Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Hey, Aspect-guy!” 

Link didn’t realize he was being spoken to until his sign language student nudged him and pointed at Wild. 

Aspect? Where did that come from? Was there an innuendo in there? Was he being made fun of somehow? 

An “aspect” is a specific quality or feature of something. For some reason, it always made Link think of the facets on a cut diamond. Could it be a really weird complimentary nickname? 

He honestly couldn’t tell, and it perturbed him. But he was being called, so he headed over to where the cook was bent over a large pot and looking through his Seeker Stone—no, it was called a Purah Pad—for ingredients.*

“What kinds of foods do you like to eat? Is there anything you can’t eat?” Wild asked Link without looking up from his device.

That was a simple enough question.

“So far, the only times food made me sick was when it wasn’t properly prepared. Or was a known toxic ingredient. I’m hoping you know your mushrooms?” he said while signing.

“I know that all of the mushrooms I brought with me are safe. Hopefully, they have the same ones here. If not, I’ll experiment with it on my own first,” Wild replied.

Link’s sign name for him proved to be more accurate with every interaction he’d had with this man.

“What kinds of foods do you like the most?” Wild asked him.

“I’m used to having a lot of spicy food, but a lot of people I’ve met while traveling don’t do well with the level of spice I’m accustomed to. I can make do.” He thought for a moment. “I also eat a lot of meat. You don’t have to worry about running out. I’m a good hunter.”

“That makes two of us. I’ll see what I can do about the spicy food. Maybe I can make a separate sauce that people can add if they want a kick.”

“You don’t have to go that far for me.”

Wild shook his head. “Everyone deserves to have comfort food every once in a while. I’ve seen what a good meal can do for someone’s spirit.” His focus on the Pad grew distant for a moment. “Plus, I enjoy cooking and trying out new recipes. I hope I can pick up a lot more of them from you guys.”

Link’s heart warmed at his words. It would be nice to have a taste of home despite traveling with such a large and diverse group of people. But as kind as the sentiment was, it didn’t change the overall issue. Wild had barely glanced at him throughout the whole conversation. Link didn’t think he did that with anyone else in the group.

“Is there anything else?” Wild asked.

Link mustered up his courage.

“…Why did you call me ‘Aspect?’”

Wild’s head whipped up. “I did?”

Link nodded. He tried to maintain a bold expression, but he was sure his tail was flicking nervously behind him.

Wild diverted his eyes. When he didn’t say anything for some time, seemingly searching for an excuse, Link spoke again.

“You either avoid looking at me or you stare. I’m used to that. Faroshi* tend to stick close to home, so most people have never seen one. But…” He paused, trying to choose his next words carefully. He didn’t know exactly how to explain why it felt different this time. Picking up on social cues was in no way Link’s strong suit, so it was possible he was misreading the situation. 

“It feels different with you,” he finished lamely.

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’m going to make dinner now.”

Link supposed he was being told to leave. A large part of him wanted to. Wanted to drop it and pretend he’d never asked. But he knew if he left now, he would continue to stew in this mystery.

“Just be honest with me. If you just tell me what this is about, we can fix it and move on. I can resign myself to it if it can’t be fixed, but I at least want to know the reason why.”

”I need to concentrate,” Wild said as he took out a knife and began chopping vegetables.

His previous anxiety channeled its energy into determination. He’d gone through the effort to push this far. He was going to see it all the way through.

“What could be so bad that you refuse to tell me? We’ve barely met. I don’t know you. You don’t know me. So what could be so bad?”

Wild didn’t answer, but a little boy caught Link’s attention in the distance. Mask pointed at Link and nodded.* Link wasn’t exactly sure what the nosy kid was implying, but it seemed he was close to some kind of discovery. He thought about his words. What’s so bad? I don’t know you. You don’t know me.

“I don’t know you. But maybe…do you know me?”

Wild’s chopping stilled before picking back up again.

“I’ve never met you before this,” he said.

The wording was chosen carefully, and Link knew that even if Wild was telling the truth about not having met him, he did know him somehow. He thought about the relationship between the sailor and the engineer. 

“But you know of me.”

“From history, yes.”

Did Wild know something about his future he didn’t think Link would want to know? Was he an embarrassment in the history books? His heart dropped. Did he fail? 

“Did I… Will I…?” He didn’t know how to phrase the question. He wasn’t expecting a response anyway.

To his surprise, Wild answered without further prompting.

“From what I know, you’ll do great. Better than me.” Wild looked up, gaze piercing, and Link knew Wild was being honest with him. His heart settled a bit.*

But if that wasn’t it, then what was it?

“Why did you call me Aspect?”

Wild got up suddenly. “I need some more ingredients.”

Link was taken aback by such a blatant lie.

“Then I’ll go with you.”

Wild looked at him with an unreadably blank expression.

“…Fine,” he gritted out and headed off.

If Link’s legs were shorter, he would have needed to jog to catch up with Wild’s power walk.

When Link caught up, Wild slowed down a bit. Unexpectedly, Wild spoke first.

“I do act differently around you. And I’m sorry for that. It’s not bad. I promise. It’s… It’s weird, okay? Let’s just leave it at that.”

Not when he was so close to finding out what was going on, he wasn’t.

“Weird is better than bad. I can handle weird.” He would have handled bad, too. He needed to know.

“But this is really, really weird.”

“Please, just tell me already.”

“I don’t even know how to explain or where to begin,” Wild groaned. 

There was a period of silence.

“Okay,” Wild eventually said, like he had decided on his starting point. “In my travels, I’ve found lots of historical items. Old technology, weapons, clothes – sometimes I would stumble across them while exploring, and sometimes they would be rewards. Like I'd clear a coliseum of monsters and the reward would be a weird but useful helmet.”

Wild paused, fiddling with his amber earrings while trying to figure out the most logical way to get to the main point.

“Do you have a bunch of puzzles and combat rooms you're supposed to do to… I don't know, train your body and mind?”

Link nodded.

“I have those, too. I spent a lot of time looking for them so I could recover from—well, that's a whole other story. Anyways, after I reached the end of the last one, I was told I would find a ‘suitable reward’ in the Temple of Time.” His brow furrowed. “The one shaped like an upside-down pyramid on the Great Sky Island, not the one with the slanted roof and bell tower on the Great Plateau. Have you ever seen it?”

Link had no idea there were two Temple of Times.

“I’ve been to the one with the bell tower,” he said slowly. “Where is the Great Sky Island?”

Wild rubbed the back of his neck. 

“If I answer that now, we’re going to be here for a long time, I think. But knowing you’ve never been there makes the whole thing even weirder.” He sighed. “Anyways, what I found there was this.”

He held up his Seeker—no, his Purah Pad.

“You found the Purah Pad there? I thought your friend made it.”

Wild shook his head.

“No, not the device. Here.” 

He pointed to the screen. It was full of clothing options. Link squinted at all the options.

“You found…the ranch hand’s clothes?” he asked bemusedly.*

“Not that! At the bottom. This!” He tapped the screen, and a familiar waistguard appeared in his hand. Link looked at the pendants hanging from his own waist to compare the two.

“I thought mine was the only one. These are ancient. I can’t believe you found a matching set!”

“I’ve found two. But this one isn’t just a matching set,” Wild explained. “It probably is yours. If it’s not, this whole thing is even weirder.”

“How so?”

Link thought it was kind of neat that something of his had survived into the future and was found by a later hero. He supposed some might find a little strangeness in that, but Link couldn’t see what could be so hard to explain.

Wild fiddled with the waistguard while he searched for how to explain it. Eventually, he returned it to the Pad. Before Link could protest, Wild held the slate in front of him.

“Look at the description.”*

Link scanned the block of text shown on the screen. ‘This item is said to contain the spirit of a hero who once saved Hyrule. That hero’s aura will envelop the wearer.’

“What does that mean?” Link asked, completely stumped by the abstruse wording.

Wild seemed disappointed, as if he was hoping Link would somehow understand right away. How Wild could expect anything besides utter puzzlement was beyond Link.

Wild took the waistguard back out and looked at it like he was begging it to explain itself instead of making him do it. Unfortunately for Wild, the armor wasn’t very chatty.

“I’d say, ‘don’t freak out,’ but I’m pretty sure that’s impossible. Just, uh, prepare yourself, I guess.”

Link wasn’t sure what he could possibly need to be preparing for as Wild began putting on the waistguard until he was suddenly standing before a distorted mirror. Distorted, because the being before him looked decidedly like himself if he had stopped growing at 5’2. I’ve never seen myself from that angle, he thought. 

The smaller Link gave an awkward wave. It failed to get a reaction, as Link’s brain had shut down immediately after that singular thought. 

“Oh,” was said quietly.

The voice belonged to neither of the young men who had been talking.

The shorter Link looked around.

“Mask?! You followed us? Where are you?” demanded the doppelgänger with Wild’s voice. It was disturbingly uncanny. “Don’t pretend you’re not there. I know I heard you. Stop with the hiding B.S. or you’re going to ‘lose’ that rock mask and you’ll never find it.”*

There was a rustling of leaves, and the voice spoke again, this time from above. 

“‘Tis a stone mask. ‘N’ ye’ll have to do a pretty good job o’ hiding it considering the first time I found it ‘twas basically invisible.”*

Link knew the kid had no more protection in the tree than he’d had when he was hiding behind it. Link and Wild were the best climbers in the group. Mask knew it, too. Oh, was he having conscious thoughts again?

“You’ve been here the whole time, right?” Wild asked.

“Yup, I got all of it,* so don’t bother explaining it again. I knew ye recognized this guy, but it turned out to be way crazier than I expected. Ye really just found it in some temple? Didn’t have to solve anyone’s problems or fight anything for it? Don’t tell me ‘twas just sittin’ in some chest.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.”

“Ye’r kidding. Why does this thing exist? Why is it a belt?”

“That’s what I want to know. Aspect, do you know anything about this?”

Aspect. That’s what the armor was labeled. Something about the Hero’s Aspect. That’s why Wild had called him that.

Link held his hand out expectantly. The doppelgänger gave him a blank look.

“He wants ye to give it to him, dummy.”

”Oh.”

The doppelgänger took off the waistguard, and Wild stood before him once more with his Hylian face and messy blonde hair. He handed the armor over.

“It just feels like my armor.” Link didn’t speak along with his signs this time. His voice was failing him.

“That’s it?” Wild asked earnestly.

“Wait, ye can understand him? I thought ye didn’t know how. What’d he say?” Mask called down.

“I recognized enough of the words.* It feels like his armor.”

“Lemme see it.”

“I don’t exactly trust you with it.”

“Hey, I know a thing or two about this sort o’ thing.” The kid held up a mask resembling a sad plant creature.*

Wild’s lips thinned. He looked to Link. “What do you think?”

Link wordlessly held the belt up, and Mask jumped from the tree, grabbing it on his way down.

He hummed thoughtfully as he examined it. 

“What are you doing?!” Wild squawked as Mask began to put it on. The result was a Mask-sized doppelgänger.

“Huh. That wasn’t painful at all. Oh, my voice didnae change either. It feels more like one o’ my masks than the Vet’s rings, but without th’ overpowering emotions.” 

“The what? Wait, you went through the Vet’s things?”*

“Don’t make me regret this chat.* Anyway,” he waved his now clawed hand, “emotions. A’m feelin’ the ‘spirit’ but it doesn’t feel tortured or cursed or anythin’. Tis just present enough for th’ transformation and for weird body parts to not feel unnatural. It doesn’t feel like it has unfinished business it wants tae accomplish. Maybe kind o’ protective? Don’t worry. I don’t think this was created from you dying with regrets or anythin’.”

That did not stop Link from worrying. 

“Do you see why I didn’t want to talk to you about this?!” Wild exclaimed. “Nothing good can come from knowing about this!”

“How do your masks work?” Link signed.

Mask looked at Wild expectantly.

“What?” Wild asked Mask snappishly.

“Whit did he say? It looked lik’ he mimed a mask, but I don’t know what he was asking.”

“Oh. I wasn’t looking. Sorry, Aspect,” he sheepishly apologized.

Link repeated himself.

“ ‘How your masks…’ Uh… I think he’s asking how they work.” Wild interpreted.

Mask pursed his lips. “I dinnae think knowing mah story is aff tae hulp ony.”

Wild turned to Link with an intensity in his expression. ”Let’s just leave it alone. His accent is getting too thick to understand anyway.”*

Mask smirked and laid it on thick. “Aye. ‘N’ a’m awfy duin tae see howfur th’ ithers react to this.” He waved his tail.

“No, no! Give that back!”

Mask backflipped out of reach and stuck his tongue out, but thankfully, he took the belt off and tossed it back. He was definitely scheming out a plan that would have the best shock value.

“Aspect, eh?” Mask said as they started walking back. “Well, we are trying tae lessen th’ amount of Links we have. It soonds—ahem, sounds —better than ‘Furry’ or ‘Tail.’ I already know a ‘Tael’ anyway.”*

“I can actually solve a few more nickname problems, I think,” Wild said.

“Yeah?”

“That wasn’t the only item I found with a name attached.”

“Like the ranch hand?”

“Yeah, I may as well do a show and tell before some nosy little brat steals my Purah Pad and makes a big deal about it.” He gave Mask’s ear a little tweak.

“Hey!”

Aspect trailed after them mindlessly. He was still trying to grasp the things he’d just witnessed. He knew that no matter how much he tried to compartmentalize this, it was going to haunt him throughout the late hours of the night.

Chapter Text

“Alright. I’ve gotta come clean,” Wild said after everyone had finished their dinner of poultry pilaf. “I have a lot of your guys’ clothes.”

“You what?” Ember asked.

“Are you digging through our bags?” Vet scowled.

“Nope! I found them. In chests and stuff.”

“Our clothes.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Yup,” Wild said, popping the ‘p’.

“No way.”

Wild pulled out a green hat and tunic with tan pants.

“This belongs to a bird-riding knight. I assume this is your uniform, Mr. Hero of the Sky?”

“It…it looks just like mine! Did the style come back around?” Sky stared at the clothes with befuddlement.

“No, I think it’s literally yours. Because the Hero of Twilight’s clothes look very lived in.” Wild pulled out another green outfit.

“Those are the ranch hand’s!”

“Is that dog hair?”

“Maybe. Or it could be cat hair. Or goat hair. I hang out with a lot of animals,” the Hero of Twilight admitted.

Quartz examined the hair. “It’s wolf hair.”

“What makes ya say that?” Twilight asked as casually as he could manage.

“It’s green, like the wolf we saw.”

“Green? Wolves aren’t green,” Twilight protested.

“This one was.”

“There’s no way that wolf was green,” said Twilight defensively.

“You must have seen a wolf like that one. The same green hair is all over you,” said River.

“No, it’s not! It’s grey! See?” He plucked a short hair from his tunic.

The Link who was learning sign language plucked a longer hair off his tunic and held it up.

“Spirits, it is kind of greenish isn’t it?” Twilight was beginning to look a bit green himself.

“Yup,” Quartz said.

Quartz compared the hair from the ranch hand’s tunic to the one he’d plucked off of the tunic Wild had. “They’re the same.”

“Hero of Twilight? That’s a pretty fancy title,” the Hero of Men said, directing the conversation back to what Wild had called the clothing set.

Twilight recovered from his identity crisis.

“It does sound pretty cool, doesn’t it?” he said. “Where’d’ya take that from?”

“It was attached to the outfit. Since the outfit is yours, it must be your title,” Wild said.

“How d’you even have this?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. I just keep finding them. Fight stuff, open a chest, another green outfit. You guys really like green, huh?”

“It technically belonged to the hero before me. Or so I was told. I haven’t seen any of you wearing this exact style,” said Twilight, looking around the group.

No one came forward to say they had the outfit, so Wild supposed it was either a legend or it hadn’t happened yet.

“How many of these do you have?” asked Junior.

“Seven green outfits and some miscellaneous stuff.”

“Who else, who else?” the sailor asked excitedly. “Do you have one for me?”

Wild pulled out a blue shirt. The sailor snatched it up.

“Ooh! What’d they call it?”

“The island lobster shirt.”

The sailor paused in his excitement and gave Wild a disappointed look.

“You have the Hero of the Sky and the Hero of Twilight, but I get the island lobster shirt?”

“I didn’t come up with the name!” Wild said defensively.

“And it’s just a shirt? Not a whole outfit? Where do I send my complaints?” the sailor grouched.

“Well, there might be something else. I’ve seen the same style on several other Links but not you, so I’m not sure, but this one belonged to the Hero of Winds who travelled the Great Sea.”

“That’s me!” the sailor said as Wild pulled out another green outfit.

“You have a recruit uniform, too?” asked Engineer.

“A what?” said Wind.

“It’s what the guards in training wear.”

“In training? It’s not even the outfit real guards wear?!” Wind looked distraught. “Why?”

“I dunno.” Engineer shrugged. “That’s been the uniform for as long as I can remember. I suppose someone in charge made the decision.”

Wind’s face scrunched up in distaste.

“I’ll bet it was Tetra. She would definitely pull something like this.” His face screwed up even more. “It’s still weird to think about her bossing around more people than just a ship’s crew. Although she is really good at bossing people around. I suppose it’s more weird to think about so many people listening to her.” Wind blinked. “Wait, are you a guard? I thought you were an engineer.” 

“I’m not, but Zelda gave me a uniform so I could sneak around the castle without looking too suspicious.”

“Do the trainees tend to wander around the castle looking as confused as you always look?” the Vet asked with an amused smirk.

“Probably,” the engineer admitted.

“I wonder why the outfit our cook has is specifically the sailor’s instead of Forest’s, the engineer’s, or the little guy’s?” Quartz questioned.

“Yeah, and that’s the color that I wear, I mean, that Link wears when he’s not using the Four Sword,” added River.

“It could kind of be your guys’ in a way,” said Wind. “My grandma gave them to me to wear when I turned 12. It’s tradition on my island to wear them in honor of the Hero of Time. Is that either of you guys?”

“I’ve never time-traveled,” the tiniest Link* said. “Oh! Until now, I guess.”

Forest hummed. “I suppose it’s possible it could be one of us. But I’ve never heard anyone call us that.”

Mask looked entertained by the discussion.

“Speaking of the Hero of Time, these clothes are supposed to belong to him.” Wild took out another set of green clothes. The tunic had a distinct collar.

The group looked over them with interest.

“The tunic looks kind of like Mask’s,” Cap said.

“That’s what I thought, but there are these pants and the undershirt,” Wild said, referring to a white pair of trousers.

“And the gloves,” Verdi added.

“But the baldric matches,” Vet pointed out.

“Maybe he’ll wear it when he grows up,” suggested Sky.

River turned to the child in question. “What do you think, Mask?”

Mask managed to wear a confused expression, which wasn’t as hard as it seemed, considering he genuinely was confused to see the exact same clothes he’d left behind in a different age sitting right before him.

“I don’t know. I haven’t done anything to be remembered.” It was only a partial lie. All of his accomplishments happened in other times or worlds.

Cap didn’t know why the kid was being cagey. In the past, Mask hadn’t been quiet about his previous accomplishments. He had never referred to himself as the Hero of Time, but he had extensive experience with time travel. It was crazy to think of this little imp of a child as the famous Hero of Time, but Cap didn't doubt it. He didn’t know what kind of game Mask was playing, but he decided to let him play it.

“Anyways,” the child continued, “all the other clothes so far have been from adventures you guys have already been on, right? I don't know about you, but I don't think those pants will even begin to fit me for another few years.”

There were some chuckles at that.

“Watch it be mine,” Vet said sardonically.

“What makes you say that?”

“Because things keep happening to me,” he replied pointedly, hand sweeping out in a gesture towards the situation in general.

“‘Keep happening’, huh? How many adventures have you been on?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Too many to count,” Verdi cut in. 

“I never said that. I said I didn’t know which ones to count, or how to count them,” Vet corrected.

“Either way, he’s a total veteran among us,” Verdi said. Vet shrugged noncommittally.

“I guess there's no way of knowing who the clothes belong to for sure,” the Hero of Men said.

“What else do you have in there?” Mask prompted.

Wild pulled out two more tunics. They were both green and very similar in style. Both had brown undertunics, though the necklines were different. The main difference between the two was that one came with proper trousers and the other had… very short shorts.

“I'm uncertain about these.” He pointed to the one with the higher neckline and virtually no pants. “This one doesn't have much of a description with it. It doesn't really come with a specific hero title, either. Just ‘Hero.’ Quite a few of you share a similar style. The other one looks like Vet and Aspect’s little echo.” Wild gestured to the two’s sign language student. “Have you been to a mysterious island?”

The so-called “echo” in question was watching Vet sign the words Wild was saying. Vet’s hands hesitated almost imperceptibly over “mysterious island.”

Echo used the fingerspelling he'd been taught to double-check which signs were used for which words. Then he faced Wild and began to sign as best he could. Vet translated.

“‘Mysterious’ island, no. Small island in small sea—” 

Echo shook his head at the translation and fingerspelled “lake.” 

“Ah, ‘lake’ is ‘water’,” Vet tapped his chin with three fingers, “and then you do this.” He made a gesture that appeared to section off an area, then looked to Aspect for confirmation, who nodded before modeling an alternate way of saying it.

“Either,” Aspect simultaneously signed and spoke.

Echo nodded and resumed.

“Small island in a lake, yes, but not mysterious.”

“Hm. The clothes match, so maybe it hasn't happened yet?”

“Or it's someone else entirely. It seems to be a pretty common look around here. And if this hero… What are they called?” Verdi asked.

“Awakening. The Hero of Awakening.”

“If the Hero of Awakening is anything like me, they might have switched up their look. It could very well be me, although I'm not familiar with that title, and I haven't had any island adventures yet. It does look similar to an outfit I have.”

Vet stayed quiet aside from signing the conversation for Echo. He hoped it wasn’t referring to him. He'd given up on wearing pants by the time he left Labrynna anyway. He was surely remembered for some other deed, like saving entire countries, not for waking a dreaming deity.

“I guess that would go for the other one, too.” Gen said, gesturing to the second tunic.

“Did they come with hats?” Ember asked.

Wild rubbed the back of his neck. “Yes, and… sort of? One hat has a yellow band and the other uh… kind of has a hat with a green band.”

“ Kind of has a hat with a green band?”

“...You know what? It doesn’t matter. It has a green hat with a green band.”

Ember eyed him suspiciously.

The group’s little mousy brunette had picked up the tunic that didn’t come with proper trousers while the others were talking.

“This looks a lot like what I wore when I was ten,” he said.

“Really?”

Mouse turned the tunic this way and that.

“Yeah,” he affirmed. 

“What was the name attached to that one again?” Forest asked.

“Just ‘the Hero’,” Wild replied.

“Huh. That really is nondescript, isn’t it?”

Mouse handed the tunic back without comment, not seeming to have any opinion on the matter.

“There's one more,” Wild said, taking out his last green hero outfit. It, too, had a brown undertunic, but the sleeves were three-quarter length and had a simple design bordering the hem. It came with shorts that looked like they’d reach mid-thigh. “This belongs to the Hero of the Wild. It seems his whole thing was traveling the wilderness.”

Aspect silently noted with a touch of humor that the hero title matched his sign name for Wild, though he thought the clothes’ particular shade of green clashed with Wild’s Sheikah-tech blue eyes. 

Nobody in the group could claim it. Sky said the shirt’s pattern wouldn't be out of place in Skyloft, but the only one he knew who really wore shorts was a man who spent all day pedaling to keep his airship aloft. Plus, he already had an outfit.

That sparked a discussion of the styles of their eras. Wind’s time mostly stuck to regular stripes if there was a pattern. Mask said that his time had more patterns, but he otherwise disowned the Hero of the Wild’s outfit entirely. Twilight admitted that he didn't know much about the fashion of greater Hyrule in his time, though it didn't matter since he already had an outfit. The pattern reminded Engineer a bit of the Lokomo people, but there were no Lokomo in their group. No one else claimed familiarity.

Wild was surprised that no one was familiar with it, since the pattern was rather common in his time.

“Maybe it's yours,” Verdi suggested.

“It would be fitting, considering what Link here calls you,” Vet used Aspect's sign name as he spoke and gestured to the man in question, who stiffened when everyone's attention turned to him.

“What do you mean? He just calls him Link,” Forest asked.

“Yeah, but his sign name is…” Vet paused as he swirled both hands next to his head with three fingers – “W” – which he switched to the thumb and index fingers partway through – “L” – before finishing his sentence, “Wild.”

“I was wondering if it meant something like that.” Wild scratched the back of his neck.

“I-I mean, can you blame me?” Both Aspect's mouth and hands stuttered. “My first view of him was shooting fire arrows to somehow create enough air to sail far above the tree line! Shooting while free-falling! He was meters and meters in the air! What were you shooting at?”

“Spicy peppers.”

“You can shoot a pepper in mid-air?! With a fire arrow?! ” Wind exclaimed.

“You've gotta show us!” Ember urged excitedly.

“What does he mean by ‘create enough air to sail above the trees?’” Quartz wondered.

Wild’s hand returned to rubbing the back of his neck.

“I’ll show you later. I think we’ve had enough show and tell.” He began returning all the clothes to the slate. 

“You’re keeping our clothes?” Sky questioned.

“You already have clothes! I worked hard to get these!” Wild said adamantly.

“I still can’t believe he has this stuff,” Wind said.

“Where did you say you got these again?” Twilight asked.

Wild considered the question for a moment. “Have any of you ever heard of a place called the Depths?”

There were headshakes all around, though some looked thoughtful.

“Well, that’s where I found them.”

“Wha– You can’t just leave it there!” Wind protested. “What are the Depths?”

Wild wordlessly denied answering the question with his usual blank-eyed stare.

“Come on, you have to tell us!”

Wild finished putting away “his” things and walked off without another word, though he did throw a wink and a small smile at Wind.

“Well, that’s one way to end a conversation,” the Hero of Men remarked.

“I’ve noticed he does that,” Aspect said. “When he’s done with the talking, he just…exits.” He drew one hand from his other as he signed the final word.

“I wish I’d known that was an option a long time ago. There was this one chatty owl…” Mask sighed.

“You, too, huh?” Vet said.

And with that, the conversation moved to people they’d met who were fond of long monologues.