Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Twilight was starting to miss civilisation.

They had been walking for hours since passing through the portal and everything still looked the same. Trees, cliffs, grass, river, mountains in the distance, the occasional ruin or two. The only thing that was changing was the time of day.

Were they walking in circles? Had they been making any progress at all? Or was this new Hyrule really just as massive as it seemed?

If Twilight didn't get any answers to those questions soon, he thought he might as well spontaneously combust.

The initial excitement of entering a new Hyrule was long gone. The amazement and wonder at the overgrown, sprawling plains, rickety cliffs and nothing but wilderness around them had died down hours ago. No longer were they interested in sightseeing. There were barely any people around - the only person they'd met so far was a traveller who gave them directions to a town they'd yet to arrive at.

Twilight sighed. If only he could have just a few minutes of running through the dirt and grass as a wolf - the surrounding environment was so wild and perfect for a wolf that it was just begging for it.

It was a shame that he couldn't sneak away just to explore this new world as a wolf, lest he get lost or separated from the group. They were already having enough trouble with Hyrule getting distracted every five minutes by a bird or a butterfly or some cool-looking plant. Furthermore, Sky had almost fallen asleep on his feet at least two times, Wars had run out of complaints to make ("Why's the wind so damn harsh?") and Legend out of snarky comebacks ("Swooning at a little breeze, prettyboy?").

He was still thinking wistfully about running wild as a wolf when a subtle yet pungent smell stopped him in his tracks.

"What is it?" Time was the first to notice, as always.

Twilight's ears twitched. "Something hidin' behind the cliffs, I think."

"A monster?" Wind piped up.

"Most likely more than one." Twilight nodded.

"Everyone on your guard," Time called out quietly. Hands clasped onto swords, shields, bows.

One beat of silence. Two beats of silence. Three beats of silence -

Twilight turned just in time to see a Lizalfos fling itself off a cliff at Four, who barely managed to block it off with his shield in time. Several more monsters, fifteen or twenty at an estimate, launched themselves off the cliffs overhead at the group below.

A coordinated ambush.

It felt satisfying to finally stretch his muscles after so much walking. An acrid stench filled his nose as Twilight speared a bokoblin in the head with his sword, spurting jets of tar-coloured blood everywhere. Blood he recognised all too well.

"Black bloods!" He called out.

"Yeah, I think I established that!" Legend yelled back, splattered with splotches of ink-like blood.

"Focus on fighting, not talking!" Wars' sharp voice rang across the battle.

"Where's their leader?" Four shouted. "Why isn't it here?"

That's a good point. Twilight grimaced, narrowly blocking off a nasty slash to his side. The black Lizalfos - whatever it was - was nowhere to be seen.

But it's never too far away from the black bloods, so it has to be...

Waiting, watching. Keeping its distance. Hidden from view, observing, plotting, scheming -

"What was that?" Hyrule gasped at the same time Legend said, "What the hell-"

Arrows, flying faster than anything he'd seen, lodged themselves into monsters' faces. They were disturbingly accurate, many of them embedding themselves into eyes and necks.

Twilight blinked. Where had those arrows come from?

But before he could look, Wind shouted, "Twilight, look out!"

Twilight turned, and almost got his face carved off.

A wicked looking sickle flew past him, narrowly missing his nose as it curved around him and neatly sliced a bokoblin's arm off.

"What the hell!" He yelled, whipping around to see where it had come from, just as the black bloods suddenly turned and fled in unison. There was no warning, no signal - just monsters scattering like leaves in the wind.

"Oh, no you don't!" Legend snapped, and took off after them.

"Four, go with him," Time commanded. "Twilight, are you alright?"

"Yeah," Twilight shuddered as Four nodded, and ran after Legend. "That sickle just missed-"

"Twi, behind you!" Wars called sharply.

Twilight swivelled around just in time to see a figure gracefully leap off a cliff and land just a few metres away with a light thud.

A few metres too close for his liking.

Then it looked up, and instead of a face, he saw a horned skull, and in its grasp was a sickle.

In a flash, Twilight had his sword at its throat. "Don't come any closer," he growled.

"Woah, alright, chill!" The stranger held up their hands. "I was helping you!"

Unfortunately, they were still holding the sickle up, so there was no way Twilight was just going to chill.

"You tried to kill me!" Twilight snarled, inching his sword ever so slightly closer to their throat. "How is that helping me?"

Behind him, he heard Sky's voice. "Wait, Twilight-"

"I wasn't!" They backed a little further off. "Is it the helm? I feel like it's the helm. Hold on, don't attack me, let me just-"

The horned skull fell to the ground, and Twilight found himself staring at a Hylian girl with wide green eyes and shoulder-length golden hair tangled with leaves and grass. She was young, at sixteen or seventeen years of age (Twilight estimated), though it was a little hard to tell with the striking amount of scars on her face.

"...What?" He blinked.

"Yeah, I knew it was the helm." The girl grinned. "So listen, I was absolutely not trying to kill you - I was aiming for the monsters. Which I hit. Yeah, those arrows were me. So if you could, um, stop pointing your sword at me..."

"Why are you dressed like that?" Wars frowned as Twilight slowly lowered his sword. She was dressed very strangely - body paint, rough strips of fabric and animal skin, held together by rope and string, not to mention the skull helm currently lying on the ground.

"Don't mind it, I just like the way it looks." She shrugged casually, though her eyes were still warily watching Twilight as she walked over to the severed bokoblin arm and picked it up.

"Oh, eww," Wind shuddered as Hyrule looked on, fascinated.

"Were you after the black bloods too?" Time questioned.

"Yup." She examined the arm as if it were nothing but a very interesting tree branch. "Never seen them before. I don't think they belong here, so we're trying to get rid of them, or at least study them a little, but they keep running away."

She frowned, and picked up the bloody sickle lying next to the arm. "Wonder where they came from. You know anything about them?"

"Not much," Time said carefully.

"Just as I expected," the girl sighed, tucking the sickle and arm in her bag (Twilight tried not to gag). "Well. At least I've got a sample of 'em now."

"Actually, do you mind giving us directions?" Sky piped up. "We're trying to reach... ah, Hateno, was it?"

"Sure!" She grinned at them. "We're headed to Hateno, too, actually. You're currently in East Necluda. Hateno is-" She turned and squinted at the darkening sky. "Hm. That way. There's a road that'll take you there - actually, it's getting sort of late, and most people don't like travelling at night, do they?"

She tipped her head at them, clearly waiting for an answer.

"...No, uh, they don't." Sky said slowly.

She nodded. "Alright. Why don't you come and camp with us for the night? Don't worry, we have enough food for everyone, and it won't be too far away."

"We?" Twilight repeated.

"Me and my partner." She picked up the skull helm and tucked it into her bag. "I'm not going to wear this, in case you stab me. Don't do that. But yeah, we'd be happy to let you camp with us for the night."

Time regarded her. "Are you sure?"

"Can we?" Hyrule piped up. "She seems cool."

"Your definition of 'cool' needs work," Wind mumbled.

"It doesn't seem like a bad way to spend the night." Wars said carefully.

Time nodded. "Twilight?"

Twilight surveyed her. Apart from the rocky start, his instincts told him she was good - well-intentioned, if not a little strange. "Fine."

"Very well then." Time inclined his head. "We're thankful for your help."

"Right then!" The girl flashed a smile that seemed just a bit too toothy. "Name's Flora. Nice to meet you!"

"You may call me Time." Time rumbled. "This is Twilight, Warriors, Hyrule, Sky and Wind. We are currently missing two members, Legend and Four. Twilight, could you...?"

"Okay." Twilight nodded. "I'll go find them." He had been itching to be a wolf, anyway.

Chapter Text

Where could they be...?

Twilight pushed his wolf snout into the grass and sniffed. The scents of Four and Legend were extremely faint, almost as if they had been flying instead of running. That didn't mean their trail was gone, it was still there, just stupidly hard to follow.

'Least they didn't split up. How'd they even manage to get this far?

He closed his eyes, and took another deep sniff.

It smelt of grass, grass, and more grass, with the faintest whiff of black blood and the two heroes.

Well, they can't be too far off now.

Making sure no one else was nearby, he shifted back to his Hylian form and whistled.

Silence.

Frustrated, he tried again.

Again, silence - wait, nope, was that a whistle coming back at him?

He squinted into the darkening horizon. Two tiny figures in the distance, waving at him.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Hey! Over here!"

It took a while for Four and Legend to run back to him, but once they did, Twilight could immediately tell from the pissed expression on Legend's face that they'd gotten nothing out of the chase.

"Damn," Twilight said. "Tough luck."

"We haven't even said anything yet."

"Your face gave it away."

"Shut up. But yeah, they got away."

"Anything happen while we were gone?" Four jumped in.

"Yeah, tons." Twilight sighed. "Stop laughing, Vet, I'm not joking. Y'all really missed out. C'mon, they're waiting for us."

"I'm sure they are," Legend muttered.

Four ignored him. "What happened?"

"Remember the sickle that almost took my head off?" Twilight asked. "Well, we met the owner of it. Some strange Hylian named Flora, also after the black bloods. She's letting us camp with her and her partner for the night."

"Wait, what?" Four frowned. "She tried to kill you, and now we're going to hang out with her for the night?"

"Turns out she wasn't actually aiming for me." Twilight shrugged. "But we both nearly slit each other's throats, so I guess we're equal now."

"Are you sure we should trust her?" Legend demanded. "Seems like an incredibly risky and stupid thing to do."

"My gut says yes," Twilight nodded. "I'm pretty sure she meant no harm."

"We can't just go off of gut feelings," Legend argued. "What if it's a trick?"

"Well, I trust his gut." Four chimed in. "Besides, it's two against eight. I don't think she could do anything against us."

Legend said nothing for a moment, emotions warring across his face. "I hate it when you're right. Can you stop doing that for a minute?"

"Absolutely not. It's funnier this way, don't worry."

"No, the hell it is not."

"You think there's going to be a new hero in this Hyrule?" Twilight said loudly over Four's response.

"Don't think so," Legend muttered. "Eight heroes is more than enough."

"But most of the Hyrules we've travelled to so far gave us a new hero," Four said. "Another one might be more likely than not."

"I thought I told you to stop being right?"

"Did you?" Four said innocently. Legend swatted at him.

"Hey, stop that." Twilight said sternly, placing himself between the two. "We'll ask Flora when we get back. She's bound to know, right?"

Four peeked out from behind Twilight's frame. "Time's probably already asked her already. How long do you think it'll take for us to get back?"

"Not too long, I hope." Twilight sighed. "You two ran an awfully long distance. I don't even know how you got that far."

"Oops." Four shrugged.

"Oops?" Twilight snorted. "Really?"

"Yes, really. Anyway, I'm sure we'll get back in no time. Provided we don't get lost."

"What's stopping us from getting lost?" Legend snarked. "We were already lost to begin with."

"Hey, I've got a pretty good sense of direction," Twilight said. "Plus, you ran in a mostly straight line."

"Black bloods didn't." Legend muttered. "Maybe that's why we got nowhere at all."

"And they ran unnaturally fast." Four agreed. "I doubt we could've caught up anyways."

"There was no way in hell we could've caught up!" Legend threw his hands up in frustration. "This whole - everything - it's been going nowhere!"

Twilight stopped walking, causing Four to smack into his backside with a yelp. "Oops - sorry, Four. Legend, are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Legend muttered, looking away.

Twilight exhaled. "It's just that you've been really tetchy lately. Not that you aren't already tetchy, just more than usual."

Legend snorted. "Thanks, ranch hand."

"Hey, everyone's frustrated." Twilight held his hands up. "We're all a bit sick of chasing down the black bloods. So, what you're feeling right now, I totally get it."

Legend rolled his eyes. "Are you done yet?"

"Hey, he's right." Four piped up. "I agree with you - this mission is going nowhere at all and it sucks more than the time I accidentally set fire to - uh, myself. But I think we'll be alright as long as we have each other. Blech, that was sappier than I intended."

"Sappy but correct." Twilight grinned. "You're stuck with us now - wait, Four, did you say you set yourself on fire?"

"Well, I - it was kind of a weird time for me, alright?" Four squirmed. "And that's really not the issue right now."

"No, I'm curious too," Legend jumped in quickly. "I gotta know-"

Four cut him off. "Absolutely not. You'll use it as blackmail against me!"

"Oh, it's that bad, huh?" Legend smirked.

"I'm not gonna blackmail you with it," Twilight promised. "You can-"

"No way, nuh-uh, no to either of you!" Four squawked, and ran ahead.

"I'll tell everyone at camp if you don't!" Legend called after him, grinning.

Twilight laughed, the first time he had in ages. "He'll get you back for that if you do."

"Ha, he can try."

Guess that helped a bit, Twilight thought, noting the tension bleeding out of Legend's shoulders. Out loud, he said, "You feelin' better, then?"

"...A little." Legend admitted. "Hey, where's Four going?"

"Oh no." Twilight cupped his hands to his mouth and hollered as loud as he could. "Four, that's the wrong way!"