Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Blue loves equipment maintenance days.

The rest of the chain likes them too, but for different reasons than he does. They get nice, clean, shiny things. He gets to growl and grumble and complain all he wants to himself while making things nice, clean, and shiny for them. It’s a win-win.

Their current inn — Warriors’ era — sees a lot of soldiers coming through. Thanks to its usual clientele, it has a small forge out the back. Wars forked over some rupees to let Four rent it out for a few hours. Blue repays the favor by being extra generous with the polish on Wars’ shield. And also on Legend’s mirror shield, since the captain still likes to use it to fix his hair whenever Lege isn’t looking.

Maintenance would go faster with more hands at work. Six more, specifically. But Blue’s not here to be fast; he’s here to have a good time and not slip up a secret that Vio is certain needs to stay under wraps.

Ting along, tong along, time to say some swear words!

Speaking of shields. His first task is to replace a snapped buckle on Sky’s. Everyone (rightfully) gives Wild shit about his tendency to shatter weapons. (STEEL. FUCKING. SWORDS.) They do not lay into their Chosen nearly enough about how rough he is with shields. Maybe it’s because he tends to tank hits instead of dodging, or maybe it’s the way he shield-bashes enemies to knock ‘em off-balance. Maybe it’s that he chooses to prioritize his sword over all else. Whichever it is, same outcome. Splinters and smithies shaking their head.

Ting along, tong along, let’s stare at Legend’s hoard!

Or a piece of it. Task number two is taking a look at the vet’s weird, smelly bracelet thing. It’s gotten banged out of shape thanks to a hit from a darknut, and the vet had handed it over with a long list of caveats — almost Vio-esque with paranoia, but a lot less calm.

Don’t try to wear the damn thing! Don’t fuck up any of the runes etched into the edges! Don’t damage the crystal! Don’t even replace the leather lining, I’m going to have Ravio do that, he should’ve done it years ago.

Personally, Blue wouldn’t wear something that smells like that right up against his skin, but if the vet’s itching for a rash, that’s his business. He shapes it back up right.

Ting along, tong along, time to bitch about shitty swords!

Because yes, his last major item in need of repair is yet another dulled sword, courtesy of Wild.

At least it wasn’t in pieces again. Next time that happened, Blue’d be ready to just tie the broken bits together with twine and say, ‘here, this’ll last you about as long as every other weapon repair we do.’ But knowing Wild, he’d take it as a challenge and endanger himself trying to fight with the damned thing anyway.

“I hope you appreciate this,” Blue happily mumbles as he gets out the whetstone and honing oil. “I hope you appreciate — oh looky, another nick looking to turn into a full break — I hope you appreciate the fuck out of our ever-loving care you Din-damned weapon-destroying—”

“Four?”

A reedy voice from behind startles Blue out of his nice, stimulating furor. The whetstone tumbles from his hand. And smashes into his boot, right on his big toe.

“Whoops. You okay there, matey?” Wind asks.

“Yep.”

It’s a strained lie, but it’ll be true after a few minutes, so it doesn’t matter. He hunches over the table, waiting for the throbbing to subside. One... two... three... four. Breathing exercises, breathing exercises. Blue is a perfectly calm, perfectly considerate Four.

“Now what’re you doing here, sailor?” he manages to say without snark.

Wind stares into his eyes for a few seconds, brows furrowed. “Is this a bad time?”

“What?” Aw, come on. What was he doing that was tipping the kid off this time? It was uncanny how the rest of the chain could tell at a glance when it was him in charge; he hates how wary he makes them. “No, you’re fine. I just have one of those fucking headaches again.”

Honestly, Blue also hates the headache excuse. Sure, they get actual headaches, but that doesn’t justify the lies. He isn’t as shameless as Vio can be; Vio is absolutely willing to pull off a wounded rabbit gambit if it serves some greater purpose in his weird little head-games of four-dimensional chess. Red sometimes does it too. Not very heroic of them. But what other way does Blue have to explain his poor temper compared to the other colors? ‘I woke up on the wrong side of the bed?’ Ha!

The sailor cracks a smile. “You do swear a lot more when you get headaches.”

“Must be why Legend’s so sassy all the time.”

This gets a chuckle out of Wind. It’s a bit muted, though. Normally he’s more than happy to rib Lege a little bit. Something seems off here.

Then, he notes the shield that Wind’s shyly lugging around. Oh, good. Kid’s just feeling bad that he didn’t bring that in earlier, when Four was actually asking people to hand them repairs. He hasn’t handled Wind’s shield before, huh? This’ll be fun. “That need maintenance too? Glad you caught me while I was still at work! Go on, hand it over.”

“Um, no. This is your shield.”

Blue crouches to grab the whetstone, then straightens back up immediately, having processed what Wind just said.

Wind flips it around. Sure enough, that’s Four’s shield, gleaming and well-cared-for. No maintenance necessary there. It was supposed to be in their inn room, so why’s the kid got it? Was he pawing through their—?

“I didn’t touch your sword at all, I promise,” Wind breathlessly reassures him as he sets the shield on the table. The one on his back — Wind’s actual shield — clunks beside it soon after. “I just needed to look closer. You didn’t even notice a difference between yours and mine, right? Could you tell me more about your shield, Four?”

Huh.

Blue scratches his chin for a moment. This whole conversation gives him a bad feeling, but it sounds innocent enough, besides, y’know, the idea of little pirate hands going through all of Four’s stuff. “Interesting question. What exactly do you want to know?”

“You’re the weapons guy. I thought you’d have a few tangents o’your own at the ready.”

And he is not wrong about that.

“Well then! My grandfather actually made this particular shield. I’ve made plenty like it myself, but this one’s special, since Dot won it in a festival lottery and gave it to me. It’s held up through a lot of quests. I also have a mirror shield at home, but it’s a lot heavier to lug around. Besides, Grandpa does some Din-damned good work; why not show some appreciation by making use of it?” Blue taps the outer rim. Bolted down nice and sturdy, perfectly fit to the boss. “Nothing loose, nothing janky, and I like to keep it that way. The iron’s some nice quality stuff from Mount Crenel and the wood is actually from the same forest that...”

After ten minutes of good ol’ forge talk, he starts to sense that the kid is tuning him out. Blank eyes, a slight mouth-crinkle that implies a held-back yawn, that sorta thing. Damnit, Wind. You asked for a lecture and you got one!

“...and the coat of arms painted on it is just the standard of our era’s royal family. We were nuts about becoming a knight or a swordsman — ha! — as a kid, so we got excited when Dot offered it to us way back when. In every other way, it’s also pretty much to the same specifications as the shields Grandpa makes for the Royal Guard. Smallest size, of course. I, uh, still fit it no problem. But that’s a good thing. Means I get more use out of it.”

(Pina was fuckin’ rude about how pathetic and small the shield was. This is why he sasses her about tomatoes.)

Anyway, Wind takes a minute to register that the lecture is over before nodding enthusiastically. “Neat!” he says, as if he’s absorbed jack shit of anything Blue just said.

“Is that everything you want to hear?”

“Definitely,” Wind chirps. “Now, what can you tell me about mine?”

Huh. “Okay, lemme see it.”

Wind pushes it closer. It’s a small wonder that he hasn’t brought it in for repair yet. The poor thing’s holding on, but it’s dinged and scratched to the Dark World and back, not to mention the rust creeping out of every crevice. That’s got to be the seawater’s fault. Fucking ocean Hyrule. This shield is just crying for a scouring, even if the sailor isn’t here for that.

Blue scoffs. “Rust?”

“Only a little. I’ll let you clean it if—”

“If I acknowledge that it’s nearly identical to ours.” He raises an eyebrow. “Just like every other knight’s shield of its make and size from our era.”

Wind’s eyes go wide.

“Yeah, that’s right. I’ve figured you out. You thought these shields might actually be the same one passed down through time, don’t you, kiddo?”

‘Kiddo’ doesn’t even earn him any protest, which is really saying something about Wind’s focus here. He’s glancing back and forth between the shields, gears twisting in his mind like the insides of Twi and Wars’ spinners. “There’s gotta be some way to tell,” Wind says, almost pleading. “What about this engraving squiggle dealy on the back? Both of ‘em have this, so they’re the same, right?”

“That’s Grandpa Smith’s brand. This basically just says that he’s the one who made the shield. I’m proud that yours lasted so long, since it proves his craftsmanship, but I did tell you that he’s made more shields than just mine.”

“Can you tell if the nuts and bolts or other metal-y bits are the same?”

“You can see the rust on it from however long it’s been in your care, sailor. If it’s survived through the salty air of your far-gone Hyrule, a lot of those would’ve had to be replaced at one point or another. Same with parts of the wood, and the leather, and paint.”

Shield of Theseus. Man, that’s clever, Vio would love that. Why’s he never smart at the right time to rub it in Vi’s face?

“Scratches,” Wind mutters, tracing the shields’ surfaces. “What about—”

“If someone left those behind for you, it sure wasn’t me. You don’t want it splitting open in a fight, do you? Neither do we. We take pride in our preventative care, and in mending equipment before it gets too dinged.”

“We?”

“Me and Grandpa!” Blue amends, mentally banging his head against a wall. He got too excited and stopped watching his words. Fuck, how much has he been slipping up? “He helps. With things.”

Wind accepts this without a fight. He struggles a little more with accepting the ambiguity of the situation, however. “So, there’s nothing we can use to tell if my shield is your shield? Not anything at all? You don't even put your name on your things?”

“I know that Legend scratches his name and hero title into damn near everything he owns, but I’m not that precious with my stuff.”

“Fuck,” Wind says, head in his hands.

He hates seeing the sailor despairing like this. “It’s your turn to tell me about your shield, now. Why’re you so sure it’s mine?”

“It was hanging over the upstairs loft my whole life,” the kid says miserably. “Up ‘til the day I left to go save Aryl. Tetra said I needed to be armed. Gran said... I think she said it was passed down from a knight. But maybe the knight, um. Got it from somebody earlier down the line. Maybe the hero… himself…?”

“It’s ancestral?”

Oh shiiiit.

The reason for Wind’s nerves smacks into Blue like a sack of bricks. He lines up the shields perfectly, side-by-side, comparing them as closely as possible. “You think we’re related. You think this proof that you’re my descendant!”

Wind continues to stare at the shield, bewildered, ears flicking with stress. “Maybe? I don’t know. You won’t give me a real answer!”

“Can’t, not won’t.”

Now Blue wants the real answer too. Too bad! He’s sweating bullets, just thinking about all the implications of this, and what the other colors are going to say.

Firstly; FUCK YEAH! Four gets a special “basically your dad” bond with Wind, like Time and Twi’s weird little thing. If the kid does anything cool, they get bragging rights. They can show him off to Grandpa, and teach him the family trade, and maybe, like, Wind can teach them to fish. Dad-son fishing trip bonding. All good things.

On the other hand, this is also a lot of pressure to have a kid all of a sudden. Blue would face a pack of lynel by himself if that would keep Wind safe, but does that responsibility extend to, uhhhhh, ensuring that he literally physically exists in the future? He is... not the biggest fan of having kids from scratch. Dad-ing a competent teenage Wind is parenting on easy mode. Having a baby? Yeesh. He does not want to do the necessary deed, or hold anything that fragile, and there’s always the possibility that he would straight-up raise a kid wrong. Maybe one of the others could do it someday? Maybe Red, given his current relationship with Dot?

(No, that would result in eventual Zeldas. Not a Wind. Probably?)

(Does Green have a kid with someone?)

(Vio definitely won’t, he’s gay and moony over an idiot with rootbeer-flavored halitosis.)

Shit, shit, shit. Blue starts to pace, staring at the ground. You know what? Screw it, he’s gonna chuck those questions at Vio later. Vio loves having existential chalkboard sessions over persnickety things they have no control over. And Wind, clearly, does not.

When he turns back to the sailor, Blue simplifies his thought process. “This is real exciting, but I have no living family besides Grandpa, and I straight up don’t know if I’ll ever have a kid.”

Wind blinks, suddenly calm. “You don’t think so?”

“Probably not?” he says through a helpless shrug. “If you ask me on a different day, you might get a different answer, though.”

He prepares to apologize to the kid, but Wind seems to let out a sigh of relief, relaxing a little. “So it’s not likely that your shield is mine.”

“Between the sheer fucking number of years between us and the amount of shields like mine out in the world? Yeah, sorry. It’s probably impossible to prove for sure.”

Wind picks up his shield, half-smiling.

Good. Great! The kid is happy again, glad that’s settl— wait. Why is he smiling about this. Blue stares for a second, pondering that smile. He’s no Red, but smile plus comforted sigh does not add up to disappointment. “Hold up. Do you not want to be related to me? You were pretty excited when you thought you were related to Time.”

And just like that, Wind snaps out of it, blinking at him with those wide ol’ eyes.

“Um... That’s not... It’s just...”

Blue tries to quash down the prickle of offense building up in him. “I asked a pretty straightforward question, sailor.”

Wind stares into space for a few seconds. Then he gives up on the whole ‘answering the damn question like a reasonable person’ thing and just bolts, slinging his shield over his shoulder. “Thanksforthechatbye!” he squeaks on his way out.

“Sailor! SAILOR!”

Blue chases him down into the inn, earning a sharp look from Twilight as he ducks under his legs — too slow, rancher! — and a raised eyebrow from Wild as he shoots past. A flash of sea-colored cloth tells him that Wind dove into the sitting room. When he skids in, all he finds is Legend and Sky looking bewildered, pausing their card game to stare out an open window. Half of the deck is scattered across the floor.

Legend does that awful, psychic-seeming thing everyone does where he just looks Blue in the eyes and knows. “Bad mood, smithy?”

“Shut your trap. Where did the sailor go?”

“Why, what’d he do this time?”

“He just ran out on a conversation with me!”

“Weird! I have the opposite problem; never really can get him to stop talking once he gets going.” Legend kicks his feet up on the table and tilts his chair back, shrugging. “Anyway, Wind jumped out the window like Ganon himself was on his tail. I don’t think you’ll catch him at this rate.”

“What were you talking about? Whatever it was really made him book it,” Sky adds, picking up cards.

Blue throws up his hands in the air and stomps away. Fuck it, he still has work to do. Assuming that he can even concentrate with all this hanging over his head. He’s going to swear at Wild’s stupid sword until he’s blue in the face as well as in spirit.

Chapter Text

Blue has to stew and wait a bit until he has the front all to himself again. Or, he tries to wait. For the most part, Vio stays out of the way — nothing ‘intellectually stimulating’ enough to drag him to the front — but Red and Green tag in and out with him for a few days. He doesn’t tell them what happened between him and the sailor.

They do know that something’s up, though.

The chain stops at a cliffside with a nice view of the sunset, unfurling their bedrolls with low hum of conversation and laughter. Sailor keeps to himself, setting his roll farther away from the others than he normally does. Or at least, until a worried Legend drags it closer, distant body language just dripping with backsass.

Four keeps to themself too. If the colors let themselves just stare into space when they talk, the other Links tend to get concerned, so they’ve learned to do it when they’re multitasking or faking a task. Pull out a book, pretend to read. Talk to themself while they’re putting one foot in front of the other on the road. That sort of thing. They’re chatting while they pretend to sort kinstones right now. Normally, Wind would join in, excited to look at all the tiny bits and bobs. Today, he doesn’t even look at them.

Red’s voice is heated with fret. Why is Wind acting weird?

Dunno. Kid’s probably just tired or something, Blue lies half-heartedly.

Why are WE feeling weird? We’re been tense for days too. Did something happen when I wasn’t at the front?

Green is a mental shrug.

Dunno, Blue lies again. He isn’t good at directly lying, but he’s good enough at being vague. It helps that he is — or seems — genuinely clueless and careless and brainless half the time anyway. Why don’t you just go to sleep? You’re throwing us off-balance with all that worrying. Somebody’s gonna start asking what’s wrong if you keep frowning like that, and then you’re going to get stressed out about not having an answer!

But something is wrong! I can feel it.

Ugh. Look, if I promise to figure out the wrong for you, will you go rest for a bit?

Red’s presence brightens considerably. Really?

Really.

Thanks Blue! Good luck with it.

Yeah, yeah.

Sometimes, Blue’s kinda disturbed by the faith Red has in him and the other two. Other times, he can almost admit that it’s touching.

Both him and Green wait for Red’s presence to fade before saying anything else. You’re the one having a bad time of it, Green concludes, which is a surprise. Normally, it’s Red who notices the emotional stuff. Thank the Light Force that it’s someone else this time. Bursting into tears in front of Wind feels like a bad move for... whatever is going on.

Yeah, Blue admits. And I’m going to fix it. You can watch if you promise to shut the fuck up and let me handle the situation. Got it, leader guy?

Green starts to stir in protest, but Blue cuts him off.

It’s not anything dangerous, far as I know. Just kind of weird and heartbreaking.

Heartbreaking? There’s almost a sense of amusement in the thought. Not a word I expected out of you.

What? Too big for me? Is every word with multiple syllables a Vio word now?

Too soft.

Blue grunts back, accidentally aloud, and shrugs off the rude thought. He puts away the kinstones and hikes back to the central campfire, forcing one of Four’s usual smiles in place. Wind still isn’t looking at him. Cool. Wild hands him a bowl of some kinda fish-and-rice dish, and Blue nods his thank-you, staring at a spot just to the left of the sailor’s head while he eats.

You’re burning our mouth. At least blow on the spoon.

Lay off. It’s my turn to front, I can fuck up however I want.

How’re you going to fix ‘this,’ anyway? What did you even do?

I answered some questions and then I asked the wrong one.

Green goes back to silently watching as Blue bides his time. It’s a nice change from the days where Their Venerated Leader used to shove everyone out at the drop of a hat to take charge of situations he didn’t like. (Well, he still does it sometimes. Jerk.) Eventually, the over-dinner conversation turns to sleeping arrangements.

“Now, what of tonight’s watch?” Time asks over his empty bowl.

Wind raises his hand immediately. “It’s my turn for first watch! I’ve been on second way too many days this week.”

“Fair enough, sailor,” Wars agrees.

Blue raises Four’s hand. “And I’ve been on third watch too much. I can help the sailor with first.”

Time cracks a smile. “So you’ve finally gotten tired of taking watch with me.”

Green nudges in with a suggestion. It’s a lame, lame barely-even-a-pun sort of deal, but being playful will keep things comfortable around here. Make him feel less like a sneak. “Nah, it’s just about time for me to hang out with someone else.”

A couple fond snorts and eyerolls carry around the campfire. The only one who doesn’t react at all is Wind. His ears are pulled down with guilt again.

Eventually, the fire goes down to embers, and everyone gets ready for bed and crawls into their rolls. Wind takes up a lower watchpoint than usual, perching on an old stump; usually he likes a good, high tree branch, where he can survey the whole camp and pounce on intruders at his leisure. Huh. Well, Blue’s not going to complain. He paces around the perimeter of the camp a few times before stopping in front of him, arms crossed.

“Hey, sailor,” he says.

“...”

“You can’t avoid me forever, Wind. We’re gonna have to talk about it eventually.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” A flicker of verdant surprise registers in the back of his mind when Wind leaps up to hug him, whisper-yelling. “It’s not a problem with you, Four, not at all, I promise!”

“Then what’s it about?”

Wind falls back onto his stump, and Blue takes a seat next to him, startling a little bit when their shields bump against each other.

“I shouldn’t have a heroic lineage, and I don’t think I want one.”

“What.”

“It’s—” Wind rocks a little, biting his lip. “I’ve had a lot o’ time to think about it since Time told me that I wasn’t his successor, or at least not his direct successor. Not like Twi is. And, Time obviously wasn’t going to be related to me. I should have known all that before I got excited and opened my big mouth.”

Blue raises an eyebrow, not quite sure where this is going.

“I chose this, Four. I chose this for myself. I don’t have a heroic lineage. I never did. I had to prove myself, by myself, because what I actually am is just a stubborn sea-rat!” It’s said with pride as much as frustration. His gaze flickers to Sky’s sleeping form, smiling next to the sheathed Master Sword. Her indigo hilt shimmers in the moonlight. “Fi must hate me.”

Where did this come from? “Of course she doesn’t hate you.” He thinks. Hopes. “You know, Fi barely even knows me. I never wielded her! She’s probably got a way more personal connection to you.”

“No. I didn’t know she was a person. I left her at the bottom o’ the ocean, embedded in… some stone. I abandoned her after she did what I thought she was supposed to do.” Wind rubs his battle-calloused palms together. “She never talked to me, never acknowledged me besides letting me draw her without punishing me. If I could’ve met her before I completed the Tower o’ the Gods... Or if she was at full power, and I wasn’t the one who restored her... I dunno. Maybe she would’ve treated me like Wild.”

Sapped the life from him, spurned him like an unworthy hand, Wind means. Honestly, Blue thinks that their champion didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. But Wild looked weirdly serene when he said something about pushing her too hard.

“Why d’ya think she’d reject you?” Blue asks.

A furtive look comes over Wind.

“Come on. It can’t be that bad.”

“You don’t know the half o’ it. Four, I don’t even know if I actually have the Hero’s Spirit or not.”

Green is suddenly brimming with curiosity and something annoyingly compassionate. Wind clearly doesn’t want pity right now, so Blue shakes the feelings off. “Really? I thought everyone here had it.”

“I know I’ve claimed that I do, but I only did that because everyone else assumed it was true. But the King o’ Red Lions said that I have no connection to the legendary hero. Really, he meant Time, but I figure that I probably don’t have any connections to heroes before him either, blood or spirit or whatever. The King also said I was worthy anyway, but it’s not the same thing.”

Wind rolls up one of the legs of his shorts. There’s a scar above his knee, a shiny, meticulously straight burn that indents the skin a little bit, like it cut deep. It looks like a beamos burn. He’s seen evidence of close shaves on Wind’s arms whenever the kid takes his shirt off to swim, but he hasn’t really seen that one before.

“This one’s not that bad, I know—”

Kid’s obviously thinking of the burns scarring Warriors’ sword arm, the gash down Legend’s shield arm, the guardian blasts covering half of Wild’s body.

“—but I got this one right before I fought Gohdan. The boss the goddesses left for me at the top o’ their tower, as a test. I pushed through. Didn’t want to leave, or fail. Just wanted it over with. I thought I was going to die at one point.”

Blue experiences a weird urge to throttle the kid. Out of love. Out of the frustration of not knowing how to explain that it’s still fucking bad that a preteen had to think ‘I’m going to die here, aren’t I?’ all for a little proof of valor. Maybe there’s some personal experience coloring that fear there. If he glances too far back into his past, there’s an unwitting Link there, running into the forest to meet a destiny that won’t ever let him go.

Wind sighs, frowning. “I just... I feel like, I made myself into a hero. I had to fight for this. The gods themselves challenged me for it. If I was already related to a hero — bloodline, spirit, whatever — then why did I have to go out of my way to prove myself as one o’ you?”

Blue thinks on it a minute.

“Well, if you ask me, it’s maybe ‘cause the gods fuck up sometimes.” He chuckles. “Don’t tell Hylia this ‘cause I don’t want to be caught up in the blast on the day that she decides that Legend’s blasphemy finally deserves a smiting, but… they did panic and flood your Hyrule because of the Ganon thing, right? And sometimes they just put you through shitty things as some kind of equally shitty attempt at preparing you for the even shittier stuff the forces of evil have cooked up. If they thought you were unworthy of the whole heroic spirit-y thing, then you proved them damn wrong.”

“There was no hero’s spirit in my timeline, far as I know. Time got ripped out o’ it. If I didn’t try to take on Ganondorf, then who else would?”

“Exactly. That’s all it takes to be a hero, sailor. The bloodline thing’s not even important to any of that, really. If it was, we’d probably be able to trace more lineages than just the obvious Twi-and-Time connection.”

“...Then why did you get so excited when you thought I might be your descendant?”

Wind scrunches his nose and squishes down as Blue reaches up to ruffle his hair. “Why do you think? I like having an excuse to hang out. I thought I was going to get Dad Time with you, like Time Dad gets with Twi.”

Wind scoffs. “You’re not old enough to be my dad.”

“I’m centuries older than you are.”

“Being from a different place in time doesn’t count!” They both laugh. Then, Wind sobers a little. “So you’re not mad at me for not being sure if I am or want to be related to you?”

“Nah,” Blue reassures him. “I get it. You feel like it undercuts your hard-won hero stuff. But actual blood related or spirit related or not, you’re still family to me, like everyone here. Got it?”

“Okay, Four.” The sailor smiles to himself, turning around to face the wilderness back-to-back with him, seeming content to spend the rest of their watch this way. Much more softly, he adds; “Love you.”

Oh, damn. Arrow through the heart. You don’t hear that phrase out of Wind every day. If he’s being honest with himself, Blue did not expect this confrontation to go as smoothly as it did. Take that, Green. He can be levelheaded sometimes. He swings his legs, feeling smug as he surveys all the sleeping heroes in front of him. Before he can get too cocky, though, a breezy thought wraps around him.

That’s sweet. I’m glad that you two sorted that out, Green says, in that unsettlingly friendly way of his that always spells out trouble.

Yep. I’m glad too.

I’m less glad that you hid the fact that WE MIGHT BE RELATED TO WIND from the rest of us for several days!

Ahh, there’s the scolding. It’s a hard, hard ‘might’ there.

STILL VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO LEAVE US OUT OF THE LOOP ON.

Oh fuck off, Vio’s kept way worse secrets for way longer.

Red pipes up. Shit. When did he get here? Was he watching this whole time? Vio’s misbehavior isn’t an excuse for you to misbehave too.

Apparently, Vio has been listening in too. Why am I always held up as the bad example in these scenarios?

You know why! they respond universally.

Blue sighs to himself as their shared mind becomes very noisy with excitement, accusation, and also Vio’s sudden desire to sketch out half a dozen theoretical chains of events that could have resulted in Wind being related to them. This might be a long, long watch.