Chapter Text
Hyrule did not lie.
He was half fae - though he kept that particular fact close to his chest - and while he technically did have the ability to tell falsehoods, they tasted bitter on his tongue and burned as he spoke them. He didn’t even particularly like being around lies, if he had the choice. They smelled foul, like something rotten, and left a cloying, thick taste in the air around him.
If Hyrule had the choice, he stayed away from liars and he did not lie.
But…
Hyrule did not always tell the truth.
He didn’t lie! He just… didn’t always answer with the level of honesty that people might have thought. He turned questions back on askers. He responded with facts that, while true, were not the answer they may have wanted. He laughed them off and moved conversations on, twisting his answers to just skirt around the edges of a lie.
He used every fae trick his mothers and sisters had ever taught him to avoid speaking the truth when he truly did not want to -
But he did not lie.
It was an easy enough balance to strike in his own world - people kept to themselves and Hyrule did his utmost to avoid towns and settlements at all costs. Few questions were ever asked of him, and fewer were ever of anything of consequence. Hyrule could go for days or even weeks without even having a conversation with another living being, and he was happy that way.
(Of course he was. Why wouldn’t he be? Silence and loneliness was safe it was better he was happy-)
But he wasn’t in his own era anymore.
He was on a journey across time with eight other versions of his own soul. Eight Heroes with blazing, bright spirits from worlds that, as far as he could tell, were as bright and vibrant and alive as their Heroes were. Hyrule could hardly believe it when he fell through a portal and was suddenly somewhere lush and green and alive; he’d thought that perhaps he had finally died, that this was his reward for everything that he had been through.
But according to his new brothers this was what all of their worlds were like, in one way or another. He’d been to a few of them now and while they were all different, there was no doubt that they were brimming with life. Even Wind, who claimed that his Great Sea was a place of death, had enclaves of life around him. Reefs and coves where the poison of the sea did not and could not reach, where fish and waterlife flourished. Entire islands of life and woodland and greenery and safety.
None of the worlds that Hyrule had visited were decayed like his was. None of them had dry, cracked earth at every turn, trees that had not bloomed in generations, a sky so choked with ash and decay that it was a constant, dusty purple.
Hyrule didn’t begrudge his newly found brothers for their good fortune. In fact, he was happy for them. They had all been through terrible things on their journeys, he knew, but when those journeys were over they had had warm beds and people and fresh food to go back to. These were Heroes from the past and from the future, and the fact that they had worlds so alive gave Hyrule hope.
He… didn’t tell them about the state of his own era.
It wasn’t a lie! Just… an omission of truth. Hyrule had met his new brothers when they had all been dropped into a clearing in Time’s era and so they had never actually been to his world. His brothers had no real reason to suspect that he came from a place so dead and Hyrule had been glad not to bring it up.
There… were still questions.
Hyrule was, without a doubt, thinner than the rest of his newly found brothers. The first time that they had all stripped off to bathe in a river - an actual river with safe, clean water! - it had been clear that he was the only one with thin, sallow skin and hip bones that jutted inches from his flesh.
He knew why. Seeing their bright, sundrenched worlds and the abundance of food that they deemed normal for a simple meal made it all obvious. But his brothers didn’t understand this. Yes, they were largely polite enough to not bring it up, but Hyrule saw the way they looked at him after that. The pity in their eyes. He saw how the portions that Wild gave him at mealtimes were always slightly bigger, how he always seemed to be offered snacks more on the road.
He didn’t begrudge it. He was grateful. He was glad.
Even when one evening Legend quietly took him aside and asked if there was anything he could do, was there anything he should know - Hyrule demurred. He wanted to tell him the truth, to tell him everything, but the familiar spike of fear had stopped him. Instead he looked at the ground and mumbled something about ‘Ganon’s toll on the land’ and ‘the costs of a journey’. Legend hadn’t pushed and Hyrule, burning with shame, had not volunteered anything further.
He was pretty sure that his brothers thought that he had only just finished his journey. He… let them think that.
It was easier that way.
Opening up about the way his world was and why, after all, would have meant opening up about everything. About his fairy blood. About the reason he avoided villages with such desperation.
About the curse.
Here is a fact that all of his brothers know about Hyrule: every morning, without fail, Hyrule drinks a tonic.
It is a pale, greenish blue in colour and smells vaguely medicinal, like something made with a variety of herbs with little regard for the taste. He never talks about the tonic and in fact tries to drink it quickly and in privacy, but all of the Chain know about it. It’s hard not to notice these things when you’re living and sleeping and fighting together every day.
None of them knew precisely what it was, although they all had their theories. Sky and Wild thought that it might be some sort of stamina potion. Warriors suspected that it was something to help him recover from his journey. Four thought that it was some sort of vitamin supplement.
Legend thought that they should all shut up and stop making guesses about something that their brother clearly wanted to keep quiet.
So Hyrule kept it private and let them all think that it was nothing more than a little health tonic, nothing more than a potion to help pep him up after the trials of his journey. If he went along with it enough, then maybe he would start to believe it too. Maybe he could pretend for a moment that it wasn’t his whole life in that tiny drink of potion. As if it wasn’t the one thing in the world saving him from-
It happened after his first adventure.
He’d only been a child then, fighting a battle that he was too young to fully understand the enormity of. He slew Ganon and as he died, the beast pronounced a curse on his blood. Honestly, Hyrule hadn’t thought much of it. He was ten years old and had just slain the king of evil - he felt invincible.
He’d returned to the castle with the princess, and when, in the days later, he began to feel listless, it was blamed on the natural exhaustion of his battle. If more monsters than usual attacked the castle, well. He’d just destroyed their master, after all. Of course they would be angry,
…he didn’t remember much after that.
Only that suddenly he’d felt so heavy and that everything had felt so empty - and then he’d woken up outside of the castle, in a small cottage by the edge of the forest. Impa had been standing over him with a tight expression on her wrinkled face.
There was a curse, she said, and it was in his blood.
There was no cure, Impa told him. Only management. And without management, it would consume first him, and then the world.
She gave him a batch of tonics and the recipe to make more, and told him that it was better that he went. That the curse that was now a part of his blood would only call monsters towards him, and that he should not stay in one place for too long.
Don’t tell the princess, she cautioned. Don’t tell anyone. Such things are better left unsaid, and it was better to leave some things as a secret.
So Hyrule went on his way. It only took a few near misses for him to take her urging to keep moving seriously, and after that he never stayed anywhere longer than three, four days at most. Once, when he was twelve, tired and hungry and alone, he stayed with a kind family in a small village for almost a week.
He still saw the flames when he closed his eyes. Still heard the screams. It was nothing short of a miracle that they had gotten away from the monsters alive, and was not something that he wanted to risk again.
That said, it wasn’t exactly as if he’d get a chance. The look of hatred in the mother’s eyes, the terror on the childrens’ faces -
Hyrule never wanted to see that again. He didn’t risk it. He wouldn’t. He kept moving, never stayed in one place for too long, and avoided settlements altogether unless he had no other choice. By the time he turned sixteen he was used to the isolation - or at least used to the lie that he was.
Rumours spread. Monsters wanted him for his blood that could bring back Ganon, and townspeople came to hate him for how his presence always heralded the coming of beasts. The princesses, when he had saved them both, told him that it wasn’t his fault, that it made sense that monsters would want him for his Hero’s Spirit.
They didn’t understand. He didn’t tell them. His blood curse was more than just what his blood was capable of doing to Ganon’s remains. It was also what it did to him, and that terrified him.
But he kept that secret close to his chest and told no one, and every day he drank his tonic. It was a difficult to brew potion made of rare ingredients, and he spent most of his time hunting them down. But it kept his curse at bay and that was what mattered, so if Hyrule had to spend weeks at a time searching for one specific blossom, then that was what he would do.
Things…
Things had been difficult since joining the Chain.
Every new world that they visited was bright and brilliant and blossoming, it was true. Hyrule had seen more variety in plants and wildlife in the past few weeks than he had in his entire life. But… not a trace of the ingredients he needed. Not once.
It was fine. It was okay. Hyrule was a cautious person and had enough of his powdered tonic mix to last for a year stashed in his pack, and more in different hideaways in his era. He was fine, he could easily last out until he returned to his world and then he’d mix up a fresh batch with whatever he could find. But still, it was more than a little terrifying to realise that he was in a world where the only thing that kept him alive did not exist.
But it was fine. Hyrule was cautious. Every morning he measured out the exact amount of powder he needed, not a grain more. He mixed it with the water that he had enchanted with his own magic, and he made sure that he swallowed every drop. With his routine in place, the curse didn’t really impact his life. Sure, he still had to be careful if he spilled his blood, made sure he burned it or washed it in fast flowing water, but other than that?
He could almost pretend that he was normal.
Almost.
-
The portal hadn’t been the thing that split them up.
No, they’d all fallen through at the same point. The thing that had split them up had been the river.
They had been sitting enjoying a quiet dinner when the portal came, dumping them as one into the icy cold river. The current was fierce and it was all any of them could do to stay above water, let alone to stay together. Hyrule, as soon as he surfaced, could see his bag being pulled and dragged away from him, along with most of the rest of his brothers. He made to dive after it and would probably have caught up, if not for the shout.
Hyrule turned on instinct. He was the group’s healer after all, and more than that - this wasn’t just a group of strangers he was helping out. They were his brothers. He loved them. And that shout- it hadn’t sounded good.
He turned in the water and in an instant realised what had happened. Warriors had fallen into the river. Warriors, in his mail and pauldron and fancy scarf, Warriors who fought with the precision of a trained soldier but who, when he let his guard down, spoke in a drawling accent so different to the clipped aristocratic tones he practiced. Warriors who had confided one cold night that he grew up with nothing on the streets. Warriors who was from a city. Warriors who couldn’t swim!
All at once Hyrule abandoned his dive for his bag - after all, what’s a bag beside a real, breathing person? Instead he plunged after his brother, who had already vanished beneath the swirling foam.
Even despite everything, he was still kind, after all. And it’s kindness that was his downfall.
It was evening and getting dark, and the water was blacker than pitch. In this state it would be impossible to see where Wars had gone, even with the brightness of that stupid scarf he always wore. Hyrule thought that he could hear the shouts of one or two others as they tried to reach him, but in this darkness it would be the same for them all. They couldn’t see.
So Hyrule tried something different. He reached out with his magic, sending searching tendrils out into the water. It was something that he rarely did - yes it expanded his awareness and helped him to find dangers, but it also led dangers directly back to him. If there was anything else lurking in the river-
But Warriors was more important than that. His brother was more important than his fears. Hyrule reached out for his magic and searched for something that’s aura glowed green and gold.
There! A pinprick of light and courage amongst the swirling darkness. Otherwise blind, Hyrule dove towards it. He was by no means the strongest swimmer of the group, but right now he was the only one who could help.
He reached out into the icy cold waters and finally - finally - his hands closed around something soft and firm. An arm, he was sure of it. Warriors struggled weakly against his grasp, but without air he was already losing strength. Hyrule gripped him and did his best to propel himself upwards. Wars seemed to realise that he was here to help and gripped onto him. Which. Yeah it was good that he wasn’t fighting anymore, but his grip was kind of getting in the way of Hyrule swimming effectively.
So he pushed forwards as best as he could, trying to find the surface in the churning, angry water. They were pushed to and fro by the current and more than once Hyrule felt his sides and legs get dashed against cold, sharp rocks. But he couldn’t give up, even as his own lungs were starting to burn and strain. He kicked against the water and finally - finally - he felt himself surface into cool, fresh air.
The sun had well and truly set but the moon was high and in its silvery light Hyrule could just about make out where the water ended and dry land began. Still dragging a now hardly-moving Warriors, he did his best to swim towards it.
“THERE!” shouted a high, familiar voice, and there was a splash that sounded even over the roaring current.
Hyrule felt a thrill of fear before he realised that it was Wind, and that of all the Links in the chain, he was one of the strongest swimmers, the most used to rescuing people stranded at sea. He nearly sobbed in relief as he felt his little brother’s strong, calloused hands grab at him, and together they carried Warriors towards the dry land.
It was freezing and they were soaking wet, but once they were out of the water they at least could do something about it. Hyrule was immediately upon Warriors, doing chest compressions until he began to cough up water while Wind tried to get a fire going.
Even with this, once Hyrule managed to get Warriors awake and breathing again, it wasn’t an easy place to spend the night. They were all soaked through and frozen to the bone, and none of them had been carrying their packs when they fell through the portal. Hyrule found himself doing his best to cast a rudimentary heat spell which mostly dried them off, but with the magic he’d already expended finding Warriors and then treating his lungs to prevent secondary drowning, he was starting to run short.
They were all far too tired to do anything that night but flop down around the small fire and try to conserve heat and energy. Cold and damp as they were, Hyrule couldn’t find it in himself to be truly miserable. After all, he’d been colder and more damp in the past, and this time his belly was full and from where he lay he could see the stars. This wasn’t his world, it was somewhere safe.
And most importantly, he wasn’t alone. He had his brothers beside him, curled up against him under Warriors’ mostly dry scarf.
They were cold and tired and damp, but they were together. And for Hyrule, that was more comfort than he had ever felt before in his life.
-
The next morning dawned misty and cool, and while none of them could really say that they had rested the night before, they at least hadn’t got any more tired.
Hyrule sat up, stiff and cold, as the sun rose. Warriors was already up and about, and was somehow making a cup of tea over the fire. He smiled as he saw Hyrule’s expression, and waved him over.
“It’s not much.” he explained, his voice still a little hoarse from inhaling so much water the night before. “I keep a small pot in my belt-bag and had it on me when we fell. It’s not much, but it’s breakfast.”
He paused, pouring a small cup of steaming green tea and passing it and a piece of hard tack over with a smile.
“You saved my life, Rulie.” he said. “Thank you.”
Hyrule felt himself blush, but nodded and accepted the tea. There was something nice about sitting there, sipping his morning tea with Warriors. They had both agreed without discussion that they would let Wind sleep on, and the sailor was sighing contentedly in his sleep.
“S’okay.” Hyrule demurred, sipping his tea. “You would’a done the same.”
Warriors grinned at him but didn’t press any further. That was something Hyrule liked about the Captain; he never pushed. He understood that sometimes Hyrule liked to just sit and enjoy the quiet of the morning, of a world where there were birds in the sky and the water was clean.
Quietly, they began to take stock of what they had on them. They all carried some basic supplies on their belts in case they were ever separated from their belongings by portals like this, so they had at least some basic food and medicines and a few weapons. They all had their swords and Warriors had his shield, so that was better than nothing.
Though, Hyrule thought, it was little wonder that Warriors was so heavy to drag out of the river with all of that on him.
Still, they were in a relatively good position. Yes, they were isolated away from the rest of the group, but they would just have to trust that their brothers would find them. After all - they had no idea if they were up- or downstream from the rest of the chain and none of them were experienced trackers. The Chain had Sky with the Master Sword and Twilight with Wolfie, and were sure to find them far more quickly than if the three of them chose a random direction and just walked.
So Hyrule sat there. He sipped his tea and ate some of Warriors’ horrid army rations. In the morning light with the mist curling through the rocks, the river looked almost quaint.
Absently, he began to root around the pouches on his own belt. The majority of his powdered tonic was in his pack, which he had lost in the portal, but he wasn’t too worried about that. One of the last things he had seen before turning to help Warriors had been Wild diving after their fallen packs, of which Hyrule’s was closest. This was not the first time that they had all fallen through a portal without warning and it would not be the last. Hyrule trusted his brothers to keep his things safe, and they had never failed him before.
So as he fished around in his belt, he wasn’t too worried. No more than his normal baseline of generalised panic, at least. This situation was not ideal by any means, but he would get through. He kept a small phial of tonic in his belt for just this situation. It was enough for one day’s dose, and if worst came to worst he could eke it out to last two or three days. Once again, it wasn’t ideal, but he knew from bitter experience that he could last for that amount of time without any medicine at all.
It would all be fine. Even if the current had been really strong, it wouldn’t take any longer than that for their brothers to reach them. He just had to wait.
Hyrule frowned as he fished around for the phial and then gasped as a sharp pain dug into his finger. He withdrew his hand with a shock and felt his eyes widen as he saw a bead of red forming at the tip of his finger. What the- on instinct he put his finger into his mouth and swallowed the blood, healing the cut before any more could bleed out .
Panic beginning to bloom in the pit of his stomach as he pulled the bag from his belt and upturned it onto the ground.
A few pieces of jerky wrapped in cloth. Some spare bandages. A spare candle. And a few broken shards of glass.
No.
No, it - it couldn’t be-
He looked inside his bag again, desperate to find the phial stuck in a fold somewhere. He shoved his other belongings aside - maybe it was underneath them-
But no. No, the shards of glass were that same small, distinctive shape, even if none of the potion remained. His pouch had been soaked through in the river and any remaining drops of tonic long since washed away.
His potion was gone.
He stared at the broken shards of glass for a moment, his expression blank, his chest numb as he tried to process, to come up with a plan. There was no tonic. He’d have to wait until he got back to the others and who knew how long that would be?
“Hyrule- hey -hey Rulie!”
Hyrule blinked, coming out of his daze enough to focus. Warriors was looking at him with an expression of concern on his face, reaching out as if he wanted to grab his arm but stopping a few inches short. Hyrule shuddered but turned to him, trying to think what to say but not finding anything.
“Have you lost something?” Warriors asked softly, glancing down at the pile. He spotted the broken glass in Hyrule’s hands and frowned for a moment, before making a soft ‘oh’ sound. “Is that - the potion you take?”
Hyrule shivered again, shrinking in on himself. He knew intellectually that his brothers would have noticed his morning ritual, but them actually having acknowledged it was something else altogether. Still, he’d been asked a direct question and Hyrule didn’t lie. He nodded, not meeting his brother’s eyes.
“I have more.” he whispered. Despite everything, he still didn’t want his big brother to worry, and saying it out loud helped him to calm down a little too. “In my pack. Just… need to get it.”
Warriors nodded slowly. “The longest we’ve ever been separated after a portal is four days. Can you hold out that long?”
Four days. Hylia above, that was a long time. The longest he had ever managed without a potion was five and a half, and he’d been full of magic then, not worn out from searching and healing and warming. But… yes. Yes, he could manage it. He would have to.
He nodded. “Might get…” how to say this without revealing the shame of his secret? He swallowed heavily. “Might get tired. But I’ll be fine when I get some again.”
That was… technically true. The tonic would make him well again. But he’d need to make a bigger dose than he would normally take and it would take a few days before he was back to his full strength. But he would be fine. He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t.
Warriors gave him a tight smile and reached out to ruffle his hair.
“You look out for us so much, Rule.” he said. “If you need anything at all, we’re here, you know that right? I have a few potions in my bag - mostly reds and greens but I have one of Sky’s air potions and …” he rummaged around a bit. “Huh. One of Wild’s fairy tonics. Anyway - if you need any of them, they’re all yours. Whatever you need. Honestly.”
He didn’t need to repeat the honestly - Hyrule could taste the truth in his words. He nodded and smiled gratefully, but demurred for now. Likely their brothers would find them long before this became an issue. It would be fine.
-
It was not fine.
After a day, Wind climbed the nearest tree and used his spyglass to see if he could spot their brothers, but to no avail. They kept the fire burning at all times, keeping damp wood on the fire to make as strong a smoke signal as possible. After two days Warriors moved out a little further and climbed a taller tree, hoping to see their family.
They were nowhere to be seen.
After three days, feeling his body becoming listless and his mind becoming foggy, Hyrule quietly asked Warriors for the Fairy Tonic. It wouldn’t do much, he knew, but it would go a little towards refilling his depleted magic, and right now the best chance he had at fighting back his magic illness was his own power.
Four days passed, and Hyrule couldn’t pretend to be well anymore. His body felt heavy and listless, his mind was full of fog. He caught himself zoning out and staring at nothing for minutes at a time and he so, so desperately wanted to sleep. It took every ounce of effort in his body to stay awake, and he knew that he looked terrible for it. Pale and sweating, shuddering as he tried to fight the curse back.
He didn’t tell Warriors and Wind what it was. Let them just think it was a normal illness, something horrible that he had to deal with on the day to day, but ultimately mundane. He didn’t have to lie to his brothers at least - they didn’t ask specifically, just checked if there was anything he could do and tried to keep him warm and comfortable. Hyrule loved them for that, and hated himself for putting them in that position.
Five days passed.
Hyrule was huddled in a ball, Warriors’ scarf pulled tight around his shoulders. He felt horrid, his eyes screwed shut as he tried to get his mind to focus on anything at all. He knew that Warriors and Wind were worried, but there was noithing he could do about that. It was all he could do to keep going, to keep himself well. He was long past helping his brothers feel better.
Hyrule was scared.
“THERE!”
The shout echoed across the craggy riverside and it took Hyrule a moment to force his eyelids open and look around to see what it was.
Oh Hylia above. Blessed goddesses great and small. Hyrule could have wept with joy.
It was the Chain. It was the rest of their brothers, scrambling across the rocks in a rush to get to them. Hyrule let out as big of a sigh of relief as he could and felt a little of the tension leave his body, leaning back against the rock he was sitting against. He was too tired to get up and go to meet them, but Warriors and Wind did it instead, the two of them leaping to their feet and rushing towards their brothers.
From where he sat, Hyrule could see the others reaching to hug them, but Warriors was shaking his head, asking something instead and glancing back at the traveller. Asking about his pack, about his things. The others looked over at him and he saw a look of worry cross their faces, and relief washed over him. It was okay. They were here now, his brothers would help him.
Hyrule felt his eyes well up with gratitude as they hurried over, Legend and Wild finding twin spaces at his side. It was fine, it was safe, it was over. Less than a minute and he would have his tonic and it would be okay. The last few days had been some of the worst of Hyrule’s life, but it was over now. And terror and fear be damned - from now on he was going to ask his brothers to each carry a portion of the potion with them, even if that meant having to tell them why. He’d rather risk their hatred and censure than go through this again.
“Your pack.” Wild said, tapping his slate and pushing the worn leather satchel over. On his other side, Legend leaned in close, murmuring assurances.
Hyrule ignored them both, even as Wild said something about river currents and rocks. He forced all of his focus into sitting up and grabbing his bag, into pulling it open and reaching for the tonic. He kept it dried out in a powder and wrapped tight in a waterproof leather packet, hand carved with as many protective runes as he’d been able to learn. Neither water nor rock would damage the pouch, it would be safe. Normally he’d mix it with some water, but right now he’d happily make do with eating some of the powder dry and casting the blessing as he swallowed. He was too desperate for niceties right now.
He reached into his bag. Dammit all, why did he have so much stuff in here? Before coming on the journey he’d had hardly anything. A few candles and potion bottles for his journeys, a blanket, and some jerky. But now he had spare clothes, blankets, pillows, tools for maintaining weapons. He was glad of his brothers’ kindness, he was, but right now all this stuff was in the way.
Groaning, he turned the bag upside down and dumped everything out. Expansion spells were great and everything, but not when they meant that all of the extra things you could fit in your bag were causing an obstruction.
His belongings tumbled out and he shakily shoved his new clothes and various items aside.
The pouch wasn’t there.
He looked again.
It wasn’t there.
“Rulie-” came a distant voice. It took him a moment to place it as Legend’s. “Rulie! What are you looking for? Is it the little doll? No? Your flute? The leather bag you use?”
Hyrule’s voice had deserted him somewhere during day four; words were just too much effort and he couldn’t push through the fog enough to form them. But he nodded, eyes wide. Legend knew what it was he wanted, he must have it, he-
“We didn’t find it.” Wild whispered, and this time Hyrule was able to look around at him, his mind reeling. No. No this was just - it was a joke. A terrible joke. “When I fell in the water and hit my head - the bags got pulled away and a bunch of things fell out. We tried to get it all back but - but the water was so strong-”
Hyrule tuned him out, unable to fully focus. His bag was gone. The hows and whys didn’t matter - just that it was. His tonic, the one thing keeping him Him was gone. Washed down the river and lost somewhere who knew where. Didn’t matter, all that mattered was that it was gone.
…he should have told his brothers. Even if they’d hated him for it, they would have had some of the tonic on them. They would have known. They would have been able to protect themselves for what was going to happen next.
“Hyrule.” Legend was saying, grabbing his hands. It was all that the traveller could do to turn and focus on him, to blink past the tears welling up in his eyes. “Hyrule what do we do? What do you need? Would a red potion help? Wild’s stamina ones? It’ll be alright, we’ll make you well, I promise.”
Hyrule shook his head. Legend couldn’t promise that. There was nothing else that would work, this wasn’t a normal illness that could be healed with medicine. It was a curse, and a dark one at that. The tonic was a blend of rare, potent ingredients and even it only kept it at bay for so long.
He shook his head, numb. He couldn’t fight this for much longer, he’d been treading water for days now and now it was just too much. There was no medicine. No help. This was it. It was over.
If his brothers had any sense they’d kill him and burn his body. But he couldn’t even tell them to do that. His voice wasn’t working and his mind was too full of fog for signs. He shuddered, leaning against Legend as he started to cry in earnest. Some hero he was, too much of a coward to tell his brothers the truth, dooming them and their worlds along with them.
“Woah- Rulie- Hyrule- Link - it’s okay, we’ll get you some medicine. Just tell us where.” Legend’s voice was edging on the desperate, but there was nothing Hyrule could do.
Slowly, he looked up at him, gathering every ounce of will and strength that he had left.
“S-” he whispered. “Sor…ry…” his voice was weak, trembling, and he knew that the apology would never be enough.
But there was nothing he could do. With that final push of effort his inner magic sputtered out and he felt his defences fall. The curse was here, and it was hungry. He could feel it spreading through his body, pumped into every limb by his traitorous blood. He’d been fighting for so long and now, with nothing left to help him, he felt himself slip underwater.
The curse overwhelmed him.
And Hyrule?
Hyrule just… stopped.