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Four is weird about magic.
They all have some hang ups of course, Twilight especially, which is odd considering the recent reveal of his own magic usage, but everyone has something they’re wary of. Legend doesn’t like the unknown as a rule, but if he’s allowed to learn about it, he’s less likely to avoid and more likely to just be cautious. Time grew up with magic, but he’s wary about anything that exudes large amounts of power, as the side effects are often weighty for the price of using it. Sky is still becoming accustomed to everyday magic use, whereas it’s part of Hyrule’s daily life, while still also being something that’s a threat for the traveler. Wild thinks it’s cool, but mostly since it’s almost gone entirely by his time without great amounts of effort to use it. Wind, like Legend, is wary of the unknown, but in the end, he’s just as curious as Wild is.
As for himself, Warriors grew up without much more than old stories to tell him about magic, stories he’d pass to his little sisters later in life, still not aware of how prevalent the forces that he’d spoken of truly were in his world. The war had plunged him headfirst into a world of magic usage and its users, and like with swimming, he’d been forced to acclimate quickly lest he be pulled under and die. Nowadays, he’d dare to say he’s the person least likely to react to sudden magic usage, provided it isn’t too very bizarre. Shapeshifting is an outlier, since there’s no way to get accustomed to suddenly different forms, or any way to expect it, but still, blasts of magic or power from weapons? They’d gone off all the time from the fighters gathered across time, during the war. He’s used to strange new magics appearing out of nowhere.
Four is odd about them though. Four is wary of anything he doesn’t understand, but unlike Legend who will poke at it, shields raised, Four will keep away at all costs. As far as the smithy seems concerned, magic and he can keep their distance, and while, unlike Twilight, he doesn’t object to others using it, he firmly rejects offers extended to him to let him try things as well. The Master Sword is their key example of such behavior, but there are others too; Legend’s items, Twilight’s crystal, and generally most magical weapons that are not their shortest’s own.
So, seeing Four watching, listening so intently as they sit down and demand answers from their rancher, it’s strange.
They’d all been a bit affronted at the secret of their wolf companion and the rancher being the same, but now that they have the opportunity to learn what, precisely, was the reason for it, how it happened at all, they’re all eager to have answers. By nature, it seems the hero’s spirit carries with it a sense of curiosity that can’t be dimmed no matter how many generations it has passed through. It’s less proficient at teaching, but that’s become a null point as Legend carefully handles the thing, asking questions rather than letting them all rely on Twilight’s abysmal attempts at explaining how the thing works or how he’d come to have it.
He’s not sure how Legend hasn’t transformed, since, according to Twilight, it should change whomever handles it. Still, the vet seems to be taking advantage of his apparent invulnerability to examine the magical item and do whatever a magical collector and scholar like himself does with such sorts of new things.
Four paying rapt attention though, eyes following the vet’s hands as Twilight explains that the crystal is, essentially, shadow magic condensed, formed from a curse placed on him that a powerful magic user had lifted for him- that's strange.
“How does shadow magic not screw you over?” The vet is dangling the necklace before his eyes, making them cross as his ears pin back, a harsh scowl fixed on the crystal.
Twilight shrugs, also watching the vet, but relaxed, mostly, as though he doesn’t fear what happens if the magic activates, but still would rather it not . Warriors wonders what would happen if it did . “It’s pure magic. Dark only in nature, but all ill intent was- wiped away I guess? She didn’t explain fully, what with us still dealin’ with the world nearly endin’ an’ all.”
The vet flicks at the crystal with one finger, making it spin slowly, glinting oddly in the fading light of the sun, contrasted by the low burning flames of their campfire. “Pure dark magic...” he muses. “Not evil...just...hnnn....”
“Ever seen something similar?” Wind asks, slumped across the rock the vet and rancher sit on, arms cushioning his head as he looks up at the two, blinking slowly like he’s maybe beginning to tire out after their long day.
“Nope.” Twilight sighs.
The vet tips his head on one side, nose shivering in a thought that’s not shared. “Maybe?”
Four hasn’t blinked since the idea of pure shadow magic was presented, and there’s a glitter in his violet eyes that makes the captain uncomfortable. He’s not sure what it is, Four’s a good kid and rarely is any trouble, but something about that look in his eyes.... it’s worrisome.
“Have you interacted with dark magic outside of Ganon‘s before?” Hyrule asks, staring at the vet as the other stops the crystal’s spin with one gloved hand. “I mean, at all?”
“Some,” the vet says, and then hands Twilight his necklace back, although his eyes linger even as the rancher holds it carefully by its chord. A twitch of the ears and then the younger adds, “a lot actually. There are so many dark mages and whatnot that I’ve met personally, and that's just in my world.”
“Your world?”
“I’ve been to others, and yeah, one of them actually had dark magic as the norm. Light magic was...” his ears swivel back, “...people weren’t keen on meeting light magic users. Still, they weren’t awful, just different.” Violet eyes a shade softer than Four’s lift to catch the rancher’s midnight blue. “Your magic user friend, was she from a place where that was the norm?”
Twilight nods, tucking his charm back where he apparently keeps it, between his layers and around his neck. “Yeah. Not sure if hers was a ‘nother world or just...dimension?”
The vet nods.
“Whatever it was, her magic was what everyone had there, and folks good or bad could use it.”
“So,” Four finally speaks, and there’s something , Warrior can’t name what , but maybe it’s the intensity of those dark eyes on the magic master and the rancher, “dark magic isn’t inherently evil, just... different? Is that what you’re saying?”
The two exchange a glance, and by the prick back of the rancher’s ears, head lower but gaze staying locked with softer violet, he supposes the rancher cedes the right to answer to the scholar rather than speak himself. Legend accepts it easily though, titling his head on one side and fiddling with the bracelet on his wrist, not meeting Four’s eyes, perhaps because he’s thinking too hard, or maybe some other reason. “Here in Hyrule, as a rule, dark magic is just power clouded with impure intent and harmful nature. Anyone can wield it- anyone magically skilled that is- but its purity is determined by the purity of your actions.”
“And you know this because...?”
A flinch. “If one of us- those who wield magic- used our abilities with impure intent, it would take on a darker quality. If your goals start becoming selfish, or your wishes more violent, or even if vengeance or pride colors your actions instead of something else, your magic can alter to become more shadow like.”
His focus on Four drops at those words, mind flicking back. Pride, Legend said, could color your magic to darkness. “Is that why our shadows end up as they are? They’re a manifestation of impure intentions coloring our magic?”
A nod. “I think . Granted, they can also be fueled by other magic, if they gain enough sentience to be their own self. Then they can just draw on whatever magic is around them for strength, but they usually form as a result of selfishness and the like,” the vet’s shoulders hunch slightly, stiff with a thought that’s likely guilt if his experiences are at all like the captain’s. “That’s why they say the Master Sword might sometimes reject her masters. If your magic becomes corrupted enough by your thoughts and feelings, there’s no light magic to mark you as her intended wielder, and she’ll register you as a threat instead, making it impossible to wield or so much as lift her.”
Twilight shifts uncomfortably, eyes darting to the blade. Has he experienced that too? Should- is that something Warriors can ask him? Maybe such a shared experience could be something they could talk about, use to connect with each other in the wake of the shit show that their relationship has been of late. Later though, right now, in front of the others, such a thing wouldn’t be best.
“But shadow magic is just magic with different intent?” Four pushes, “not it’s own type?”
A nod from the vet, ears still pinned back. “As far as I know. As a rule though, I don’t tend to linger and study dark magic, so I only know a very little bit through observation.”
“How then,” Time speaks up for the first time in a while, one good eye fixed on where his pup’s necklace lays, although it’s now covered with cloth and armor, “can it be pure?”
A snort. “That’s what I want to know! So far though, my best guess is that other dimensions and worlds sometimes have the reverse; darkness being the safe and good things, and light being a piercing and dangerous thing to them. So ill intent would be light, and purity would be....” a frown and the screwing up of doll-like features, “like the moon in contrast to the sun? People say the moon represents purity in some cultures, so for those worlds where darkness is good, like night, the dark nature of magic might be seen like we see the moon, but light magic is cruel and harsh like a desert sun.”
There’s nods all around, some with understanding clear on their faces, others with confusion, and some, like Wild, with cluelessness. Even for his frustrations with the kid, it makes him smile a bit to see Wild trying, but so clearly left out of the loop that anyone would know he’s just following their example and pretending to have a clue of what’s happening. It's a sure reminder that, for all the stress the boy causes, he’s still a kid under all those scars and wildly wielded weapons.
“When we get to my era, I want a chance to look at that thing again,” the vet turns on their rancher, curiosity still glittering under furrowed brows. “There’s someone we might be able to ask for answers there.”
He doesn’t say who, and Twilight doesn’t ask, but the rancher agrees easily enough.
The conversation slips away after that, Wind pestering Legend about his experiences with magic, the vet pushing the kid out of his space with a smirk and refusals, and Time asking his pup a few questions while the rest of them drift into something more understandable for their group as a whole. Through it all though, Four’s gaze remains fixed on where the crystal lies, eyes unchanging even in the flicking light of the fire and the dying glow of the sun.
Warriors has no clue why he’s watching the smithy, but the hair on the back of his neck standing on end and the shiver that creeps down his spine as he does so keeps him watching.
Four is weird about magic, discussing it or using it. Unlike the others whose intentions are somewhat clear, he doesn’t let on at all why he’s the way he is, or how he feels, just that he won’t touch it.
That night, as they settle to bed, Sky and Wind on first watch together and already chatting easily beside the fire, the captain’s mind won’t let the thought go. Resting his head on his arms, his mind flickers back to the thousand fairy stories he used to hear told by the village elders to smaller children when he was young, to the ones he’d picked up in bits and pieces when he was older, in Castletown, and even the few he’d learned during the war. There’s an irrational part of him that wonders if the reasons figures from the fairytales had treated magic as they did would match the smithy’s own, but there’s really no way of knowing. Even if the tales are based, in part, on the ventures of ancient heroes, there’s no way to know for certain what’s founded in fact or not.
Still, it’s been a long while since he’s drifted off with a fairytale rolling about in his head, and he’d dare say he sleeps better for it.
-
After that night, Four continues acting weird. There’s something wrong behind his eyes, something almost familiar, in ways that set off alarm bells in the captain’s head. Something about Four has changed, and while he can’t name what , the dark glint of eyes; eyes that, before, he could have sworn were changing color from time to time, but which are now always just a shade darker than the vet’s, now are glassy in their shine, absent, clouded. It’s not like a fever, he checks for that, and It's not anything that effects the smithy’s fighting, but there is a change. There's something Wrong , and Warriors doesn’t know what it is.
The others don’t see it though; not most of them. Sky stares at him, worry creasing lovely features as he asks if the captain is feeling okay. Time nods it off but doesn’t seem worried. Twilight- he doesn’t go to Twilight, or Wild. He’s...he’s not sure how well talking over his own concerns with those two will go considering their aptitude for not sharing with the rest of the group about things. He’s convinced it won’t help him at all. Wind listens, but dismisses it after a time, after talking with the smith and apparently assuring himself all is well. When he brings it to Legend, the younger man looks grim, and he sees the vet watching Four with wariness, but that’s not entirely unusual to begin with; Legend’s always been more wary of Four than the rest of them, although he’s never said why.
It’s nice to have someone take his concerns to heart, but considering Legend is a bit paranoid, that’s not saying much really. He’s sure if he’d said anyone was behaving oddly, in a way that the vet doesn’t have answers for, he’d still see walls rising in reaction to that person.
Four is different though. He was quiet before, but now he’s very quiet. He was reticent before, but now he’s almost avoidant. Where advice came easily, now it’s slow if it comes at all, and where battle strategies could be formed with the thought that their small smithy could and would slip between them to watch their backs, now injuries fall for the absence of the younger, who’s often fighting alone rather than with the rest of them.
He understands that the others don’t notice, he does . Twilight and Time and Wild have each other, Sky is so often caught in his head or chatting with the vet, Hyrule isn’t close to most of them, but least of all with the smithy he shares little in common with. With Wind, the smithy seems himself again, in most ways, but the moment their youngest’s back is turned, it’s like a shadow falls over the smith’s face.
It’s making him feel wary. He can’t name why, and he hates himself a bit for it, but he finds he’s checking randomly for the knife he carries, hand slipping to his sword without him even thinking of it, and there’s a hissing at the back of his mind when they make camp. On one hand, he’ll be wanting to settle far away from those dark eyes, but on the other, there’s part of him that can’t stand the idea of not putting himself between the smith and the kids in their group, between Four and even Time. He doesn’t even know why! He knows Four is a hero, and that the smithy has never done anything to harm anyone in this group, but he’ll find himself debating being close to or far away from the other more than he’d like, and it’s only when he wonders why that he even registers that somehow, he’s started seeing Four as a threat.
Nothing’s been done, but a voice in his head whispers that something will be, and he needs to be ready. The feeling that wells in his chest is familiar, but he can’t identify it, just knows he’s felt it before, although when is unclear. It makes sleeping even harder than it was before, and he finds himself nervous as a result; lack of sleep mixing with the need to always be on guard and sending him into a state of almost constant anxiety.
The others start asking after his health. Time and Wind are demanding to know if he’s neglected his own injuries while treating theirs. Even Wild, who he’s never been close with, starts giving him slightly bigger portions at meal times. The champion never says anything to him directly, but when the kid thinks he’s not looking, heavy cerulean eyes will settle on him, worry pinching brows together and pulling at scarred features. The cook watches, making sure he’s eating, and then looks actually distressed when even food doesn’t seem to have any effect on the captain’s condition.
How does he explain to them though that the reason for his state is a screaming anxiety that eats away at his mind and heart, it’s source unknown?
He can’t even be mad at Twilight when the rancher approaches him as the wolf, settling at his side with all the ease he used to before they’d known. He knows now - they all do- but Twilight acts the same as usual and he can’t- he can’t deny that being allowed to stroke through rough fur does help, at least a little. The laughter when Wind pouts at being denied the same also helps, but it doesn’t stop the incessant fear building up within him. No, because the moment his eyes fall on Four, whose own gaze is fixed over small shoulders, the shiver rises again up his spine.
Something is wrong, and he’s seen something- done something to know that he recognizes this feeling, recognizes something off about Four, but he can’t name it. He wracks his mind for the memory of what this is, but thinking of the war, thinking of everything that happened, the betrayals and Cia and- he can’t do it. He tries, he does, but it quickly becomes apparent that thinking about that, out here, while already running thin with anxiety, will probably send him into an episode.
Zelda calls it PTSD. He doesn’t care what it is though- he’s not putting the kids through talking him out of it or seeing him like that.
He gives up searching his memory for answers, but he keeps his eyes open.
Maybe that’s why, when darkness has fallen over camp one night, and most of the boys are sleeping, Wind curled up against his side and the rest settled around the campfire, he’s seems to be the only one who sees Four slip from under his blanket, nearly silent, and creep towards where the rancher slumbers back to back with his cub.
Time is on watch with Sky, the two talking in low voices as they walk around the perimeter of camp, senses turned without, to where threats should come from, but not within, where the smithy’s hand slips between Twilight’s layers, emerging again with the crystal in hand. A small knife slips forwards, cutting the chord neatly and tugging it free, although for half a moment he almost expects it to drag across sun-kissed skin and paint the rancher’s throat scarlet with the man’s own blood.
Somethings wrong. Something is very wrong.
Alerting Four that he’s awake though, when the other is so close to the rest, armed and clearly guarded against being noticed, isn’t optimal. As long as no harm is being done to his brothers, he’ll bide his time, wait until Four is in such a place that whatever has gotten into him won’t be able to cause the smith to harm the rest without Warriors stopping him.
Luckily, for them anyway, the purple-eyed smith doesn’t linger any longer than he needs to tuck his knife away. He’s creeping out of camp without a sound even as Time and Sky patrol on the other side, voices low and straining in what’s probably a very stilted debate that Warriors can’t bother to think of a subject for. His own eyes follow Four though, hands already rising to uncurl Wind’s fingers from his shirt. It's a process, because the kid is usually a light sleeper, but tucking his scarf around the younger seems to assure the slumbering teen that all is still well, and that the absence of the captain’s warmth is not cause for worry. He used to have to do this during the war too, on early mornings or when he needed to slip out for a leak or a drink or just to breathe the night air for a moment.
He escapes without any of his brothers waking. Sky and Time see him, it’s hard to not with his size, but he just tells them he thinks he saw something. He can’t name what, doesn’t want to worry them before he knows why his own heart is pounding uncontrollably, but he tells them to keep their eyes and ears open and stay with the rest as he slips into the trees, sword in hand, shield grasped tightly in his other hand.
If Four was going to do something to the others, he would have done it when he was still in camp. Time and Sky likely won’t need to tend to anything. He, on the other hand, is prepared for the worst.
Even so, he’s not expecting what he sees. He can feel his very heart shatter, something like a sob buiding up as an all too familiar sight reaches his eyes when he finds the smith again. A shadow warrior standing beside someone he’d seen as a brother, embracing each other as those dark purple eyes lock with crimson. Four’s smile isn't quite right, and the crystal- the shadow-
Dark magic, Legend said, comes from magic users whose intent becomes impure. A pure source of shadow magic though, condensed and palpable, easy to slip off with, to steal, would offer a far greater source of such power. Enough power to give form, as the scholar had stated, to a shadow. A threat. An enemy.
An enemy Four greets with a sharp smile and a warm embrace, one that’s welcomed with the same as the thing rises from whatever spell or magic had been cast, the remains of Twilight’s crystal now broken on the ground.
Now he understands. Betrayal is a familiar feeling, one he knows intimately, but of course he’d never wanted to think that- believe that he’d feel it because of the actions of a brother. He knows what it is to watch those he trusts slip off into becoming mere puppets for the enemy, a threat to those he loves.
He also knows that letting puppets roam free, while waiting for a chance to fix them, leads to precious lives lost, to the death of innocent people, and more pain than just slitting a few throats would give him. He learned that the hard way, he knows it well. By the end of the war, corruption was a disease that’s presence was a death sentence for the victim. Better to kill them quickly, better to end the infection, better to stop the spread and the continued loss, the pain of watching so many innocent lies be claimed by a force that would take their agency.
Yes , they were innocent. No , it was never their faults. Still, for the sake of all, their deaths had been required, a sacrifice to preserve everyone else. A neccessity to ensure the army of the enemy, the tools available to them, the pawns and skills thereof, would not increase.
He’s killed a brother before, but it doesn’t make it less painful anytime he has to do it again.
Hiding isn’t worth it anymore. He’s many things, but a coward that strikes without warning he will never be. Purple and crimson lift to stare at him, and fear flashes in one while aggression paints in the unfamiliar one’s.
“Captain-”
He doesn’t answer. Talking back to puppets, treating them like people, makes it hurt more. Better to not see them as people anymore once they’re nothing more than pawns. Assigning names, memories, love, to the ones he’s had to slaughter for the safety of his people- all it does it kill what’s left of his heart.
“Wars, what are you-” a swing of his blade has words cut off, the smithy ducking back, fear rising.
The shadow lunges, and that, he knows, is the greater threat to him.
“Wars, stop! What are you doing? ” The smithy shrieks. It sounds like him, the flicker of red, of warm red like fire, not like blood, sends a foolish hope through him that maybe, beneath whatever magic has taken hold here, there’s a glimmer of his brother. Memories of another he’d had similar thoughts of, only to have a knife lodged in his gut seconds later, have him shaking the thought off. Dark magic is too strong to show any weakness too. The only hope in anything where it’s involved is if the source lies before him and easily destroyable, and the sharp clawed shade of the smith might not even be the cause of the strange nature he’s witnessed as of late.
When the shadow lunges at him, he strikes back, unleashing every bit of power he’s got into the blow and sending the monster flying back, cracking against a tree trunk as the smith’s voice rises In anguish. “Captain, don’t! Please, don’t ! He’s my friend !”
Befriending evil? How- how l ong? Does he know Four at all?
The shade bleeds red, somehow. Maybe it’s magic, meant to twist his mind, manipulate him, make him feel pity. He’s seen that before though. It won’t work, not on him, not on the hero who’s felled similar such monsters for hours on end at times. The color of the enemies’ blood makes no difference; it all spills the same regardless.
“ Warriors, please! ” The shriek rises, and the smith flies at him, hand raised.
His focus is on the shadow, rising again with crimson spilling from between grey lips. He can’t see what’s in the smith’s hand; if there’s a weapon , if there isn’t . He can’t spare a glance to see what color flickers in eyes that used to change with a blink. There’s no time.
Instinct, born of years of fights, of endless battles and betrayals, has his hand moving without a thought.
Four’s cry of pain as he crumples to the earth crushes anything that’s left of the captain’s heart.