in their territory.

Exit, the exit, Twilight thinks very hard, pressing his side beseechingly against the kid’s elbow. I need to leave. Please let me leave, friendly forest folk. I’m awful grateful that you healed me, but I hope you’re not planning on keeping me here forever.

Maybe if he just thinks it hard enough, it’ll get through? Twilight knows he doesn’t act very much like the typical canine animal, because he isn’t one, but now he does his best to remember what little he knows about the body language of dogs. He’d always been more of an Ordon goat guy himself, to be honest.

Scarred fingers sink into his ruff, gently carding through the thick fur there. “You’re leaving now?” the kid asks, and Twilight doesn’t know how he’s done it, what sort of mystical spirit power that’s allowed him to detect Twilight’s unspoken brainwaves, but his ears prick up and swivel forward in automatic affirmation. “Okay, I’ll show you the way.”

Thank the goddess. These aren’t those kinds of spirits. Twilight eagerly follows the kid around the grove, trotting through forest litter and the spongy duff layer underneath, splashing through a few puddles.

The Koroks follow them all the way, some of them popping up here and there in the distant undergrowth, more of them simply trailing alongside them in happy little parade lines along the path. A few of the bolder ones drop themselves right on top of the kid’s head, over his hood, the rest hanging off his shoulder. One latches onto his finger, and he swings it playfully around as he walks.

‘Again! Again!’ Twilight can practically hear the excited noises the Korok makes turning into comprehensible words, sounding so similar to the young children who played in his village, scampering around everyone’s knees.

The babble of the forest is a charming melody all around Twilight, and soon enough, he gains a couple extra companions on his back. The Koroks are light presences, their movements airy and their touches dainty as they get comfortable in the nooks of his shifting shoulders as he moseys along, expressing obvious joy at his fur.

They walk until the golden light fades and a cool glow soon radiates around them, coming in through the fog that now hovers around the trees. The trees themselves have changed as well, becoming leafless and jaggedy. Twilight could’ve sworn that a couple of them have what look like faces carved into their trunks. The warmth of the grove has left them, and so have many of the Koroks that have followed them. Too far away from their home, Twilight guesses, though he can’t be sure.

The small weights on his back chatter out a few notes that may be farewells, before they, too, leave their ensemble. Soon all that remains in the quiet foggy woods is Twilight, following the spirit child, and a orange-leafed Korok hanging off his elbow.

Up a hill they go, and – yep. That’s a face alright. They come to a stop in front of a thick-trunked tree with a gaping smile. There’s a stone block half-hidden in the overgrowth, though Twilight can’t quite make out the scribbles inscribed into it. The Korok with the orange leaf face climbs onto the block and jumps up and down excitedly on it. The kid nods to it, bestowing a headpat that makes the little Korok straighten proudly upon its perch, before it promptly disappears with a poof.

The kid turns back to Twilight and points to the absolute menace of a tree. “The ogre tree’s mouth will take you outside,” he says, sounding completely matter-of-fact about it. A smile appears on his face, and he says reassuringly, “It won’t eat you.”

The tree looks very much like its maw might just clamp down on an unsuspecting victim at any time, but then again, it isn’t like Twilight would know better. Perhaps it’s an aesthetic choice? Here’s to hoping it is.

“I wish I could do more,” the kid murmurs a bit regretfully. He rubs a thumb idly over the stone. “But… I have to protect these woods. And Hylia wouldn’t be happy if I hindered your Hunt.”

He uses words that are at once familiar and foreign to Twilight, putting different meanings and strange emphases on things that should seem commonplace. Twilight cocks his head to the side in quiet, wolfish confusion, wondering what the kid refers to with this mention of hunting.

This, unfortunately, also has the side effect of making the wreath of flowers still on his head slip around his ears and flop over his eyes. Pollen tickles his nose, and Twilight sneezes greatly. Twice.

He snuffles afterward and paws at the wreath that's now blindfolding him, feeling vaguely affronted. His clumsy efforts are halted when a pair of hands reach over and detangle the flowers from his face. The crown of flowers lifts free, allowing Twilight to see the sweet smile the kid has on his face as he takes back the flower crown.

What a gentle creature, Twilight thinks, finding himself already so endeared and oddly attached to someone he has only met that very day.

Then the kid lowers the hood from his head. And Twilight freezes in place.

“The Koroks make the prettiest crowns, but I think it’ll just get in your way,” comes the absent murmur, as the kid drops the crown of woven flowers onto his golden hair. He beams at Twilight, eyes the brightest shade of blue to ever exist. “You can come back anytime you want another. Good hunting, Mr. Wolf.”

And with that – an open invitation, freely given, welcoming Twilight back into the spirits’ grove at the heart of this misty forest – he also disappears, melting into the pale fog just as quickly and abruptly as his Korok friends.

Twilight spends a few moments staring dumbfoundedly into the obscure distance, like it could give him any explanation. He looks back in the direction where the kid had gone, long golden hair trailing behind him.

Away from the dazzling eden of the grove, the unearthliness radiating from its inhabitants, it is easier to think with a clear mind, like a spell lifted. Twilight thinks back to what he’s seen. Then… he wonders.

The spirit child looks like Time.

And he looks like Four just as Hyrule looks like Sky, and Legend looks like Twilight, and Wind looks like Warriors. He looks the same way they all kind of look like each other, even through all their obvious differences in physique and height and mannerism.

As if viewing a memory through another person’s eyes. Or seeing a painting of himself within a dream inside of a dream, rough paint strokes capturing the bare impressions of his features. The Heroes of Hyrule are all kaleidoscopes of each other.

What does it mean then, that the one who saved him looks so much like a Hero?

The wayward heroes settle around their campfire, weary and cold and more than a little unnerved by a forest that had suddenly turned unfriendly the moment the new hero had vanished from their sights.

When the mist had only drifted passively before, now it seems like it actively tries to disorient their sense of direction. The torches they’d once been able to follow have been blown out. Trees with jagged smiles twist in place to laugh silently at them when their backs are turned. Branches fall from the treetops too often and much too precisely to be coincidence. The dirt snags at their feet, eating away at their every footstep as if it seeks to drag them down beneath the grassy depths. The eyes of woodland animals reflect from the shadows, watching them trip over roots with too-intelligent judgement.

It appears that, with the warning the barefoot hero had left them, the whole sprawling labyrinth of the Lost Woods had turned against them. All the trees, the underbrush critters, and even the deadened air – all amalgamating into a single organism united in keeping the heroes out of its hallowed grounds.

After a few more times making the same turns and ending up in exactly the same spot where they’d started out, Time had decided to call it a day and suggested the group retreat a safe distance outside the woods to attempt another trek the next day.

None of them had protested much. Hours of wandering through creepy, unfriendly woods had worn on them enough to begin feeling outright disturbed. Each of them had fought many formidable opponents in their lands before, but none of them had a lot of experience in fighting the land itself.

Even now, the eerie echoes of pitched laughter seem to nip at their heels, ringing just out of sight, just over their shoulders. It’s… familiar, for some of them. But they don’t see anything, so they don’t make the connection.

“That was,” Four starts when everyone has arranged themselves around the fire. He’s got an apple in his hand, looking at his paltry dinner for the night with a nonplussed look on his face. “Wow. Could’ve gone better, I’ll say.”

Legend rolls his eyes and sags against the fallen log he’s seated against. “No need to mince your words, Four. That new hero of ours is completely spirits-damned feral.”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Hyrule shoots back almost instantly. Then he blinks, looking surprised at himself.

“...Right,” Legend draws out the word, looking at Hyrule with narrowed eyes. “He’s a savage forest child who hates our guts, we probably can’t leave until he somehow agrees to join us, and Hyrule’s smitten.”

“I am not!” Hyrule looks aghast. He draws back right after the exclamation, though, seeming to take another second to think twice about it. Then he frowns so hard he actually looks a bit distressed. “Am – am I?

Legend stares in dismay at the usually composed hero, who’s currently staring at his hands in abject confusion, flexing his fingers as if he doesn’t know what to do with them. Legend scoffs, shaking his head. Great goddess above, what is going on?

“We still haven’t so much as an inkling as to where Twilight’s ambled off to, either,” he says snappishly, “This is turning out absolutely lovely, isn’t it?”

Time, on the other hand, suddenly looks extremely distracted. “Forest child, you say,” he murmurs.

“Yeah, Old Timer? Got something to share with the group? Having an emotional revelation like Hyrule here?”

Legend may be only making his usual quips as he so often tends to do when he’s feeling rattled by a situation that has spiralled unexpectedly out of control, but it really does seem like he has hit the truth fairly straight on.

Because Time does, in fact, look like he’s flipping through all the events that had happened in their disastrous first encounter with the new hero. He looks like a jeweler, holding each moment up to the light between his tweezers and reexamining each faceted detail, reviewing them through a new lens.

“I’ve never heard of a fairy coming to heal someone without being caught first. How’s that even fair?” Wind grumbles on the side, still rubbing his sore nose. The new hero doesn’t look like much, especially all wrapped up in that big cloak, but the back that Wind ran face-first into had the same solid musculature he’s more used to seeing in ocean-toughened, anchor-hauling sailors.

Warriors hums in agreement. “Never seen one of them doting on someone like that, either.”

Time is silent for a few more thoughtful seconds, a solemn look on his face as he thinks about something none of them can guess at.

“I believe,” Time says slowly, like he isn’t even sure he believes his own words, “that this Hyrule may be more similar to mine than I originally thought.”

They fall silent.

“Elaborate, Time,” Legend is the first to demand impatiently. “What do you mean, similar to yours?”

Time tilts his head. “Have I ever told you about the Kokiri?” He asks.

“I think you mentioned them one time when we landed in my Hyrule,” Wind says. “Old predecessors to my Koroks, right?”

“Right. Did I ever go into more detail?” At their negative responses, he hums. “I suppose not. It never really came up before.

“You see,” Time says, picking his sentences as slowly and carefully as before. This is much to Legend’s aggravation, who’s looking like he's going to start pulling teeth if Time doesn’t hurry it up. “The Kokiri are a race that lives inside my Hyrule’s Lost Woods. They’re also known, as Legend put it similarly earlier, as the Children of the Forest.”

Wind makes a contemplative ‘huh’ sound.

“They look like kids, they wear green,” Time says, sounding like he’s listing items off a checklist. “They’re each accompanied by their own fairy partner, and as long as they stay inside the Woods protected by the Deku Tree, they’re essentially immortal.”

Warriors narrows his eyes. “You think this new hero might be one of them?” he puts a hand to his chin, considering it. “I don't know… if that were the case, this world would be very close in the timeline to yours, and it doesn’t seem like you recognize much else.”

“Looked a bit old to be a child,” Four adds.

“Perhaps it’s not exactly the same, but this Hyrule may have a similar equivalent. Maybe I’m making connections that aren’t there, but I just have this feeling about it,” Time shrugs. “There are many differences, I’ll give you that.

“The hero obviously knows how to fight, while the Kokiri are generally peaceful.” Time’s voice becomes a bit wistful, and the nostalgic quirk to his mouth is very telling. “They like to play games all day and make music. They plant sproutlings for the Deku Tree, they encourage young birds on their first flight, and help clumsy fauns learn how to run. The closest thing they had to a weapon was a dinky shield and a little wooden Kokiri sword.”

“It sounds like you knew them personally,” Sky gently prompts. He’s got his arm comfortably around Hyrule, rubbing a soothing hand over one shoulder. Hyrule himself remains lost in thought, frowning confusedly down upon his own hands as if they were somehow misbehaving.

“Well… you wouldn’t be wrong,” Time smiles wryly. “I used to be one of them. Not in blood, though. Adopted as a baby.”

“Aha.” Warriors looks amused, pointing a finger at him. “Wild tree child. I knew there was something up about you. No one has a perfect record.”

Time raises an eyebrow. “You thought I was perfect?”

Belatedly realising his slip, Warriors looks the man straight in the eye and grins back. “You sure do make an effort of seeming like it,” he blusters, “With all your speeches about morals and what not.”

“Hold on a sec,” Four says. “Is this why Malon calls you Fairy Boy all the time?”

Time is about to reply with a sheepish look on his face when a loud gasp from Wind interrupts all of them. “Wait,” Wind cries, wide-eyed and alarmed like he’s had a terrible epiphany. “If we take that guy out of the forest, is he gonna die? Is that why he kept on telling us no?”

“I doubt it. How could he have fought Ganon if he couldn’t even take a step out of the woods without kicking the bucket?” Legend points out.

“That being said,” Sky says, “I think it’s clear there’s some sort of misunderstanding happening between us and him. A cultural difference, maybe, if Time’s guessing right.”

They sit on that thought for a moment, because Sky has intuited something some of them haven’t yet realized. Then Wind scrunches his face up, and wonders out loud, “Does this mean there’s more of them?”

They all collectively turn their heads to look toward the foggy woods beside which they’ve made their camp. Occasionally, a stray cackle drifts out of the branches, before dissipating like smoke.

They imagine a whole village of cloak-clad, barefoot teenagers, flitting around the trees with fairies at their beck and call. They imagine them being enraged that one of their own had been caught in a scuffle against a group of foreign Hylians, even injured, however slight it was. Perhaps the hero is the exception in terms of combat ability, or perhaps there’s a village full of equally fleet-footed, weapon-proficient warriors waiting for them right at the center of the Lost Woods.

“We’ll apologize,” Time decides.

Legend scowls. “Excuse me? What did we do? Offend the grass?”

“We don’t know,” says Time, “But it must have been something. I can’t imagine a Hero of Hyrule would hate his fellow warriors of spirit for no reason at all.”

There’s a bit of silence as their imaginations run away from them once more, and they think about a grim world in which the hero would hate his fellow incarnates innately. Apologizing and making amends it easy enough, but what if there is nothing to make amends over? What if this is another trial the goddess has set for them, to overcome a hate that is without reason, to welcome an unhappy hero into their group?

Eventually Warriors concludes, “No choice but to keep moving.”

Chapter Text

In the morning, Twilight returns to them.

“Hey! Twilight! You’re back!” Wind, who was taking the dawn watch, exclaims happily. “And you’re not even dead!”

“Yeah, yeah, no need to sound so surprised, ya little punk,” Twilight reaches over and ruffles the shorter hero’s hair in retaliation. The rest of the camp is jolted out of any lingering sleepiness by Wind’s shout of protest.

Wind waves his arms frantically, slapping Twilight’s hands away. “Oi, watch the hair!” He grumbles, trying to fix the rat’s nest his hair has gotten scrubbed into. “It’s not my fault you looked like you mighta keeled over from that last hit that darknut got in. It got real ugly for a second there.”

“You’d kill me off so easily? I’m hurt, Wind, truly.” Twilight clutches his chest in dramatic heartbreak.

“If what looked like a hundred broken bones didn’t finish you off, I doubt a broken heart will,” Wind replies readily, making Twilight snort.

The others crawl out of their bed rolls, coming over to welcome their previously lost eighth member back into their midst. Even Sky, though blinking blearily, manages to drag himself out of the clutches of sleep.

Warriors claps him on the back jovially. “Hey, glad you made it back in one piece!”

“Took you long enough,” Legend remarks.

“Welcome back,” Hyrule says simply, though no less warm. He looks a little distracted.

“You look,” Sky starts, then pauses to let out a giant yawn. “...pretty good, Twilight. Did you find some help? We’ve missed you.”

“Where have you been all this time?” Time looks like he’s one suspicious sneeze away from wrapping Twilight up in ten fluffy blankets and carrying him away to a stronghold high up in the mountains. “You’re not still hurt, are you? Where did you even come from?”

Going for the simple response, Twilight jabs a thumb back in the direction where he had come. The rest of them follow the line of his thumb to the looming forest nearby, shrouded by its perpetual, oddly sentient fog. A quiet moment passes them by as the correlation registers in their heads.

“You mean the Lost fuckin’ Woods?!” Wind shrieks.

“Eh,” says Twilight, blinking in surprise. He tries to explain himself, by starting with: “I was dying a bit from blood loss, you see, so I went in there, and... er, got lost –”

Time interrupts by letting out a wordless, slightly hysterical-sounding wheeze. They’re all staring at Twilight in part alarm, and part morbid fascination. Four’s eyebrows are raised up high, as he leans in and asks, “How did you manage to escape in one piece?”

“I’m shocked the laughing fog didn’t eat you alive, farmhand,” Legend says. “You fixed yourself up pretty well, considering the frankly horrific temper of that forest.”

“Huh,” Twilight says in yet another amazing feat of eloquence, so very much taken aback by their reactions. It seems like the others have already had their own experiences with the woods, confirmed by the fact that they’d been camping so near to it. Admittedly, Twilight didn’t spend that much time in what seems to be the more eerie section of the forest, but… “Laughing fog?”

Warriors’ smile is more like a grimace. “Yep, you heard right. That fog – it laughs at you.”

“Plays tricks on your eyes,” Wind says with a shudder. “The compass we got didn’t do jack shit in there.”

“Did you... see anyone?” Hyrule asks, looking at Twilight with a curiosity gleaming in his eyes that seems a little more intense than he’s used to seeing on the normally mellow-natured hero.

Twilight stares back at all of them, feeling his bewilderment climb a notch with every sentence spoken. “I was about to get to that part, actually.” Twilight slowly says, then stops, still unsure whether his hunch is right or not. “I think… I just met a new Hero. Or at least someone who looks like he could be one of us. Kid could be a spirit for all I know. He’s the one who helped me.”

And here Hyrule physically leans in. “Long hair, wears a cloak, eyes a shade of blue the likes of which you’ve never seen before?”

Twilight blinks. “Well. Sure sounds like you’ve met him too.”

“Oh, we met him alright,” Legend grumbles. “Practically got into a fight with us on the spot.”

“You... fought him?” Twilight can’t keep the scandalized outrage from his voice. He tries to imagine the sweet-faced teenager he’d met attacking anyone, and his mind stutters a little bit. Just trying to picture the kid being violent enough to engage in actual battle hurts his brain, much less picturing him taking on an entire group of well-armed heroes combined.

Legend slaps a hand over his eyes. “Aw, not you too.”

“What are you even talking about?”

“I swear there’s some sort of hex in the air, making perfectly rational-minded people fall in love with that rabid hero. I don’t know what you see in him.” Legend flings a hand in the air. “He’s hostile, uncommunicative, and spitting mad about something we don’t even know we did!”

“He saved my life,” Twilight says, a frown wrinkling the design on his brow, looking lost and starting to approach the beginnings of deep offense.

“He bit me like an animal.”

“Okay! Everyone,” Time cuts in to stop this mismatched conversation before it can devolve into a full-blown argument. “Intel meeting. It sounds like we have a lot catching up to do.”

Jumping on the opportunity to mediate, Sky nods in agreement. “I’d like to hear what happened on Twilight’s side of things before we make any more decisions. Right now, we’re operating on one interaction and a lot of assumptions. If we pool our information, maybe it can help us figure out what’s going on.”

Legend clicks his tongue in irritation and turns his head to the side. “Don’t you patronize me,” he growls lowly at Sky.

“Of course not. I’m proposing a strategy we can use to go forward,” Sky replies, smiling so brightly Legend looks like he has to squint against the force of it. “Shall we?”

Though he still rolls his eyes, Legend sounds significantly less caustic as he begrudgingly says, “By all means.”

“Wonderful,” Four mutters privately under his breath.

“So you just,” Twilight seems baffled. “Took his word for it?”

“I mean, you met him too, didn’t you?” Warriors shrugs. “Do you really think that anyone with a presence like that is just any random hermit living in the forest? Combined with his face, it’s pretty easy to believe that he’s the hero.”

“Though in my experience, random hermits in the woods may sometimes be a force to be reckoned with.”

“That’s beside the point, Legend.”

“The Master Sword didn’t reject him, either. I heard Fi. She had no problem with him,” Sky adds, a troubled edge to his expression. “In fact, it looked more like he rejected her.”

Time nods. “It was a strange encounter. Nothing went the way we’d hoped.”

A teen who looks like a spirit of nature, peaceful and caring, with gentle hands and an eagerness to help, and a thousand little forest friends.

And a wild creature, dangerous and unreasonably hostile, hissing verbal poison at them without cause, who seems like he barely belongs on the mortal plane.

It’s hard to say which of the two descriptions are the true nature of this world’s hero, but Time suspects it somewhere along the lines of a mix of the two. After all, every person behaves differently in different circumstances. That should be something they all know better than anyone. The Heroes tend to behave like a normal group of close friends, roughhousing and bantering amongst each other in equal measure. But when battle calls, well. It isn't exactly like a switch flipped, but the contrast is close enough.

“I wonder why his reaction to Twilight was so different, in comparison to how he treated us,” Time muses lightly.

Twilight shrugs, raising his hands like he’s weighing something in each. “Injured person bleeding out on the side of the road. Big group of strangers with swords. We probably made different first impressions.”

No time lost in between responses, but Time likes to think he knows Twilight well enough to recognize that twitch in eye contact, which usually means the younger man is avoiding something. He raises an eyebrow, not quite feeling convinced, but he concedes the point. “Fair enough.”

“Guess that debunks your Kokiri theory, huh,” Wind points out. “But hey, koroks! Love those little guys. Nice to know they’re around in this Hyrule.”

“Yea, I didn’t see anyone else. No treehouses or sorts.” Though it seemed like Twilight had been right on the outskirts of the area. ‘The edge of Korok Forest,’ the kid had said. He hadn’t exactly gotten a good gauge on how big the entire space is, so it may as well be capable of fitting an entire village in there.

Although, Twilight thinks back to those enormous roots he’d seen. So big, they’d been like walls, like great archways. They had blocked his view, and he hadn’t been able to even see where they all led to. Either a village… or a very, very big tree.

“So?” Four is the first to prompt. “What do we do now?”

“Attempt another pass, I suppose,” Time says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Doesn’t seem like there’s any other way around it.”

It’s true, and they all know it. Now that Twilight has regrouped with them, there’s really no reason to divert from their now-central goal – who is somewhere in the middle of the menacing Lost Woods.

“‘Spose not.” Warriors frowns out towards the foggy distance. It gets quiet in the camp. The rest of the group, barring perhaps Twilight, don’t seem all that enthused about another trek in those woods either.

“Fuckin’ spooky-ass trees,” Wind finally breaks the silence by voicing everyone’s thoughts out loud, which prompts a bark of laughter from Legend, and indulgent expressions from the rest of them. It breaks them out of their reverie, and they get to business.

The heroes break camp and set out towards the Lost Woods. Though none of them are looking forward to it, they’ve all had enough practice in enduring daunting things, getting through harsher situations. They all know how to heft their swords and keep walking onwards.

...Though admittedly, this time the journey seems to be going a whole lot smoother than all their previous attempts combined. The lanterns are back, for one. They’re sputtering and twisting in still air like they’re about to be blown out at any moment from an unseen gust, but the flames are there, nonetheless. No spare torches for them to light, but they’ve come prepared. Lighting up a small tree branch is easy enough.

The woods are dead silent. None of the spectral whispering they’d heard the day before, like ghosts gossiping about them behind their backs. No sounds of animals or critters either. Even the fog seems unusually distant, creeping in at their heels at some points but receding just quickly when Time swings the torch too close.

If Time didn’t know better, he’d say the woods seem to be… confused.

“Is it just me, or does this feel too easy?” Warriors is the first to finally address it, in a hushed voice. They’ve gone far deeper into the woods than they have ever gotten before.

“Much too easy,” Hyrule agrees. “Time, how are you navigating?”

“Oh, I’m just following the embers and seeing where it takes us.”

“Embers?”

Time stands still, holding the makeshift torch aloft. They all watch as the trailing embers rising from the flame slowly shift, seeming of its own accord, to drift off in one distinct direction.

Wind makes an intrigued noise. “Noticed that too. The air in this place is dead. No draft, not even a shittin’ fart from the wind. No self-respecting pirate should feel a lack of wind on their back. It’s damned fuckin’ unnatural, I tell ya.”

“Indeed,” Time says, a bit dryly. He’d long since given up trying to correct Wind’s state of speech. “So what’s making the flames move like this? I figured it must be a clue.”

He neglects to mention that he had also been discreetly taking cues from Twilight, who had his nose subtly in the air this whole time, sniffing out the path like a bloodhound. There must be something up about that – how the moment Twilight joins them, their poor fortune suddenly makes a turn for the better. Admittedly, the woods aren’t exactly welcoming them with open branches, but something has made it stop putting up an active fight.

In retrospect, he really should have known better than to have jinxed himself like that.

They make steady progress, dodging around trees and wading through tall grass, getting all the way to a part of the woods where the trees suddenly give way to a clearing. Two rock faces loom up ahead of them, and just barely seen through the mist, there’s a crack in between them. A narrow path framed by stone – it seems as though they are nearing their destination.

“What was that?”

Sky sends a puzzled look at Four. “What was what?”

“You hear it, too?” Hyrule asks, starting to glance around the foggy clearing, head tipped to the side as if to catch a faint tune in the distance.

“Just thought I saw something,” Four mutters. “Could be a bird, could be that I’m going blind in this fog. What are you hearing, Hyrule?”

It takes a moment as their most magically-attuned member appraises the sound, and the group begins to spread out and put their backs to each other, instinctually responding to the slow realization that something is not quite right in the air around them. Hyrule seems to listen for a few more seconds, eyes narrowing in concentration, before finally deciding –

“A voice.” He turns his ear as if following the sound as it drifts by him, gaze going slightly fuzzy from whatever lullaby he must be hearing. “I hear a song sung in the distance.”

“That’s interesting,” Legend replies almost idly, as his eyes comb the treetops and his hand drifts to the hilt of his sword. “Because I hear nothing. No wind. No birdsong. I can barely hear myself breathe beneath these accursed trees.”

And as if on cue, the fog comes rolling in on them.

Looking like mythical clouds billowing up from the forest floor, thick, swirling furiously, and almost completely opaque. A whisper swells in the air – loud, mingling, the songs and echoing voices of unseen entities previously hidden away in the foliage now converging on the heroes. In the span of a blink, they realise that they’ve been ambushed.

“Fuckin’ hell, mate, what is this?!” Wind swipes ineffectually at the fog obscuring his vision.

“Stick together! Don’t lose each other!” Time yells over the roar of whispers.

All around them, it’s a whirlwind of noise and chaos. Deers cry, owls hoot, boars squeal, and foxes yip – a great cacophony of wildlife, deafening to the ears in total contrast to the silence they had been walking in before. Leaves slap into their faces and grass whip at their ankles. The fog is like an army of angry ghosts that have decided to besiege them.

They huddle close, hunkering down on themselves behind their shields. The storm is so fierce, Twilight has a hand firmly on the back of Four’s tunic as a precaution to make sure the smaller hero doesn’t simply fly away in the gales. There’s nothing to do except to weather out the storm. With this level of visibility, it is more likely that they’d lop off someone’s ear than land a strike on a foe if they choose to swing their swords.

“What in the name of all the three great golden goddesses is going on here?!”

“Specter storm,” Hyrule answers Legend’s question, barely heard over the screaming fog. He says it with such conviction even though it should be his first time encountering such a thing. “Un-things dwelling in this forest. We’ve outstayed our welcome.”

Nearby comes Warriors’ startled exclamation. He’s stumbling back from his spot, clumps of dirt sticking to his boots as he quickly lifts his feet out from where it has sunken into the earth. They look down and realise that the ground has come alive, shifting and burbling around their feet.

Four feels his heel sink down almost to the ankle, and he quickly yanks it out, flinging damp dirt and grass clumps. But no matter where he steps, his feet sink in like he’s standing in a mud pit instead of grassy forest ground.

“Run. Run for the path between the rocks,” Time tells them, shouts at them through the chaos. “Don’t look back. The forest kin will take you.”

So they do. They turn and sprint in the direction where they remember the path had been, keeping low and targetable areas small, squinting through the thick fog but seeing no more than perhaps a few scant inches from their faces. The fog is so thick now that their hands disappear when they reach out to feel for their way and their comrades.

Twilight almost smacks his face into the lip of the path’s entryway. He puts a hand against the stone and finds a shallow outcropping of rock to wedge his feet onto, not turning around but still making sure his voice carries as he calls out, “Over here! Follow my voice!”

“Twilight! Is that you?”

Seeing a smudge of deep blue out the corner of his eye, Twilight reaches back and searches blindly into the fog. His fingers hook around metal gauntlets, and he practically hauls Warriors over to his side single-armedly. Warriors, who has Wind tucked under one arm in a professional carry, both of them squinting at Twilight through the whirling storm. “In, get in,” Twilight ushers them past. “Keep going, I’ll be right behind you.”

They’re closely followed by Legend, who gives Twilight a clap on the shoulder as he passes by, and then Four, partially covered by Time’s bulk as the man shields the smallest of their group from the threatening squall.

Then from behind comes Hyrule’s alarmed shout: “No, Sky!”

“What! What happened?!”

“Hyru –”

“Do not look back!” Time roars thunderously, before they act on the instinct to turn around and fend off whatever that may be attacking their sailcloth-clad hero.

They struggle to listen to his reminder, muscles in their necks twitching, teeth gritted, and Time himself is not exempt from this fight against himself. It takes all his will to listen to his own words, even when the rest of him is screaming to go running to Sky’s aid.

From the depths of white, Sky’s shout reaches their ears. “Go on ahead, I’ll be fine! I’ll catch up with you in a bit!”

He sounds already so faint, so far away. They have no choice but to keep their eyes looking straight ahead, their feet running forward, even as their hearts clench in panic and their knuckles turn white from their grips around their swords. The path between the rocks turn narrow and steep, and their boots skid against loose, writhing dirt and fallen leaves. The storm chases them for a dogged distance, then when they seem to have gotten far enough in, it dwindles away with a whistling wail that sounds almost frustrated.

Paying it no heed, they continue to follow the path, now needing no torch embers to guide them when it seems as if the path is funneling them down. They pass through the hollowed center of a great tree trunk laid on its side, and then –

And then they step out into the honey-light, sun-dappled green of a lush wooded area.

It’s quiet. Tranquil.

The contrast between the Korok Forest and what they had just come out of just moments before is nearly comical. It makes their heads spin. For a few moments, they simply stand there, not quite registering. They’re still in fight mode, adrenaline pumping, weapons ready. They’d been expecting to face adversaries, not a picturesque leafy sanctuary.

“Sky,” Wind manages eventually, eyes wide and still breathing quick. “We left him behind. We lost him.”

“No, he’s not lost yet. We’ll find him again.” Legend has a dangerous look in his eyes. A dangerous promise written in the tremble of his ring-laden hands. “I swear it. We’ll find the master of this thrice-damned forest and demand him back.”

The tremble in his hands isn't from any injury or illness, at least not this time, because Legend is mad. He’s livid. The rest of the heroes understand this. They are too. One of their own has been taken from them, and there is no force under the sky that may stand between the heroes and reclaiming what belongs to them.

Korok Forest has not changed since the last time Twilight was here, as short as his time since departing the place is. He can’t believe that a place like this is surrounded by such nasty, ill-natured woods. Strangely enough, he doesn’t see any Koroks around, but everything else is as before. It is the same green, same otherworldly radiance, same rays of gentle light shining down on –

His eyebrows draw downwards, his eyes narrow, as he tries to decide what it is he’s seeing up ahead in the near distance. If it really is what Twilight thinks he’s seeing. “Wait. Is… is that – ?”

“The Master Sword,” Time breathes, stepping forward as if in a trance.

They all move with him, approaching the sword in the pedestal. The triangular stone dais so many of them recognize is ridden with cracks, age obvious in every chink and fissure; how moss has grown over the weathered surface and forest weed creep in on the edges. Pale, blue-hearted flowers dot its surroundings, swaying delicately in the breeze and nearly glowing in the soft sunlight.

Warriors swallows, stopping at the edge of the triforce façade when he could not bring himself to take a step closer. “It looks so…”

“Old,” Four finishes, his eyes roving over the blade, picking out details in the chips and dull edges. The faded crossguard. The worn grip. “This Master Sword is ancient beyond all comprehension.”

“Then, this place really is –”

Hyrule cuts himself off when the leaves rustle overhead. They all stumble hastily backward as something comes crashing down from above.

The new hero, who lands soundlessly on the Triforce dais, cloak flaring out behind him, hair a mess and eyes so bright they’re burning. A sword in his hands.

It’s only a second later that Hyrule realizes they, too, all have their swords out, an automatic reaction to any sudden assailant. The hero stands before them, still barefoot as the last time they’d seen him, blocking the Master Sword as if he would protect it from even their gazes.

He looks more than mad. The air around him nearly sparks from the force of his rage. Every line of his body exudes defensive hostility. Every shift of his gaze is piercing enough that they look as if they should deal physical damage. A snarl twists his lips, teeth bared sharply at them, knees bent as if he would launch himself toward them in full frontal assault at any moment.

Like this, he looks ferocious enough to easily fit every one of Legend’s previous descriptions.

“Trespassers.”

The word that comes out of his mouth is dual-toned, many-voiced. The ‘s’ sounds elongate themselves, and the first syllable duplicates across multiple octaves. An accusation ringing out at them through a hundred different semitones, all coming from one person.

“You intrude on sacred ground,” he says, so quiet, almost whispering beneath the weight of sheer fury he injects into the words. The effect is only reinforced when he shifts his head, and his pupils flash eerily silver under a shadow that slides fleetingly over his face.

“We only want to talk,” Time says in a slow, placating tone, “All we want is that you hear us out.”

He doesn’t have a lot of hope that the yet-untitled hero would listen to him. The appeal for treaty would’ve sounded better if Time hadn’t been holding a weapon, but frankly, the way the hero is holding that wooden, oddly sharp and intricately carved sword is not making Time want to drop his own anytime soon.

“Why would I listen to liars?” the hero hisses. The hand on his sword twitches, and they automatically shift into defensive positions, raising their guards. Those brilliant blue eyes narrow, catching every one of their movements. “You upset the forest. You enter with swords drawn. You expect me to believe you want peace?”

“We can put the weapons away if you put away yours,” Four says.

“What can we do to prove that you can trust us?” Hyrule entreats. “We’ve just come out of trouble, and now one of us is missing. We were startled. But we didn’t come here to fight.”

“Trust,” the hero repeats softly. “What do imposters know about trust?”

Legend has had enough. “Alright, first of all, how dare you,” he snarls back. “What atrocity have we committed against you to deserve this level of untrust? Calling us liars, imposters. Bah! We’ve done nothing but attempt diplomacy with you, and you kidnap our comrade as thanks. Return the one you took from us, you misbegotten little menace!”

Unexpectedly, the anger cracks a bit and confusion seeps through on the hero’s face. “Kidnap?”

“Don’t feign ignorance, your blasted screaming fog storm just outside this forest spirited Sky away before our very eyes!”

“I don’t know what you refer to.” The confusion is stronger, the frown is deeper. The hero shifts back on one heel, as if Legend’s incensed statements have startled him. “You accuse me falsely.”

This apparently is the wrong thing to say. “Who are you to speak of false accusations,” Legend growls slowly, looking like he might start swinging at any moment. Even his fellow heroes around him are giving him sideways glances with rising degrees of alarm. “While you call us liars when we tell nothing but the truth.”

“You want me to believe you are all Hylia’s chosen Heroes?”

“By the great stars, yes, dammit! If you’d just –”

“If you’re willing to give us a chance, we can explain it more,” Twilight cuts in, trying to save this situation. He had drawn his sword at the hero’s sudden entrance, but now he sheathes it, ignoring the blade still in the other’s hand. “Ask us any question. Any doubts you have, we can prove it wrong.”

At least he hopes so, but at this point, after witnessing just how hostile the kid he’d met as a gentle spirit child is to his fellow heroes, all Twilight wants at the moment is to avoid a full-out fight. And despite the conclusion Legend has apparently come to on his own, Twilight doubts that the new hero has a hand in Sky’s disappearance.

How did it get this bad? Twilight doesn’t think there has been a single worse introduction to their group since Legend’s first impression in which he slammed the door in their faces after they came knocking at his door in his era. What is it about them that this one would dislike them so instantly and severely?

As he speaks, those blue eyes lock onto Twilight. Sharpen in focus. Grows still.

“Why…” And this time, the anger is nearly completely gone, overtaken by shock. Disbelief. Rising alarm. “Why do you smell like Hylia’s divine beast?”

His gaze catches on the grey fur on Twilight’s back, then slides to the sword on his belt, and the teen goes deathly pale.

“What?” Wind turns to squint at Twilight.

Realization is slow to dawn, but as Twilight guesses what must have been mistakenly interpreted, his eyes grow wide and alarmed. “No, this is – I can explain –”

But the hero is already reeling back, horror written all over his face. “You,” he whispers.

“Fuck,” Twilight curses, making the others startle.

And in the next moment, the hero blitzes towards him like a streak of lightning. Caught off guard by the speed, Twilight throws himself back in a frantic attempt to dodge. He has half a second to regret putting his sword back in its sheath, nothing in his hands now to defend himself, before something metallic flashes in front of him.

Time’s Biggoron Sword strikes the hero’s blade off its path right under Twilight’s nose.

“That,” Time says solemnly, gaze gone forebodingly cold, “was not wise of you.”

In reply, the hero snarls animalistically and leaps back, perhaps to come at them from another angle. But the others have already reacted, moved into position to meet any attack and retaliate. They aren’t exactly sure what set off the hero like that, but they see how he has braced himself to charge, and hero or no, none of them will stand for it. Especially when swords are involved and Twilight’s head, it seems, is on the line.

It’s absurd. Seven of them against a single feral hero are not favorable odds for the latter at all, and yet he looks very much willing to take them all on by himself. His gaze goes through them; he looks as though he isn’t even looking at the seven experienced swordsmen in front of him – he’s seeing the next fifty moves he’ll take to victory.

Warriors knows, both as a war tactician and just as someone who’s been in enough fights, that this is one battle they will assuredly win. Things are simply too stacked, the field too unbalanced. But as he faces down this singular opponent, he cannot help but feel something like unease skitter down his spine. Somehow he feels as if he were facing something leagues greater, something that expands invisibly beyond the image of a diminutive teenager his eyes see in front of him.

The hero shifts his weight, his foot slides slightly to the left, preparing to launch himself into another attack, and they follow the movement, raise their weapons to meet him blade for blade, counter for counter, shield for shield, and –

And before any of them can move, a blinding light bursts out in the clearing.

As the heroes groan and shade their eyes from the searing brilliance, the one facing them whirls around to see what has happened behind him. The light dims almost as quickly as it had flared into existence and he drops his sword instantly when he sees who it is.

The spirit of the Master Sword gazes back at him. She hovers gently above the ground, fragments of starlight arcing around her translucent form. Her veneer is cracked and her polish is faded; she is tattered and aged, but the glory of her is no less magnificent.

“Fi,” Warriors utters, in shock and considerable awe. He knows the name from the tales Sky had told them. When Sky chose to divulge details of his adventure to the group, there had always been great affection in whatever words he used to speak of his quest companion. This is the first time Warriors is personally seeing her, and though he is much more familiar with the Master Sword carried on Sky’s back, there is no doubt that this is the spirit of the same blade – with perhaps an additional thousands of years of age.

It is beginning to be clear by now that this era is old. Somewhere far, far down the timeline from any of their own. Just looking at the wizened state of the Master Sword affirms that fact.

“Heroes,” she greets them, and the chime of her voice is like hearing the enormous bells of an old cathedral, ringing from the far-flung distance.

At her address, the hero’s eyes widen. His head whips around to stare at them over his shoulder, and they can practically see the moment the realization strikes, as confusion and disbelief falls away and swiftly gets replaced by acute dismay.

“You mean –” He can’t seem to find the words, stuck in his wide-eyed, mouth-gaping shock. A whispery touch on his shoulder has him looking back, at the spirit who he never would’ve thought he’d ever have the chance to see. He looks almost helplessly up at her, so very overwhelmed.

Fi’s face is unmoving, expressionless, a carved statue of beauty, but the bells of her voice sound warm and caring as she speaks to him. “Yes,” she answers his unspoken question, “I confirm that these are the legendary Heroes of old. They do not deceive you.”

She gestures to them, then, the slow splay of her mantle seeming to move in its own circle of gravity. “Hero of Time. Hero of Twilight. Hero of Warriors. Hero of the Four Sword. Hero of the Wind. The Hero of Legend. Hero of Hyrule…” here she pauses, “The Chosen Hero appears to be absent.”

“We’re working on that,” Legend mutters quietly.

Then Fi turns to the one who stands before her. The one whose vessel is old as the soul is young. Who does not claim Hylia’s blessing as one of her Chosen but has earned a title of “hero” nonetheless. “And you…” Her most recent wielder. Her forge-sibling. “Hero of Wilds. Your intent is pure and well appreciated. But these are your brethren.”

He looks so shocked and chagrined, his pointy ears actually flutter a little at the tips. “I…”

The voice of the goddess blade is an echo of unearthly things but oh, that is definitely a note of fond exasperation when she tells him, “Silly child.”

The blush that blooms over his face is bright and obvious. All of a sudden, that feral, volatile creature from before has all but vanished, and there stands now before them a teenager whose cheeks glow from the force of his own embarrassment. “I – I didn’t see,” he stutters.

“No, little star,” Fi disagrees. “You see too much.”

And as if that were a farewell, she brushes a cool touch against him once more, ruffling the stray strands of hair near his ear… and then she fades away, light falling like diamond dust from her form until they can no longer see her. The glow diminishes, and the grove returns to its golden sunlight and green fertile flora, and the Master Sword gleams dully in its timeworn pedestal once more.

There’s a bit of silence. The newly-named Hero of Wilds makes no move to pick up the sword he’d dropped, and the other heroes had lowered theirs the moment they saw Fi flicker into being. They stare at each other for a long, awkward moment, not really knowing what to do now that there is nothing at present to distract them and they seem to no longer be on hostile terms.

The barefoot hero still has a blush on his face. Now that the constant anger and confusion is gone, they realise that he is naturally like this: expressive, open, every emotion he feels written all over him. He stares at the group with wide, uncertain eyes. He looks mortified.

Then he spins around without a word, and runs away.

“Hey, wait –!” Twilight takes off after him, ignoring the shouts from the others for him to come back. They lose sight of him in the ferns before any of them can follow further.

“... Well that’s two more people we have to find.” Time turns back, starting to heave a sigh, then he stops as if he’d hit a wall, staring at the empty spot where one other member of their dwindling group used to be. “Where’s Hyrule?”

Wind points. “He ran off after Twilight.”

“Fantastic,” Warriors says. “Come then, I suppose, no time to waste.”

But just as they make to follow, a great creak of wood reverberates through the grove. Deep, popping groans that only the oldest of wood can make, stirring the very air around them with its vibrations.

Overhead, the tree canopy rustles and as pale pink petals spill down onto their shoulders, they realise suddenly that those are not the canopies of multiple trees, but rather the branches of a single, gargantuan tree. They hadn’t noticed it when they came in. That is the sheer scale of this tree. That with their attention occupied by the Master Sword, they’d simply registered the tree that looms behind it as another part of the environment, like the wall of a cliff, or a mountain.

And, as branches the size of trees shift and rustle above them, as the wedges and crevices hewn into that massive trunk start to move, they realise that the tree – has a face.

“Whoa,” Four breathes.

“What,” asks Warriors in dumbfound wonder, “is that?”

Legend looks at the incomprehensibly large lifeform, feeling something heavy stir in his chest. “Not an enemy, I should hope,” he murmurs.

“That’s the Deku Tree,” Wind exclaims, amazement coloring every word. “Shittin’ seagulls, I never knew he could get this big!”

Time stands frozen, staring up, the most peculiar expression on him. He’s silent, unreadable. It doesn’t look like he’s even heard them speak.

“Oho,” There comes the rumble from the tree, so deep it is nearly subterranean, “Most unusual. To think I would witness a day in which all the Heroes of the great and past legends would arrive upon my doorstep…”

The attention of the giant tree shifts very slightly, moving the air with that small movement, to focus on the armor-clad man in their midst. “And that I would have the privilege of greeting the young hero who planted me in the ground, so many eons ago, once more… It must be a very fateful day indeed.”

Chapter Text

“Oh,” now Time finally speaks, and his voice comes out more like a croak. “You’re here,” he says, sounding so surprised. Choked with surprise. How he says the words is as though he only borrows the meaning of then in place of others: You’re here. You’re healthy. You’ve lived. You’ve grown. It’s you.

“I am here,” the Great Deku Tree affirms, warmth obvious in the rolling, rumbling creaks. “Although the little hero in my memories may no longer be as little as I remember, it would still please me to say to him – welcome home.”

The breath catches in Time’s throat.

“Then… this is…” Time gazes at the grove he stands in with a new dawning light, something like stricken awe on his face. “This is our forest. Kokiri Forest.”

“The very same. Though the Kokiri have discarded their original forms quite a long time ago. They had always thought of you fondly, however. And they missed you dreadfully.”

Time seems to falter, then. The heroes beside him glance at him curiously, then away, feeling as if they were intruding upon a terribly private moment.

It is not as if the man is especially secretive of his past. Certainly, he’s frugal with the instances, but Time isn’t one to shy away from sharing interesting little tidbits of himself around the warm campfire, when they are all regaling each other with battle stories and seeing who can come up with the most gruesome details. When he fancies being an elusive tease, he can make the most frustrating anecdotes to his life, with just enough intrigue and mystery to send all their eyes rolling.

But that is all he offers. Playful stories, harmless details. Time holds the difficult memories close to his chest, like precious gold in a dragon’s clutch. He hides the bad moments, the times of doubt, the dark places he has entered in the past and emerged from – made stronger for it, perhaps, like a tempering of steel, but no less affected by it in his conscience.

He is just like the rest of them. They know not to push for it, because they all have those parts of themselves, so soft and very vulnerable, which they keep far away from the light. Telling them about the Kokiri seems to be the closest Time has ever gotten to those hoarded memories, and still he had been careful to skirt around himself, leading them away from asking questions about how he had once fit into the idyllic vision he’d painted for them.

After a while, Time looks up. Studies the face of an old memory he’d thought would only ever remain to be just that – an old memory, left to collect dust in the corner of his mind with all the other faces he once had known in his life until they all faded away with age. “I have missed them,” he says quietly. “Of course I have. How can I ever forget?”

He wants to say more. Questions he asks himself on the very darkest of nights, struggling and failing to fall asleep. Did they blame me, he wants to ask. Did they think badly of me for my failure to protect our home? For killing our Tree, and leaving them behind in a poisoned forest? For returning only to offer them a poor consolation in the form of a seedling, to grow their great protector anew?

Did they grieve, he wishes to ask, when they were forced to change themselves in order to survive a world he had forsaken?

Did you resent me?

But the words don’t come out, and the questions don’t ask themselves. He knows, deep in his heart, that this is not the appropriate time, and these old regrets don’t have a place in this bright, tree-shaded grove.

“Are they happy now?” he asks instead.

The Deku Tree chuckles, shifting the very air with his gentle amusement. “Yes, dear leaf. They are quite happy and content. You need not worry yourself over them.”

“That’s good,” Times seems to decide. “That’s good enough.”

As Time draws in a breath that is just barely unsteady at the edges, his fellow heroes shift uncomfortably on their feet, sensing that they should give their friend a minute to collect himself and regain some of his usual composure.

They should also offer him support, they think – because for a single fleeting instant, there had been a look of sadness on Time’s face so raw and unguarded, it hurt their hearts to see.

They should probably comfort him, but what if Time does not want that sort of acknowledgement? For as long as they can remember since meeting the man, Time has always held himself to be steadfast and strong-willed. It would not be unreasonable for him to want to hide any moments of perceived weakness or possible upsets, that he should want privacy for this. It is possible that he did not mean to show such a vulnerability to them.

Legend longs, surprising even himself, for Sky in that moment. Or that oaf Twilight. None of the present heroes at the present, goddess bless their fool souls, had either the sensitive touch or the easy intuition that enabled those two to handle these delicate situations with such success. Particularly when past history, emotions, or lost people are involved – and this case manages to encompass all three.

Unexpectedly, it is Wind who reaches out and clasps Time firmly on the arm. “Didn’t expect to meet an old friend again today, huh?”

“Yes.” Time’s voice is a little rough, but the small smile he makes is genuine. “Though old parent would be more accurate, in this instance.”

Their eyebrows jump to their hairlines, as they barely manage to avoid openly gaping at him. But of course. When he told them he was an adopted wild tree child, Time had just neglected to mention that his father is an actual tree.

Wind grins, because the little rascal can just about take anything with an open mind and nary a blink. Perhaps that’s the advantage of growing up with an over-imaginative little sister and a full crew of free-spirited pirates. “You need a hand there, oldie? All that excitement from seein’ your pops again can’t be good for your heart.”

Time snorts, righting himself back to the man they are more familiar with: unflappable, unimpressed, and mildly exasperated at the world for giving him these boys to worry about. “I’m sure I can handle at least a few more unexpected family reunions before my old bones give out.”

Behind the man’s back, Four gives Wind a surreptitious thumbs up.

The giant entity in front of them rumbles again, branches raining more petals down over their heads, the almost physical sound capturing their attention instantly. They look up, and see that enormous hewn face regarding them with a gaze that feels inexplicably more somber than before.

“It is good to see a dear child of mine return to my forest once again, but I sense that our meeting is not the purpose you and your friends are here.”

“You would not be wrong, sir,” Warriors answers.

“Alas. Then, Heroes… I will be direct with you. What do you intend to do here?”

They look at each other, unsure how best to explain themselves. Their situation is already not the most ideal. Half their number is missing, and the central figure in question isn’t even present. It seems as though only disaster after disaster have occurred since they arrived in this era. But they are – what they are – and they have long since learned how to work with tough situations.

“We are Heroes who come from many different histories, spanning across time and space. Each one of us has our own version of Hyrule, and have completed our quests to save our lands. Now a plague of black blood spreads through the dimensions. We’ve been gathered together to stop it.” Warriors has always been good at reports. He always manages to make them as short and concise as possible, while sounding as if it is the most important thing in the world.

“And now we’re here to welcome a new hero into our big dimension-travelling party,” Legend concludes, almost in the middle of a yawn. He does not have the same patience as his blue-scarfed comrade to keep explaining the same thing over and over again.

“Hmm,” the Deku Tree makes a deep, introspective noise. “And if it is not what he wants?”

This makes them pause, confused. “It is… the will of the goddess,” Four says, and the end of his sentence turns up like a question.

“Yeah,” Wind agrees, drawing out the word like he’s stumped on what to say next. “Uh. That ain’t really his choice. We’re all here for a reason.”

“You would take him to embark on this mission against his will?”

That silences them for a bit. It is something that only a few of them, and only in their most cynical moments, have glancingly considered in regards to the new hero, particularly in their time just after meeting him. It is something they have avoided thinking about too closely.

Legend recovers first. “Of course, when you put it that way,” he starts, “Many of us would be happy to be left to have our peace – the peace that we all fought and bled for in our worlds. We had our adventures, endured our trials. We all thought we fulfilled our duty. But I guess that isn’t what the Goddess has planned for us, is it?

“We’re servants of Hylia. Champions of her will. Soldiers who live and serve at her call and all that.” Legend shrugs, but it doesn’t detract from the bitterness they all hear in his voice. “People like us don’t get a choice, I’ve found.”

“And to be honest, even if we did get a choice, I’m pretty sure we’d do it all anyway,” Wind adds.

“It’s a burden, there’s no doubt,” Time says grimly, “But a burden we will carry because there is no other person who can.”

“The nature of Heroes. We see a problem, we want to fix it.” Four looks up, up at the enormous tree. “Isn’t yours like that, too?”

A heavy wind seems to blow through the clearing, sending pollen and petals swirling up into the air in delicate, gossamer threads. The Deku Tree seems to take a second to think, before replying, “Indeed.”

“Then you would agree –”

“What if I told you that the one you pursue is not a servant of Hylia?”

Warriors frowns. “And what, he’s a servant of the Golden Goddesses instead? Does it make a difference?”

“The difference is that he does not attend to the deities of Hyrule at all. The Ones he follows are beings far beyond this entire reality, and even the many realities you hail from. I do not fully understand it myself.”

“Well that certainly is very reassuring,” Legend drawls sarcastically. “It doesn’t likely change why we are here. If Hylia has opened a portal to a new era, that means the hero of it is meant to join us.”

“There is no chance you would leave without him?”

“I don’t presume to know how the minds of goddesses work, but in this, that Goddess has never diverged from her formula,” Time says.

“So you would take him even if he refuses?”

“He cannot refuse this.”

There is a resounding creak, one loud enough that it echoes through the entire clearing and can possibly be heard in the woods beyond. Their bones rattle with the force of it, and their little hairs stand on end, as the atmosphere around the Deku Tree suddenly turns still and cold.

“I remember the debt you repaid by saving me, little leaf. I know that your heart is pure and paved with good intentions. In this matter, however, I will not move.” The Deku Tree appears to loom even taller over them, expanding in impossible size the more serious its rumbling voice grows. “Indeed, nature is adaptable, but even we peaceful tree ilk are possessive of the things we hold dear. That one belongs to the wilderness. The kingdoms of man shall not rob from us.”

Wordlessly, Time jerkily dips his chin in a nod, seeming a bit cowed. Perhaps he is, when this is the tree he holds so close to his heart. But the others have no such tethers.

Warriors steps up. A challenge gleaming in his eyes. “How about we just take him with us anyway?”

“Warriors,” Time admonishes.

The young man tips his shoulder in a casual gesture, but his voice is serious when he says, “Don’t play dumb, Time, it doesn’t suit you. Every time the Goddess sends us to meet a new hero, we don’t leave until they decide to go with us. I’m not planning on being stuck here on indefinite pause while our Hyrules are at the mercy of whatever evil force is causing monster blood to go black.”

“Ah, so he makes a good point for once,” Legend agrees backhandedly. He, too, has a dangerously daring glint in his eye. “We can’t wait for this Hero of Wilds to make a decision on his own leisurely time. This is not a Sunday afternoon stroll, this is the possibility of kingdoms being wiped out. We simply cannot afford to be considerate or kind to one brat hero who does not understand the consequences of his hesitation.”

“I can’t argue with that, but surely, Legend, you could have found some other way to phrase it –”

“We’re dragging that hero through the next portal whether he likes it or not, there’s not really a nicer way of putting it, nor is there a point in –”

“Heroes,” comes the thunderous voice above them, and they turn from arguing with each other to look at an entity whose visage has become as dark and shadowy and every bit frightening as a being his size can be. “I would advise you against defying my word. I am what your ancestors have entitled the Great Deku Tree. Every forest planted in Hyrule has come from my seeds. Every woodland creature has rested beneath my branches, and every bird has hatched in nests woven from my twigs.

“I have shepherded these lands since time immemorial, my roots extend far beyond this puny grove. A word to the wise, Heroes – do not make enemies with the very forests of Hyrule.”

There is a distinct feeling like they’ve overstepped. Gotten arrogant with their places as goddess heroes and forgotten exactly who and what towers before them. Especially with those words, that warning, and the damn near explicit threat. Legend’s knuckles ache around his rings, as he stares up at this ancient spirit and tries not to imagine what it would be like if the Deku Tree decided to treat them as enemies. They would be fools not to take heed of those warnings.

“We apologize,” Four says after a tense, fraught moment. He’s stealing glances from the Deku Tree to Warriors, who doesn’t look any more fazed than before. Who is getting a dangerously excited look in his eyes. It’s making Four nervous. “We forgot ourselves. Please excuse us.”

And here Warriors objects, “Speak for yourself, Four.”

That challenge that had gleamed so brightly in Warriors from before seems to have only grown with the Deku Tree’s words.

“Let’s not get hasty now,” Time tries to rein in the young man, though to no avail.

There’s a sort of mania they know that lives in Warriors. Something in him that responds to cautionaries and warning signs with only an even greater impulse to take it as a dare, to keep chasing that challenge until he runs it into the ground. It is a side of him that rarely comes out; something he usually keeps carefully hidden, carefully monitored, wrapped up in a soldier’s discipline. How odd that he would let it unravel this far, when he is normally so mindful of it. Now it practically lights his face up.

“Can’t say I’ve had many opportunities to engage giant trees in combat. But one thing I know about them…” Warrior’s grin has reached a level of glee that is concerning even Legend at this point, “...is that trees are usually quite slow. What can you do if we decide to snatch your precious hero out from right under your nose?”

As Time drops his face into his hand, Four snaps, “Warriors, what the hell? Are you even listening to yourself?”

“Aye that,” Wind says, uncharacteristically serious. Dark eyes lacking the usual blithe. “Wars, I ain’t agreeing to fucking kidnapping anyone.”

Warriors grins back. “Why not, kiddo? You’re a pirate, aren’t you?”

Something dark passes over Wind’s young face before he snarls. “Okay, you can shut up and fuck right off with yourself. Don’t joke about something like that.”

And here Warriors pauses. Blinks slowly.

“Even if the whole damn universe is at stake,” Wind seethes through his teeth, “Even if. I’m not about to pluck a guy outta his home kickin’ and screamin’ and force him to risk his neck for us. What the fuck.”

Warriors stares at the shorter hero, looking honestly a bit dazed. Glee turning stale on his expression. The smile slipping from his face little by little as he seems to reconsider the last few seconds.

Wind jabs a finger into Warrior’s stomach. “We’re the goddamn Hylia-chosen Heroes, for fuck’s sake. We’re supposed to be the good guys.”

Out of all of them, Wind is the last to be provoked over anything. Despite his exuberant nature, there are surprisingly very few sore points the young hero has that someone can poke at and get a genuine negative reaction out of him. But now Warriors stands there, feet rooted to the ground, confronted by Wind’s angry, unhappy expression. Aw shit, he thinks as he slowly rewinds himself back to a rational state of mind. He’s disappointed the kid.

One would think that the hero whose disappointment they’d fear the most in their group would be Time, when the man has seniority in age, glare intensity meter, and sheer rich baritone voice to holler at them with, but that would be wrong. It’s Wind. Wind is… cheerful. Not in any means naive, but still so lively and merry in spite of it. He is their most well-adjusted. The one they’re all so proud of. Their youngest.

There’s nothing worse than having Wind be disappointed in you.

Warriors lets out a slow breath, using it to let the gears of his brain unscrew themselves from the tight, juiced-up state they’d gotten into, trying to release some of the fight he has unthinkingly injected into his nerves in that short span of time. He doesn’t exactly know what had gotten over himself, perhaps an inkling why it did, but that’s no excuse. He should know better than this.

“You’re right. I’m sorry, Wind. That was in poor taste,” he apologizes, resisting the urge to rub his neck awkwardly. A soldier does not fidget when making amends. “I got carried away.”

He turns to the Deku Tree and bows deep. “Forgive me, great elder. My words were careless and foolish. They were my own, my friends hold no responsibility for my mistakes, should you wish for recompense.”

“How quick you are to apologize, hero,” the Deku Tree murmurs, sending the air shifting around their ears again with the idle rustling of leaves. “But I am not so petty as to seek retribution over a few spoken words. I will only ask for your patience – that you should stay here awhile and respect the wishes of our hero.”

The heroes look at each other. It feels rather strange to make such a decision without their full number accounted for, though they realize they can do nothing about it at the present.

“We can do that,” Time acquiesces. “We need to figure out where the others have gone, anyhow."

“I refuse to lie and say that we won’t do whatever we can do to convince that hero of yours to come with us,” Legend warns, “But yes. We won’t force the matter. We aren’t that desperate, I should hope. If it is truly futile…”

“Ah, we can burn that bridge when we cross it,” Four finishes.

“Very well. I suppose that is only fair. After all, you have your duties to the bright Goddess,” The Deku Tree rumbles, not sounding offended nor overly pleased about it. “You are welcome to take rest in this forest in the meantime. As for your missing comrades... I suspect our little friends can shed more light upon those matters. Should they choose to do so.”

“Huh?”

The heroes barely have the time to frown in confusion before there’s a sound like a puff of smoke popping into existence, and then the unmistakable magical jingle of little wooden limbs. A smattering of leaves rain onto their shoulders and they turn, blinking through the smoke and sparkles as both quickly dissipate.

A korok faces them down from their perch on a tree stump. It seems bigger for its crowd, Wind notes, has a bright yellow ginko leaf for a face. Also, cool mushrooms.

Chio stands imperiously on their stump, trying to seem as intimidating as possible, as more of their smaller Korok brethren pop into sight. They shake a stick menacingly at the heroes and cries, “Don’t be mean to our Link!”

Judging by the nonplussed looks on their faces, it’s obvious that out of the five present Heroes, only Time and Wind understand exactly what the korok had yelled at them. But the general gist of it is clear enough to grasp.

As the other koroks throw in their own bits and make their general displeasure towards the group very known, Time thinks with some resignation, ah, so this is what the Deku Tree means.

Twilight wishes he has half the amount of grace he is seeing in this era’s hero at the moment. The Hero of Wilds – which, hm, how very apt – virtually melts through the foliage, weaving between branches and bushes and oversized tree roots without so much as a blade of grass rustled in between. Twilight, on the other hand, has never felt more connection with his most favored animals than ever before, as he crashes and bulldozes his way through what seems like the entire Korok Forest while trying to keep up with the elusive hero.

At some points, he loses sight entirely of his quarry, and has to rely on his nose to track where the kid might have gone. There’s someone else behind him, Hyrule, he’s pretty sure from the scent, but the footsteps soon fall back further and further, until Twilight is almost worried that Hyrule won’t be able to find his way back in this dense leafage. But he has more urgent things to worry about.

He never would have thought that the pelt he had long taken to carrying around in order to disguise the shed stray furs of his wolf form would cause a misunderstanding of this magnitude. But then, he supposes, that perhaps it’s past due.

After all, who would guess that Twilight can transform into a big, magical wolf? Lycanthropy certainly wouldn’t be his first guess, if he were on the other end. No, the most logical assumption people will make if they see a gray-furred wolf and then later meet a scary, fighter-type looking man with a huge gray wolf pelt on his back, would be that he hunted that wolf down.

Nevermind how much time it would actually take to skin and properly prepare the fur of a beast of that size. In the spur of the moment, he supposes it’s fairly easy to jump to conclusions like that.

He sidles a step closer, keeping an eye on any signs that the teen would bolt again, when he’d finally decided to stop in a small, leafy glade, as similar and lovely as the rest of this forest haven. The Hero of Wilds is such a fitting name for this kid, Twilight thinks once more. For sure – so wild, so skittish, like a half-spectral creature who might vanish into the leaves before his very eyes if Twilight made a wrong move.

“Please,” Twilight says, subconsciously taking on a calm, gentle tone, as if to soothe an injured animal. “Won’t you hear me out?”

Oh, but sweet goddess, the kid looks devastated.

(He doesn’t know what’s going on, so caught up in an overwhelming torrent of confusion, dismay, and deep mortification. The Hero of Twilight who carries that damningly familiar scent has followed him so stubbornly, and Link isn’t sure what he wants.

The divine beast he’d cared for, he thinks wretchedly – slain by a divine huntsman.

Perhaps it is the will of the Goddess. She must have willed it so, because this is her Hero. There must be a reason why a sacred animal that had felt so much like warmth and protection and kindness would be hunted down so mercilessly. He cannot even be angry. Only, perhaps… sad.)

Twilight looks at him, and those big mournful eyes, and that despondent slump in his shoulders – and nothing in the world could have stopped him from closing the rest of the distance and wrapping the kid up into a big hug.

“It’s okay, it’s me,” he murmurs into messy golden hair, “The divine beast. Mr. Wolf, remember? You called me that when we said goodbye.”

The kid had gone stiff when Twilight put his arms around him, and then he’d relaxed partially, back tensing as if to respond to a bodily attack, then froze up again once Twilight’s words registered. Twilight lets himself get pushed back and his arms fall to his sides, but the kid doesn’t let him go too far. With a hand planted against Twilight’s solar plexus, holding him at a bent arm’s distance away, he reaches up with his other hand and brushes Twilight’s bangs away from his face.

Wide blue eyes fixate on the markings on Twilight’s brow, matching them instantly to the distinctive marks on the wolf he remembers, in nearly the exact same place, in precisely the exact same shapes. “H-how?” he utters, so quiet, so shocked.

Twilight smiles gently. “The wolf is my other shape. We’re one in the same,” he replies. Somehow it isn’t hard at all to confess one of his most reserved secrets to this hero. Other than Four, who knows simply on mutual basis when Twilight unwittingly discovered his hidden alter ego(s), Twilight has not yet found the nerve to tell any of the others.

The kid is still looking rather disbelieving, as though he doesn’t dare to get his hope up, and Twilight can’t have that at all. He chooses the most expedient solution: showing off physical, undeniable proof.

As the shadows coalesce and fall from Twilight’s form, and his point of view becomes two times lower to the ground, there’s a gasp from beside him and hands suddenly buried in his thick scruff. Twilight, now furred and four-pawed and equipped with a tail he can use to express his utmost delight at meeting this gentle, beautiful hero again, barks once in greeting as the kid all but throws his arms around Twilight.

There’s a slight sniffle, right against the side of Twilight’s neck where the kid has buried his face in his fur. Aw, Twilight thinks, such fondness and exasperation swelling in his chest that it takes him by surprise. What are those tears for? Twilight chuffs and then nudges into a scarred ear, silky hair, windblossom scent, feeling relieved when that, at least, gets him a slight giggle.

The arms loosen their stranglehold, face turning away, as the kid decides to simply plop down on the thick grass and sit, leaning against Twilight with his cheek pressed into fur.

How odd, Twilight muses, that someone would find his beast form more comforting than his person-shaped one. How rare it is. He remembers how hard it had been to obtain the trust of his comrades in the beginning, to get them to accept him as a useful battle companion, how long it had been before they began to call him Wolfie. He knows the automatic fear and instinctual distrust he incites in civilians as a wolf.

Better, perhaps, if he were a dog, in those early times when he was still learning the differences between friendly and greedy faces. A mutt can rely on the good will and pity of friendly people. It can hide in its own plainness, and there is little need to watch for the greedy ones. A wolf has to learn the differences fast. Or else.

How odd that he would receive someone’s trust and acceptance so much more readily and easily as a wolf than he would as a man. But he supposes that if it is to be anyone, it’ll be the Hero of Wilds.

Chapter Text

Insanity, Hyrule contemplates, is a rather mortifying affair.

And, he tacks on in afterthought – he should perhaps be getting himself away from the newest hero. Rather than chasing after him in reckless abandon.

There is something about this one. Hero of Wilds. Something that drives a part of Hyrule into what essentially quantifies as the psychological version of purrs and happy wriggling whenever he’s within line of sight, like a cat with catswort. It’s a song in him, all the way down to his marrow. A call somewhere in his lungs. It should scare him, or at last be discomfiting. Instead, his own reaction simply makes him all the more intrigued by the hero.

Hyrule had entirely lost track of Twilight several minutes back, but that doesn’t matter when there is an itch under Hyrule’s skin directing him straight towards a point in the distance, bright and immutable. So bright and immutable, in fact, that Hyrule almost attempts to walk directly through trees several times before his addled mind cottons on to the fact that he will likely achieve more success in walking around these obstacles.

This maybe-insanity is a slow acting poison, he thinks, and wonders if he should be more disturbed by his apparent lack of alarm about the whole matter.

There’s a sudden dip in the long grass, and Hyrule missteps. His boot catches on the curve of a root, he stumbles forward and trips, smacking through some ferns – and then sunlight blinds him. In between blinks to get the white spots out of his vision, kneeling unsteadily on the grass, he identifies more foliage, more trees circling a small clearing, more green, a corner of dark fabric, a hulking, gray-and-white-furred form –

“Wolfie,” Hyrule mumbles a bit in a daze, “Where did you come from?”

He thinks that maybe he hears an answering woof, even spares half a thought to wonder about Twilight’s evident disappearance. But already his attention has moved on, following that glimpse of fabric and tracing the careful embroidery on its worn hem, up a shoulder, a fallen hood, and then to the cloak’s wearer. The Hero of Wilds draws Hyrule’s eye and captivates his focus as though the hero has his own circle of gravitational pull.

And then golden hair shifts, like a dribble of honey over a shoulder, as the hero jerks away from the beast he seemed to be resting against, turns, and catches Hyrule in his gaze. Blue. Impossibly blue. Supernatural. Crystalline.

Hyrule’s breath catches, voice withering in his throat. He freezes in place, mid-motion, one knee pressed into grass and a hand braced on the decayed stump of a tree in preparation to get back on his feet, movement aborted.

Strange, so strange. When it comes to his fight-or-flight instincts, Hyrule operates on a scale that Impa, the Old Men, Ganon’s henchmen, and all the people in the poisoned lands of his world have been personally calibrating for years. There aren’t many things he can boast about, especially standing next to all the other Heroes, but the single thing he can lay claim to – is his own survival instincts. Nothing makes Hyrule freeze.

That keen-eyed stare bearing down on him, however. That seems to be enough.

Between one blink and the next, Hyrule realises that something in the back of his mind has started shrieking at him, incessantly and high-pitched. It is as though an old, unused, base part of his brain has caught the scent of some primordial terror rising before it, awakening out of sheer self-preservation to scream at him. Warnings, perhaps, but he can’t find it within himself to follow them.

“Hello,” he murmurs, barely feeling the words fall from his tongue, too busy watching an obliterating abyss yawn wide open right where that seemingly-teenager sits. Hypnotic. Inviting. Pulling. Hyrule isn’t sure he’ll be able to keep himself from falling right in.

The Hero of Wilds seems to study him in equal measure, wariness clear on his face. Spooked, like he’s not sure how to react to this abrupt arrival. Hyrule swallows. Enchanting. The hero doesn’t make a sound and his scarred fingers curl further into the scruff of Wolfie, who sits patiently beside him, giving both of them looks that feel distinctly nonplussed for a canine face.

An indeterminate minute passes, as Hyrule reaches for words that don’t seem to be coming to him, too distracted by everything about the teen in front of him, and the other hero wavers hesitantly between returning the greeting or making another escape.

“...Hero of Hyrule,” comes the eventual whisper, nearly too soft for Hyrule to hear, as if the hero would scare himself away if words were spoken too loud. Almost self-consciously, he squeezes closer to the obliging beast observing their odd interaction, as if seeking comfort.

It unlocks some part of Hyrule's brain, like some bubble bursting, though he’s not sure why the next thing that comes out of his mouth is, “It’s – just Hyrule.”

This makes only the other frown slightly in confusion, though. The awkwardness of the conversation is rising to an outright surreal degree. Thinking this cannot possibly get any worse, Hyrule gives into explaining, “We all answer to the name Link, so we’ve adopted nicknames to avoid getting mixed up.”

The careful stare turns slightly skeptical, and the hero tilts his head slowly to the side.

There is a certain naivety about him, Hyrule notes almost in the back of his mind. Young-looking despite the grim scarring, inexplicably childlike in a way even the youngest of their current group can’t quite manage. Inquisitive even through the lingering wariness, as though everything he sees in the world is new to him. A youthful, curious face with something ageless and enduring staring out of it.

“Will… you give me a name?”

The hesitant question interrupts Hyrule’s introspection, and he nearly misses the actual words through his own surprise. But the hero asks for a name – nickname, as though already considering the possibility of connecting with the rest of them, expecting a future in which they would converse enough to need an alternative moniker. After everything that has happened, all the rough starts, this causes hope to well up in Hyrule, light and fizzy.

He smiles. “I’m not sure. We’ve all chosen our nicknames from our given Hero titles, though. It makes things simpler. Would you mind that?” Hyrule asks delicately, still softly in case the hero decides to flee after all, but the most he receives is a little shrug.

“A name is a name.”

Hyrule hums, though he’s wondering what exactly is meant by those words. He grasps the meaning, though. It seems that, oddly enough, names don’t mean much to this one. “Well,” he starts slowly, considering it. He feels strange for doing this without the rest of the group present. “We know your title now from the spirit of the goddess blade. Hero of Wilds. So I suppose we’d call you… Wild.”

Now he sees a slight curve appear on the other’s lips – the first reaction he has seen that does not contain any caution or hostility – and it practically transforms the hero’s entire visage. “I like that,” says the newly named Wild, still with that small, shy smile. It makes his eyes shine brighter. It leaves Hyrule stunned breathless. “It fits.”

Dumbly, Hyrule nods again, a little occupied with the feeling of his heart trying to match with the pulse of magic blooming in this tiny clearing.

Then Wild turns his head, seemingly out of nowhere, to stare in a random direction into the woods. Hyrule is confused until he hears the barest tinkling of bells in the distance. Seconds later, the glow of a fairy comes fluttering into their clearing, followed closely by another. Two fairies whirl around over their heads, then spiral down to gather close to Wild.

Hyrule watches, dazed, as the teen lifts a hand and one fairy glides eagerly to alight daintily on his curled fingers. The other fairy perches on his hair, near his ear, tangling her arms into the dark blond tresses. Wild smiles at them, so tender for only these little creatures. The tightness around his eyes, however, betray his bemusement.

We wanted to see that you were well, chatters the fairy on his hand with all the pretty chimes of a tiny bell, responding to some unspoken question between the two. She says, We wanted to make certain you were unharmed. Sweetling, beloved child. You are, aren’t you? You are alright?

“I’m well,” Wild replies, and Hyrule startles at that. He hadn’t been expecting another fellow hero to be able to understand the language of fairies. He can, on account of his blood – blessed as it is, cursed as it is – but even Time hadn’t been able to discern the words of fairies, for all that the man had an exceptional affinity for them.

His movement attracts the attention of the two fairies, and they take into the air again, trailing glittering dust. They spend a few seconds whizzing around Hyrule’s head before cautiously retreating back to the safety of their favored one.

Who is your friend, treasure? a fairy asks, regarding the green-clad hero with an inquisitive, inhuman gaze.

He feels Known, says the other. Familiar. He feels like us. Close to us.

“Close?” Wild asks.

The fairy says, Like an echo. Lingering ripples on a lake. The other side of the mirror. He was loved by our reflection. Very much. He was theirs just as you are ours, dear star. But this one is not like you.

Earth and deep ground, the second fairy chitters in his ear as though it were a poorly-kept rumor. Cold, damp air, she describes, And empty. And dark. Raw iron and obsidian.

Nothing like our glimmering gem, the first fairy agrees flippantly.

Hyrule draws in a careful breath, feeling the weight of those words settle heavily in his gut, every sentence another stone dropped into the pile.

It has been a while – most fairies he’s encountered since going on this era-jumping adventure don’t usually opt to speak to the heroes before doing their healing and whizzing away, even if he wanted to try for conversation. He has forgotten the particular brand of honesty that fairies are capable of. Brutally forthright about their allegiances and cutting straight to their own truths. Fairies don’t care for diplomacy.

He feels that curious gaze of Wild’s bore into him. He glances up, and he falls into an endless ocean of luminous cerulean once more.

A sneaking suspicion is rising terribly in Hyrule’s mind.

“It sounds lonely,” comes the soft, pensive murmur.

Hyrule releases the breath he’s been holding onto. “It is a world long ago, far away,” he decides to say, not having the heart to go further into this particular detail of his life. Until Hylia opens up a portal into his home dimension, he doesn’t see any reason to dredge this up into metaphorical open air. “Nothing to worry about.”

He is right, says one fairy, Unremembered reflections, faded away.

Which doesn’t help very much, but the fairies already seem bored of the current topic of conversation, and have taken it upon themselves to move on. They spiral down from the air to hover excitedly at eye level in front of Wild.

Cherished one, they say, Won’t you Sing for us again?

Wild shrinks a litte. “You always ask,” he protests softly.

The fairies clasp their hands in front of their faces, still pleading, Pretty, pretty please? You have not Sung for us for some time, we miss it. Pretty please for our pretty fauntelet?

The flattery brings a bit of pink to Wild’s face, and – amazingly – he spares a glance at Hyrule.

Your voice is beautiful, one fairy encourages. Shame to hide it. Shame to quiet it. We love it when you Sing for us.

That one will enjoy it as well, the other fairy adds slyly.

Hyrule observes the group. Wild and these fairies. That earlier suspicion is no longer sneaking so much as it is parading around with fireworks, a choir ensemble, and a full quartet of trumpets for good measure. The epiphany pools like dread in his gut. Oh, he thinks a little hysterically, Oh. I’m doomed.

Though still blushing slightly, Wild seems to relent, letting his eyes fall almost shut. He tilts his head as the fairies caress his cheeks, his brow, his lips, tittering out incentives. “Only a little,” he allows reluctantly, and breathes in.

When he begins to hum, Hyrule expects to hear music, Wild’s whispery voice in song. But instead it comes out – strange. Voiceless, soundless. More sensation than sound. More heart than ear. Yet Hyrule hears it anyway.

It is a vague melody, light and meandering, like a castle in the air. Lovely notes that float into the sunlit dell as feather-weight things. Auditory threads of spun silk. It sounds utterly familiar, yet impossible to place from which distant memory Hyrule draws that recognition from.

The pair of fairies titter in delight, flickering like candlelight as they express their joy in the song.

Hyrule has lurched forward before he is even aware of moving himself. He stares at his hand, the traitor, feeling as if he were underwater and the seconds have slowed down to a dream-like crawl.

The humming has stopped, Hyrule notices to his regret. Wild is now looking at him with something like surprise on his face. Dawning realization slowly slipping into his scrutiny.

Hyrule snatches his hand back like a fool caught sneaking into the sugarplum pot, trying his hardest not to let the blush light up his cheeks as it so painfully wants to at the moment. Legend is right, he thinks despairingly. He has been bewitched. Possessed. And he can’t even blame it on mere madness. No, it’s much, much worse, an old trouble rearing its ugly head. It’s his fucking magical blood.

“You…can Hear it,” Wild murmurs slowly.

Hyrule perhaps makes some vague stuttering noises, avoiding eye contact as he fumbles with getting out a good response that doesn’t start with ‘one of my spells turns me into a fairy and that part of me really, really likes you’ or perhaps end in ‘I am ridiculously and disproportionately jealous of those fairies you have in your hair.’ And goddess forbid that he actually blurt out, ‘I want to spoil you and squeeze your cheeks between my hands and preen your hair like a besotted bird.’

His nails are digging into his thigh, he registers the tiny pinches of pain only moments after the fact. Hyrule holds back the wince as his fingers creak when he carefully plucks them out of his flesh.

It’s a sort of awkward, confused, intrigued silence, and it’s utterly horrid, in Hyrule’s viewpoint. Wild looks as if he is about to say something else, but a rustle in the leaves catches them both off guard, and they turn to look as –

A dozen little root tree-spirts come popping out of the underbrush.

“Yahaha!” they cry in greeting, and then crowd all around a once-more confused Wild. Strangely enough, Wolfie seems to be already acquainted with these creatures, as the wolf noses them in greeting and allows them to clamber all over his fur.

Hyrule is feeling rather bewildered himself. He can’t understand a word that they’re saying. The Koroks babble at Wild, and Wild listens to them very intently, obviously following along easily. Something somewhere in the babble makes him straighten up, though, clear alarm ringing through his expression.

The Koroks squeak at him some more, and Wild nods, getting to his feet. Hyrule rises as well, apprehension rising in his chest at the look on the other’s face. It’s enough of a distraction that he can use it to direct his focus beyond the ethereal song of the previous moments.

“Is something wrong?” he says slowly, trying to read the urgency on Wild’s face. “Did something happen?”

Wild glances at him distractedly. “Trouble in the woods.”

Woods. That rings a bell in his memory. “Is it – is it related to Sky?” Hyrule hasn’t forgotten about that. Even with this hero addling his mind and lost dreams echoing in his ears, there is no way he can forget about the comrade they had left behind in those treacherous Lost Woods.

He sees Wild hesitate, and pushes on, “It sounds like a problem. Let me come with you.” As if he’ll ever sit in the safety of the Korok forest and do nothing while Sky is in danger.

But Wild shakes his head. “The Woods aren’t… being nice. You might upset them more. The others, too.”

Hyrule frowns, but it seems clear that Wild isn’t going to change his mind. The barefoot hero is already turning his head, looking around as if pinpointing a distant location to head towards.

“You’ll be handling it, all by yourself?” He doesn’t mean to make it sound as though he’s questioning Wild’s abilities. It’s just, he remembers that… specter storm in the Lost Woods, the disorienting torrent of fog and leaves and raw, untamed magic. Hyrule can’t imagine how anyone would begin to contain that.

Wild cocks his head to the side, doesn’t answer that question like it bemuses him too much to do so. Instead, he says, “You should go back. Find your group.”

He pauses here, eyeing Hyrule as if worried about his ability to navigate through the forest. “The koroks will guide you,” he decides.

This elicits a chorus of unhappy whining from the crowd around him, but Wild simply pats a couple of the koroks on their heads, gives them an apologetic look that quiets them down. Seeming satisfied, Wild turns halfway to leave, pauses just enough to let one of the fairies whiz into the depths of his hood –

Then he looks back at Hyrule over his shoulder and gives him a hesitant little nod that has Hyrule blinking from the sheer sweet shyness of it – before he’s whirling around and slipping away into the trees, nary a leaf or branch disturbed. Even if Hyrule chases after him now, he doubts he’ll be able to find or catch up to the hero.

Hyrule blinks, feeling a little like an overturned stone on a riverbed, unsteady on his feet after witnessing a mighty current. A poke at his leg has him looking downward, and he’s confronted by the leafy face of a korok, who bounces on their feet and gives him a few more impatient speaks before pointing in the direction Hyrule supposes he must go. Another series of pokes at the back of his knees makes him finally start moving his feet.

“Alright, alright, sorry, I’m going,” he says in response to another irritated sentence of squeaky noises. He’s tempted to glance back to where Wild had gone off, but the koroks apparently decide that he has delayed long enough and start tugging on the hem of his tunic.

In short order, Hyrule finds himself following a train of short little grumpily squeaking tree spirits along some indiscernible path, hoping he’s not being led astray. At some point in the journey, he realises that Wolfie has vanished into the ferns. Hyrule can never tell what the wolf is thinking at any point in time, but he trusts in the unusual intelligence the beast retains and he doesn’t pay too much mind.

Along the way, he also notices that a couple fairies seem to have taken to following him. One particularly bold fairy drifts close enough to him that if he wanted to, he would be able to reach out and pluck her right out of the air.

He doesn’t, though. Instead, he turns to the fairy and asks for discourse for the first time in a very long while. Fae, he understands, can be demanding, they can be unreasonable. The love of a fairy is often vain and proud, though never selfish. But Hyrule knows it very well. He has missed it, conversing with the kin of his half-shape.

“Can I ask you something?”

The fairy blinks.

Ask, she commands.

So Hyrule takes a breath and asks her the question that has been burning in his mind ever since he arrived in this era and saw the newest hero with his own two eyes.

“Why does my soul reach for him like this?” he asks, trying to parse out the abstract sensation into recognizable words. “Why does he sing like Home?”

The fairy flutters her wings in amusement.

You speak of the Search, she tells him.

“The search?”

You see more than your friends, Half-kin. You have acquainted yourself with our Treasure. Listened to their Song. Seen their true nature.

Hyrule thinks of the abyssal magic he had sensed in Wild. The cadence of his song. The quiet power that lay in wait inside those foxfire eyes. “Not completely,” he admits, murmuring. “I didn’t look close enough.”

You should not. The attempt would blind you.

This makes Hyrule jerk, but he shouldn’t be that surprised. He’d gotten a taste of that god-consuming danger already. “Who...” He wets his lips, figuring that if he wants to get a straight answer from the fae, he will have to adopt their vernacular. “Who is the one you call Treasure?”

And the fairy simply smiles in response, small, bright, teeth sharp, satisfied as if he has finally asked the right question.

She tells him, They are Star’s Gleam. Beloved. Our young moonling.

They are woven from sun dust. Meteor blood. Planet flesh. Their breath is a dream of the distant cosmos.

We were all stars, once. Pieces of heaven. Fallen constellations. The sound of their heartbeat is an eternal yearning. Our call home, where we once belonged. Return to the Deep. The Wild. The Old. We will always reach for our dear Changeling.

The Silent Realms, in Sky’s opinion, are easily one of the most fear-inducing experiences he has ever had. Facing the Imprisoned had nearly been child’s play after facing a multitude of merciless, relentless executioners with nothing but himself and his underwhelming stamina.

Running fast is easy. Running for a long time, now, that's a challenge. And running around while in a world dotted full of Watcher spotlights and narrowly avoiding Guardians while collecting deity tears had been enough to send his stress levels skyrocketing.

Even Demise himself hadn’t quite been able to top the list. Though facing a primordial deity does come close – Sky is a swordsman. He knows his sword fights. Demise’s fatal mistake had been in coming before Sky and challenging him to a battle of blades.

He isn’t quite sure where to place this most recent experience yet. Being separated from his friends and left stumbling through trees and thick fern with only the barest visibility available to him. This current situation: playing games with invisible spirits in the fog.

“Hey,” he calls tentatively into the air, trying to ignore how strangely little the sound travels. “If you want me to ‘seek’ properly, you’ll have to stay still enough for me to catch you.”

A chatter of laughter to his right, and Sky whips around just quick enough to catch the last glimpse of something disappearing into the haze. All around him are the swirls of fog, pale and eerie, rendering the trees around him into indistinct shapes that leap into sudden clarity only when he’s about to run into them.

Something about the murky coloring, the desaturation from this unnatural fog – it strikes some familiarity into him, and he’s tempted to remember those past goddess trials. The blueish light. The muted echoes. The bells in the distance. His fingertips tingle, and though the callouses from strumming the strings of the Harp has long since faded, the memory remains.

But these dim, grey woods are less threatening than the Silent Realms, and far more prone to mischief, as he quickly learns soon after stumbling out of the windstorm, utterly lost and turned around.

The intangible inhabitants of this forest are nothing like what he’s seen before, but he is nonetheless familiar with the strangeness of the spirit world. Sky doesn’t get any insidious feeling from the spirits who giggle at him from their hiding places in the fog… just whimsical.

Though he hesitates to call them harmless or good-natured, as he trips over a group of ferns that had been mysteriously knotted together, and he has to twist to avoid slamming his face into a crumbling stone pillar, half-eaten by moss and lichen.

Another cackle slides past his ear, simultaneously too close and too faint to hear, and Sky pushes down his reflexive shiver.

“Not fair, you guys,” he tells them, pushing to his feet and brushing dirt off his clothes. “I can’t even see where I’m going.”

His attempts in figuring out a way to get back to his group have yielded poor results. No matter which way he turns, every path looks just like the other. Navigation really isn’t his forte – that’s in Wind’s skillset.

Sky isn’t certain how long he’s been chasing fog spirits. It must have been quite a while now, though this wood seems to make the minutes flow differently. Already he can feel the hooks of fatigue sinking into his limbs, a familiar heaviness pulling at his movements.

He wonders, somewhat unflatteringly, if that’s why the spirits decided to target him, back in the storm. If they had sensed the flag of stamina in him that no one else in his group has, and had known they would be able to wear him out simply through time alone. This, Sky thinks, is his worst opponent. No swords for him to parry, no obstacles to maneuver around, no enemies to cut down except his own body’s limitations and the unmappable forest around him.

Not good, he groans internally. He feels the beginnings of a headache coming on, some part of his brain starting to throb unpleasantly with the pulse of his heart. Sky comes to a stop near a short tree stump, puts a knee on it to steady himself and take some of the weight off his feet.

“Hey,” he tries again, careful to keep the word from coming out like a sigh. His lips are going numb as he speaks. “Is there any chance you’ll take me back to my friends?”

All he gets is another string of chattering noises from the fog. If he listens closely, he thinks, it sounds a little irritated to his ears. He winces. “I’m sorry if my friends and I disturbed you, it really wasn’t our intention.”

He spends a moment worrying about the others, wondering if they had successfully escaped from the fog and found the forest Twilight had been talking about.

A loud creak in the trees above him is his only warning. Sky looks up just in time to see a pile of branches emerge from the fog, falling rapidly toward his head. He gets a second to be alarmed, then there’s a pair of hands on his back pushing him forward and out of the way.

Sky reacts quickly enough to keep his elbows bent to turn his fall into a roll, coming back up on his feet and spinning around just as someone steps protectively in front of him and yells, “Stop!”

And to Sky’s surprise, the swirling fog quietens and the giggles peeter away.

Short, is what Sky thinks next, unwittingly. The last time he’d seen the new hero he only recalls vague facial features and a sense of looming threat. But something has changed, somewhere between that previous meeting and this one, and that overwhelming presence has ebbed away to something more gentle, inexplicably soft, as Sky looks at a teenager whose top of head only reaches the tip of Sky’s nose, staring back at him with what he can only call nervousness.

“Hello there,” Sky says, feeling a little like he’s approaching a spooked remlit. At least, he thinks, the hero doesn’t have claws like Mia does. Goddess knows how many times he’s been scratched by Headmaster Gaepora’s pet remlit at night. Then because he hasn’t forgotten his manners, he says, “Thanks for helping me. I’m not sure I would’ve gotten away safely if you hadn’t pushed me.”

His words seem to startle the other hero, and the tips of his ears tinge pink as he breaks eye contact and looks toward the ground, as though suddenly bashful after the moment of action has passed. Sky watches, a little transfixed, as the teen shuffles backwards in retreat.

“I’m called Sky,” he decides to introduce himself, still observing the other with bewildered fascination. Something must have happened. Perhaps his group made it to Korok Forest after all, because he’s getting the unmistakable feeling that he has missed at least a few conversations. The contrast between the unfriendly face in his memories and what he sees before himself is so great, it’s like he’s meeting a different person.

There's a mumble that doesn’t quite reach Sky’s ears.

Sky tilts his head. “Pardon?”

Still avoiding eye contact, the hero jerks a finger towards himself. “...Wild,” he says embarrassedly. Then, as if worried that Sky may still be confused, he stutters out, “That’s my name. The hero Hyrule – gave it to me.”

Oh? Sky slowly nods, a picture of easy acceptance while he internally questions the peculiar wording of that statement. The heroes don’t exactly... name each other, intrinsically, it is more something that they choose themselves. Still, he smiles and replies, “It’s a good name. Thank you for telling me, Wild. Does that mean you know your title?”

Wild jerks his head in a nod, and – oh, wow – something about that timid, earnest motion finally tips the balance and instantly endears him to Sky.

“The blade spirit told us. Hero of Wilds,” he answers.

Despite the weariness weighing on Sky’s bones, he feels his back straighten in automatic attention.

“Fi?” he asks, “You’ve talked to her? She spoke to you?” And he can’t help letting some of his heartache slip through. He has missed talking to his quest companion. Missed her horribly. None of the other heroes ever mention a spirit residing in the Master Swords of their respective eras, so Sky had feared… that somehow, somewhere, Fi’s spirit had simply – faded away. Lost definition.

But now he gets evidence otherwise. The constant, reassuring weight across Sky’s back has kept him silent company throughout this journey across the dimensions with the other heroes, but to see Fi again in person and exchange even a few words with her would be a blessing.

There’s a flicker of vivid blue as Wild glances up and then away, as if to gauge his reaction before telling him, “She was sad she missed seeing you.”

Sky huffs out a breath that is half laugh and half relief. “I’m sorry to have missed the opportunity to see her again,” he says with a fond smile, absently brushing a palm down the handle of his blade. “It would be nice to be able to talk to her again.” Something pings in realization as he catches the rest of what Wild said before. “So you’ve met the others again?”

Another jerky nod, this time more eager, as Wild swings his arm to point in a direction over Sky’s shoulder. “They’re waiting for you. Over there. In the Forest,” he answers, and it is like he is running out of capacity for words. “It’s – not far. You were… spinning.”

Ah, so Sky had been running in circles while his goal had been only a short stroll away? Lovely to know. “Will you show me the way?” he asks gently, sensing a little that Wild may be approaching the limits of his capacity for any further interaction. Is it a problem with Sky in particular, or simply a natural social trait? Judging by the friendly exchange they’re having so far, he’s willing to guess that it’s the latter.

True to Sky’s guess, Wild hesitates, a slightly consternated, helpless expression appearing on his face that makes him look a little like a puppy faced by two life-changing decisions. A fairy comes fluttering out of his hood at that moment, spinning around his head twice before letting out a tiny bell chime. Relief instantly floods Wild’s face.

“Follow her,” He tells Sky. “She’ll take you there.”

Sky smiles, giving the fairy a gracious nod as she flits toward him. “That’s very kind of you, miss fairy. Thank you.”

A plaintive whisper sifts past them, and Wild’s pointy ear twitches once in an oddly animalistic manner, before he’s shaking his head to some unheard complaint. “Don’t bother him anymore,” he tells the fog. He ducks his head as a swirl moves forward to brush against him, as though attempting to hide his face. “Sorry. I was – wrong. He’s a friend.”

The fog swirls agitatedly for a bit more, before it suddenly shifts differently. Wild’s head snaps up.

A second later, several people come crashing out of the trees. Sky blinks. Hyrule, Wind, Twilight, and Four, followed on the heels by Legend, Time, and Warriors – all in different states of disarray, looking like they’ve collected a tree’s worth of leaves and twigs in their hair and clothes all together.

“Sky!” Twilight exclaims, instantly pulling him into a one-armed hug.

Grinning, Sky is about to return the greeting before he remembers the hero he’d been talking to, and whirls around to see the tail end of Wild’s cloak sinking into the fog.

“Oi, stop –” Wind starts to shout, but he’s yelling at nothing but a couple of rustling leaves before the second word is even out. “Agh, and he’s off again.”

“Seems like he isn’t seen unless he wants to be,” Time remarks. He rubs the back of his head for a moment, then decides, “We’ll have to wait for him to come around.”

Then Time turns, approaches with a pace that seems oddly measured, and puts his hands firmly around Sky’s shoulders. “Are you alright, Sky? I’m so sorry for leaving you behind. Did you have to fight? Does anything hurt?”

Sky huffs out a chuckle, patting Time’s elbow reassuringly. The older hero may seem rather calm and stoic, but he also has a protective streak with a direct connection to his level of stress at any given moment. “No injuries. I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”

Time gives him a look. “Level?”

Sky shrugs, but he takes a moment to assess. “Thirty percent.”

Time nods. “We have a camp set up in Korok Forest, it’s comfortable and safe.”

“You can always take a nap on my back,” Twilight pipes in.

Sky swats him on the arm. “I’d rather not get the fur of that pelt of yours in my mouth again,” he quips back. Then he tilts his head questioningly. “What made you decide to all go looking for me? I was about to find you.”

“What did you expect? We weren’t gonna sit on our asses picking daisies while you were still out here,” Wind replies.

“Besides, it became worlds easier once Hyrule came back to us,” Legend says, shifting a narrow-eyed look at the hero in question. “Seeing as how he appears to have a built-in compass for the punk.”

“Oh?” Sky looks curiously at Hyrule, who just looks generally annoyed and embarrassed. Seems like this has been a frequent topic of fascination for Legend to bring up.

“Well, I don’t have a built-in compass for Korok Forest, so I’m afraid we’re all out on luck for that,” Hyrule grumbles.

“Except that we do.” Sky glances up and sees to his relief that the fairy hadn’t flown off alongside with Wild. Perhaps sensing his attention on her, she drifts down carefully to their group, deigning to land lightly on the hand Time holds out for her. “Wild left us a guide.”

Four repeats, “Wild?”

“He didn’t tell you his name?”

“Didn’t get the chance,” Hyrule replies.

“But even so, it’s… quite apt,” Time says with a half-smile curling the corner of his lips. “Quite apt indeed.”

Legend makes a strangled noise.

“After all this time,” Legend says incredulously, picking his words slowly. “We’ve only gotten to his nickname?”

Chapter Text

Wild is hiding.

“Hiding?” asks helpful little Maca from the branch above his head.

Yes, Wild is hiding in a tree, balled up in what has apparently become his favorite position. It is comforting, and he doesn’t feel very well right now. He feels all shriveled, limbs curled tightly into his chest like a dehydrated spider, unable to face the world as it currently stands.

“What for?”

Wild turns, cheek scraping against bark, and looks forlornly at the korok.

“Made a mistake,” he tells Maca in a mortified little whisper.

“You did?”

“I called them fake. Liars.” Wild makes a horrified croaking sound and drops his face into both hands. “Why didn’t I listen?”

“There, there.” Maca pats him sympathetically on the head.

“Ruined it.” Wild’s shoulders slump disconsolately.

“It’ll be okay,” Maca reassures, “Mistakes happen all the time! Sometimes you get lost, sometimes you say bad things, and sometimes you hear the wrong things. All you have to do is say sorry!”

Wild groans softly in the back of his throat, letting out a little mumble through his fingers that sounds vaguely like, “I don’t know how I can apologize.”

“Hmm…” Maca thinks, their leaf face swaying to the side as they lean over in thought. “Well, whenever I have to say sorry to big sister Soi, I always go out to find the most twisty, most interesting-looking stick I can find, because Soi loves those kinds of sticks.”

Still looking miserable, Wild lifts his face from his hands and blinks big uncomprehending eyes at the korok. “Stick?” he repeats mindlessly.

“Or an extra shiny bug! The shinier it is, the better!”

Wild considers this. Considers it for a long, careful moment. Something precious and shiny, huh.

Time is the first to notice it.

“Is… is that a ruby?”

They all turn to look at him – Sky from atop his bedroll, Hyrule sorting through his inventory beside him, Warriors and Legend arguing over the slushy state of what was supposed to be their dinner, Wind and Twilight trying to coax the handful of koroks spying on them in the ferns into better accords.

They follow the line of Time’s gaze over to something on the ground at the edge of their camp. Something shiny and very distinctly red, sitting on a large leaf to protect it from the dirt. Like an offering.

Legend utters flatly, “What.”

Wordlessly, Twilight walks over and picks it up.

“It,” he pauses to stare at the fist-sized chunk in his hand, crimson gemstone still embedded in ore. “It’s a ruby, alright,” he finishes, now very puzzled.

“Where’d it come from?” Wind asks, leaning over so he can get a better look at this new curiosity. The ruby all but glows in his eyes, and as it catches the glow of their campfire in the evening light, it projects specks of red-gold across his cheeks like luminescent freckles.

“It's good quality.” Four has also come over to study the ruby ore closer. He doesn’t have a lot of experience in gemology, but he has dabbled in silversmithing with the gramps from time to time. It’s only natural that he has collected a few tricks from other specialists in the craft over the years.

“Ten rupees on our wayward brat hero being the one to leave it here,” Legend drawls.

“Since when did you start gambling?” Warriors asks. “Also, no dice. Who else could it be?”

Twilight nods, idly turning the red gem over in his hands. “The question is – why?”

Legend turns to Hyrule. Hyrule stares back, uncomprehending. “What are you looking at me for?”

Legend shrugs. “Oh, I simply thought our resident Wild expert may have an explanation behind this new behavior.”

“Get over it, will you?” Hyrule rolls his eyes, though missing any real fire behind his words. “And I have about as much of an idea as you do. It’s not like I have an actual monitor on Wild, it’s more like… a general direction.”

“‘General direction,’ says he,” Legend mutters under his breath, still a disbeliever unless given definite proof, “Smells like general absurdity to me.”

“Pardon me?”

“Eh,” Legend grunts, louder this time, and changes the subject. “What are we supposed to do with the thing?”

They all look back at the ruby, still sitting innocuously in Twilight’s palm. None of them know what to do with it. Selling it would be viable, but selling such an obvious gift from someone they’re still trying to befriend seems... somewhat callous.

“I suppose we’ll hold onto it for now,” Time says in the end.

Sky nods in agreement, then suggests, “We can ask Wild about it the next time we see him.”

“If we see him.”

“Well, with that attitude, Legend, it’s no wonder he doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“I’m not getting my hopes up, that's all.”

Twilight shrugs and drops the ruby into his pack.

In the morning, there is a sapphire the color of the deepest ocean, sitting innocently on another leaf left at the very far corner of their bed rolls.

No one had seen the one who’d delivered it there. They hadn’t bothered to set up a watch rotation, thinking that with the protection of the Deku tree watching over the Korok Forest they wouldn’t have to worry about attacks. Time groans. He should have set up one anyway, if only to watch out for their not-so-mysterious benefactor, instead of monsters.

“Finders keepers!” Wind crows as he pounces on the heart-sized gem. It can fit comfortably in the cradle of both his hands – he can hardly believe the size of the darn thing! Twilight might’ve gotten the ruby, but this one glitters like the ocean. Like the surface of the Great Sea of his home world on one of those days where there’s not a single cloud in the sky and he can feel the beat of the white hot sun sear away the first two layers of his cheeks and forehead.

“Where is he getting these things?” Warriors asks, scratching his head. Having brushed shoulders against the cramped circles of Hylian nobility in his world, he’s more accustomed to seeing cut jewels on the necks and wrists of noble ladies, or inlaid into brooches and timepieces carried by minor lords. All tiny facets and delicate fasteners, thin strings of precious gems. These huge chunks of unrefined, raw ore are throwing him for a loop.

“I reckon he mines them himself,” Twilight muses.

Four tilts his head in thought. “Does he expect us to do something about them?”

“Jewelry can be enchanted with different attributes, depending on what sort you have,” Legend answers, still eyeing the gem in Wind’s hands dubiously, “But usually one already has it in a wearable form, such as my rings. Carrying around these clunky things seems highly counter-intuitive.”

Four is quiet for a moment, watching Wind admire the sapphire in the morning light. The younger hero notices his contemplative look and hurriedly snatches it back, turning around to squirrel his precious ore away in his pack.

“Get your own, Four. I called this one!” Wind sticks his tongue out.

Four raises his hands up in surrender. “Relax. I know better than to go stealing treasure from a pirate.”

“Damn right.”

It happens again in the evening, after a long day spent wandering around the woods – no longer being harassed by the creepy sentient fog, surprisingly – and failing to catch a glimpse of their elusive newest hero. They trek back to their camp only to be greeted by the sight of –

“A pile of rocks?” Hyrule questions, frowning down at the offending thing. It is, in truth, underwhelming. Especially when compared to the mysterious ruby the morning before. Perhaps ten in count, a small mountain of dull, gray chunks of unidentifiable ore sits rather conspicuously next to a cooking pot setup and a few neat bundles of wood.

They’ve gotten their firewood restocked, Twilight notes with a sense of detached amusement. If it weren’t so exasperating, he’d laugh at the whole situation: their party chasing in circles after a hero who avoids them like his life depends on it except when he resupplies their provisions like a helpful household gnome.

Around them, the last of the sun’s rays fade, and the forest grows dim and cool as light no longer penetrates through the thick leaf canopy. They receive the answer to their earlier question when the shadows come over them like a hazy blanket, and light suddenly begins to shine from within the rocks.

“Pretty,” Sky murmurs, looking mesmerized by the glow. There no longer remains any gray, no more dull surface. Rather, a bright aqua now illuminates their camp, and the stones sparkle clearly like crystal.

“There is no way we can haul this around on our backs,” Time says. One or two gems distributed among all of them is easy enough, and he had thought they would be able to confront Wild in a proper conversation soon enough. But now he is beginning to legitimately worry about the possibility of being buried under a treasure trove of precious ore.

Wind apparently is thinking the same thing. He simply chooses the most expedient method. Turning away from their camp, Wind faces the dark forest, cups his hands around his mouth, and takes a deep breath.

“Hey! Wild! We wanna be FRIENDS with you! Promise we ain’t gonna try anything funny, just come out and –”

“Wind!” Twilight flails before nearly tackling Wind to the ground and slapping a hand over his mouth, muffling any subsequent shouting. “What are you doing?” he hisses in a stage whisper, as if to compensate for the previous few seconds of high volume.

Wind licks Twilight palm, which makes the older teen snatch his hand away with a yelp of disgust. “Whaddya mean, I’m telling Wild exactly what we want so he can save himself all this trouble.”

“Bless your heart, but you’re gonna scare the poor fella away even more like that.” Twilight can’t help himself as he ruffles the kid’s hair in fond exasperation. “Wild’s already spooked, what do you think he’ll do when we start yelling at him?”

“But I’m yelling our friendship at him!”

Twilight chuckles. “Same thing, kiddo, still yelling.”

Wind wrinkles his nose. “I don’t get it. Why isn’t he just coming out and talking to us? I mean, most of us can read, he can even send us letters if he doesn’t feel like talking.”

Nearby, Legend sighs. “Don’t we all wonder.”

“Oh, come now. This is getting absurd,” Warriors says as they stand around their latest gift. It’s the next day, and they’d just woken up to a new addition in the dead embers of their campfire. Somehow Wild is able to sneak in and waltz around the middle of their camp at night as if none of them were ever-vigilant, experienced travelling swordsmen.

Four reaches down and picks up the object in question, inspecting it with his eyes narrowed in concentration. After a while, he gives them his deadpan conclusion, as if it isn’t obvious already. “I am almost certain this is a diamond. But why. How.”

“That is not just a diamond, Four,” Legend begins slowly, “That’s a great fuck-off ginormous monster diamond. That is a veritable bludgeoning weapon.”

“Anything can be a weapon if you throw it hard enough,” Twilight points out.

Legend scoffs. “Did I ask for semantics? Of course you’d say that, you big musclehead. By Hylia, small children can be dangerous when thrown at a high enough velocity.”

Twilight rolls his eyes. Legend only gets this chatty when something is stressing him out. And the veteran hero has a lot of stressors. It’s gotten most of them quickly desensitised to Legend’s quips soon enough, after meeting him. Legend is probably just having a hard time dealing with priceless valuables dropping into their laps with no context or expectation. “Hey, constructive criticism and all that. And you’re the one who went down that particular train of thought, remember.”

But Legend’s first point is accurate. Calling it a diamond is a gross underselling of the thing. The formations growing out of the ore are almost the entire length of Four’s hand, and nearly two fingers across in width. It is the clearest, most unblemished miracle of a diamond he has ever seen.

“I’m keeping it,” Four concludes, mind already whirling with ideas about how he can incorporate diamond into a few of his blacksmithing mini-projects.

“Wipe your chin, I can practically see the drool,” Legend comments dryly from the side.

Sky scratches his head. “I understand that things are tense between Wild and our group, but surely opening up a line of communication is much simpler than… er.” He fishes around for the accurate descriptor in his mind.

“Harassing us with diamonds,” Legend suggests.

“Giving us expensive gifts,” Sky corrects. He sighs. “I just think that if he was willing to let us talk to him we’d be able to sort things out a lot easier. And faster, maybe.”

“A lot easier than making us make a fool of ourselves trying to figure out what in spirits he wants us to do with these things, for sure.”

“I think… they’re peace offerings,” Hyrule realizes. “Absurdly valuable peace offerings.”

“Peace offering with no way to actually return the favor? Rather defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? Is this simply another… ‘weird Wild thing?’”

Hyrule frowns, and is about to shake his head when Time interrupts.

“I don’t know,” Time says slowly, hand on his chin as he thinks, “But it is a Kokiri thing.”

“It is?”

Time nods. “I remember giving gifts was sometimes used as a form of apology in Kokiri culture. If Wild is as close to these koroks as I think he is, then he may be emulating them.” A nostalgic look crosses his face. “I should’ve known the tradition was kept, even after all these years.”

“Careful there,” Twilight teases, “You’re starting to sound like your age, old man.”

As Twilight laughs and ducks away from the retaliating swat Time aims at his head, Hyrule wonders out loud, “What is he trying to apologize for, though?”

There’s a brief pause in their discussion as they think. It is most likely, they can all agree, that Wild feels some sort of guilt over his initial treatment of them. Blood had nearly been spilled several times in their first few disastrous encounters, and they are fortunate enough that nothing irreparable had occurred. But Wild had been acting under a misconception – one that had already been resolved, or so they think.

...Why had he been so unfriendly in the first place, anyway?

“Huh,” Wind says suddenly, like he’s had a realization. He turns to the rest of the group. “We never actually told Wild about the whole... ‘traveling across time and space’ deal, did we?”

Time seems to take a second to think about it. Then he frowns. Tilts his head. “That wasn’t covered when we first met?”

Hyrule answers him. “If I remember correctly… Legend was the one who went ahead and recited the whole spiel.”

Collectively, they turn to look at Legend – who sputters indignantly. “What, so it’s my fault we’re in this farce of a situation?”

“This is why we leave the talking to Warriors.”

(“Most of it, anyhow,” Four tacks on quietly, but not quietly enough. Next to him, Warriors goes slightly pink, and doesn’t even try dodging the vengeful elbow to his side from Wind.

Warriors winces. Kid has pointy elbows. “Sorry,” he still mutters, because in any case, he’d deserved that.

“Just try saying stupid shit like that again, and I’ll boil your teeth,” Wind threatens, then can’t help adding a fonder-sounding, “Ya giant idiot.”

He still looks unsatisfied about the whole thing, but they can all tell that Wind is only making huffy noises to hide the fact that despite all appearances, the young hero forgives very easily. Warriors ruffles his hair, smiling softly.)

“Like any of you would’ve done better,” Legend protests.

“It’s on all of us,” Sky says, trying to keep the finger-pointing from starting, “We were all there the first time. We should’ve explained it better.”

“But you have to be honest – at the time, the kid was radiating so much hostility it was making me twitchy. Like pure arsenic in the air. No wonder Legend rushed through the whole thing.”

“By the goddesses, Captain,“ Legend says, sounding aghast. “Don’t go making up excuses for me.”

Warriors shrugs. “Hey, at least I tried. See if I ever try to be nice to you again.”

“Be nice? To me? I’m surprised you didn’t burst a blood vessel in the sorry attempt,” Legend says disgustedly. “Kindly refrain from doing so again.”

Warriors rolls his eyes. “Paranoid prick,” he says without much inflection, like he was simply commenting on the weather. Legend smiles in response. It makes the rest of them have a little chuckle at the two. Typical.

Shaking his head at their antics, Time sighs, scrubbing his fingers through his hair. “Misunderstanding through flawed communication is funny. Personally one of my favorite theater tropes, very entertaining,” he tells them. “But this? This isn’t just flawed communication, it’s a mistake on all of our parts. Misunderstanding through plain carelessness – now that isn’t funny at all.”

“Indeed,” Hyrule agrees. “Most of us have been through first introductions several times before. How did we manage to flub it up this much, this time?”

Day three of their search for Wild. Some of them are beginning to become slightly antsy. They have already stayed in this world for several days, past the usual amount of time allowed to them in between portals.

Dwindling time has always hung a bit over their heads before, but now the uncertainty is a constant source of anxiety. How long will Hylia wait until she draws open another portal right before their eyes? How long do they have before the world simply flickers and warps beneath their feet? Will Wild be dragged alongside the rest of their group, despite their unresolved conflict?

Since the diamond at breakfast, they have received: fossilized amber, topazes, more opals than they know what to do with, a jewel-encrusted shield, and a massive ornamental claymore that appears to have been taken straight out of Hyrule Castle’s royal armory.

This is what Legend has to say about it: “The feral punk has either got the deepest pockets I’ve ever known, or he’s a kleptomaniac of such staggering proportions the Fair Goddess herself could not be capable of fitting it under her grand blue sky.”

That was before they started to find cooked meals and freshly baked goods waiting for them in the evenings, still fresh and simmering in the pot.

This morning, they’ve decided to split up into two groups, feeling safe enough in the now-relatively peaceful territory. Time, Twilight, Legend, and Warriors had gone off to the east, while Hyrule, Wind, Sky, and Four wander the west side of the woods. They know the chances of actually coming across Wild and catching him unawares is low, especially when this is his home world, but they hope at least in smaller numbers, he would be more willing to reveal himself to one half of their group.

It’s Sky, unsurprisingly, who brings up the question. “Do you think that maybe… he’s scared of us?”

Wind wrinkles his nose. “What’s he got to be scared for?”

His doubtful tone isn’t presumptuous. He knows what they look like as a group – all of them heroes of prophesied legend, even if it doesn’t feel as such, sometimes – armed to the teeth, lethal and resourceful in every way. Pretty intimidating when looking from an outsider’s perspective.

It’s simply that he also remembers the way Wild had looked when he was facing them all down, at the sword pedestal. Wind can still recall the weight that had caught him across his throat, looking at this world’s strange hero, a sort of indescribable power pressing through his bones, as his heart drummed a harsh rhythm against his ribs in a way that has only seldom happened before.

“Wild obviously doesn’t feel like we’re enemies anymore, and he wants to make amends. He’s even dropping off dinner for us now. I know by now Warriors wouldn’t even care even if the stew turned out to be poisoned.” Sky shrugs. “It’s the only explanation I can think of for his reason to avoid us.”

“Might be just a lack of social mannerisms,” Four says.

“It’s this forest. Nothing but trees and fog to talk to,” Wind bemoans.

“I think it’s kind of charming, actually,” Hyrule disagrees ildly.

They’ve all gotten used to navigating the thick tangle of tree roots within the past few days of trekking through the forest, and now that nothing is actively trying to sabotage them, Hyrule finds that he rather likes the quiet ambience of the woods. It’s a different sort from the toxic forests of his home world, where the quiet comes from a lack of animals and critters, a heavy air hanging amongst withered trees. It’s peaceful here, he thinks. Steady.

He frowns. “Still, we aren’t that frightening, are we?”

Wind turns to the koroks in the shrubbery who have been eavesdropping on their conversation. “Hey, is Wild afraid of us?”

The little creatures squeak in nearly comedic unison, obviously not expecting to be directly addressed, and disappear in little puffs of smoke. Wind splutters, swiping at the stray leaves that rain down on his head. When he’s finished, he finds that a single brave korok remains, standing tall on a rock.

“Wild isn’t afraid,” the korok tells him, “Just embarrassed.”

Wind’s eyebrows do some acrobatics as he tries to decide what to feel about that. Surprise, concern. Plain old amusement, because the rest of them are mostly over all of that by now. He settles on a thoughtful frown in the end. “Huh, and here I thought we did something unforgivable to the poor buddy.”

“Also, you guys are kind of dumb.”

“Wha – hey!” Wind huffs indignantly, before deciding to let that one go. “Alright, so spill it. Why’s Wild doing all these weird things?”

“It’s what we usually do,” the korok replies.

“Aaand... what do you usually do?”

“Bring gifts,” says the korok with the air of great knowledge. “For future friends. Friends we want to keep for a very long time.”

“Oh,” Wind says, quiet with surprise.

“What?” Four interrupts. “Please translate for the rest of us who can’t speak tree.”

“They’re saying that Wild’s bringing us gifts ‘cause apparently it’s a traditional thing for tree folk when they wanna start lasting friendships.”

Wind only gets a glimpse of Four’s surprised expression before the korok before him pipes up again.

“Well, not really at first,” they correct him. “The first gifts were an apology. We bring food for friends.”

When Wind relays this to the rest of his group, Four says, a little dazed, “The… diamonds were an apology gift?”

Sky is beginning to get the impression that Wild’s sense of wealth isn’t completely there. “Okay,” he starts. “This is good. We all want the same thing. That’s a great start.”

“Considering the inherent longevity of trees, I’d say the implications of Wild using the korok way to express his desire to form a connection with us are very… significant,” Hyrule adds pensively.

Wind crouches a little to bring himself closer to the korok’s height. “Oi,” he starts softly. “Can you tell Wild we wanna be his friends, too? And no hard feelings over that whole mess from before. We just want to see him.”

The little korok seems to chew on this for a moment, their leafy face bending slightly forward as they contemplate this plan of action. Finally, they say, “Ok. I can go tell Wild. We were starting to get tired watching you guys trip around the forest anyway.”

“Thank y – hey! You didn’t have to mention that!”

“If you’re mean to our Link again,” the korok warns, as their many brethren have done before. This requires another thoughtful pause, as they seem to have trouble deciding how to end the statement. “We won’t be happy,” they settle on.

Wind just barely stops himself from cracking a grin at the whole thing. “We’re gonna be the nicest ever,” he vows solemnly.

The korok nods. Assured that they have sufficiently threatened the heroes, they spin on their rock and poof out of existence.

That evening is the first time in days they finally get to see Wild in person again.

Wild greets them the same way he almost always does: appearing out of the trees in a scattering of leaves, cloak and hair swirling in the jostled air. Wide blue eyes staring unerringly at them, as if always startled to see that they still exist.

It reminds Twilight of the first time he met Wild. Barefoot, grass-stains, haphazardly rolled sleeves, looking for all the world like some sort of forest fey who’d wandered out of their home in the sublime and accidentally gotten dressed in some worn trousers and a traveling cloak.

A ray of orange light from the setting sun suddenly catches Wild across the crown of his head, and even through all the tangles and twigs and stray leaves, it lights up his hair in a honeyed halo, made of threads of spun gold. Somehow, despite what Twilight knows about this strange hero, more tameless and unearthly than any one he has met so far, he always looks like he escaped from church glass.

Wild greets them with food.

“Hello, Wild,” is all Time manages to get out before the shorter hero is shoving a large cloth-covered basket into his hands. Time blinks down at the overflowing breads and pastries, still hot from the oven. “What –”

Marching dutifully over to the campfire, Wild brings out from his curious dimensional bag a whole pot of… something which instantly fills the entire clearing with a heavenly smell, and puts it over the fire to keep warm. When he finally turns to face them, he’s holding a wooden ladle in one hand. In the other, is a tall stack of bowls.

“Dinner,” he states.

The entire camp is silent for a few seconds, all of them staring owlishly and not yet comprehending anything that’s happened since Wild’s abrupt arrival.

“That’s wonderful,” Warriors is the first to break the silence, catching on to how Wild is beginning to clutch that ladle as if it were a weapon to defend himself with. He offers a reassuring smile, and is pleased when some of the tension disappears from Wild’s shoulders. “I’ll take a bowl, please.”

“Make that two,” Wind is quick to recover, bouncing straight into his usual spirited fashion. “I’m starving, and your cooking’s the literal fuckin’ best outside of my grandma’s.”

Time surreptitiously lifts the cloth covering of the basket he is still holding and quite possibly makes an involuntary happy noise when the smell of freshly baked bread wafts over his nose. Herbs and yeast and butter. Goddesses have mercy, they finally have a hero who has learned how to cook.

“Thank you for bringing dinner, Wild,” he says wholeheartedly, and can’t help but be endeared when the teen goes slightly pink at the ears.

“And for all of the gifts,” Hyrule adds, taking a bread roll from Time as the man starts passing the goods around the camp. “You didn’t have to, and we were confused at first, to be honest… but we understand what it means now.”

“I think it’s neat,” Sky comments as Wild is ladeling the soup into his bowl. “Friendship isn’t something that just happens out of the blue and is maintained with no effort at all. All connections with people take time and work to make sure it lasts, and the way you and your korok friends do it is a great way to start things off.”

Warriors chuckles. “Though where I come from, that sort of gift giving is a part of our courting customs, for romantic partners.”

Wind splutters on a spoonful of his soup. “Gross, Warriors!”

“I mean, it’s the same in my world as well,” Legend says. “Attempting to impress the beloved with the grandest and most expensive of presents, scare off the plebeians with your status and all that.”

But Wild doesn’t seem offended, only openly intrigued and contemplative, as he hands the last bowl to Twilight, who says, “Thanks.” Then cocks his head. “Just curious, do you really bring this much food for everyone you want to be friends with?”

Wild looks at him, surprised, holds his gaze for a moment, then quickly downward as if not entirely comfortable with the answer to that question.

“No,” he says simply.

Twilight lets a teasing little grin form over his lips. “Are we that special, then?”

“Food is for friends,” Wild admits eventually, “And family.”

As Twilight clutches his heart in feigned heart attack, overwhelmed by emotion and the sheer earnesty coming from this kid, they’re interrupted by Legend, who has been looking at them with bewilderment the entire interaction.

“Hold on,” Legend cuts in. His sharp gaze flicks between Wild and Twilight. “Aren’t you two supposed to be in some sort of strange feud? The last time we saw you exist in the same space as each other, I clearly recall Wild making a valiant attempt to lop Twilight’s head right off.”

The two heroes in question look at each other. Twilight shrugs, turns to Legend and says, “It’s alright.”

Next to him, Wild is nodding in agreement.

Legend blinks a few times, and around them the rest of the group seem to be equally as confused. “I – what?” he asks, because that kind of easy acceptance had not been what he was expecting as a response to lethal action.

“It was a misunderstanding,” Twilight tells him.

“In which his natural reaction was to instantly try to kill you?” Legend asks incredulously.

“It was… a very bad misunderstanding?” Twilight says in a slightly more questioning tone. “All my fault, looking retroactively.”

“I forgave him,” Wild rushes to clarify.

Even Time is looking a little impressed. “That happened really fast,” he says.

Wild copies Twilight’s earlier shrug. “Everything is good. I was angry for the wrong reasons, Twilight told me the truth. Now I have nothing to be upset about.”

“That isn’t normally how anger works,” Wind tries to explain.

Wild tilts his head. “It isn’t?”

“You know what, never you mind.” Legend decides to let go of this thread of discussion as it seems to be going nowhere. He gestures with his spoon. “I’d like to enjoy this food without being disturbed by forest brats who don’t make any sense. Compliments to the chef.”

Sometimes Hyrule suspects that Legend simply prefers to be this contrary. Perhaps, even, out of spite.

“Wild,” Hyrule says when they’ve just about finished with their meal, after Warrior’s theatrical retelling of a past noble’s scandal and Wind arm wrestled Four to decide who got the last honey roll. Wild looks up from his bowl, expression open and posturally relaxed in a way that makes them all so very content. “We have something to tell you.”

He glances at Time, who nods and puts his empty bowl aside.

“It’s time we explained properly about why we’re here.”

Chapter Text

Worlds beyond their own, stemming from a single point in time and branching out into thousands. Parallels and alternates, dimensions that exist only a stone’s skip away. Worlds populated with villages, people, monsters, and heroes to fight those monsters.

It is a familiar formula: an evil rises up, plunders the lands and brings darkness into day. A princess leading the lonely frontier to combat that darkness. And a hero, born from prophecy, wielding the blessing of the Goddess and an evil-killing blade.

And now – another enemy appears. A shadow hiding between realms.

Using the limbo that exists in the cushioning of world clusters, riding the liminal current as it leaves a wandering trail of boiling dark blood for the heroes to follow. The Goddess has gathered all her best warriors and fighters, melding together time and space, transcending histories and cataclysms in order to hunt this new evil down before it spreads more chaos across the timelines.

This mysterious being, Wild thinks solemnly, must be very powerful, if Hylia is bringing all her blessed children together to unite against a single enemy.

Legend had been just starting to wonder where the brat hero had vanished off to after their climactic talk the night before when the one in question suddenly pops out of the bushes not two steps away from him.

Unclenching his hand from his shirt and calming his heartbeat down, Legend swears and starts to say, “By the stars, give a warning, would you? I almost skewered you with my sword, you –”

He almost flinches when Wild reaches out, slow and telegraphed, to gently take his hand – and Legend is so taken off guard by this ridiculous notion that he simply allows this to happen. Wild presses something carefully into his palm. Out of pure reflex, Legend curls his fingers around the object.

Objects, he corrects himself a second later – two of them, feeling delicate and oddly familiar. He looks down. Shiny, is his first thought. The metal is intricately designed and the amber stones held within their delicate settings are bright and nearly glowing in the forest’s dappled shadows.

“I’m sorry for biting you,” comes the shy, shameful apology.

It takes a few seconds for the words to register, for Legend to take his mind back in time and recall that first little skirmish, so many days ago. Goddesses, the brat was still hung up on that? It had been surprising, certainly, but Legend has suffered far more dire and painful injuries than a trifling nip on the hand. He honestly is more shocked by the absolute lack of social mannerisms someone would be required to have for their first reaction in the face of an incoming threat to be to bite it.

But the look on Wild’s face stops any of the usual indignation or sarcastic response from rising to the forefront, and for once, Legend finds himself at a loss for what to say. The earrings are cool and light in his hand, and Legend can tell from a mere touch that the magic imbued into it is strong and pure. To his horror, Legend feels a blush rising to his face.

“You’ve put protection magic in these things,” he hears himself say, desperately fighting down the embarrassment and rapidly losing the battle.

Wild nods. “I asked a great fairy to bless them.”

Jewelry. Wild has gifted him magical, fairy-blessed jewelry. The reasoning behind it is so clear even Legend can draw his conclusions – and the mental image of Wild noticing all the rings on his fingers and deciding that Legend would most enjoy another treasure to add to his collection is nearly too much for Legend’s shriveled, jaded heart.

“Sweet goddesses,” Legend utters as though in realization, in abject dismay. “You’re a lamb in hylian form. A baby lamb.”

“What’s this?” says Warriors, appearing out of the shrubs with Wind following closely, as if automatically summoned by any opportunity to poke fun at the veteran hero. “The great Legend has lost his cold-hearted meanness and sass? Who are you?”

“You’re a pod person,” Wind gasps in obvious feigned horror, the little twerp.

“Just look at him,” Legend gestures rather distressfully at the entirety of Wild’s general being, as the hero in question blinks owlishly at him. “I can’t be mad at this. It’s like kicking a puppy. I might be horrible and rude, but I’m not a puppy kicker.”

At that last sentence, Warriors nearly chokes on his spit, then bursts out laughing.

“Do you like it?” Wild asks, all wide eyed and worried, while Warriors’ guffaws continue in the background.

Gods-damned sweet forest baby. Legend valiantly resists the urge to pull at his hair. “Yes, yes,” he says in a long-suffering grumble. The earrings are still in his hand, and he has no idea what to do with them. “You are forgiven, no harm done. Just don’t look at me like that anymore.”

Contrary to his wishes, Wild stays there, staring at Legend with the most heartbroken expression on his face.

Wind nudges Legend helpfully. “Whatcha waiting for? Wild worked so hard to give this apology gift to you, the least you can do is try them out!”

On Legend’s ears, currently, are only a pair of plain hoops, no use to the polished metal than to be ornaments to balance out the treasure hoard on his fingers. They are easy enough to slip off. Legend tries on the damn earrings.

Far be it for him to shamelessly boast about his own abilities, but Legend has always considered himself to be more sensitive to enchanted objects than most others. Magical garments, artifacts of power, divine devices – his first pair of pegasus boots had clued him in to his own knack for these things, and everything else he has collected over his many quests have only added to his stockpiles, and this natural-born intuition.

These earrings catch him off guard regardless. The defense magic is subtle but strong, the great fairy’s blessings come around him like a warm hug, like safety and reassurance in a non-physical blanket.

As if it isn’t enough to befriend his closest friends and endear himself permanently to their group. But Wild also had to be observant, empathetic, and capable of appeasing the hungry white noise of Legend’s paranoia.

Oh no, he thinks unknowingly in a near-perfect mirror of a certain other hero. The amber earrings hang from the lobes of his ears, their weights reassuring and secure. They’re pretty, a small voice at the bottom of his heart whispers to him, and he can’t decide whether to helplessly agree or shove it ruthlessly down even further.

Wild may be possibly the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, Legend decides. He wants to hiss like a cat accidentally splashed with water, suddenly feeling jilted by the whole world.

“They’ll do,” is what comes out of his mouth, a soft murmur that he pretends sounds more like a grumble. Wild’s answering smile is radiant with joy. It doesn’t help a single bit.

After having been harassed for so long by the sentient fog that lives in Wild’s Lost Woods, most of the heroes have chalked it up to be merely another quirk of the place.

Certainly, the thought has crossed the minds of a particular few amongst the group, once or twice – that maybe the laughter sounds a bit familiar, or perhaps this propensity for pranks brings to mind another group of beings known for the same thing. But they’ve seen many similarities between their worlds before, little parallels and equivalents for all the differences that exist as well. At this point, the heroes are so accustomed to seeing inconsequential familiarities that they just don’t think much of it any more.

“These are the Skull Kids?” Time sounds a little horrified, to be honest. He looks around them, at the pale fog, at the way it seems to move independently of any breeze or air current that occasionally sifts through the woods. All this time – they’d been walking in the remnants of skull kids. “What happened to them?”

Wild shrugs, lifting a hand to catch one of the curls of mist, a thread of cackling laughter echoing faintly around his wrist. “They grew old,” he answers simply.

And it makes Time think back to the Great Deku Tree, sheltering Korok Forest. The tree had just been a little seed pit that he’d buried in the soil at the end of his journey. Even years later, it had not grown to more than a thin little sapling.

In his home world, though Time can feel the ancient soul of the Deku tree slowly stirring to life in the roots that had reached deep beneath the ground, on the surface there is not even a semblance of a face grown yet. How many years does it take to grow to that size? Hundreds, thousands?

There’s a whistling whisper, and a loose lock of Wild’s hair lifts up and tugs in the opposite direction all on its own. The young hero squirms away playfully, laughing softly at the indignant-sounding chatters on the breeze. “Sorry, I was wrong,” Wild placates, “You’re not old at all.”

As the fog still swirls around them agitatedly, Time finds himself smiling as they’re pulled into a game of seek-and-find – a variation of the classic childhood favorite that appeals to the Skull Kids’ fondness for mischievously hiding things away in obscure places, and a hero’s penchant for going out of their way to find obscure things.

It seems that no matter how old, or how far away from the other heroes’ dimensions that Wild’s world may exist on the timeline, there are some things that will always remain unchanged.

“So, Wild,” Warriors starts slowly, body language carefully casual and his head tilted inquisitively, “The Great Deku Tree says that you’re not a hero of Hylia. And while I’m all for this cute, mysterious aura you have going on, I certainly wouldn’t mind if you decided to give us an explanation about that.”

Wind is nodding along. “Yeah, you were pretty adamant about not being the hero when we met.”

Despite their best efforts, Wild still freezes in place. Startled, it seems at first.

But then it becomes a preternatural stillness, a statue-like silence, and Wild stares through them, past them. For all that his blue eyes are so honest and expressive, in that very moment they are unblinking and steady, filled with something unrecognizable.

“Wild?” Hyrule asks hesitantly.

As if awoken by his voice, Wild blinks twice, and then once more resumes being the shy teenager they’ve all come to know. The change is so quick, the moment so fleeting, that a few of them wonder if all of it had only been a trick of the light.

“The Deku Tree will explain better,” Wild informs them, already turning to presumably lead them all into the central grove where the tree rests.

“Well now,” Time says, and can’t help the teasing tone, “This sounds serious. Are you sure you want another to speak for you?”

At this, Wild turns back to look at him and seems to take a moment to seriously consider those words. He bobs his head up and down in a sort of resolute action. “I trust the grandsire.”

Time smiles, finding that odd name the younger hero has for his Tree rather charming. “Alright, then. Lead the way.”

The Great Deku Tree comes to life as he always does – slowly, grandly, with deafening creaks of wood vibrating the very air around them.

“They want to know,” Wild explains simply, and it seems that is all there needs to be said in order for the tree to understand what it means.

“Hmm,” the Deku Tree acknowledges this with a solemn rumble, sounding contemplative, then says, “Come, dear sapling, stand upon my roots.”

A bit confused but still accepting nonetheless, Wild obediently clambers up the monumental roots of the tree until he stands on the thick tangle of them, just under the sculptural jut of the Deku Tree’s mouth. A few koroks decide to join him there, bumping into him to happily wrap their stubby little arms around his knees.

As Wild smiles and affectionately pats the tops of their heads in return, the Great Deku Tree begins by asking, “Do you know, heroes, what we nature spirits call this one, every so often?”

The fairies call him treasure, Hyrule thinks as he stares up at the tree. Seeing Wild mingling amongst the spirits really brings into perspective why the hero of this land is titled so very rightly so. Wild looks like one of them. He looks like he belongs there – in the center of loveable tree creatures, surrounded by soft sunlight and cradled by one of nature’s oldest and most enduring entities.

But no… hadn’t there been another word? Something said in fleeting mention, but so peculiar Hyrule’s keen hearing had caught on it anyway.

Beside him, Time shakes his head. “What do you call him?” he asks curiously.

“This one has many names now, it seems. Our Zelda named him Link, and now with you, he is Wild. But the name the beings of wilderness will always know is Changeling.”

“Changeling,” Legend repeats, frowning. “As in an auf, a fae creature left in place of a stolen child? Sounds rather ominous, doesn’t it?”

Leaves rustle as the Deku Tree chuckles. “Perhaps, perhaps,” comes the slow, amused rumble, “Nevertheless, it is a title known to us, and alas, quite accurate in the end.”

Now the heroes, if it is possible, are more confused than they had been at the start of this conversation. “Huh?” Wind says, summarizing their thoughts collectively. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It is all quite straightforward. The Hero of this Hyrule was killed a hundred years ago.”

The way the Deku Tree delivers that line is candid and offhand enough that there isn’t time for the shock to register before bewilderment takes over. Frowning, Wind just points expressively at Wild.

“Allow me to reiterate,” the Deku Tree says patiently, “The Hero perished in battle against a great cataclysm a hundred years ago. But while his soul slipped away, his body was preserved through ancient technology. And when this world faced that great threat once more, certain entities deemed it fit to construct a new soul for the empty vessel. It is only due to great fortuity and the goodness within this newborn that they had taken it upon their own to finish the quest in the fallen hero’s stead.”

As they hear each piece of information, each sentence sounding more amazing and absurd than the last, the heroes’ eyes grow wider and wider.

“And thus, you see the one who stands before you now.”

Wild is looking at them, then. Watching for their reactions, perhaps, with a squirming korok tucked idly into his arms. His blue eyes shine even against the warm light of the sun filtering in from the overhead leafy canopies, and it strikes a familiar bell in Sky’s memories. The first time they had all caught a good look at Wild’s unhooded face – that very first encounter, at which point Sky now realises that Wild may have unwittingly peeled back a layer of his hylian guise in the nucleus of his own rage at the time.

The words of the Deku Tree may sound like a far-fetched story, but Sky remembers that distinct chill. That moment of sudden cold, which had nothing to do with temperature, and everything to do with the fact that his senses had been utterly convinced that he was standing face to face with a terrifying adversary. Sky recalls how he had to fight the automatic impulse to press a hand protectively against his own throat.

But the Wild of then is nothing like the Wild of now. Sky blinks and the memory dissipates, and all he sees is a teenager smiling softly at him.

Four is frowning, his efforts in parsing through this new information visible and evident. “So you’re saying that Wild isn’t… one of us, he isn’t a reincarnation of the Hero’s spirit – but instead something else entirely, wearing the skin of a dead Link?”

He nearly grimaces at the last line. It sounds more morbid than he’d meant to put it. ‘But technically, it’s true!’ Violet protests silently.

“Do not be mistaken,” the Deku Tree advises. “This one belongs here just as much as any of you Goddess Heroes. Just as you have fought for your own, he has fought for this world, has traversed these lands and built bonds with its many inhabitants. He is as much ours as we are his.”

Four, at least, looks a little more than sheepish. “Of course, I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

“The blessing of the Goddess,” Time says as if just remembering that such a thing exists. “Do you have that, Wild?”

Though he has yet not found it within himself to scrape up enough forgiveness to regard the deities with anything more than a dull resentment, Time can acknowledge that many of his feats would not have been possible without the protection of the goddess. Drawing the Master Sword from its pedestal, he muses, would have been entirely impossible without Hylia’s sanction crawling all over his skin.

And as much dislike as he holds for the sacred blade, he can easily admit that he cannot imagine defeating an enemy like Ganondorf, nor the monstrous form the man had been able to take on at the end, without it. How Wild would have accomplished such things without carrying that Blessing, if his quest had been anything similar to the other’s, Time has no idea.

But to his surprise, Wild shakes his head. “She’s not my goddess,” he says, “I have her Favor instead.”

Time tilts his head. “What is the difference?”

It seems Wild isn’t exactly sure either, from the shrug he receives in response. Though, Time supposes, that without having a Goddess’ Blessing in the first place, it would be difficult to compare. Time chews on that thought for a while more, while Wild decides to rejoin them on level ground, hopping gracefully down from the roots with the korok still in his arms.

“Why couldn’t she have just given you her Blessing?” A goddess being frugal in her blessings – ha – that would be the first Time has ever heard of it. But he wouldn’t put it past her, at this point. Between putting sacred swords in the hands of children and sending them out to fight her holy battles, Time wouldn’t be so shocked to discover that when one of her realms fell into peril and a total outsider came to save it, Hylia hadn’t even cared enough to aid them to her fullest ability.

Wild only regards him steadily, and Time can’t help but feel as if the teen has read every one of his thoughts straight from his mind. “She’s not my goddess,” Wild repeats, as if this is the most important detail.

But Legend has already caught on. For once sounding subdued and quiet, the veteran asks, “If she isn’t your patron deity, then who is?”

Wild grants him a smile, as if he has finally asked the right question, and turns to look at the Deku Tree. Who then seems to huff a little in exasperation, but provides the answers for him anyway.

“The entities who crafted the soul of the one you call Wild have no names. They are Old, so immeasurably old that all records of them have been long ground to dust and the memories of them are nearly Lost.”

“Older than the Golden Goddesses?”

Trying to imagine anything coming before Din, Naryu, and Farore is nearly inconceivable. Those are the deities who shaped their world, who gave form to the lands of Hyrule and created the three most powerful objects in existence. The same three objects that have haunted some of the heroes for their entire lives.

“Older than even all our Goddesses, indeed,” the Deku Tree affirms. “Hylia could not hope to place her mark upon one already claimed by others who came far, far before her.”

“I wonder where they come from,” Sky murmurs, sweetly curious, seeming unaware that he’d said his thoughts out loud.

The Deku Tree chuckles, petals fluttering down from the branches above. “Even I do not know that, first hero. To the furthest extent of my knowledge, however, I can only say that the realms they frequent are at times known as the deep cosmos. Not unlike the space between dimensions you travel through.”

And with that closing statement, as if on cue, a shiver runs through the air and the world ripples around them.

A portal opens on the other side of the clearing.

They all stare at it, for a good moment. The deep vortex of magic looks alien and conspicuous in this tree-shaded space, a spot of interminable darkness within the peaceful haven of Korok Forest. Something like that doesn’t belong in a place like this, thinks Legend.

“Well,” Four says, a bit faintly, “I suppose that's a sign that our time is up.”

While they had a rough first few days, the heroes had come to genuinely enjoy their stay in Wild’s home. Though short, it had been nice to be allowed the time and leisure to simply enjoy each other’s company, eat good food, and get to know their newest.

“Wild.”

It’s Warriors who speaks, this time, and he addresses the hero directly, waiting until Wild is looking at him with that usual quiet, curious attention.

“I understand now that you have no obligation to us. You exist outside of Hylia’s influence and the duties of heroes. I may be speaking out of place in asking you this,” Warriors says. He knows he’s eating his own words he had said earlier before, but he can’t dredge up anything but a vague embarrassment and regret about being humbled so thoroughly. He places a hand over his scarf, open palm resting just above his heart, and meets Wild’s gaze solidly.

“But I want to extend an invitation to you anyway. I know you’re a capable fighter. You’re skilled, intuitive, and you make friends everywhere. It might be too much to ask you to leave your home world to embark on another quest with a group of rowdy traveling sword fighters, but… we couldn’t be happier to have you in our group.”

Warriors has been watching his group. He has observed how his comrades have gravitated towards Wild, unerringly and inevitably, despite how much they try to hide or deny it. And he knows that he himself already considers the scarred teenager to be another one of their team. No matter how objectively he tries to view the situation, in his heart, Warriors has already begun to count nine, instead of eight.

Wild squeezes the korok in his arms a little tighter, a contemplative, pensive expression on his face, Then he relaxes and bends to set the tree spirit down. Warriors is prepared to wait longer for an answer, or receive a rejection, but as Wild straightens back up to meet the careful gazes of the heroes once more, he seems to have already come to a decision.

Overhead, leaves rustle and petals rain down as the Deku Tree creaks with a chuckle. “The Wandering has taken a hold of you once more, I see,” the ancient being remarks perceptively.

Wild smiles softly, as the korok at his knees tugs at his hands. “Yes,” he murmurs, as if thinking out loud. Then, to them, he says, “I’ll go with you.”

“Really?” Wind doesn’t even hide his grin, his delight palpable. “You’re coming with us? For real?”

Wild nods. The heroes seem overjoyed, and it appears as if they’d been trying to hide their hope before, for fear of influencing Wild into agreeing, because they make no attempt to conceal their happiness now. They laugh their relief aloud, and Wild cannot help the joy that rises to his chest in response, right alongside the little tug at his heart that has been steadily getting stronger since he first began to spend time in the heroes’ company.

Go, it says. It pulls at his feet and tingles in his fingertips, an instinctual feeling that steadily points him towards this group of heroes who have come tumbling into his world. Wild isn’t really designed to stay for long in one place.

(This tug isn’t so much instinct as it is something deeper, coming from a place they can only describe as the Before. They still aren’t sure how they have come to exist or where their soul had spawned from – only what they’d come from – but this feeling is as close as they have ever gotten.)

(The decision had been easy to make, in the end. Because the Sires have crafted this soul painstakingly and faithfully, using all the best and most durable of things. Because they have been constructed with the vague intention of a purpose – of surviving and thriving in that difficult purpose. This is what they are meant to do. This is what they want to do.)

“Glad to have you on board,” Four says, sharing a high five with Wind.

“Your cooking will be greatly appreciated, at the very least,” Legend admits begrudgingly.

He’s elbowed in the ribs by Hyrule, who is rolling his eyes at the veteran’s constant struggle with saying anything close to what he genuinely feels. “He means he’s practically dancing with joy on the inside. I know you’re already Legend’s favorite out of all of us,” Hyrule says over Legend’s protesting denials. He smiles brightly, “As am I. Let’s become good friends, Wild.”

“Yep,” Twilight agrees, grinning cheekily. “You’re stuck with us now, no take-backsies.”

A tug at his shirt distracts Wild, and he looks down to see the red mushroom and yellow gingko leaf of the forest’s elder korok.

“We’ll miss you,” Chio says tearfully. The Koroks have all decided to be present, more of them popping in with every passing second. Little leaf faces of all shapes and earthy shades peek out at them from all directions, lining the great branches of the Deku Tree and spilling into the underbrush, all clamoring to say their farewells.

Wild regards them all with visible affection, the corners of his lips curling upwards tenderly. “I’ll miss you too,” he reassures, wrapping his arms around the couple of koroks who have come to give their adieus up close.

“Tell Zelda for me,” Wild requests. “I can’t say goodbye, but she’ll understand.”

“We will,” Maca promises. Wild pats their head in thanks.

“Come back to us,” the Great Deku Tree rumbles above, gentle and warm. “No matter how long your journey, no matter the outcome. We will be here. Return to us as you will, sapling.”

A flurry of bird’s wings. A subtle shift in the air, watchful and suspended. In the far distance, a single ray of light splits off into fractals, multiplying through all the frequencies of color.

Hylia. The Goddess arrives. Though Wild knows she has safeguarded him throughout his journey, he has not had the honor of holding Goddess Hylia’s singular attention in a very long time. Her presence is pure and brilliant, filled with unheard melodies. Unmistakable and lovely, like a warm spring day.

He breathes in, feeling the glow of the divine shine upon his skin. The other heroes don’t seem to react to her presence, but perhaps that is only because they are already so soaked in the grace of the goddess. Such a casual touch must simply blend in seamlessly against the endless current of divine sanction they live in every moment of their days.

Hylia, he greets silently, knowing that she hears, I see your Heroes. I answer your call.

No words come in reply, but he would like to think that perhaps the bird that chirps merrily in the nearby tree is enough of a sign, or that fractal of light in the distance dances through the hues a bit more brightly, as if in acknowledgement. He doesn’t need words to know that Hylia is a goddess who always listens.

“Come on,” Twilight says, already a little ways ahead. Behind him, the rest of the heroes are looking back with expectant expressions. He holds out a hand and grins. “We’ll go together.”

(Once, there had been a time when the giggling song of koroks on the wind was their only companion on the road. They remember lying under the stars with only the crackle of fire embers to send them to sleep. The lengthy days spent on horseback, weeks spent with such a lack of need to speak out loud that when they finally arrived in civilization and was faced with the prospect of verbal conversation, the words came awkward and ungainly.

For so long, they had fought and travelled across forests, deserts, mountains and rivers with no one at their back except for the knowledge that the goddess of these lands had enough kindness and mercy within herself to bestow her favor upon the foreigner in her realm.

It hadn’t been entirely unpleasant, and to them solitude is usually familiar and peaceful. But still – new adventures are best begun with friends, aren’t they?)

Wild smiles back and takes the offered hand. Twilight’s palm is rough with callouses, his grip firm and it seems that no matter what form he takes, his eyes are always kind.

The portal beckons.