Fanfic

Stories based off on: Baldur’s Gate 3, Legend of Zelda, and the Linked Universe Read on AO3 Here

[myssamyss]

Wizard/Cleric, God/Archon: Gale Dekarios & Tav Make Up

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When Gale ascends to godhood and the Ilmatari cleric he loves refuses joining, all are left heartbroken and angry. Centuries later, Gale’s godly machinations threaten the stability of the pantheon, and the Triad rises against him to protect the planes. But what happens when the God of Ambition meets an Archon of Celestia with only scraps of their mortal memories - and a spark of familiarity when they lay eyes on Gale?

Love and forgiveness wage against pride, religious duty, and the lure of power as these two past lovers struggle on opposite sides of a cosmic divide.

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Meme from @caradelrey

[myssamyss]

Holy Duty Made Practice | Chapter 3 of 6

A now young-adult Tash joins an Ilmatari pilgrimage to Elturel - her first time outside of Baldur's Gate. On her journey, she reunites with an old friend (James Lorgan) who quietly challenges the harsh teachings of the senior clergy.

Chapter 3: Pilgrims' Dogma II - The Choice

1453 DR | Wilderness between Baldur's Gate and Elturel

And to his faithful, Lord Ilmater commanded:  “Outdo each other in honor. For I come to the low and worthy among you, to champion the cause of those underfoot.”

Tash woke the next morning to the drizzling patter of rain against her tent’s canvas. The air was cold and damp. Her stomach curled into an angry knot when she tried to sit up. She’d slept too long—now that she was awake, she could hear the others breaking camp around her already. She packed her tent quickly and tried to steal herself with happy thoughts of last night: Brother Ralf’s quiet delight in each of Calep’s colorful retellings… Sister Liri’s gentle chiding toward Calep and James’ youthful missteps… the way James would add small asides to include Tash in their conversation… 

Unfortunately, imagining all that also meant remembering the smell of the roast, and soon her stomach was cramping in on itself again.  

She distracted herself from its pangs by healing one of the elderly halflings whose shoulder had seized up in the clammy air.

Then, it was back to walking. 

James and Calep were taking their turn scouting out in front today, so Tash tried to fall in with the other clerics. At first, she thought that the rain and her headache from being up too late was coloring everyone else in a fog of irritation. But there was a heaviness that had settled on their party, heavier than the rainclouds above their heads, and it wasn’t just Tash’s mood.

Talk was sparse and brief. Laughter had been replaced by the sound of footfalls and creaking leather. Even their prayers felt rushed. 

Their surroundings were different now. No longer were they passing through towns and connecting throughways; now they walked long stretches through trees and fields without signs of other beings. Tash had never been so far away from a city. 

The path was quickly morphing from dirt to mud, so they had to travel more slowly with their horse and cart. The path dove into a forest, and Tash was initially grateful for the trees that sheltered them from the rain. But soon the raindrops were coming thicker and faster, falling in great globs from the gold and russet leaves above. The Ilmatari band was inevitably, thoroughly soaked. 

By the end of Vespers, she briefly considered following James and Calep back to their tents. But with the continued downpour, her ever-present hunger, and the erosion of her willpower with the rain, Tash figured what she ought to do was go the hells to sleep. Ilmater forgive me for skipping Compline, she thought, as she lay her cold, damp head down and quickly lost consciousness. 

Tash woke to the sound of screaming. 

She sat bolt upright. Everything was loud. In her half-awake confusion, she thought for a brief second that she might be on the docks back in Baldur’s Gate, because she could hear waves roaring against her tent. Then she realized it wasn’t waves at all—it was pounding sheets of rain being blown against her tent by the howling wind. But above that sound came another: people screaming in terror. Tash shook her head twice. Her still-wet hair whipped into her temples, forcing her brain awake. Then she threw herself to her feet. There was no time for armor. She grabbed her mace and her shield and she rushed from her tent into the downpour. Darkness.

Flashes of spells and glints of metal. 

They were under attack. 

She squinted through the rain and into the dark. She could see several paladins and clerics gathered around their cart of supplies, defending it against a handful of humanoid attackers wearing mismatched armor. Their cart-horse was stamping and pulling desperately against the bridle that anchored her from bolting. But that wasn’t where the screaming was coming from. The lay travelers!

Tash turned to the tents in the center of their camp to see twice as many armed fighters were closing in. Another group of Ilmatari were rushing to aid, but they were many steps behind. Tash was nearer. She watched as the closest, masked intruder pulled out a glinting knife and sliced into the canvas of the tiefling woman’s tent. Tash stowed her mace and broke into a sprint. 

In hindsight, she could have cast a spell. As it was, she rammed her shield into the intruder at full-speed just as they were wrenching the plum-haired woman out from her tent and onto her feet. 

The three of them went sprawling into the mud. Lightheadedness rushed over Tash as she fell, her vision spotting with true blackness. For a brief moment she feared she’d lose consciousness—the all-out effort of sprinting nearly overcoming her starving muscles. But then her head cleared and she could see again. 

The masked attacker had regained their feet. They were stalking back toward the tiefling woman. “Where is it all?!” the attacker yelled in a deep voice. 

The woman had fallen onto her back. She tried desperately to scrabble away backwards, but her long coat caught on the ground and her hands slipped without purchase on wet grass. The attacker must have lost his knife in the muck, because he now held a club. 

He drove the club mercilessly down toward the tiefling. She curled her legs up to try and protect herself from the onslaught of blows, but it was little use. A heavy-handed swing struck bone with a horrifying crack. The woman’s scream pierced the night. 

Tash had finally found her bearings. “Flagra!” she cried, sending a bolt of radiant light hurtling toward the attacking figure. The bolt hit and he cried out in pain, backing away from the tiefling woman. Tash rushed to her side. 

The blunt force of the club against the tiefling woman’s knee had split open not only the fabric of her trousers, but also the skin of her kneecap, revealing the shining white patellar bone underneath. Blood rushed from the edges of the wound. “Hells below!” the woman wailed, clutching at her leg. “Fucking FUCK YOU Prosper!” Tash crouched low in front of her and tried to cover as much of their bodies with her shield that she could. The rain had thankfully slowed to a drizzle, but water from the puddle she stood in was seeping into her boots—Tash tried to ignore it as she called out her spell. 

She felt the familiar warmth in her right hand as it lit with an icy-blue glow and the woman’s knee began to stitch back together. Tash was surprised—despite her exhaustion, her healing was as efficient as always. Her shield arm ached, and she could hear the clashes of combat around them, of metal and wood and the occasional shriek of a spell, but she kept her eyes trained on the woman’s knee until it was whole. Just as the skin was mended, the woman cried out again. “LOOK OUT!” 

Tash glanced up just in time to see the club hurtling towards them again. She threw her bare casting hand up against its swing. 

The club hit just above Tash’s wrist. Her forearm buckled beneath it with an audible crunch. Tash fought against the pain of it and moved to brace both arms against her shield to shove their enemy away even as she fell to her knees. But when she tried to move her right arm, she caught sight of a horrifying new joint bending sickly above her wrist as if she had been given a second elbow. Her hand hung limply from the break, and she watched water drip from the tips of her curled fingers.

Nausea gripped her.

Alba’s going to be real disappointed about this, Tash thought in a manic flash of dark humor. It steadied her curdling stomach. 

“Incede!” James’ voice cried out. Tash whipped her head around to see him advancing towards them as her enemy went up in flames. Sister Liri was steps behind him, holding blue fire in one hand and brandishing a sword in the other. The attacker ripped off his burning mask, revealing the face of a tiefling with short, plum-colored hair cropped between his horns. He looked to each cleric, fear plain on his face, then took off running into the forest. 

“That’s right, keep running you gods-forsaken bastard!” the woman screamed after him, momentarily rising onto her knees. “Shit,” she added quietly, dropping to the ground beside Tash. 

The assault on their camp was over. Tash looked up from beneath her shield and saw all of the attackers had been driven away, save one lone man who lay moaning in the mud. 

James went to help heal him while Brother Larence and one of the paladins bound his arms. 

“You knew them,” Sister Liri said to the tiefling woman, drawing near and giving her a curious look. 

The woman was still crouching near the ground. Tash turned to her, worried for a moment that the healing had been inadequate—though Tash was hardly in a state to help that. Instead, she was surprised to see the woman was actually searching carefully for something among the grass. As she looked closer, Tash noticed there was jewelry scattered among the gleaming raindrops and puddles—a handful of earrings and a glittering bracelet that the woman quickly plucked off the ground. 

The woman examined the tear in her long coat, and Tash could see inside the garment where there were a dozen other gemmed broaches and necklaces sewn into the inner layer, extending further up than Tash could see the end of. If the whole coat was sewn with the jewels, there had to be more than a hundred pieces in there—a sizable fortune.

Tash was too unwell to question it; her natural curiosity was being drowned out by the roar of visceral pain in her arm. But Sister Liri looked up and down at first the coat and then the tiefling woman wearing it. “Who are you?” she asked. 

The woman, still with a fistful of jewelry, ran a knuckle over her restored knee, pausing at the torn fabric of her trousers stained in her own blood. 

“Phetria. Phetria Sitabras. Jeweler,” the woman said lowly. 

Brother Calep had joined them now. He was slightly out of breath. His mail shirt had a small splatter of blood on it. “Seems like you could’ve afforded to spring for more expensive guards,” he laughed. 

The tiefling woman sighed. She tucked the handful of jewelry into her pocket and stood, now looking down on Calep. “I was trying to move all of the inventory secretly. My sister already prepared a storefront in Elturel, we were going to quietly transfer it all from Baldur’s Gate.”

Calep raised an eyebrow. “Seems like it wasn’t that secret.”

“Apparently not. My idiot brother is smarter than I thought. And more pissed than I expected that we cut him out.” 

Tash could see Brother Ame and Reverend Mother Catrine approaching the laypeople’s tents, making sure that people in the middle of camp were alright. 

James and the others hoisted the freshly healed and tied bandit to his feet and marched him to where everyone was gathering. The man was no longer an enemy - now he was just a scared, soaked human in poorly fitting leather armor. 

“We can hand him over to the Hellriders tomorrow when we cross their patrol,” Brother Larence said. 

The paladin nodded. “They must have thought themselves very clever, attacking in the dark just before we hit their jurisdiction.”

“Keep an eye on him,” Mother Catrine commanded the paladin, who nodded and took hold of the man’s arm. “See if you can find him a bedroll. Bread and water in the morning, so he knows we don’t lack compassion.” 

The bound man glanced at Phetria, who glared back at him with a white-hot hatred, making him drop his gaze quickly. “He wasn’t going to give you whatever he promised,” she spit. “Prosper’s greedy."

The man remained silent. Brother Larence and the paladin led him out of the group’s center. 

“Enjoy your night in Ilmater’s mercy,” Calep shot under his breath as he passed, “because you’re not going to like the Companions.”

“Who else needs healing?” James called out. Their entire party was gathered now, and a few people held up their hands. Tash moved to lift her broken arm, but the slight movement sent such an extreme wave of pain up her arm that she had to steady herself against her shield with her left hand to keep from passing out. 

Phetria looked down at her. “Um, I think she does,” she said, raising her own arm on Tash’s behalf. 

James caught sight of Tash still kneeling wounded on the ground and he rushed to her side. 

“Wait!” Mother Catrine called out, holding a hand up to stop everyone. 

The crowd grew deathly silent. 

“Heal those that journey with us, as a display of Ilmater’s powerful compassion,” she cried. “But for those of us who take solace in the blessed tears of the Crying God, may we embrace the suffering he has given us.”

Mother Catrine drew near to Tash. Her billowing grey robes—made heavier with rain—hit Tash’s shield with a soft splat. As Tash looked up at her, the Reverend Mother reached out a hand and braced Tash by her good arm, pulling her to her feet and out of James’ reach. 

Tash swayed for a second but Mother Catrine held her fast. All eyes were upon them. 

“This servant has given her body in protection of another!” Mother Catrine called. 

James stood and tried to say something, but in that moment Mother Catrine shifted Tash to her other side and into the arms of Brother Ame, who now steadied her. 

Tash’s head swum, and she almost lost her vision again before the dizziness cleared. 

Mother Catrine removed the red cord that hung around her neck and held it up to the rain. Then she grabbed Tash’s broken hand and lifted it, too. 

Tash gritted her teeth against the scream that threatened to tear from her lungs at the grinding pain of her shattered forearm bones being manipulated.

“She has done what Lord Ilmater asks of us all—to act without thought for ourselves, in holy service to others!”

Mother Catrine smoothly looped the red cord over Tash’s broken arm, encircling it and tying it with a flourish. 

“Join me as we thank our Broken Lord for the selflessness this cleric has shown today:

Lord on the Rack, weep for us!”

A chorus of voices was rising from their party, mixing with the slow patter of still-falling rain. The camp glowed with a dozen blue-tinged conjured lights. The senior clergy had drawn closer. Everyone Tash could see was staring in reverence—all but James. He was silent. His eyes were wide with a different emotion. 

“For we are weak, and you endure

Let your heavy tears fall

And may we wince on their salts as we sup 

Amen”

~*~

Shield, for the love of Ilmater!

Olan’s voice replayed in her mind as a stream of pain-fueled tears rolled down Tash’s cheeks. Her right arm’s sickening, pounding ache mixed with the hot regret in the pit of her stomach. She stared at the walls of her tent and her entire being throbbed in agony. 

Olan would have judged her fighting—her first real battle—with a disappointed eye. Had she played to her strengths, or used any of the skills he’d painstakingly taught her? 

Of course not. 

She had instead barreled into the situation and held out her bare arm for destruction instead of shielding. Or blocking—oh GODS why hadn’t she pulled her mace to block?! 

Her arm was growing colder. It was still healable, but how long until that wasn’t the case? It was swelling now, nearly twice as large as her arm was supposed to be, pressing up against the edges of the cord like a tourniquet. She had lost feeling in it completely—no doubt the tissue was dying. 

She thought through the clerics with her and counted through their skills: who could mend bone, who could renew necrosis… 

But regenerating a lost limb was another thing entirely. Sister Clarwen might be able to do it, but she was nearly four days back to Baldur’s Gate. 

Tash stared down at the mangled arm. Her left arm twitched with the desire to just heal its twin already. 

But I can’t…

If she healed her arm herself she’d be faithless. All she could do was wait. Would Lord Ilmater take pity on her suffering and heal her arm, like the stories of the saints? 

A dark fear crept into her mind: waking up in the morning with a dead stump that would need amputation. If she lost her arm she’d be proven unworthy of Ilmater’s intervention—and her dead arm would be the receipt of the god withholding His mercy.

A double bind. 

She shook her head. He already gave you a home, a place in the world instead of a grave. How much more mercy do you need? 

“Tash?” a voice whispered from outside her tent. 

She held her breath, afraid to answer. Maybe I should pretend to be asleep?

“Tash?” the voice repeated. James’ voice, she realized. 

“Yes?” she answered weakly. She wiped her face dry with her shirtsleeve. 

James ducked his head through the small tent’s entrance. His hair was wild, frizzing darkly around his head after being soaked by the storm. Tash imagined her own hair was probably equally messy. 

“May I come in?”

He waited for her nod, then he was kneeling beside her. He held a handful of blue light in his hand to help his vision in the dark. It cast their shadows onto the canvas that surrounded them. Tash felt suddenly self-conscious, as if her breathing was echoing off their shadows at twice its normal volume. 

James studied her arm. Then he looked up at Tash. 

“You’re going to lose this if we do nothing,” he said simply. 

His forwardness shocked her. She drew away. 

“If that’s Ilmater’s will,” she returned. She tucked her arm into her side and tried to ignore how cold it felt. 

“I don’t think it’s Ilmater’s will for you to be left one-handed.”

He was trying to meet her eyes, but Tash wouldn’t let him. She could feel hot tears rising behind her lids again and if he noticed she’d certainly lose her resolve. 

“It’s within His power to heal—and I’ll accept if he chooses not to.” Her voice sounded flat in her own ears. 

“It’s within your power to heal, through His gifts, if you’d-“

“I’m fine,” she cut him off. “So what if I lose a hand? I know people with none who’ve done just FINE!” 

Tash surprised herself with the angry intensity that ripped through her words.

James didn’t meet her there. He just…waited. 

Then, he put a hand to her shoulder. 

A hot tear finally broke over the edge of Tash’s eye. She felt it trickle down her cheek, betraying her. 

“Tash.” James’ voice was soft and whole. “Suffering by itself is not holy. Your pain does not bring any goodness. The only thing that should scar your hand is fighting for justice. Ilmater’s will calls us to know the balance between healing and pain.”

She was struggling to master her breathing. James waited. He held his knife to the edge of the cord that bound Tash’s hand. 

“Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll stay my hand.”

Tash looked up into the glow of blue light reflecting in his dark eyes. 

She gave him a small dip of her chin. 

With a flick of his knife, he cut the red cord from Tash’s arm. She watched the ragged edges fall to the ground. 

Tash winced. The hand had been numb and cold, but now the groove from the cord’s pressure burned fresh, and fire shot through her veins and into her hand as fresh blood came pounding down the arteries. She could imagine the blood sweeping away all of the rot that her bursting cells had spit out as they started dying. She turned her hand over to look at the purpled palm, and she could feel her misplaced forearm bones grinding against each other. She winced.  

“Do you want to fix it, or should I?” James asked her. She looked up and his eyes were dark and serious, more serious than ever. 

She nodded at him. “Go ahead,” she whispered.

With his first two fingers, he gently pressed down into her radial artery at the sensitive underside of her wrist. He hummed to himself. Then he ran the pads of his fingers across the fractured ulnar bone. Tash jumped involuntarily at the pain. 

James hummed again and placed both hands over the top of Tash’s broken arm. She watched as the harmless blue flames he held licked at her skin. 

“Te curo,” he said gently. I cure you. 

Relief washed through her arm like water down a stream. She could feel her breathing even as it no longer fought against the blinding pain. 

“I think I owe you my arm twice over,” she finally managed. 

James shook his head and smiled. “If I remember correctly, it was the shoulder last time. And I didn’t manage to fix it.” 

She grinned. “That’s true.”

She ran her left hand’s fingers over the perfect, newly-healed bones of her right. 

“There’s going to be a reckoning for this,” she murmured. 

James shrugged. “I bet you’ll know how to bite back. The younger you never took a reprimand lying down. Stop swallowing your words, and they’ll come to you.” 

He held her gaze for a moment. Then he ducked out of her tent and into the night. 

Though he took the light with him, Tash couldn’t help feeling like some of it had lodged in her chest, kindling her gall. 

~*~

The morning sun shone through the lattice of leaves overhead, casting a golden lace onto the walls of Tash’s tent.  

Tash ducked outside and the air smelled fresh. She stepped mindfully around the sprinkling of small white daisies that had bloomed in the grass after the rain. No sooner had she started to pull her tent’s stakes from the moist ground when a shadow fell across her. 

She looked up. Mother Catrine stared from Tash’s face to her conspicuously healed and cordless arm, then back to her face without a word. A vein was working itself to prominence in the Reverend Mother’s neck just above the grey collar of her robes. 

Catrine finally spoke, enunciating each syllable carefully. “A pity that you lacked the courage to be the conduit for Ilmater’s miracles.” She made a face so condescending that it took all of Tash’s willpower not to punch the Reverend Mother’s nose with her healed arm. 

Tash took a breath. She wasn’t a child anymore. 

“Suffering’s whip removes compassion,” Tash quoted the words of Saint Ramedar. “The righteous teach how to choose. I’m choosing two strong hands to bear the burdens of others.”

Catrine looked at her with plain disgust. Tash wondered for a split second whether Catrine was about to spit directly into her face. Then the Reverend Mother turned in a whirling of robes and plodded away. 

Tash let out a breath. She may have lost the quick cheek of her childhood—she’d needed to practice the scripture alone in her tent—but she was pleased to find that her words had come out loud and strong.

There was a low laugh behind her. Tash turned. 

James was there. He must have been waiting for her to get up. She was a little surprised that he’d kept his distance, but pleasantly so. The healing was her choice. Hers to defend. 

He stepped toward her. “I agree with you. Wholeheartedly. Though I hope you already knew that.”

She took a deep, shaky breath. The adrenaline of her impertinence was fading. “Thank you.” “Plus,” he added, “all of the incredible things you’re going to do with your life will be much easier with two hands, I suspect.”

Tash laughed. “Like what?” she challenged. She turned back to packing her tent—then something caught her eye. 

Phetria was walking by in the near-distance, offering Tash and James a tentative wave. Tash looked up and waved back with her right arm. Phetria paused in surprise. Then she beamed a full-toothed grin back. She gave a quick thumbs-up, straightened the lapel of her coat, and walked on. Tash wondered how heavy it was. 

“Well,” James continued after the jeweler had gone, “saving countless more lives. Dismantling corrupt regimes. Maybe casting a miracle. I guess we’ll see,” he shrugged. 

Tash scoffed. “Sure,” she joked. 

“Tash, you have a heart for the broken, a keen mind, undeniable skill, and many years ahead of you. I wasn’t being hyperbolic.”

Tash froze, embarrassed by his fantastic delusions. She could feel her ears burning pink. She shook her head gently and felt her fluffy hair slipping over the points of her ears, hiding them. 

“Alright, a more short-term goal then.” James allowed, grinning. “Sparring with the Tormtar? That’s definitely going to be better with both hands.”

Tash grinned back. Now that was an attainable goal. She finished packing her tent into her rucksack, shouldered her shield and mace, and stood. She thought briefly of the rations in her pack—then decided that breaking one edict was more than enough for the morning. She’d think on it again after Meridiem. 

“Ready,” she told him. 

James waved a hand in front of them. “Look out, Faerun!” he announced under his breath, animated but quiet—for which she was grateful. “Tash’s mace-hand is back. If you trample on the poor, she will crush you in Lord Ilmater’s holy name!”

Tash buried her hands in her head and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. And James laughed with her. 

“C’mon,” he said finally as they both calmed. “We’ll miss Calep’s story of the day if we don’t catch up.”

Tash followed him into the light of the rising sun, onwards to their friends, and onwards to their duty in Elturel. 

[myssamyss]

Holy Duty Made Practice | Chapter 2 of 6

A now young-adult Tash joins an Ilmatari pilgrimage to Elturel - her first time outside of Baldur's Gate. On her journey, she reunites with an old friend (James Lorgan) who quietly challenges the harsh teachings of the senior clergy.

Chapter 2: Pilgrims' Dogma I - The Paths

1453 DR | Rivington

Lord Ilmater looked out over the rods and the whips, the screws and the racks, the chains and the shackles. He smelled the fear in the air and saw the blood on the floor. And he said, ‘I know my enemy.’

“Shield! For the love of Ilmater, this isn’t supposed to be a flogging!”

Tash gritted her teeth and raised her shield arm higher. She hated covering her face—how am I supposed to see the attacks?—but she had to admit that Olan had a point. She could only imagine the pattern of bruises that were blossoming beneath her leather armor where she’d failed to protect herself, and her head rang after taking a hit to the ear. Olan’s mace was wrapped with cloth to blunt its blows—but that just meant the difference between a broken arm and a bruised one, especially without plate.

The paladin swung his mace at her again. This time, she caught the swing on her shield, stomping forward into the blow so that she wouldn’t be pushed backwards. 

Olan laughed. “YES, there ya go! Now use it, advance, advance!”

Tash grinned. She took two quick steps forward and threw her weight into a swing of her own. She let the momentum flow from her shoulder just as the paladin had taught her over many years, making the mace an extension of her arm and carrying the swing from her elbow to her wrist to her target. 

Her own padded mace collided with Olan’s much-used practice shield with a satisfying thump as he raised it to block. Tash plucked her arm back for another blow, so quickly that Olan wasn’t able to shift the shield in time. Her second blow connected with the wrist of his mace arm, knocking the arm down and leaving the right side of his body open. 

“Hey hey!” Olan shouted triumphantly, as if he hadn’t just been scored upon. 

Tash smiled and tried for a third hit, but he wasn’t going to let her win that easily. Her aching arms proved that Olan was going nearly all-out against her, which she counted as a point of pride. He shifted the right side of his body backward just out of her reach. 

He leaned into the turn, swiping forward with his shield—but Tash anticipated him. She ducked out of his way. 

“Much better. You’re smaller and quicker, use it,” he encouraged. 

She did. As she ducked, she swung her mace back-handedly and it collided with Olan’s own lowered mace, knocking both weapons into the inside of his left knee. He winced and took an unsteady step backwards. 

It was the first time Tash had ever forced him off-balance. 

He looked up at her with a grin. “Exactly!” He relaxed his stance, stowed his mace, and batted the side of her head with his palm good-naturedly. 

“I remember when you were no taller than the mace! And now look at you. Ready for the Tormtar I think! At least, they might be willing to teach you now, instead of just laughing you away.”

Tash beamed. She sucked down air and leaned back against the nearby wall. Then she began unwrapping the head of her mace. 

“You packed? Ready for Elturel?” Olan asked. 

She nodded and gestured to her full pack, resting against the plastered side of the nearest building.

“Not sure how many more of these little pilgrimages there’s gonna be, they’ve more than made up for their Penance of Duty or whatever, but you know how they are. Justice to the nth degree and all that. If they want to give up their coin, the Open Hand could definitely use it. And it’s always a good time to change scenery… get some new ideas in the pot…” he trailed off and shrugged. “Anyways, go back to the temple, see Sister Clarwen before you go—wanna be fresh for your first day on the road.” 

He stuck out his hand and Tash clasped it, bracer to bracer. 

She turned and walked back up the dusty road toward the temple. The sun was rising in the sky now, and she could start to feel its heat against her sore right shoulder, cutting the cool of morning. She couldn’t help grinning. Her mace work was improving, the hard-won fruit of years of labor. Ilmater’s healing seemed to flow through her, easy as breathing—and she thanked him for it—but there was something about the throw of a punch and the crunch of a mace that felt satisfying. The work was harder, and she found herself liking the grit of it. Healing was great, but stopping someone from hurting others in the first place was even better. 

The rising sun hit the limestone of the temple, making the stones’ cut edges gleam as Tash walked up its stairs. She stepped into shadow beneath the portico and paused at the front door. It had been over a month since she’d been back. 

She glanced at one of the trees in the small bricked yard, one she used to climb when she was small. Its leaves were turning a dusty red that matched the dye of her leathers. She remembered standing on her toes in ill-fitting boots to reach the first branch. Now the branch stared across the courtyard at her, eye-level.

She smiled. It had been years now since she lived at the temple and longer since she climbed its trees, and she was grateful for that. For a moment she could taste that helpless feeling again—nestled in the tree, watching Olan and the other paladins come and go from the temple where they never stayed longer than a tenday or two, while she was stuck under the watchful eye of whichever cleric had drawn the short match of babysitting. Now she was old enough to journey where she wanted, too. 

Tash pushed through the front doors and the smells of the temple folded around her: old timber and incense, fresh porridge and baking bread, and the slightly acrid bite of astringent. 

Several beggars sat at the ancient wooden tables, waiting patiently for Brother Sai to serve breakfast. Tash nodded and smiled at the people she knew. At the third table sat a toddler with shining yellow curls tucked into her mother’s lap. Her mother seemed to keep both hands hidden in the folds of her dress, but Tash knew she had none.

Tash paused and smiled at the two of them. Martha raised her eyes at Tash and the hint of a smile played on her face.

“Don’t,” Martha warned with a laugh. 

Tash raised both arms in surrender. “I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even get to hello!” She laughed too. 

Martha sighed. “Mae likes the music. And the sweets. Plus it’s free.” She shrugged. 

“You’re always welcome here. And it’s good to see you.” Tash set a hand on Martha’s shoulder. Martha shifted a little but didn’t shrug away. 

“Thanks,” Martha said. An admittance. 

Tash didn’t need an ‘I-told-you-so’. She smiled brightly at Mae and the tiny girl smiled back with a row of stubby white teeth. Their clothes were worn but clean. Neither were too skinny. 

Tash sent a swift prayer of thanks to the Crying God. Then she walked on to the back of the room and entered the infirmary. 

“You’ve got your road colors on,” Novice Alba said brightly when Tash walked in. 

“Yeah. Autumn pilgrimage to Elturel.”

“Lucky you. Or unlucky you,” Alba’s green eyes sparkled with mischief. Her dark, silken hair was drawn back into a neat bun, revealing her gently tapered ears. She wore the grey assistant’s apron over her temple robes. “How long are you going to be gone?”

“Two tenday about,” Tash said. “And you? How much longer on infirmary rotation do you have?”

“It’s my last tenday. I’ve liked it but Sister Clarwen can be a bit… intense sometimes.”

Tash nodded. “She’s always been intense. She’s good though. I don’t think I’ve ever met better. She’s the person to learn from. But two months of it can be… well, intense is probably the best word.” Tash actually enjoyed Sister Clarwen’s academic intensity to the severity of the other clergy’s teaching, but she knew that most novitiates didn’t share her excitement for anatomy and uncommon healing techniques. 

“She’s not around then?” Tash asked. 

“There’s an overturned cart on the bridge and some people were injured, she went to help. I hope she’ll be back soon—I bet there’ll be others wanting a fix-up before you leave.” She looked up at Tash, suddenly curious. “Actually, come to think of it, you’re here kind of early. I’m shocked.”

Tash chuckled. Truth was, she’d barely slept. Years of being late for most morning prayers had given her a reputation, which she occasionally got to circumvent when she showed up early for things only because she was actually up very late. To squeeze in mace practice this morning she’d stayed up nearly all night. She wouldn’t risk being late for today. 

“Excited, I guess,” Tash said. She shrugged out of her leathers and pulled her undershirt over her head. “So. If Sister Clarwen’s gone. You’re up.”

Alba whistled lowly. She ran her hands up and down the purpling bruises that dotted Tash’s arms like lily pads on a pond. “You don’t know when to stop, huh?” The sparkle was back, in her voice this time. Her hands were cool on Tash’s sore skin. 

She set about healing her. Tash would have done it herself, but she wanted to be ready for anything on the road; starting the journey with her prayers half-spent for the day was hardly wise. Alba was doing a great job—the nearly two months at Sister Clarwen’s side had served her well. 

Tash was only a few months older than Alba, but Alba had just taken her vows the year before. She was still a novitiate, while Tash had almost two years of fully-fledged healing and suffering under her belt. 

Tash looked up and down at the now-clear skin of her arms, free of blemish save her normal freckles. 

“That was well-done,” Tash told her.

Alba blushed but didn’t lose a beat. “Well, go ahead and have fun without me. Just tell me about it when you get back.” She dropped her voice slightly, and Tash knew she was talking about more than sightseeing. 

Tash shrugged and slipped back into her leather armor. “Probably won’t. Not like that.”

Alba laughed. “Always professional. Except for when you aren’t.” She ran her fingers down the  bruises she had just healed on Tash’s right arm and lingered with her finger tips brushing the knuckles of Tash’s first two fingers. 

Tash set her left hand on top of Alba’s fingers, stilling them. “Not now,” she said quietly. “I’ve gotta go.”

Alba smiled. “When you get back then. I’ll be done with infirmary, I’ll be back at the convent for nights.” It was as much of an invitation as Tash would get from her—Alba liked to flirt, but when it came down to it, Tash knew Alba didn’t like making the first move. 

Alba started the parting prayer, speaking the words softly over Tash. 

“Blessings to the hands and feet of your emissary, that they swiftly carry kindness, justice, and mercy upon those who have been harmed. Let her not fail in her duty to take suffering from the world, give her the strength to bear it in your name, amen.”

“Amen,” Tash said. 

“Blessings to her hands especially,” Alba added lowly. Tash didn’t usually blush but the thought of Alba’s prayers floating up to Ilmater had her feeling suddenly self-conscious. 

Alba laughed at her. “So some things do get through,” she teased. 

Tash started shouldering her traveling bag. “A tenday then,” she told her. Then she ducked out the door before Alba could say more. Tash knew she was a game to Alba—a game Tash liked playing—but today was for more than young lust. 

Today was for adventure.

~*~

A dozen Ilmatari and a few scattered laypeople were gathered beneath the ash trees at the edge of the eastward road leaving Rivington. A growing pile of rations and supplies was stacked on a cart drawn by a single horse at the center of the group. Nearly half of the Adorned standing around were from the Open Hand temple, most wearing leather armor over their traditional grey and red. Among them Tash counted Brother Larence, Reverend Sister Kare, and Brother Ame the Unbending—which meant Reverend Mother Catrine would be along shortly…

The rest were Ilmatari paladins whose plate metal glinted in the growing sunlight. Tash looked over the remaining travelers. A family of simply-dressed humans with two teen-aged youths, a tiefling woman with strikingly plum-colored hair wearing a long coat, and a group of three elderly halflings stood waiting to be accompanied to Elturel.

Tash settled in near to the paladins. She only vaguely recognized some of them, and that was fine. She kept to herself.  She didn’t feel like talking to the other clerics—they tended to treat her more like the orphaned child from the stash than a colleague, no matter how much she worked. The paladins were easier, their memories shorter—she could trade effort today for their respect. 

A quarter hour passed and now a group of clerics in simple grey robes were coming up the road. There were two dark-haired men - the first, an elf with a red skullcap, the other a human without - a halfling wearing a shirt of mail, and an older brown-skinned woman with her hair in braids. 

As they walked closer, Tash realized that the young man without a hat was familiar.

James. 

The four offered around polite nods and pleasantries as they joined the waiting group. Then, James’ brown eyes landed on Tash. His face lit up like a match. 

“Tash!” he called. 

She couldn’t stop herself from beaming back at him. 

James strode toward her and stooped slightly, embracing her from the side.  

He somehow seemed both taller and shorter than how Tash last remembered him. She’d grown since they’d last stood side-by-side, but it seemed that he had too, and it took a moment for Tash to adjust to her new perspective. James’ hair was still dark, wavy and wild, ringing his head like a halo. But his face was now covered in a beard of coarse, dark hair that extended over his lower cheeks and chin. He wore no armor over his robes - he was protected by only the cord-bound hands of Ilmater stitched above his heart in black and crimson thread. 

“I’m so sorry, forgive me—Sister Tash,” James corrected himself as he regarded her. “I’ve heard you’re fully-fledged now. Finished your novitiate and everything!” 

Tash glanced down at the ground and gave a soft shrug. “That’s true,” she laughed.

“Have you met Brother Calep?” James asked, pivoting toward the sandy-haired halfling who trailed just slightly behind him. The other two clerics had stepped away to mingle among the others. 

“Maybe once or twice,” Tash said. Calep had been in the same novitiate as James, but had been older, and paid little mind to Tash as a child. 

The halfling waved to her and his mail clinked. “We’ve heard that you’re quite talented,” he said. 

“I’m sorry?” Tash asked. 

James grinned sheepishly. “The word on the road is that Sister Clarwen spoke appreciatively of your skills to one of the paladins—a notable compliment.”

She could feel the tips of her ears start to warm and she was grateful they were tucked beneath her hair.

“Plus,” he added. “You took the Cup quite young.”

Tash snorted. “Not as young as you.” 

“I heard you were casting Ilmater’s mercies even before your initiation.”

Tash blushed fully now and glanced down. “You can’t believe everything you hear.” She changed the subject hastily. “And what about you? You’ve been on the road, right? That’s got to be more interesting than temple curricula.” 

James met her eyes for a brief moment. Then he followed her lead. “Well, we’d worked almost every corner of the city, so it seemed only natural to start traveling. Most of it’s been mundane—healing and helping—but I think I can claim that we’ve even been on some adventures.” 

His eyes twinkled for a moment, then dimmed. 

“Adventures where?” Tash asked. 

“Well, along the Coast Way, for starters.”

“And how was that?” she asked. 

“Eventful,” James said simply. 

Now Brother Calep snorted. “James likes to downplay the stories.”

“We’ve met a lot of different kinds of people,” James added evenly. “But that’s not too different from here.”

“We’ve met a lot of monsters!” Brother Calep added.

“Like what?” Tash asked. “Direwolves? Giant spiders?”

Brother Calep raised his eyebrows. “Ah sure we’ve seen some creatures too.”

James shot him a look and Calep smirked. “What?” Calep asked. “Half the people we meet are—"

“Struggling,” James finished, cutting him off. But the halfling wasn’t put out. He rolled his eyes playfully and sighed, drawing a tired laugh out of James. Their difference in opinion seemed well-tread. James turned to Tash. “I’m sure you can imagine. Being outside of the city means a lot less oversight, a lot less wealth— for better and for worse. People make do in the ways they can—they try to make right in the ways they can. It’s hard but it’s been… enlightening. We’ve been traveling with a couple,” he gestured to the other clerics they came in with. “Sister Liri and Brother Ralf. They’re older, and they’re from Scornubel. They have a lot of practical experience with aid. We’ve learned a lot from them.”

Tash nodded, glancing at the couple who was now talking with Reverend Sister Kare a few yards away. Liri held Ralf’s arm and Ralf tilted his head toward Liri, the fondness between them plain. They stood out; while there were plenty of trysts and short-lived romances between the younger clergy at the Open Hand, an older, established couple felt unusual to Tash. “Your travels sound better than shifts at Harborside,” Tash said.

James laughed knowingly. “Have you perfected your rope-burn healings yet?” he half-teased. 

She smiled. “The rope burns are fine. Sometimes we get an amputation and that’s great. I just…” she paused, looking at James then at Calep, who was glancing around the gathering crowd and paying little attention. She lowered her voice and took a step closer to James. “I got crossed up with Brother Ame because I started a fight with a Lathanderian who was taking too much coin.” 

James smirked. “Obviously, getting fleeced is good for peoples’ suffering,” he said sarcastically, then he bit his lip as if he’d let out a secret. Then he lowered his voice further. “I know it’s been awhile, but I used to know this kid who’d sneak out of the temple to heal every broken-winged bird and every scrappy underdog who’d been wronged.” Tash’s ears went hot again. She fluffed at her hair with one hand. “A kid who thrived with very little oversight,” James added with a chuckle. “You ever think the road might suit you better than the city?”

She gave him a small smile. “I guess we’ll see. It’s my first time traveling beyond the Gate.”

James smiled back. “I’m excited for you.”

Tash felt something warm inside her chest, a gentle stillness she hadn’t felt for several years. A scrap of belonging she used to have back when James would stick up for her, back when she was just a small, wild force for the clerics to pin down. Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Reverend Mother Catrine. Her grey robes rustled before her, and the red cord that hung from her neck in place of a stole swayed from side-to-side as she walked. Brother Ame hurried to her side. More Adorned and laypeople had joined the group in the time that Tash and James had spent talking. All now turned to Mother Catrine. 

The crowd grew quiet. 

Tash was used to seeing the Reverend Mother behind the pulpit, with space and the convention of liturgy as a buffer. But now, with Mother Catrine standing almost casually among them, Tash was suddenly reminded of her initiation—of the way that Catrine had questioned her again and again over the top of the Cup as if she doubted the potion, her severe expression seeming to never soften despite any of Tash’s most heartfelt answers… “Welcome, my fellow sufferers of the Broken Flock!” Mother Catrine’s voice resounded off the trees. Whatever Tash’s opinion of her was, she had to admit Catrine was a talented preacher.

“We journey today to our brethren in Elturel, to help them fulfill their holy Penance of Duty. For, as we well know, suffering and penance leads to renewed faith, and faith in turn furthers justice. We shall meet the Tormtar in their rare offering of meekness, encouraging their humility as the Lord Ilmater tempers Torm Himself with deepest mercies. 

“We welcome these guests that join us,” Mother Catrine turned and gestured to the tiefling woman and other travelers gathered, “and we swear to protect you with our powers, our arms, and even our lives. In return, we ask that you keenly watch our ways, and see how we give our lives as willing sufferers to the Rack-Broken Lord’s creeds, because this wisdom is far more precious than any physical protection we might afford you on this journey. 

“To my brethren—we loyal wretches of the Broken God—I share with you this: a test of penitence that came to me as I prayed Compline in lowliness just last evening:

She gestured to the supplies they had gathered at the center of their group. 

“These rations, dutifully gathered, could feed us for this tenday’s journey… or,” she paused, briefly meeting the eyes of each Adorned who stood listening. “Or! We could bring these rations to the poor and downtrodden of Elturel, displaying the overwhelming charity of our gracious Weeping Lord. To an unpledged soul, the deliverance of these provisions could be the very proof of Lord Ilmater’s worthiness. For His creeds are a balm to the hungry, and His ways the solution to suffering. 

“May we abstain from these rations in a display of our sanctified endurance. May we eat only what we might forage or produce through Lord Ilmater’s ever-flowing mercies. Though surely, through the power of our Sufferer Supreme, many of us chosen by His glorious anguish may find our need for sustenance supernaturally relieved.”

Tash didn’t dare a glance to her left or her right. She’d never heard of a fast given during a pilgrimage, but she wasn’t about to betray her surprise. 

Catrine continued. “In light of this most holy trial, please join me in penitence as we observe Lauds.

Let the light of perpetual toleration…”

Tash found her voice and joined the gentle chorus of prayer that murmured among the trees. “…guide us your wretched servants to peace. In bloodied mercy—hear our prayers…”

~*~

“So it was all over—we’d finally solved where all the pox was coming from, and the three Talonites were in a pretty bad way just broken and bleeding in the street.” Brother Calep’s eyes gleamed as he spun the tale. 

The next morning’s sky glowed a veiled, cloudy grey. Their company was making their way slowly past the final hamlets that survived on the capillaries of trade from the now far-off city. Tash’s first day had been spent helping guard the front of the caravan, a plan she’d only half-volunteered for. It meant walking next to Brother Ame in an awkward near-silence for hours. She stopped to pick some berries to eat, but the Brother’s silent eyes watching her made her lose her appetite. Even once they’d stopped for the night there was no dinner to socialize around, no communal events besides an exceptionally long and dull Vespers, following which Tash had decided to cut her losses and retire. But her sleep was better than she’d expected on an empty stomach, and today was already proving better than the last. 

Brother Calep had a half dozen clergy and laypeople listening raptly as he gave what was obviously a well-rehearsed story. 

“So. Sister Liri goes to heal one of those sorry tattooed bastards, but the mayor stops her,” Calep continued. “Felt they didn’t deserve it after everything they’d done.  We probably coulda left it there—the sick were healed, and we didn’t want any trouble with the locals—but do you think that Lorgan was going to leave it?” He hit James in the ribs as he spoke. 

James raised his eyebrows, playing his part and saying nothing. Tash could see the hint of a smile playing on his mouth. 

“This man makes all of us accompany them to the next village over. Makes them promise to not hurt anyone in the village. And we’d given our word we wouldn’t heal them so he uses the last of our coin to buy them a room to rest up in. We were begging from Nashkel and back because of this fanatic!”

Those listening groaned with good humor. James gave a pained smile and accepted his friend’s roasting. 

Sister Liri’s voice rose from the back of the group. “We’d have been begging either way with how you handle money!” she teased. This brought on a chorus of laughter, and Tash wondered if she was about to launch a story of her own, but Sister Liri said nothing else. She was walking hand-in-hand with Ralf, looking more than content. 

The tiefling woman sighed. “Alright but you know those Talonites are just poisoning some new town now!”

James shrugged. “There’s rumors that the Silvershields keep a Talonite as a food taster, so presumably some make an honest living. One can do a lot of good if they’re immune to disease—less good if they’re dead.”

The way he said it was so matter-of-fact that no one had the gall to argue with him. 

Their group began to spread out, breaking off into smaller conversations now that Brother Calep’s story was over. 

Tash kept close to James, falling into step beside him and Calep. 

“So how much of that is true?” she asked them.

Calep scoffed, mock-hurt. “Are you implying I’d embellish our adventures? Sister Tash, the nerve,” he teased. 

Tash grinned back. There was a lightness inside of her chest, lifting her up so she felt like bouncing with every step she took. In the distance the Chionthar River wove its way along the countryside, a familiar friend to her, a ribbon from home spurring her on. The joy of being in a new place with kind people bubbled inside of her like a spring. For a moment she thought of Alba, probably taking her lunch break from infirmary in the garden overlooking the Chionthar, too. Tash hoped Alba was having as good a day as she was. 

“You’ve been back in the city more often now though, right?” she asked James, her good mood emboldening her. “I saw you at Lauds a tenday ago I think.”

“You probably did,” he said. 

“It sounds like you’ve had a great time traveling—why’ve you been hanging around back in Baldur’s Gate?”

He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I, uh,” he said, chewing on the words. “I came back to the city a few months ago, when I heard my father had died.”

Brother Calep glanced up at James carefully, then fell back to join another group several paces back. He’d clearly already heard the story and was giving James space to tell it anew. 

Tash glanced back at him as he went, then turned back to James. “I pray that he was relieved of suffering as he passed into reverie,” she offered—the expected platitude. “And,” she added, “gods, I’m so sorry. Do you want to say more?”

James gave a barely noticeable nod. “I was away, we were healing out halfway to Amn and I… received a letter from my brother. It was an accident, a beam had fallen on his head while working a job. He lived half an hour and my brother tried to find a healer but…” he trailed off. 

Tash reached out and set her hand briefly on his arm. 

“Had I been there, I might have been able to help,” he added quietly. 

She nodded. They shared the silence for a moment until Tash felt sure of her reply. “I’m sure you know, but had you stayed a carpenter for him and not become a cleric, you’d have only been able to do the same as your brother.” 

“Hmm,” he said, looking down at the ground. Their boots hit the paving stones with soft thuds. Tash held her breath.

Perhaps I’ve been too forward. 

Then, James glanced up and nodded. “Still, plenty of things to do back in the city—people to help, not least of all my brothers and mother. I’d already signed on for this pilgrimage in the summer, but this’ll probably be my last journey in awhile. I think it’s time I helped relieve the suffering around my own home, you know?”

Tash smiled softly. “There’s certainly a lot to heal in the city,” she agreed. 

She thought about the patients at Harborside, the wards in Norchapel, and the spell-scarred in Scar Alley—and how few competent, honest healers worked to care for them. If James was back home for good, there’d be plenty for him to do. And maybe, she thought, I wouldn’t be the only tall nail getting hammered back down. 

“You know, some things have gotten better, since you’ve been gone,” Tash added. “There’s a new park in Brampton, it’s incredible—like stepping off the docks and right into a forest. In a way I think it’s been, well, healing for a lot of people down there. And it’s a good place to walk after a Harborside shift.”

James’ eyes twinkled. “I’d heard but I haven’t been yet. Maybe you’ll have to show me sometime.”

~*~

The rest of the day passed quickly, their walking broken up by stories, jokes, and the rhythm of prayer—though notably not by a midday meal. When the time came for Vespers, Tash took the chance to sit beside Sister Liri and James instead of off by herself on the edge of the group. Liri gave her a warm smile as they settled in for Mother Catrine’s preaching. 

“Where there is suffering, that is where a cry to our Rack-Broken God is found.” The Reverend Mother paced among them as she spoke. “In every heartbreak, there is an opportunity—the opportunity to seek his mercies. In every pestilence—an opportunity for penance. 

“What pain have each of you known?” She cast her gaze over the crowd, gesturing to audience members one at a time from the middle of their group. 

“A broken leg? The side-sickness? A fever that threatened to take your very life?” She drew very close to Brother Larence, who had famously nearly succumbed to fever before joining the clergy. Then she straightened up, regarding the crowd. “And as your troubles increased, did you not find yourself crying out to the Crying God all the more? Did you not begin to call upon him more fervently, with a faith stronger than the affliction that ailed you? With a faith that could carry you to even the brink of death, and beyond? And did you not, in that moment, taste the truest promise of this faith?”

The echo of her crescendoing words coming to a sudden stop reverberated around them. 

“So,” she started again, quietly now. “Who are we to take that sweet experience from the masses? We shall heal, yes, but we must be sure that the common person understands why we heal them. And sometimes, if the why is not fully grasped, it may be a better mercy yet to allow meditation upon the suffering. Then each sufferer will more fully cast faith upon Lord Ilmater when we remove these burdens through his holy power.”

~*~

Tash could taste the sour bile rising in the back of her throat as she pitched her tent for the night. Her empty stomach churned. She was used to eating dinner near Vespers, but the only cooking fires that lit their camp were those of the lay travelers cooking their own provisions. Tash thought of the cured meat and twice-baked biscuits in her own pack and her mouth briefly watered before she tamped down the edges of her mind. 

I’m not hungry. I am learning about the holiness hidden in hunger. 

Her stomach howled at her, as if mocking that thought. 

She nearly talked back to it—an obviously bad sign—when she heard James’ familiar laughter rising from the other side of the clearing they were settled in. Tash had crossed most of the camp before she even realized she’d started walking half-dazed in the direction of the sound as if it might heal some of the hunger in her belly. 

She neared the small group of tents ringing the fire where James and his friends had set up. She was surprised she could still smell the others’ dinners from here. 

“Sister Tash!” James grinned at her as she approached. 

As Tash grew closer, she was shocked to find the reason for the delicious smell: There was meat roasting on a spit in the middle of their fire.

She looked from James to the others, then back at the roast. Succulent juices rolled across the meat’s tender surface as Brother Ralf turned the spit, and the fat crackled where it grew close to the flames. 

An iron pot was nestled among the coals at the edge of the fire, and Tash could see quartered potatoes boiling with peppers and rosemary within.

Her stomach called out again in protest, and she tried to stifle it with her fist. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, looking at the dark-haired cleric manning the fire accusingly. Sister Liri sat next to him and casually took a drink from a cup she was holding. Neither said anything in return, but neither looked particularly guilty either. 

Tash passed a careful look to Brother Calep, who glanced up at James in turn. 

“Well, Lorgan?” Calep said. “You might as well give her the spiel.”

Tash furrowed her brows. “The spiel?”

James sighed. “It’s not a spiel it’s theology, I need you to stop calling it that. It’s not some secret.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “Sister Tash, please join us if you wish. Eat, or don’t, as you prefer.”

Tash eyed their dinner warily. “Reverend Mother Catrine told us we were not to eat our rations.” Her mouth was watering.  

“Did she?” James replied. “Or did she say she had a dream and was asking us to join her in what she believed was a show of piety?”

“I…” Tash started, then trailed off. “I don’t know that I see a difference.”

“Will you sit with us?” he asked. 

Tash looked around the camp carefully, considering. Then she nodded slowly and sat down on a log. Sister Liri stood to hand her a blanket, which Tash accepted wordlessly. Brother Calep stretched and re-settled near the fire, looking rather comfortable without his armor. Brother Ralf continued to turn the roast. Tash tried to ignore how wonderful it smelled. 

“Water?” James offered. “If it makes you feel better, I conjured it.”

Tash nodded again and took the cup he held out to her. 

He gave her a small smile. “Ok, so, let me ask you. What is our duty?” 

“To help all who suffer in any way we can,” she answered easily. 

“Agreed.” James nodded. “We heal. We feed, water, and clothe. We may be a listening ear, a work hand, a pallbearer, even sometimes a sacrifice. Right?”

Tash nodded. She took a careful sip from her cup. The water was cool and fresh and unsatisfying. 

“To what end?”

“To bear the burdens of others.”

“Exactly. So my next question is- would it be right or wrong to do something that makes us worse at bearing those burdens?” James’ dark eyes flickered with the firelight. 

Tash bit her lip. “I think it depends what it is. What the intention is. The Reverend Mother wants us to feed the hungry. That’s a good thing.”

James looked at her carefully. “I agree. Feeding the hungry is good. And I also agree that we should be volunteering to take on suffering when we need to. But isn’t the point to overall alleviate suffering? Not add to it?”

She looked at him carefully but didn’t respond. 

“When does suffering stop edifying a person and just serve to tear them down?” James pushed.

Tash considered. “When it’s divorced from the mercy of the Crying God.”

“Fair. But you’ve known Ilmater’s creeds all your life, right? Are you saying that all of your suffering has been necessary?” James pressed carefully. “Is suffering a reward we’re seeking, or the unfortunate reality we’ve sworn to endure? Isn’t the true goal mercy? Relief?”

Tash thought of the many nights she had spent without dinner in the name of learning some lesson the clerics were trying to teach her. “But the hungry in Elturel—”

“Should be fed,” he agreed. “But is it such a zero-sum game that we must starve to feed them? And what about these people we’ve sworn to protect? Don’t we have a duty to shore up our strength for them? Why test the powers that Ilmater has gifted us if we don’t have to? Isn’t that ingratitude?”

Tash’s head was spinning now.

James paused a moment to let her think.

“If I can explain it another way,” he said more gently. “If suffering is our badge of true penance, then how can we appoint ourselves with this honor? We must wait for it to be awarded to us. Following Ilmater means passio passiva,” he spoke the words in Celestial, “suffering because we have to suffer. Suffering because we are alleviating suffering. Not because we are creating more of it.”

Tash felt a lump rising in her throat. James’ words made sense, they sounded right, but so had Mother Catrine’s. She wasn’t sure what to do with the conflict rising in her body, mixing with the empty nausea she’d already been fighting back. 

She looked at Sister Liri and Brother Ralf. “And you? What do you think?” she asked them. 

Sister Liri smiled grimly, and her eyes seemed to travel miles away. “Years ago, we worked in Elturel, and a great evil filled the city. A vampire lord claimed it, and his minions prowled the streets. Suffering was everywhere. We needed all of our strength to fight, to heal and protect. We would not have survived had we weakened ourselves from within.”

“But suffering brings strength,” Tash countered, desperate to find some ideological footing. 

Sister Liri shrugged. 

Brother Calep crossed his arms. “I’d bet half the paladins have been eating their own rations, too. They’d be idiots not to. Plus,” he lowered his voice, “I’m sure Catrine won’t have us starving ourselves on the way back when there’s chests of gold to guard.” Tash opened her mouth to reply but James put a hand to her arm, stilling her words before they could leave her mouth. 

 “You can stay here with us and keep your fast,” he told her. “We won’t pressure you to eat. I just wanted to explain why we are. You’re welcome to stay or go back to your own tent.”

Tash looked at each of them. There was a warmth here, like the warmth she imagined lived within families.

But can I stay here and not be tempted eat? 

She took a deep breath. She had a lot of practice with hunger. 

“No, I want to stay,” she said. 

Calep clapped her on the shoulder. “Excellent. Then I can tell you the story of the cheesemonger’s ghost in Beregost.”

James and Sister Liri groaned. 

“Hey, I kind of like this one,” Brother Ralf admitted, cupping a hand behind one of his pointed ears and sending all five of them into a chorus of laughter.

[myssamyss]

Holy Duty Made Practice | Chapter 1 of 6

The prequel for my Baldur’s Gate Tav, a Cleric of Ilmater named Tash. This has completely gotten away from me and is one of the most researched things I’ve ever written. Also one of the only fanfics out there exploring Father Lorgan as a character. The ground was shallow but I’ve been digging.

Summary: An Ilmatari orphan struggles to find her way among the faithful of Ilmater. A new novitiate (young Father Lorgan) offers her friendship and understanding. As the two grow together over decades, they find themselves grappling with the tenants of their faith: what does it mean to suffer, and what is it all truly for? Baldur's Gate and surrounding areas, 1442-1489 DR.

Chapter 1: Broken Teeth and Cinnamon Rolls

1442 DR | Baldur's Gate - Lower City

Are you tireless in your duty, as the Broken God is?

The corner of a cobblestone bit into Tash’s cheek. Breathing burned with each small gasp of air. She felt a warm stream of blood run steadily down from the top of her scalp and drip like a leaky faucet into the dust. She wasn’t sure when the blows had stopped, but for now she was being left alone.

Then, a gruff man’s voice called above her. “She’s over here. Be quick with it—your kid’s bloodying up my storefront.”

She heard footsteps at her side, and someone knelt beside her. She didn’t even have the strength to flinch away. Luckily, their gentle fingers reached out to press firmly on the side of her neck.

They rolled her over onto their arms now, and she was blinded by the dazzling sunlight. She scrunched her eyes closed.

The voice that came from her rescuer was surprisingly young and terrified. “Oh gods, her face!” he exclaimed. “Brother Larence, we should-”

An older voice—also male, quick but kind—interrupted. “That’s cosmetic, Novice Lorgan, don’t get distracted. Remember: breathing lungs, beating heart, working mind—start there.” Tash recognized his voice, and she felt a flutter of relief. They were from the Open Hand Temple, and they were here to help her.

“Yes, of course, of course.”

Tash felt a flurry of nods from her rescuer like a painful earthquake rocking through her chest, and her right arm screamed in bright stabs as it swung limply from her shoulder. But her own voice felt so far away from her head. Too far away to cry out…

“Breathing is shallow, mind is sluggish,” the one holding her said, starting to sound more confident.

“Give it a go,” Brother Larence said gently.

The ‘helpful’ youth nodded twice again and Tash felt him take a deep breath—all agonizing to her.

I hope he gets on with it, she thought wryly through the daze of pain.

“Te-te curo!” he stammered out. Tash’s lungs filled with air and some of the heaviness in her head lifted. She pushed herself up and out of his arms—or at least, she tried. Her right shoulder gave out in another flash of pain and she flipped awkwardly onto it. This young man was clearly still a novice at healing.

“OW!” she yelled. “You—"

“Te curo!” Brother Larence intoned above her, and it was done: the pain flew away from her shoulder and her mind snapped clear.

Brother Larence stood above her with his hand outstretched. He wore his usual rough-spun grey cowl with red stitching, standard to the clergy. Tash scrambled up on her tiny legs to get a look at the other man. He was human, like Brother Larence, but considerably younger than the middle-aged monk next to him. Acne pocked across his boyish face, he had a mop of coarse dark hair that curled down over his forehead, and Tash could see wiry arms extending out from the simple grey tunic that he wore. A wooden medallion carved with the bound hands of Ilmater hung down from his neck.

The shop owner stood at a distance, arms crossed angrily. “Are ye done?” he yelled at Brother Larence. “Get goin’, and tell her to leave my paper boys alone. I pay good money to have them sell from here. If your orphans keep muckin’ up my business we’re going to have problems, see?”

After a quick glance at Tash to make sure she was truly alright, Brother Larence turned to the irate shopkeeper and clasped his hands together in a model of penitence. “We are incredibly sorry, we will talk with her. May Ilmater shelter you in His grace.” He bowed his head.

“Bah!” The shopkeeper spit on the ground and slammed his door.

The slam echoed off the bricks as the three of them stood still in the alleyway.

“Well, that was rude of him,” the youth said after a beat.

Tash started giggling despite herself. She turned to him. “So,” she said. “Who are you, even?” He’s bad at spells, but at least he has good humor, she thought to herself. She could appreciate that in a person.

Brother Larence gestured between them. “Tash, meet Novice Lorgan. James Lorgan. He’s one of the new novitiates who took his oaths last tenday.”

Tash stuck out her previously broken arm and shook Lorgan’s intact one. Her hand was small in his. His hand was calloused, she could feel the rough edges scraping on hers. His face held a weighty expression as if he were being introduced to a city official instead of a bloodied orphan.

Tash smiled then, remembering. “Oh yeah, Novice Lorgan, I think I know you now. You were the really serious one!” she said.

Now Lorgan laughed. “Just James is fine. And one can never be too serious about taking on suffering in the name of our Lord on the Rack,” he said good-naturedly, though he kept that hint of earnestness she remembered from his Oathsday.

He crouched down next to her to meet her eye. “So what happened here? Why does The Odds and Ends want you off their property?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Because of Stubby Martha,” she said. She started drawing circles in the dust with the toe of her too-small stained leather boot.

“Who’s stubby Martha?” James asked.

“She lives here. In the street. The boys were hurting her. Someone threw a gold piece in her cup, but they took it from her.” Tash leaned from one leg to the other now, stalling.

“And then?” Brother Larence prompted sternly.

“Well, somebody had to help her. I helped her. Got her coin back.”

Brother Larence brought his palm to his head. “Tash,” he chastised her. “Why couldn’t Stubby Martha help herself?”

Tash snapped her head up and stomped her foot. “Because! Because she’s Stubby Martha, that’s why! How will she punch them without hands?”

Brother Larence clicked his tongue. “Why did we jump to punching?”

Tash’s head fell back, exasperated. “Well I talked to them first of course and I asked for it back in Ilmater’s name but nobody listens to me.” She crossed her arms across her chest and was surprised to feel the heat of tears welling up beneath her eyelids. She looked down at the ground.

James crouched down and put a hand on her shoulder. “So then what happened?”

Tash took a big breath. “Well, one of the boys tried to push me down, but I got him. Right in the eye, he was crying. Dropped the gold, and his friend was scared. I snatched it up and gave it to Stubby Martha and I thought they’d run off but… they had another friend. He must’ve picked up a brick, he-” she mimed striking herself in the back of the head with a heavy object “-and then I was on the ground, and they were wailing on me. Even with rocks and stones and then the shopkeeper came out and…” she trailed off. “Then, I’m not sure. Well, I guess, then you were there.”

James and Brother Larence shared a concerned look that would have normally led to more foot-stamping from Tash but she suddenly felt tired—like a wave from the sea had risen up and swept over her without warning.

“Here, get on my back, I’ll carry you,” James told her. She must have been swaying. She ran her tongue through her mouth as she chewed over whether or not to agree and suddenly felt something missing.

“My TOOTH!” she cried out, distraught, and now considerably more awake. She dropped to the ground. “We have to find it!!”

She ran her fingers over the cracks in the cobblestones, frantically searching through the pebbles and loose trash.

She could hear them talking lowly behind her.

“Why…” James started, confused.

Brother Larence sighed. “Brother Sai has this routine when we’re warding children—if they lose a tooth, they can turn it in for a sweet. But I’m pretty sure,” he raised his voice a bit, meaning for Tash to hear, “that’s for teeth that naturally fall and aren’t knocked out by violence.”

Tash didn’t look up from her searching. “Give me, this day,” she began to recite, a mischievous picture of piety:

“…the spirit of mercy and forgiveness

To bestow likewise myself upon those who

Mete out cruelty upon your helpless and suffering children,

So that-,”

“-all may come to bestow mercy in your manner,” James joined in, eyebrows raised in gentle amusement.

Tash smiled. “Or failing that,” she relished, “guide my feet to kick their sorry butts.”

Brother Larence put an exasperated hand to his forehead again. “Remind me to tell the paladins to stop teaching you things.”

James was on the ground too now, scrounging in the dirt for the tooth. With a cry of victory, he held something up to the sun.

“I found it!” he declared. He placed the tiny tooth in Tash’s open hand with the flourish of someone performing a magic trick.

Tash’s eyes grew wide and she beamed. She rolled the little tooth around between her thumb and forefinger, marveling at the still-bloody pulp and sharp edges. “You know what this means?” she asked gleefully.

James raised an eyebrow in question.

“I get a cinnamon roll!” Tash exclaimed. She tucked the tooth into her pocket carefully. She glanced back at the alley. A not insignificant puddle of blood—her blood—lay curdling on the sidewalk. She wondered for a moment: how much blood had the Crying God left when he suffered on the rack? Surely more.

She turned on her heel and walked away from it.

James was crouched down, offering to carry her again. She climbed onto his back and the three of them shambled back to Rivington.

Tash must have fallen asleep, because she awoke as they made their way across the bridge. Her hands were still clasped around James’ neck and the world was plodding by to her left and right around them: bright colors of awnings and people passing and snippets of conversation bouncing off stone walls to jumble together in their familiar way.

“I’ll say again,” Brother Larence said, apparently for the second time, “you’re no longer allowed beyond Wyrm’s Crossing, do you understand, Tash? Not without a Brother or Sister. You can’t just traipse around the city causing trouble. Yes?”

Tash nodded lackadaisically. “Yeah,” she mumbled. She wasn’t excited about perjuring herself, but refusing to agree would have made her small lie even larger.

~*~

The next day, Tash darted across Wyrm’s Crossing with a warm cinnamon roll wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper held close to her chest. She would honor her promise to Brother Larence, just after she was done with what needed doing.

Let me be absolved before your weeping majesty, Tash whispered in her soul, that I may cleanly bear the burden of others in your name.

James had asked her more about Stubby Martha on their way back home yesterday. She suspected he was keen to try and find her, but Tash knew the truth: she wouldn’t come out for grown ups. Not even small ones that didn’t quite seem old enough to be novitiates yet. Stubby Martha would only let herself be approached by others like her: the small and unassuming, those who peoples’ eyes glossed over.

It took a fair amount of looking. By the sixth Lower City square, Tash almost gave up. She had walked down every familiar side street and glanced in every alcove that she knew beggars to stow away in. But when she sat down on the edge of a large stone fountain to get a drink, suddenly Martha was beside her. A beautiful human girl, even with her blonde hair matted down by dirt and tangle. Her brown eyes were huge in her slightly gaunt face. Tash beamed at her.

“I have something for you!” Tash told her. Martha raised her eyebrows silently and climbed to sit next to Tash on the fountain. Quite a feat, Tash noted, for not having any fingers or hands to grab with.

Tash produced the cinnamon roll from her breast pocket and unwrapped the paper gingerly. She grabbed the small knife secured at her waist and carefully cut the roll in half. She then set a clean, grey handkerchief down beside them and re-wrapped the half-roll in the handkerchief so that only the top third of the bread and icing was poking out.

She held out the roll to Martha.

Martha smiled and took the wrapped roll with the ends of her scarred arms. The handkerchief protected her stubs from becoming a sticky mess. In a single bite, Martha shoved half of the roll into her mouth.

Tash clasped her hands together with delight. Then she set to repackaging the remaining half-roll back into its paper.

After chewing her massive bite, Martha finally spoke. Her voice was small, rarely used. “Why punch? Yesterday,” she asked. “When you have that?” She cocked her head toward Tash’s knife.

Tash stretched out her legs. “Didn’t need it,” she told her, false bravado in her voice.

Martha snorted, and Tash turned to look at her, surprised. She’d never heard the girl laugh; Martha’s eyes crinkled warmly like the edges of a pie crust when she really smiled.

“Looked like you needed it,” Martha said, shrugging. She shoved another giant bite of sweet bread into her mouth.

Tash shrugged back. Truth was, she’d rather be beaten and left for dead than have accidentally killed one of those paper boys—the disadvantage sat better in her spirit. Plus, everything had worked out in the end. She kept faithful and was delivered. What more could she ask for?

She dipped her hand in the fountain water and marveled at its coolness, at the sunlight glinting off the water, and the satisfaction of feeding a friend. She turned back to Martha, but Martha had already slipped back into the crowd.

~*~

Back at the Open Hand temple, no one had noticed that Tash was gone. She didn’t even bother to sneak; she just marched in through the side kitchen door with a great creak of its ancient hinges, and the only person who paid her any mind was Brother Sai. He lifted his ladle in her direction from the stovetop he was cooking at. The smell of boiling potatoes rolled across the steamy kitchen toward her.

“Thank you!” Tash called as she skirted past him. He raised one of his wiry grey eyebrows and gave a small smile from the corner of his wizened mouth. Brother Sai had never tattled on Tash’s comings and goings to anyone else at the Temple, and she doubted that he’d start today.

She hopped down the stairs to the dormitory and she threw a quick glance at her studies she’d left finished on the table there. It was the first of a new tenday, so Sister Kare would be tending to the convent in Heapside and wouldn’t be back to mark Tash’s work until Aftermetes prayer. Tash had several more hours before anyone would come looking for her again. She went to the bookshelf in the far corner of the room where the interesting books were kept. She ran her fingers over the titles until she found one that mentioned the Spellplague, and she slipped it under her arm.

She skipped out the back door and into the churchyard. Her worn boots knew their way between the familiar roots and stones as she followed the winding dirt path down to the Chionthar. She climbed an alder tree and hid herself in its leaves, watching the trade on the outskirts of the city flow around her as she sat cradled there. She felt as if she were in the center of the entire world. Ships sailed slowly to and fro, she caught snippets of voices as people made their way into the city, and birds called to each other from nearby trees. The clouds floated by more lazily than the ships. And while she had every intention to open her book, she found herself dreaming instead.

Not a sleeping dream, but a waking one. A familiar daydream where she’d pretend she was somewhere far off. Maybe in a real forest, with dense trees on all sides and with others whose ears pricked to the sky. Maybe her mother had journeyed back there, back to her people hidden away in the leaves somewhere Tash could only reach in dreams. Tash absentmindedly tucked her fluffy hair behind her own pointed ears as she imagined it. Or maybe, Tash considered, her mother had been human, and she’d boarded a ship like these that skimmed past. Maybe the white sails had borne her mother to the other half of the world…

Tash hoped she was happy. In her minds’ eye, she saw her parents together, even though she knew it was a childish fancy. She knew about the world; she was old enough to know that babies didn’t come floating down the river. Nor did they come floating upon Ilmater’s mercy as people in the temple liked to tell her. She knew that her parents were probably off in different places, if they were even alive at all. They may not have even known or loved each other longer than a night. Still, sometimes when Tash dreamed, she would see a wood-elf woman who was reaching out to her. Tash could never quite reach her.

A change in the bird-song off in the distance stirred Tash from her reverie. An insistent, low cry—the creature sounded hurt. Tash listened for another moment. The baleful cry came again. Tash stowed her book in the hollowed trunk of the tree, shimmied down its branches, and went off in search of the call.

Tash ran and leapt back up the path, then slowed as the chirps became louder. Just below the stone wall of the graveyard was a scrub of new daisies nestled between the bushes. Tash gently pushed the white blooms aside to reveal the source of the cries: a dove lay in the dirt beneath them, one wing bent the wrong way. Its snow-white feathers were dappled with blood. The dove made a fearful attempt to flap its wings when it saw Tash above, but it quickly gave up the attempt when the broken wing tilted awkwardly. Tash froze, not wanting to upset it. She crouched lower and lower until she was lying on her belly in the dirt. Then she waited for the small bird to relax.

Minutes passed. The dove seemed to be accepting Tash’s presence. Tash lamented the fact that she didn’t know any healing spells; she wouldn’t be able to magic-up a cure for the bird’s wing like Brother Larence had done for her. But she did have a consolation idea.

Ilmater, bless my hands, she thought to herself. Tash sat up slowly, moving as if through molasses, and she reached beneath her shirt to produce what was left of her cinnamon roll. She began to pick off small pieces of the bread and then drop them gingerly next to the pale dove. The dove cooed, shimmied over to the food, and began to vigorously pick at the bread. Pride swept through Tash’s chest.

“Tash!” A voice called sharply from behind her. Tash spun around, surprised to find someone standing so closely behind her. It was Sister Kare, holding her hands disdainfully on the hips of her grey habit. I’ve lost track of time, Tash thought with a sinking feeling.

The usual lines on Sister Kare’s brow were furrowed even deeper than normal as she narrowed her dark eyes at Tash. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, and here I find you wasting food?”

Tash winced at the harshness that bit in Sister Kare’s voice. Tash glanced back down to where the dove had been, but it must have hopped off into the thicket, frightened. Even the daisies surrounding where the dove had perched seemed withered now.

“There was a bird—" Tash started to explain.

“Food is for the hungry or for our own sustenance, it is not to be wasted feeding wildlife!” Sister Kare chastised her.

“But,” Tash tried again. “It was hurt—"

“Do not try to make excuses. You’ve been doing everything but attending to your studies and your devotions lately,” Sister Kare said.

“My studies are done!” Tash shot back.

Sister Kare’s eyes flared with a sharp warning look. “Do not take raised words with me. If your studies were done and you had nothing else to do, then where were you for Aftermetes? You have a dispensation to be absent from chapel if you’re attending to your studies, but if they were done as you say, then where in the realms have you been?”

“I was outside, I was just…” Tash stopped herself and trailed off—telling Sister Kare she’d been off temple grounds twice today likely wouldn’t help her.

Sister Kare continued. “Does the Broken God matter so little to you that you’re skipping out on prayers now?”

Tash felt her heart beating in her throat and her cheeks burned hotly. She was suddenly a boiling pot about to bubble over.

“So what if I am?” Tash yelled. “It’s not like I’ve taken any vows! Worship him yourself!”

Her words echoed off of the tombstones around her; she’d yelled louder than she’d meant to. She immediately felt a new burn of shame as it bloomed in her chest and started overtaking her.

For a moment, Sister Kare looked down at Tash with unveiled contempt. Then, Sister Kare’s expression softened, as she clearly tried to make her face into anything other than what it had shown. But to Tash, the damage was done.

“I will give you some time,” Sister Kare said flatly, “in solitude. To think on what you have said. Stay out here if you wish. You are to meditate through Vespers with the blessing of hunger, you are not to partake in dinner. You may join us for Compline afterward.”

Sister Kare turned and strode inside, her grey habit skirt billowing behind her.

Tash stood there, still as the headstones surrounding her, burning. White light pushed at the edges of her vision as she fumed with rage. She picked up a rock in her hand and flung it with all her might against the stone cliffside that formed the far end of the graveyard. There was something almost soothing in the way the muscles in her shoulders pulled against her bones as she let the rock fly, something satisfying in the crack of rock sounding against rock. She took a deep breath, still shaking. Then, she approached the cliffside and started scrabbling up the face of it. It was steep, but she was small and nimble. The stone cliff was sharp and it felt good cutting against her palms. When she reached the top she felt wind whipping at her face and pulling at her secondhand clothes. She could see rooftops of the Twin Songs neighborhood from here, but she didn’t stop to look at the sights. She had an urge to go and follow her feet mindlessly until the churning inside of her body released her. This terrain was less familiar to her, but she followed the river just the same, tripping occasionally but not thinking about the sheer drop down into the water if she were to lose her footing completely.

That is, until she took a sudden tumble—her foot plummeting through empty air and into a hidden hollow. A jolt of panic snuffed out her anger completely.

She was lucky that the distance was short; her knees struck the graveled bottom of the hollow before she’d fully processed the fall.

Electric tingles of adrenaline nipped at her hands and her feet. She took a deep breath, pushed herself to her feet, then rested her hands on her knees to catch her breath. The feeling of dissipating fear felt far better than the shame had.

From this vantage point, she noticed something in front of her that would have been otherwise hidden before she’d fallen into the hollow: the entrance to a small cave. Cool air wafted toward her from the crevice, and the deep darkness of the cave seemed to sing with secrets, filled with the promise of somewhere else.

Intrigued, Tash took two steps toward the cave’s mouth.

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” a newly familiar voice called from behind her.

Tash whipped around. There, at the top of the hollow, stood James Lorgan.

“You—have—you!” Tash sputtered, utterly shocked. This was the second time in short succession that someone had snuck up behind her, and she disliked the feeling. “Have you been following me?” she accused.

James raised his eyebrows in amusement. “Have you been running away?” he countered.

Tash turned from him and crossed her arms, mildly embarrassed. She didn’t owe him an answer. She looked back at the cave.

“Why not?” she said.

“Why not go into the cave? I dunno, rats, cultists, zombies—take your pick,” James said dryly.

Tash squinted into the darkness. “...Really?” she asked.

“Dead serious. Please, can you come back up here and talk?”

Tash looked back and forth between him and the mouth of the cave. The thrown rock, the running—all of the sudden it all felt so deeply silly. She turned back to James. He offered his hand down to her and she grasped it with both of hers. He hauled her back up and clean out of the hollow.

To Tash’s surprise, he didn’t speak. Instead, James took several steps and sat down a few yards’ safe distance from the edge of the cliff, facing out towards the Chionthar. He made a motion inviting her to sit down. Tash looked out over the water, appreciating the swell of Dusthawk Hill across the way. Then she sunk down and sat cross-legged next to him.

James glanced down at Tash’s bloodied knees. She had barely noticed skinning them. Two small trails of blood were making their way down her right shin.

He finally broke the silence. “Is this a regular thing for you?” he asked her, gesturing at the blood.

She shrugged. “Are you really old enough to be a novitiate?” she countered.

James laughed. “They let me take the Cup, so must be. Barely, but they did,” he added.

“What was that like?” Tash asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. She knew of the Initiation—dining with the senior Adorned, drinking from truth-magicked wine to prove one’s intentions—though she only ever got to see the presentation of the faithful novitiates who passed afterwards.

“It was… scary, at first.” James admitted. “I didn’t want to have to go back home.”

“Why? What’s your home?” Tash asked. She wondered briefly whether she was being rude, but James didn’t seem to mind.

“My father’s a carpenter in the lower city. Seven Lorgan sons. I’m the middle, fourth-to-last. Seven, it’s a lot, too many for my parents to feed. And I’m not as good with a plane or a saw. This way, there’s one less mouth there, and I can help the hungry all across the city,” he told her.

Tash nodded. She could see how he passed the Cup.

“So how was Reverend Sister Catrine?” she asked. She wouldn’t admit it, but Catrine scared Tash. Catrine rarely had time for the orphans, and she seemed to delight in passing down unnecessary punishments to the more junior clergy. Tash tried to steer clear of her as best she could.

“She was…fine,” James said diplomatically.

Tash smirked but said nothing else. She picked at the scrub grass next to her. The wind tossed at her copper curls and twisted the wooden medallion around James’s neck.

“So,” James changed the subject. “Why did you run up here?”

Tash shrugged and stayed silent. She didn’t really want to talk about herself.

“Did you get your cinnamon roll?” James tried again.

“Yes and no,” Tash answered evenly. Her stomach chose that moment to rumble unhelpfully. She ran her tongue over the empty hole in her mouth where her tooth had been.

James reached into a leather pouch at his hip and produced some pieces of dried jerky. He offered one to Tash. “I may have heard Sister Kare take away your dinner,” he admitted.

Tash eyed the snack hungrily. She considered refusing, but her rumbling stomach outweighed her pride. She reached for a piece.

“Thanks,” she said quietly. “Bad start though, going against one of the Sisters on your first tenday.” Tash couldn’t help ribbing him a bit, it only seemed fair.

“I’m sure I’ll manage,” James said.

They ate in silence for several minutes. Soon, they’d both finished their jerky and were back to staring out over the river.

“You’re the only kid here,” James noted.

Tash nodded. “There’s been others, but they came and went. Humans come looking for human babies, and elves for elven ones,” she told him matter-of-factly.

James gave her a long look. She pretended not to see it.

The summer sun was starting to set to their left, and the river was turning brilliant shades of pink and orange in the changing beams of light.

James got to his feet and brushed the dirt and scrub grass off of his grey tunic.

“C’mon, we’ll miss Compline if we don’t head back soon,” he told Tash.

She nodded. As much as she didn’t want to go back, she knew they needed to.

“Don’t worry, I’ll vouch for you,” he said. She believed him. She wasn’t sure why this barely-grown novitiate was helping her, but she appreciated it all the same.

They picked their way back across the highland and made it home to the churchyard as the sun dipped over the horizon. Warm, familiar candlelight was starting to illuminate the brilliant colors of the temple’s stained glass windows from the inside. They slipped through the back door, and James motioned her towards the infirmary. He had her sit on one of the cots while he first healed her scraped knees (He did it on the first try this time, Tash thought to herself), then he found a wet cloth to clean the blood from her shins.

Finished with cleaning her wounds, they made their way toward the sanctuary. But James paused with his hand on the wooden door. He looked back to her, and his face held all of the somberness that came so naturally to him.

“Promise me something, will you?” he asked.

Tash quirked up an eyebrow.

“The caves,” he said. “Promise me you won’t go down there. I wasn’t kidding when I said they were dangerous.”

Tash looked up at him, and for the first time in a long while she saw the eyes of someone truly concerned for her.

“I promise,” she said.

James smiled and pulled open the door. They could hear the rest of the Adorned praying in unison from the sanctuary. Compline, the day’s final service, had already started.

“He wept for the hungry,” James murmured, joining his voice with the ongoing liturgy.

They slipped around the back of the group and melted in with the throng of clergy gathered there.

Tash joined in too. “He wept for the sick…”

Their many voices filled the space and echoed throughout the candle-lit sanctuary, as prayer flowed over the Outer City and into the growing night:

“He wept for the lost;

He wept for the broken;

He wept even as the rains fell, and as

The sun parched the dusty earth, and as

The moon shrank to a sliver.

And He said,

‘I will be there’”

[tortilla-of-courage]

What if Malon ends up having to tell the chain that no babies don’t come from the nursing loftwings, the forest, or the great fairies or anything like that and she sits them all down for a long one-sided talk

Malon finishes a really thorough explanation and all the Links are a different shade of red and want to melt into the ground

[myssamyss]

Definitely wrote an OoT fic about this

[fox-moblin]

Four - by @nickelesque

Legend - by @dill-musette

Warriors - by @spliinkles (coloured by @lonkfonk )

Hyrule - by @liccy

Wild - by @lonkfonk

Twilight - by @fox-moblin

Sky - by @facial-hair-fanatic-artdump

Time - by @9dl

Wind - by @dfanart

****

Dear @linkeduniverse

Happy Winter Holidays from a little slice of your fandom to you!  You’ve given us so much and we wanted to give back a little in thanks for working so hard and bringing so much joy! 

Sincerely,

A couple of very grateful artists and Zelda fans

(check out their blogs for each individual piece!)

[facial-hair-fanatic-artdump]

Doodles, you don’t want to question the bottom one for the sake of your sanity

[sillus]

@myssamyss The Chicken Nugget Speech is now forever importalized in both the Hall of Shame and in Garry’s wonderful art.

This is your legacy as much as mine.

[myssamyss]

I am ecstatic to be part of something so beautiful. I accept this legacy

[myssamyss]

Hi everyone! I’ve written some short stories that, while not specifically LU, revolve around Wild/Mipha and Time/Malon. If anyone is interested, you can check them out here on my Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyssaMyss All of my Legend of Zelda works can be found there. 

[myssamyss]

Archive: Everything Stays

Master post with links to each part: Part 1: The Moon Controls the Tide... Part 2: ...It’ll Cause You to Drown Part 3: A Lighter Underside Part 4: When You Turn It Around Part 5: Crystal Tide Rising Part 6: Right Where You Left It Summary: Wild struggles to find a balance between duty and freedom after Calamity Ganon’s defeat. His unexpected departure into the Linked Universe forces him to examine his relationship with Zelda. Millennia prior, Malon and a stubborn Time stumble toward a budding love in the years since his return from Termina. A string of fate connects the pairs across time and destiny… Based on the Linked Universe

[myssamyss]

Everything Stays, Part 6 of 6

The ending!  Part 6: Right Where You Left It 

“Well, then why don’t you tell me how it is?”

Malon shot Wild a daring glance across the kitchen counter. He recognized the appeal to his courage. Twilight was right, she was good at coaxing things out of troubled heroes, Wild realized. No wonder Time liked her so much.

“So, um,” Wild began, “there’s this princess.”

“Mhm,” Malon encouraged with a hint of knowing sass as she began forcefully mashing her bowl of potatoes with a hand mallet.

“And uh, she chose me as her appointed knight. Because of the sword, it chose me first.” He stared down at the counter.

Malon nodded and continued mashing. The dull sound of wood clinking against ceramic served as a welcome distraction during his usual pauses.

“And I protected her. But then there was a great evil.”

“Ganondorf,” Malon supplied. Wild nodded.

“Yeah, well, Calamity Ganon. And we tried to fight it but we all lost. And I was…wounded.” He thumbed at his scarred ear. “So she put me somewhere to heal, for a hundred years, and all that time—all that time she was fighting. And hoping that I’d come back. And I did. But I didn’t remember anything. I had to learn it all again. So we fought Ganon again, and we won. But now it’s just her and I. She’s so smart, and brave, and caring, she wants to put the whole country back together…” he trailed off.

Malon set the mallet aside and glanced up. “But?”

Wild swallowed. “I’m supposed to go with her and be her knight again. But I’m not the same. I dunno what I want now, it’s different. But she deserves the me she waited so long to see. And she’s wonderful, it’s not that I don’t want to go with her...”

He was surprised he’d gone on for so long. He felt suddenly exposed. He needed to be doing something, so he reached into the sink and grabbed the wooden spoon, then he began drying it on a dishcloth.

Malon began slicing thick pats of butter into the mashed potatoes. “I don’t believe you, that you don’t know what you want now,” she told him matter-of-factly.

Wild glanced down at the counter, examining the whorls and lines of its polished wood grain. He struggled after any honest answer buried within his mind.

“Well, I have a little house. That’s something I wanted,” he admitted. “But I don’t mind traveling. In fact, I like going wherever I’m needed. And helping whoever I want.”

“You like adventuring,” Malon told him, and the simple statement resonated in his bones. He nodded.  

“You know,” she said, “my Link had important things to do, too. And he did alright with all kinds of prophecy and expectation. He rose to the challenge bravely, he’s good with resolve. But still—and this goes for all of you—when the evil’s slain and the fairytale’s over, you gotta open yourself up to finding your own place in the world. The place you want.”

Malon set down the bowl of potatoes and looked him straight in the eyes. Wild fought against the urge to glance away from the unyielding stare.

“Sweetheart, here’s the truth,” she told him. “You can’t be anyone but you. Just like I can’t be anyone but me. Even other versions of me,” she paused and narrowed her eyes, “other versions that he remembers. I’d wear myself ragged trying to be someone I wasn’t. And then we’d both be worse off for it. I can’t change what’s happened to him, and he’d probably get hurt if I tried, so I just love him honestly in the now.”

Wild blinked. He thought of Zelda. Was it possible for him to share this new side of him, this side that reveled in freedom, while keeping his steadfast commitment to serve her? Malon’s advice made it sound possible to do both. He felt a small seed of hope settling in his chest. “He’s only a person, after all. Just like this princess of yours,” Malon added with a smile. “Just talking upfront-like to the people we care about usually goes a long way. For you, and for them.”

Alright, Malon’s insight was uncanny. Wild could admit that.

“Anyways, the potatoes just need a little salt, those cookies of yours can bake while we eat. Should we call the others in?” she asked. He understood; she was giving him an opportunity to say more, or end their conversation. She was incredibly thoughtful, and her words had encouraged him greatly. But he’d already talked more than enough.

“I’ll run and get them,” he told her. She gave him a knowing smile. For a moment he was reminded of Zelda’s rare, carefree smiles, and for the first time in a long while he felt only happiness alongside her memory.

Malon returned to her song as she began setting the table.

Wild carried the melody with him as he left out the creaky back door, and the hope in his chest sprouted. Because if Malon could trust her honest self in devotion to a duty-bound Time, then maybe Wild could do the same with Zelda. From his time on the ranch, he could see how the two were curiously alike: Time and Zelda each shouldered great purpose, yet both remained light and even playful underneath. Malon found a way to push back against Time’s sense of duty while simultaneously underscoring it, and her example left Wild inspired. Spurred on by happiness, Wild ran out to the stable, grabbing an old shovel leaning against the outer wall as he flew past.

“Hey Twi,” he called, rounding the doorway to find Twilight sweeping the stable floor exactly as he’d expected. Twilight glanced up and barely had time to raise his broom to counter as Wild rushed toward him with an exaggerated swing of the shovel.

Twilight shot him a smug smile. He returned Wild’s attack with a wide swipe of his broom’s bristles. Wild backflipped away. He thrust the shovel’s blade toward Twilight’s abdomen. Twilight sidestepped and blocked the handle with a forearm strike, knocking Wild’s shovel off-course. But Wild had anticipated Twilight’s block. He used the momentum to arc the shovel toward the larger man’s feet. Twilight tried to counter with the broom-head, but the bristles gave way against the speeding shovel. The broad side of the shovel smacked his ankle, and Twilight stumbled.

Twilight gave Wild a meaningful look, then he tossed his broom aside and raised both hands in defeat. Wild grinned at him.

“One,” he told Twilight, “Dinner’s ready. And two,” Wild narrowed his eyes, “you were absolutely right.”

The two heroes shared a smile, then they went to gather the others for dinner. As they walked out of the stable and into the growing dusk, Wild found his friends’ hopeful song resounding within him—and he suddenly remembered. He did know the song, or at least a piece of it, from his own time, from his own Hyrule! It was a tune he heard around stable campfires on the strings and flutes of traveling musicians, a tune that spoke to him of warm beds and kind folk—a relative rarity in his sparsely populated kingdom. He’d heard the distant melody many times as he crested a hill, only to glance down at a stable nestled in the valley, an oasis of comfort in the harsh wilderness.

How many years separated his friends from his own time? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Yet, if he weren’t mistaken, this song had somehow lived on, carrying the hopeful spirit of his friends into the future. If their song could travel all the way there, then perhaps he’d find the courage to carry their advice back with him, too.

His mind was made up: if he went back...no, when he went back, he corrected, he might just try speaking openly with his princess.

***

Many months later

Wild’s stomach sank as the world changed around him in a terribly familiar way. NO, he thought to himself. They were done, weren’t they? They’d fought and bled and they’d WON. There couldn’t possibly be MORE, could there?

He found himself standing in a small camp cloaked in darkness save for a crackling fire and a setting moon. Ruined, rotting houses surrounded him. The other heroes were nowhere to be seen.

“Link!” a familiar voice called from behind. He spun around.

Standing before him was Zelda. Her long, blonde hair gleamed in the nearby firelight and her eyes shone with concern. He blinked at her in disbelief.

“Link, what happened?!” she cried.

Wild looked around again. He recognized this place from so long ago—the camp they’d pitched amidst the Goponga Village ruins. He glanced at the fire, where the logs were arranged exactly as he always placed them. He had made this fire, there was no doubt.

“You disappeared suddenly, without even the glow of the Sheikah teleportation!” Zelda exclaimed. “I looked and looked for you, for several hours! But I didn’t want to stray too far from camp if you came back. Especially in the darkness, who knows what’s prowling, and already one of us was unaccounted for and I didn’t want to add more trouble to our predicament,” she rambled joyfully.

She continued on. Wild felt his legs twitch, telling him that he ought to kneel.

But that was the old Link’s memory, he realized. He may have fallen back on those old ways once. But he was Wild now. Over a year of living outside of his Hyrule had reforged him, and he liked the man he’d become. He thought of his friends, of Twilight and Time and all the others, then he thought of Malon and her advice that he wanted so desperately to live by. Encouraged, he pushed back against the old Link’s muscle memory as his friends’ comforting song swelled within him, urging him to follow the hope in his heart.

He took three steps forward and clasped Zelda in a hug, cutting off her words. She froze for a stunned second, then returned the embrace wholeheartedly. A jolt of electric joy shot through Wild’s chest.

He pulled away and smiled wildly.

“Link,” she said with a surprised laugh.

“I don’t think I’m the same Link anymore,” Wild admitted to her. Honesty felt surprisingly good.

Zelda studied him carefully in the flickering firelight. “How long have you been away?” she asked. Her hand caught the tail of his frayed hair that now rivaled hers in length. He’d hardly touched it with a knife since the day he left.

“A long time,” he replied. She knew of magic and other inexplicable things, he knew she’d understand enough for now, at least.

His surroundings jogged a memory deep in his mind and a slow realization rolled over him. The song... the stable song. If only a handful of hours had passed in all the time he’d been away... then that meant a small, helpless boy was still making his way to the Wetland Stable! Wild gasped as he connected the pieces in his mind. His friends’ song seemed suddenly prophetic. And maybe it was just coincidence, or maybe the goddess’s hand had woven this melody through the hero’s long history, who could say? Either way, the path before him was completely clear.

Zelda opened her mouth to ask more questions, but for the first time in Wild’s life, he cut her off.

“I have so much to tell you. And I will tell you about it. About everything, I promise. But first,” he said, “there’s something we need to do. Now.”

Zelda looked stunned. “Now?” she asked, raising a delicate fist to her chest in concern.

Wild took a deep breath. “There’s a boy making his way through the swamp. I ran into him earlier in the night. I think he’s been orphaned, and he’s trying to make his way to family at the Wetland Stable. I’m worried about him.”

“Wait, this child is navigating the swamp right now?” she asked. Wild nodded. “Alright, um, well...” she trailed off, clearly overwhelmed by the night’s events.

“I think he needs help. Our help. But I know we have a mission. Zora’s Domain,” he said carefully.

Zelda shook her head. “No, you’re right. It’s far too dangerous for him to go alone. Why didn’t you tell me this?” she asked, her eyes crinkling in concern.

Wild glanced down. “I didn’t think it was my place,” he said quietly. She gave him a long, searching look. Then she furrowed her brow, grabbed his arm, and yanked him down abruptly onto a nearby log.

“Not your place?” she asked intensely, her face filled with impassioned concern. “Link, we’re partners. We’re two parts of a greater whole. Don’t you know that you don’t serve me, not anymore?”

He stared back at her in dazed silence.

“Don’t you know that you being here, alive, is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me?” she admitted. Link started, shocked to hear her speaking so candidly.

“I was thinking, while you were gone, about how you should have been killed but you lived, and now you’re here,” she continued. “And only the goddess knows why, but in the ruins of this kingdom She’s at least blessed us with a chance for freedom.”

Link nodded, lost for words. He should have known that she would see through him, to the desire for freedom he’d harbored since the moment he’d crawled out from that dim stone shrine and stumbled into the sunlight. For, he realized, it was a desire she shared, folded haphazardly beneath her sense of duty, just as his was, too.

“Tell me, is this boy important to you?” Zelda asked.

He nodded more emphatically. “Yes,” he finally managed.

“Then he’s important to me as well. Besides,” she considered, “we can’t rebuild Hyrule on grand initiatives alone.” She nodded, as if also convincing herself, and her expression grew determined. “Let’s go find this boy.” Her eyes glinted like steel in the dying firelight. Then she stood abruptly and began kicking dirt onto their fire.

Wild marveled at the sudden change in their dynamic. Everything here had stayed exactly the same—including Zelda herself—but he had changed, and now it was all different. A wordless, thankful prayer rose within him, and though he wasn’t at a statue, he hoped his thanks reached Hylia.

He pushed himself to his feet and began swiftly packing their camp. He barely had time to take in the strange familiarity of his old things. Soon, they were ready to leave.

“C’mon, let’s go!” Zelda cried, lifting a lantern with one arm and grabbing Wild’s hand in the other. He jumped, shocked by her casual touch. Her hand was soft and warm and wonderful as she pulled him insistently onward to their detour. He followed breathlessly, feeling as if he’d suddenly swallowed an electric darner.

They journeyed a few hours through the wetlands until the first pink hints of sunlight streaked across the sky behind them. They’d kept a quick pace, and as they reached the end of the swamp, Wild finally caught sight of a pinprick of light bobbing ahead. The boy was just down the road, unharmed.

He glanced to Zelda at his side, whose beauty shone through the muck that now covered them both after their hasty traveling. She had seen the light as well. They shared a relieved smile, then she winked at him and took off jogging into the darkness toward the boy ahead. Wild grinned and started after her. He was still following her lead, just as he always had, but now they pursued a mutual hope, and the path ahead held both duty and fun. Maybe I could teach her to shieldsurf when we get to Trilby, he considered. His smile widened as he pictured her speeding down the side of a hill with her golden hair streaming behind her. Definitely worth asking. He’d learned one thing today: Zelda was full of surprises. And instead of agonizing over not knowing her as well as he’d like, he could just ask. He considered how easily she’d taken his hand. She might even say yes, he realized.

She wasn’t the frustrated teenager that stomped through his early memories, nor was he the same knight who once knelt silently at her side. After all that had happened, he was barely the same hero who’d helped her bring down the Calamity. So maybe now they could learn and discover each other, together.

Unfettered joy rose in Wild’s heart as he chased after his princess. The sun climbed over the horizon to light their path as they ran together toward the ever-unfolding adventure that awaited them in the freedom of the wild.

-----------------------

Author’s Notes:

Title and chapter titles based on the song “Everything Stays” by Rebecca Sugar and Olivia Olson, as popularized by Adventure Time. You can listen here.

Have I mentioned how much I owe @clumsydarknut for beta-reading?? I cannot thank him enough. Please go check his stuff out, if you enjoyed this, it’s the best thanks I can give him. 

[myssamyss]

Everything Stays, Part 5 of 6

Inspired by: “Malon 1″, “Malon 3″, and “Malon 4″ by Jojo

Part 5: Crystal Tide Rising

Warriors was wrong, and Wild felt lighter for it. A small weight had settled in his chest when Time first announced their detour, but the pasturelands that now surrounded them were certainly no castle, and the woman kissing Time looked nothing like Zelda. Instead, everything about this woman announced her commonness, from her simple cotton clothes to the long working-apron belted to her waist. She held Time with two strong arms that had clearly seen hard labor. Her hair was tied back in what would be an unassuming style, were it not for its startling red color.

The heroes murmured their surprise.

“It’s not Zelda, pay up!” Legend whispered with glee.

Warriors grudgingly handed over a bag of rupees.

Sky clearly didn’t mind being wrong—he was beaming widely at the pair. Wild glanced at Twilight, whose face held happy wonder, and at Hyrule who, to Wild’s surprise, looked just as excited to see Time’s heartfelt reunion with his redheaded spouse.

“Everyone, this is my wife, Malon,” Time announced proudly, sporting a brighter smile than Wild had ever seen from him.

They piled into a small ranch house. Malon greeted each Link in turn with a warm smile and kind words, and Wild was immediately struck by her sincerity. As she flitted from hero to hero, Wild took the opportunity to glance around Time’s house, noting simple plaster-and-wood walls that held weapons and presumed mementos, a small vase of fresh wildflowers, wooden furniture appearing modest yet well-kept, and unadorned windows that lit the rooms with country sunshine. The ranch house held the lived-in feel of a true home, and Wild’s heart cheered with memories of Hateno.

Time seemed cheerful as well. His good eye crinkled with devotion and remained fixed on Malon even when he shrugged out of his equipment and hung his sword casually near the door.  Wild noticed a new easiness to Time’s walk as he led the heroes outside to help with chores.

Later that afternoon, Wild joined Malon in the cozy kitchen. He’d been volunteered for cooking duty.

“My husband says you’re good with a cooking pot,” Malon told him, smiling. She grabbed a cotton apron hanging from the wall and tied it firmly behind her back, then she tucked her red bangs behind her ears. Wild gathered his long blonde hair and re-bound it securely just below his neck. The ranch kitchen was small but well-stocked, boasting a full array of cookware that Wild rarely had access to on the road.

He grinned and shrugged.

“So, I was thinking,” Malon said, “this many people, on such short notice but still hours before dinner? It’s gotta be-”

“Stew,” they finished together. Malon beamed, and Wild found himself laughing.

“Exactly,” Malon said. “And we have plenty of milk and fresh cream, so probably something with a creamy base...”

“Do you have any radishes?” Wild asked, an idea forming is his mind.

“Out in the garden we do!” she told him with a small bounce.

“I have a recipe, but we’ll probably need to substitute some things,” Wild considered.

“We have a full pantry, hopefully it’ll do. And I just canned some berries last week, so I was thinking of sweet bread and jam for dessert, if you can do bread,” she said.

Wild grinned. He thought of the small clay oven in his own kitchen, and sweet memories of restful days spent baking. “I can do bread,” he told her, running a bashful hand behind his scarred ear.

The clatter of utensils and easy conversation filled the kitchen as they cooked together in happy company. The experience felt oddly familiar, and Wild struggled to place it. His thoughts flashed to little Koko in Kakariko; was he remembering that time he’d helped her prepare the recipes she’d learned from her mother? But no, that memory wasn’t quite a match... Where had he learned to cook from? he silently pondered. He’d woken up with an uncanny knack for paring vegetables, simmering sauces, and picking spices that only grew stronger with each recipe he learned. Maybe he’d once cooked with his mother, too. He’d add it to his long list of things to wonder about.

Wild had just begun mixing a sweet glaze for the bread when the other heroes piled into the kitchen through the creaky back door, led by Time. The Old Man wore a white linen shirt that contrasted sharply with his usual armored appearance. He gathered his arms around Malon even as she vigorously stirred the huge, simmering pot on the stove, earning him a playful kick and mischievous grin from his wife.

Wild finished mixing the glaze in absentminded contentment as Malon and Time entertained the eager heroes with stories of their past. He turned to retrieve the bread dough from where he’d left it to rise, and suddenly realized that the previously lighthearted conversation had shifted.

“WHAT?” Time demanded, leveling his good eye at Malon.

“Now-now, don’t worry—” Malon returned easily, but Time cut her off.

“Don’t WORRY!?”

“Don’t you start!”

Wild stared in disbelief, but the argument faded as soon as it had begun. It wasn’t long before the spouses shot sly looks at each other and Wild could see there’d been no harm done.

He transferred the dough to a deep pan, then he dunked his floured hands into the sink basin, all the while marveling at how Time and Malon had built such familiarity that they could argue openly and still make up with ease. A contrasting memory of a moss-covered shrine, Zelda stalking angrily toward him, and his own conspicuous silence rose in Wild’s mind.

“No doubt you boys are all thinking about your own situations,” Malon told the group. Wild immediately dropped his eyes to the bread pan now clutched in his clean hands. Time’s wife was clearly perceptive.

“You know one Link, you know them all,” Malon continued. “I’m sure you’ve found a gal with a little sass. You’re all attracted to that spark. It’s like you boys love a battle or something.”

She thumped Time’s shoulder playfully with the back of her mixing spoon. He turned, attempting to catch her in another bear hug, and knocked over the full jar of jam Wild had left opened on the wooden counter. Wild’s eyes went wide as the jar flew, showering the Hero of Time in gooey purple jam.

Time froze. He lowered his gaze to his ruined white shirt. For a moment, Wild feared he might become angry, but Malon cut through the tension easily.

“What did I say,” she joked with a cheeky grin. “Looks like I won that battle.”

“You’re right,” Time began, turning to her slowly. “Then let me congratulate your victory!” he announced, snuggling into his wife’s side and playfully smearing purple berries across her rosy cheek.

Wild breathed a sigh of relief and popped the bread pan into the warm oven. As he took a seat at the crowded table beside Warriors, he watched the berry-covered couple dissolve into giggles.

Wild was struck by just how differently Time acted on the ranch. Warriors had been very wrong, because Time was relaxed and even playful here. He wasn’t a man constantly on duty. Here, Wild saw that Time had clearly found peace. He told Warriors as much in a low voice.

Warriors flashed him a knowing grin. “Sounds like that’s what you want, too.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Wild replied. “But I bought a house...”

***

The heroes fell into an easy routine of chores, hearty meals, and soft beds (or at least, soft blankets over a wooden floor, which was still an improvement to cold ground). On their third day, Wild was surprised when Time called him from the kitchen to muck stalls with Twilight. Wild figured he’d be more of a hindrance than a help to the farmer, but he went along anyway. The two friends grabbed pitchforks and began sifting manure from the hay. Twilight hummed loudly through a few minutes of work, then he turned and shook his head at Wild.

“Two things,” Twilight told him. “One: you gotta really get under that hay, not just the stuff on top.”

Wild rolled his eyes and dug his pitchfork deeper into the soiled hay.

“Two: can we talk about what’s going on with you?” Twilight asked pointedly. He stared at Wild across the horse stall.

“What?” Wild asked.

“C’mon, you’ve been a little off for awhile now.”

Wild nudged the edge of his pitchfork with his boot. He knew how important this detour was for Twilight, and he’d been trying hard not to dampen it with his own problems. “I’m fine,” he replied.

“Really?” Twilight challenged. He flipped his pitchfork over in his hands with quick ease and playfully knocked Wild’s ankle with the wooden handle. Wild stumbled, unprepared. Twilight twirled his makeshift weapon and came around for another shot at Wild’s leg. Wild fumbled with his pitchfork and attempted a block with the tines, but he was too slow. Twilight hooked them with his own pitchfork and smoothly disarmed him. Wild’s pitchfork sailed across the stable. It hit the wall with a dull THWAP, then fell into the hay.

Wild stared sheepishly at his lost weapon.

“It’s about your Zelda, right?” Twilight raised his eyebrows in knowing accusation as he relaxed out of his fighting stance.

Wild didn’t even bother acting surprised; he’d explained much of his past during odd hours of the night while taking watch alongside Twilight’s giant wolf form. Wild knew that trying to deflect his friend’s concern any further would be pointless.

Wild twisted his mouth and finally nodded. “I don’t think she knows how much I don’t know,” he admitted. “About her. And everything that happened. Before.”

Twilight set his pitchfork against the wooden wall and crossed his arms in front of his broad shoulders. “I thought she knew you lost your memory.”

“She does. And like, I’ve gotten a few things back. It’s just so few, I don’t think she knows how few.”

“Why doesn’t she know?” Twilight pressed.

Wild shrugged. “Well, I don’t say much when I’m with her.”

Twilight gave him a patronizing look.

“Wild.”

“What?” Wild’s voice came out more defensive than he intended.

“Why not?”

“I dunno, I don’t have much to say,” Wild said lamely.

Twilight chuckled. “That’s a lie. I mean, you don’t talk out of your ass, but when you do talk you have plenty to say.”

“Fine, I dunno then. I guess I never really saw myself talking with her, in what I saw from before. And it’s not like we’re traveling together for the company, we have work to do.”

“Did she tell you that?”

Wild thought of the diary that he still felt strange to have read. I wish to talk with him more, she had written, to hear him speak freely and openly. He wondered, had they gotten that chance to talk? In many of his memories she was clearly frustrated by him, but in later memories they seemed so close. And after they left the castle, she acted close. What conversations had passed between them that he could only guess at? Who had she been expecting when she woke him from the shrine?

He realized Twilight was still waiting for an answer.

“Well, no. But I mean, she never really wanted me there… And maybe she grew to like me when we were traveling. But that was old me. Before.”

“Seems like you’re really struggling with this. You in love?” Twilight lobbed the question so casually—it hit Wild completely off guard. His breathing tripped and his face flooded with heat as he sputtered for an answer.

Twilight let the damning silence linger for a moment, then he mercifully doubled back to Wild’s last coherent statement. “For what it’s worth,” Twilight told him, “I appreciate whoever the ‘you’ is now.” He gave Wild an affectionate shove that broke through his burning embarrassment.

“That’s so sweet, wolfie,” Wild shot back.

Twilight rolled his eyes and grabbed his pitchfork. “You know who you should talk to about this? Malon.”

Wild threw him a dubious look. “You’re just saying that because she’s your long-lost grandma.”

“No, I’m saying it because she’s smart and kind and she knows how to talk sense into troubled heroes.”

Wild recognized wisdom in Twilight’s point, but he still sighed and turned away. “I’ll think about it,” he told Twilight.

Twilight shrugged and dug his pitchfork into the hay as he began humming his song once more. Wild retrieved his own fork from the far side of the stall where it had landed. As Twilight’s notes filled the stable, he realized the song was familiar. Hadn’t Time hummed the same melody, after their conversation on the road? Come to think of it, the melody seemed to stir up a cloudy memory, as if he’d heard it long before meeting Time...

“Twi, isn’t that Time’s song?” Wild asked.  

Twilight glanced up. “Oh, yeah, he knows it too. We share a lot of songs,” he laughed. “It’s like our horse song—he says he learned that one from Malon.” Twilight beamed.

“What’s this one called?”

“I dunno.” Twilight shrugged and returned to mucking. Wild joined him, brushing the thought from his mind. But later that day, as Wild helped Malon prepare dinner, he realized that she, too, was humming the exact same tune.

“That’s a nice song,” he told her as she handed him two eggs.

She smiled brightly, then she poured a generous splash of milk over a steaming bowl of potatoes. “Thanks. It’s very special to me. Link wrote it. He plays it best.”

“Huh,” Wild said, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “I didn’t know he played anything.” He cracked the eggs into his bowl and began to stir.

“Few people do,” she returned.

Mysterious songs aside, maybe he should talk to Malon about Zelda, Wild thought to himself. Twilight was right, she seemed to have a wisdom about these things. A wisdom about Links, at least. And Time said she knew everything about his adventures. Surely Wild’s own situation couldn’t be more convoluted than the Old Man’s, he convinced himself.

“So, wanna tell me about this girl?” Malon asked him.

Wild’s wooden spoon clattered to the floor. “What?”

“Did I get it wrong?” Malon asked, her face becoming suddenly apologetic. “Sorry sweetheart, I shouldn’t‘ve assumed.”

Wild grabbed the spoon from the floor and dropped it into the soapy sink basin. “No, you’re right. It’s just… not like that.”

“Well, then why don’t you tell me how it is?”

***

Malon trudged back to the ranch. She led her horse by the reigns; she didn’t want to overburden the mare after such a long day. Her father had sent her on a tedious series of traveling chores that began before sunrise, and Malon felt overjoyed to finally be home. Maybe tonight she’d try talking with Link, she thought to herself. He seemed distant lately. Only a few months had passed since he’d found her in his room, the evening she’d broken his trust. Sure, they’d made up—Link had a knack for forgiveness—but she still felt a fierce need to defend their growing closeness. She feared making another careless mistake. Would Link be so quick to forgive again?

She returned the mare to her stall, then left the stable and caught a glimpse of the setting sun as it dipped just beneath the horizon. Chilled evening air met her face and crickets sang in the tall grass. And on the breeze, she heard another sound... a strange, clear, lilting tune rising from somewhere ahead of her.

The notes were pure and otherworldly. The sound was growing louder now as she approached the main corral. She turned past the stable. A dazzling sight met her.

The field beyond the fence was aglow in a half-dozen colors of soft light. Pinpricks of shining yellows and light blues twinkled in the grass among the thistle, while soft pinks and whites floated whimsically through the air. As she approached, the music grew louder still. Each note sang through the evening air with a keen clarity.

It was a familiar tune, yet it wasn’t. She recognized bits of her mother’s melody, but with unexpected climbs followed by dips that turned the song into something more daring. If her mother’s song spoke of contentment, then this song cried out with wondrous hope.

As she opened the gate, her eyes found the very person she hoped for: Link knelt in the middle of the field on a woolen blanket while lights twinkled all around. And there, held to his lips with both hands, was the ocarina. A path of flickering glass jars lit her way to him.

Link had been absent often lately, disappearing from the ranch at odd times to odd places and leaving Malon to worry that they were growing apart again. But now she realized that he hadn’t been pulling away, he’d been preparing.

The cool grass brushed against her ankles as she made her way across the field. She saw that some of the jars held yellow tea lights, but others were filled with a strange blue fire that licked at the glass. As she neared, she realized the floating lights came from dozens of fairies dancing through the air. Malon gasped in wonder. She had never seen so many fairies in one place before.

Link glanced up at her beneath heavy lids. The dazzling lights reflected in the shine of his eyes and their corners crinkled in a smile. Malon folded her skirt as she sat gently beside him on the soft woolen blanket. Her heart pounded in her chest. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but she feared distracting him from his song, so she clasped her hands tightly in her lap to keep them from wandering and instead marveled at him as he played. His fingers darted across the instrument with a casual sureness and his chest rose and fell as he shaped each phrase. She’d heard him play only a few times before, and never with such sincerity.

The song slowed to a conclusion so sweet and hopeful that she felt tears welling in her eyes. Link lowered the instrument gently to his lap, then he raised his gaze to her.

“That was incredible,” she breathed.

Link smiled. “I made it for you. It’s your song,” he told her simply.

Malon felt stunned. She struggled with the gravity of his words. Because until moments ago, she doubted whether she would ever see the ocarina again. And now, he had used the ocarina to shape a song made just for her.

His face grew deadly serious as he carefully laid the ocarina beside him on the soft blanket. “I have something for you, if you’ll have it,” Link told her. His voice shook yet his eyes were resolute. Malon bit her bottom lip in anticipation.

He reached behind him and came back up with an ornate turquoise box, inlaid with gleaming yellow metal. He held the box out to her and pulled back the lid on its hinges, revealing what lay inside.

A large ring of sparkling amethyst and gold sat nestled on a satin pillow. The ring boasted a large center stone cut like a star, surrounded with dozens of smaller inlaid sister-stones adorning the band. The gems cast many-colored prisms of reflection in every direction around them. The ring was dazzling and entirely too much. Link’s face broke into a wide smile, gleaming in the light.

“Malon,” he began, and she saw the box shaking in his hand. “I love you. And I want to commit to you. No matter where or when we are, for the now and for the future.” He paused to draw a breath. “You are strong, and true, and kind... Will you have me?”

Malon nodded wildly as tears finally leaked from her eyes and down her cheeks.

“Yes, of course!” she cried. “Of course, Fairy Boy, a hundred times over!” She threw herself into his arms and he caught her, as he always did and always would. She kissed his cheek and his eyelid and his nose before finally kissing his lips. He returned her kiss more deeply than he ever had before, running his free hand through the hair at the nape of her neck.

When they finally broke apart, Malon found herself giggling wildly. Link’s joyous gaze remained fixed on her as their chests heaved with shared breathlessness.

“So, you want this?” Link asked, one hand still clutching the ring box.

“I dunno, I’m kind of afraid to wear it…” she began, eyeing the ornate ring suspiciously. But Link’s wide-eyed look of eager expectation convinced her to reach out her hand. He slipped the ring to the knuckle of her finger, then she used her right hand to pull it the rest of the way. It would certainly take some getting used to, she thought to herself as she fanned out her fingers and studied the ring. Then she glanced around the wondrously lit field once more.

“I do have to ask one thing,” Malon began.

Link gave a small frown of concern.

“No, I didn’t mean to worry you!” she told him. “I was just wondering, how did you get so many fairies here, Fairy Boy?”

Link chuckled. “I just asked them,” he said with a small shrug. Malon gave a loud, clear laugh at the obviousness of his answer.

“Speaking of, thank you, everyone!” Link announced to the field, and the lights in the sky wavered, then began to flit away.

Malon watched keenly, fascinated, until the only glow that remained was from the fire-filled jars. Then she snuggled into Link’s side and tucked her cheek into his broad shoulder. He kissed the top of her head and wrapped an arm tightly around her waist.

The two stayed entwined together, curled in complete, consummate happiness as the moon rose high in the night sky. ____________________ Author’s Note: thanks as always to @clumsydarknut for beta-reading. 

[myssamyss]

Everything Stays, Part 4 of 6

Featuring Jojo’s comic, “Malink past” Part 4: When You Turn It Around

The next morning, Link woke before the sun, readied his gear, and crept out the door. He made his way to the stable as dim light began to color the ranch. A mercifully cool wind swept in from the fields; the heat had finally broken. Link reached the large stable door and pulled at the latch, only to haul the door open and freeze in surprise.

Malon stood in the middle of the stable, running a coarse brush through a spotted mare’s mane.

She turned and gave him an accusing glare that made his limbs turn ice-cold. They stood there, still and staring, neither speaking. Link swallowed in the back of his throat, but he didn’t back down. Malon broke the silence first.

“You’re up early,” she told him dryly.

“So are you.”

Malon gave him a strange look and he sucked in a breath, but then she turned back to the mare and continued brushing. The stable was quiet but for the slow, rhythmic rustling of brush against mane.

Taking her silence as understanding, Link exhaled and strode into the stable. Straw crunched beneath his boots, and the sound of Malon’s brushstrokes was drowned out by his swift steps. He began readying Epona’s tack.

“So you’re just leaving?” she asked him after several long minutes. A half-hidden hurt laced her words.

He turned back to her. Her hands gently stroked the mare’s muzzle, but her blue-eyed gaze was sharper than any sword.

“I’m not ‘just leaving’,” he replied, taken aback.

She shook her head and her bangs went flying. “Really? Because it seems to me that you were fixing to leave here before we had a chance to talk.”

Link felt stunned. He’d been trying his best to do right by her. At least, he thought he was.

“We did talk. And I even stayed for dinner. I came here to give a proper goodbye, like you deserve.” And I didn’t have to, Link thought to himself bitterly as he mounted Epona. Maybe coming to the ranch had been a mistake. Maybe this was the problem with long goodbyes and explanations. Maybe they only made things worse. Just leave, he told himself.

Her voice rose. “Why though? Why are you leaving now? I thought we were finally getting, well... close.” She glanced away with her last word.

“I don’t get close to people,” he said sharply. She winced.

“But if there’s anything I’ve learned,” he continued, “it’s that there’s always a parting. Nothing ever lasts.”

Malon stared past him to the open stable door with a silent frown. Link nudged Epona’s side with the heel of his boot, spurring the horse to a walk.

“You’re right.” Malon’s quiet voice cut through the air. “We’ve been friends since childhood, yet there’s very little I know about you, or even the world. What does a dumb farm girl know?”

What? He pulled back on Epona’s reigns and turned back to Malon, shocked. “Malon, no, I-I didn’t mean…”

Her face softened and her voice grew sincere. “But I’d like to,” she said with a small, hopeful smile. “I’d like to know... Ever since that day you played my mother’s song, I’ve wondered.”

She stared at him with deep blue eyes full of such care and longing. His resolve melted away. Because anything was worth this—the way she was staring at him now, shoulders squared with passionate hope and her bottom lip held half-open in plea. His chest ached at the few meters of distance already between them. Maybe... he could turn back. Maybe he could explain things and let her in. Her honest, fierce need for him was worth abandoning his self-imposed rules.

He nodded to her slowly and her face brightened with joy, encouraging him. He swung a leg over Epona and dismounted. The aching in his chest faded, and an intoxicating warmth rose to take its place.

“I’m not sure where to begin,” he admitted. He sat down on a nearby hay bale.

Malon waited a few quiet moments, then she came to sit by his side. She smoothed her long purple skirt over her knees, tucked her red bangs behind a delicately pointed ear, then met Link’s eyes with a disarming stare.

“Why does nothing ever last?” she asked simply.

“Well…everyone leaves...even you…” he murmured.

Malon’s brows drew together in confusion.

“Well, not you,” he backtracked. “Another you. And I suppose I’m the one who left then... I’m sorry. I’ve never really tried to explain it all before, to someone on the outside.”

She placed her hand against his arm just beneath the sleeve of his green tunic. Link started. He knew she was trying to comfort him, but her gentle touch felt like an electric shock. Though unlike real-life electrocution (which Link was too familiar with), the feeling was admittedly pleasant, and the memory of danger primed his mind, emboldening him. He looked down at the straw-covered floor and gathered his thoughts.

“You remember the first time we met? I was going to the castle?” he asked.

She nodded, enthralled.

“Well,” he began. “I broke into the castle, and there was this prophecy…”

***

Wild trailed behind the other heroes as they walked along a wooded path. He didn’t often take up the rear, as he was well-accustomed to walking long distances (unlike poor Wind). But today he craved the familiar comfort of solitude.

He kept a handful of pleasant memories in relief to fall back on when he felt overwhelmed, a collection built before the Calamity’s defeat when thoughts of failure and Zelda’s long-suffering threatened to overwhelm him. As he walked, he shuffled through the series of memories, imagining himself darting after little Cottla through cool grass above the hills near Kakariko, trading iridescent insects with a wide-eyed Beedle in a warm stable, or standing in the golden Tarry Town sunshine during Hudson and Rhondson’s wedding. He enjoyed escaping to these moments when he’d been nothing more than himself, without expectation or prophecy.

Wild’s thoughts were interrupted as he noticed Time falling back in their group’s walking order. It wasn’t unusual for him to double back to chat with Twilight, but Time didn’t pause beside the fur-clad hero now. Instead, he kept his pace suspiciously slow, until he was nearly even with Wild. His armor clanked with each step.

Wild fixed his eyes just above Wind’s crop of bright blonde hair ahead of them.

“Wild,” Time began, his voice quiet. He slowed his pace even further, widening the gap between Wind and the two of them. Wild matched him, but said nothing.

“I wanted to apologize,” Time said. He sounded sincere. Wild turned his head to show he was listening.

“I’m sorry for coming down on you at the pond, over the kid. I was just…worried. Lately you’ve been…” Time searched for a word, but seemed to think better of it. “Anyways. I know you can handle yourself. And if you want to talk, about anything...” Time shrugged.

Wild nodded. He wasn’t angry with Time. The man just made him uneasy, and Wild wanted to be left alone. Still, he appreciated Time’s willingness to humbly apologize, even if it took clear effort. Wild pushed back against his own annoyance and resolved to make an effort, too. Besides, Wild thought, if he couldn’t be alone, then maybe he ought to face his simmering unease head-on instead. He was good at throwing himself into the thick of things.

“Why’d you get married?” Wild blurted, hurling himself into the very subject he felt so keen on avoiding. He didn’t dare look over at Time. But the older man surprised him by taking the seemingly random question in stride. From the corner of Wild’s eye, he saw Time cocking his head and considering his answer carefully.

“Hm,” Time mused. He gave a small, uncharacteristic smile. “I guess… I got married… to share trust with someone.” He paused. “It wasn’t easy, at first. I mean, none of us are big on talking.” Time threw a glance toward the rest of their party. “Well, maybe Legend. But never about anything real.”

Wild nodded, listening guardedly.

“But having someone to listen? It keeps you sane.”

He heard a bite in Time’s voice. Wild’s gaze flicked to the red and blue marks that flanked the ruined eye.

Time caught the quick glance. “She knows about all of it.”

Wild let his head fall down toward the ground in minor embarrassment. He of all people knew the discomfort of a curious gaze. He resisted the urge to scratch at his scarred ear.

He kicked a rock instead and thought about Time’s answer. True openness sounded very difficult to put into practice. Wild might have once shared that kind of trust, that kind of love with another. ‘Might’ being the key word, as he could never be completely sure. A vision of Mipha’s delicate face swam in his mind. They might have been planning a life together...

Hard to share my honest thoughts when I can’t even remember them, Wild thought coldly.

“It wasn’t easy,” Time added softly, breaking the silence. Wild had barely noticed the long pause between them. Damn, still rusty at carrying on a conversation. Monologuing in his mind certainly didn’t help. He focused in on Time’s words.

“And there were bumps, she isn’t perfect. And I’m not either. I wasn’t sure it would last,” Time said. “But she hasn’t left yet.”

Wild nodded. “Thank you,” he told the older man.

Time clapped him on the shoulder, then began humming a vaguely familiar song as he picked up his pace and made his way to the front of the group, leaving a relieved Wild behind. The older man respected solitude, and seemed to understand Wild’s own need for it.

***

Malon knocked twice on the door to Link’s room, but there was no answer. Maybe he was sleeping again? He’d been taking on more than his fair share of ranch chores lately, she figured he was bound to be exhausted. Didn’t he know that his work ethic already far outstripped her father’s expectations without any of the added effort? She knew her father was already impressed. Link didn’t need to prove himself further. He was easily their best ranch hand, and he fit well in their little family. Besides, Talon had apparently already given Link his blessing years ago. Link needn’t be nervous now.

She pushed the door open quietly, but was met with an empty, neatly made bed. No sign of her Link.

Her eyes fell to something lying on the bedside table, an item that she had only seen a handful of times before: the ocarina. The ocarina whose notes had first sown the seeds of adoration deep in Malon’s heart as Link had impossibly played Malon’s most treasured song. For years she’d believed that Link’s unexplainable knowledge of the song was a sign from above, perhaps even from her own mother, that she and Link had a future together. Now she knew his true past, and the instrument had taken on an entirely different legendary nature in her mind. She crossed the room and ran her fingers across its glazed surface without thinking. It was smooth and cool to the touch. She gathered it in her hands—

“What are you doing?”

She spun around to see Link standing in the doorway. For the first time in many months, his face was a closed door. A painful lump caught in Malon’s throat as she realized her grave mistake. She carefully returned the ocarina to the bedside table with a small clink and stepped away as hot embarrassment rose in her chest.

“Link, I’m sorry...” she began. Link crossed the room to place himself between her and the ocarina. She glanced up into his eyes and found deep pain staring back. The few inches of space separating their chests felt like a vast distance.

“Please go,” he told her quietly. She nodded solemnly and left his room, easing the door shut behind her. As the latch clicked, despair welled up inside her heart. She had repaid his trust with unchecked curiosity, and all the sorries in the world wouldn’t take back her trespass. --------------------------------- Author’s Note: thanks as always to @clumsydarknut for beta-reading.

[myssamyss]

Everything Stays, Part 3 of 6

Part 3: A Lighter Underside

Malon lay in bed, sweating. Between the suffocating heat and her baffling fairy boy, she knew she wouldn’t sleep anytime soon. Instead, she stared up at her ceiling in the darkness and pondered. Link had been stoic ever since he showed up on the ranch earlier that afternoon, and he barely spoke throughout dinner. She even prepared his favorite creamy stew to soften him up, yet he said little more than thank you, followed by a lame excuse about some opportunity out on the edge of the kingdom. Admittedly, the stew would have tasted better if she’d had more time to let it, well, stew, but Fairy Boy hadn’t given her a lot of notice before waltzing up to her front door with his half-baked plan at goodbye. Frustration simmered in her chest. She knew, she knew confessing her feelings might backfire, yet she hadn’t made much of a counter-plan. Maybe she’d read him wrong…

After all, she also knew he hid things from her. She heard it in the way he clipped off his sentences, or how he sometimes thought long and hard before answering her questions. He’d always been mysterious, but several years ago Malon had sensed a dark shift in his demeanor.

She tried to quiet her nagging insecurities. Because surely that shift had nothing to do with her, she reminded herself. Whatever haunted him seemed much deeper. Still, she had long feared that he would lose interest in their friendship. Link was always traveling near and far, while she herself had barely journeyed beyond Castletown. She was simple and he was exciting. But he kept coming back to the ranch, so her hopes lived on, and she always held secret faith that their friendship was fated to grow into something more. Because what other explanation could there possibly be for a mysterious boy appearing in her life, first to rescue her father, then to visit her ranch and somehow play the same song her mother taught her so long ago?

And hadn’t her hopes held weight only a few weeks ago? Once she’d taken the terrifying plunge and finally admitted her feelings, Link had blossomed. He’d been smiling easily and humming through his ranch chores, and for a day his melancholy seemed lifted. But now, though Link was staying just down the hall, he seemed more distant and troubled than ever.

If he was any other young man, she’d suspect that another girl had come along. But this was Link for Hylia’s sake. He had many talents, but ensnaring ladies was not one of them. Oh, plenty of women adored him, Malon certainly noticed that. And who could blame them—he was kind and strong and true. Besides, Malon could tell that Link had absolutely no idea. He was innocent as a summer’s day was long.

But there were clearly secrets he was clutching close to his chest, and Malon was determined to figure out just what this strange young man was hiding. She couldn’t afford to act heartbroken, even if her heart was aching at the thought of him walking away after she had finally found the courage for a small kiss. Instead, she forced her wounded heart aside and pledged to use every ounce of her intuition to get Link talking. He may have made it through dinner without giving up his reasons, but she wasn’t about to let him leave the ranch without an explanation.

***

After a morning of trudging through the cool forest, the band of heroes came upon a tiny outpost town built along the dirt road. A handful of small, wooden houses stood half-hidden by dense green foliage, and a simple store faced the road with a wide porch welcoming travelers.

Warriors glanced at Time and raised his chin toward the store. “Supplies. We should stop,” he said. Time shot discerning glances to each modest building surrounding them before turning back to Warriors with a curt nod.

“So cautious…” Legend scoffed quietly from behind Wild. “As if we aren’t already the most dangerous group traveling this road.”

“Yeah!” Wind agreed less quietly. “Any enemies here? We could take ‘em!”

Hyrule turned and gave them a neutral look. The others carried on in silence. Wild grabbed his Sheikah slate from his hip and tapped it purposefully as they walked. One of his meanest-looking (and most unwieldy) weapons appeared in his hands: a massive three-winged boomerang that he’d stolen off a lizalfos. He took care not to nick himself on the jagged edges as he strapped it to his back.

Wind giggled behind him. “Way to look the part,” he half-whispered. Wild gave a furtive grin.

As they climbed the creaking porch stairs, Wild’s ears caught another, softer sound—a quiet rustling from their right. He turned instinctively to find its source.

A skinny boy clad in a worn, brown tunic peeked up at their group from amidst the bushes below the edge of the porch floor. Wild recognized a sad curiosity in the boy’s eyes as they darted to the heroes’ armor and heavy weaponry. While the others headed into the shop to haggle over supplies, Wild paused to make a split-second decision. Restocking had already seemed low priority for him; he had more than enough items in his slate. Why not take the opportunity to finally help someone small?

Wild crossed the porch silently and leapt the railing. He landed in a crouch just behind the boy.

“Hey,” he said softly.

The boy spun around, shocked, but Wild shared a soothing smile, raised a finger to his own lips, then gave the boy an exaggerated wink.

The boy giggled. Wild watched some sadness lift from the boy’s shoulders, and some of the buried guilt in Wild’s own heart lifted with it. Maybe helping this boy is enough.

Wild gestured to the wickedly sharp three-winged boomerang on his back. The boy’s eyes lit up with excitement.

“Wanna see it fly?” Wild asked in a conspiratorial whisper.

The young boy nodded wildly.

Wild took two steps away from the boy and planted his feet in the mossy ground. He drew the boomerang. Behind the shop was a glade with a wide pond, but he knew the weapon would fly even further, so he angled his throw so that the spinning blades would clear the far trees. He paused just long enough to appreciate a familiar, calm contentment rising deep within his chest, and he knew in his bones that his concentration had returned.

He threw the boomerang with all his might.

It sailed in a long arc through the window of blue sky, then came whizzing back toward them with a deadly-sounding whishhh. The boomerang was coming in high. The catch would be difficult. Wild smiled to himself.  

He leapt. The boy gasped.

Wild threw his arm into the path of the whirling blades. His palm met the leather-wrapped handle with a satisfying thud. He fell back to the ground, triumphantly clutching the boomerang and reveling in his own precision. The abilities locked deep within his well-trained body could be incredibly fun—when his mind wasn’t standing in the way.

The boy cheered and clapped wildly. “That was amazing,” his small voice squeaked.

Wild grinned and held out the giant weapon.“You wanna hold it?”

***

“Where’s Wild?” Time asked, turning to the rest of the group gathered outside of the store. Based on his conversation with the shopkeeper, their party had a chance of making it to the next town by nightfall if they left now and traveled swiftly. Time worried at how long they’d journeyed without purpose. The sooner they made it to a true city, the sooner they could glean information on what they were all doing here, and why. They could complete whatever strange quest they were on. And then, just maybe, they could all go home. But they couldn’t head out without Wild.

Time had noticed small things about Wild lately. The young man had stopped sharing stories around the cooking pot in favor of silence. He no longer tagged along for Twilight’s shifts on watch, and he barely sparred with the others. Now, he was missing.

“I haven’t seen him,” Twilight replied.

“He wasn’t in the shop—he didn’t buy anything,” Four added.

Legend and Sky shrugged.

“I think he went off with that kid?” Wind offered.

Time hid his growing concern behind action. “We should split up and find him,” he directed.

The heroes nodded in agreement and started off in separate directions, yet they only managed to take a handful of steps. Their short search was interrupted by the distant BOOM of an explosion, followed by a great splashing noise. All eight Links spun toward the sound.

“Wild!” Twilight and Warriors hissed together.

A foreboding thought flashed through Time’s mind: Was stopping here a mistake? Did I put them in danger?

The heroes took off sprinting toward the explosion’s echo. Legend led, yet Time and the others kept pace as they flew past the store and dashed into the clearing. The sound of a second explosion split the air. Time itched to draw his heavy sword as the pond grew closer.

He caught sight of two figures on the opposite side of the wide pond near a crop of green cattails: a man in a sky-blue tunic and someone small. The heroes skidded to a halt across moss and dirt. Time threw a hand to his brow and squinted against the sunlight.

Wild stood on the other side of the pond, knee deep in the shimmering water alongside a tiny boy, with a fish clutched in each of his hands. The two were sopping wet. And shaking with laughter. And clearly, even from the distance, in no danger.

The eight heroes stood in anticlimactic silence broken only by their gasps of heavy breathing. Time could feel the others’ eyes darting to him in uneasy expectation.

“I’ll get him,” Time gruffed. He strode past Twilight, who all but jumped out of his way. “The rest of you should get ready to leave.”

Time rounded the pond. He, too, had noticed the boy in the bushes with small, sad eyes who’d watched their party cross the porch. They boy’s hair was dark and his tunic was brown but the sadness in his gaze had called to Time’s own boyhood sorrow. Time couldn’t dwell on his feelings, though. He already had eight other boys to watch over, not to mention a wife waiting patiently for his return, and he’d lived long enough to learn he could never heal all the hurts in all the worlds across time. So, he’d passed the boy by.

Time drew near the pair. “Wild,” he called out sternly. Wild jumped, then turned and met Time’s disapproving eye. The young man’s goofy grin disappeared. He slowly handed the fish to the boy next to him, keeping unwavering eye contact with Time all the while.

“It’s time to go,” Time told him.

Wild’s eyes narrowed slightly. “In a moment,” he replied, expression unreadable. Wild turned back to the boy. He tapped at his Sheikah slate to produce a small, wooden boomerang and several gleaming gold rupees. Wild crouched down and whispered in the boy’s ear, then pressed the boomerang to his tiny chest and the rupees into his hand. A twinge of emotion wavered in Time’s own chest. The boy giggled, curled his fingers around the rupees, and took off running.

Wild turned back to Time, nodded once, and fell into perfect step beside him as they started back around the pond toward the others.

Time put aside his sentimentality and fixed his good eye on Wild. “What were you doing?” he asked.

“Fishing?” Wild answered.

‘With explosions?’ was Time’s immediate thought, though he didn’t let his amused bewilderment bleed onto his face. If he hadn’t been in the middle of lecturing the young man, he would have asked for a demonstration. He loved fishing. And explosions. The combination sounded exciting. But for now, he had to be the responsible one.

Wild stared straight ahead at the approaching houses and didn’t offer more explanation.

Time spoke into the silence. “Look, you can’t just run off on your own,” he chided. “We have something important to do. We don’t have the luxury of tarrying here.”

Wild didn’t turn to look at him. He didn’t break his step. But Time could sense Wild’s posture stiffen at his words, ever so slightly.

“Don‘t you ever take a break?” Wild asked so quietly that Time could barely make the words out.

“What?”

“To stop and help someone? Or do something fun?” Wild said, louder now.

Time caught a sharp edge to Wild’s words. He must’ve hit on something churning in Wild’s mind...

And to answer the question, Time thought silently, yes. He adored breaks, and he’d admittedly taken many detours on his early adventures. Fond memories of lazy days spent catching fish and teaching a chorus of frogs to sing rose in his mind. But that was different. He’d had time then, whether it was a blessing or a curse.

“You could have at least told one of us where you were going. We were worried, Wild.”

Time’s words had barely left his mouth before he realized he’d said nothing of Wild’s question. The kid asks something serious and I scold him, what lousy leadership, he thought as regret rose in his throat. Falling back on his old question-dodging ways was too easy without Malon there to challenge him. He could almost hear her lilting voice in his head: ‘Did you ever stop to think why he might be asking the question? C’mon, think Fairy Boy,’ she pressed him. Goddesses, he missed her.

Wild blinked in plain confusion at Time’s scolding. Time felt even worse. Had Wild truly never even considered checking in with someone so they wouldn’t worry? How much time had this kid spent alone?

Time knew enough to hold his questions for another time. He’d already made a mess of their conversation. Wild was clearly upset. Time wouldn’t pry.

The two heroes walked back toward the others in fractured silence. ----------------------------- Author’s Note: thanks as always to @clumsydarknut for beta-reading. Go check out his stuff. No really, go check it out.

[myssamyss]

Everything Stays, Part 2 of 6

Featuring the first two panels of “The Bet” by Jojo.  Part 2: ...It’ll Cause You to Drown Link rode into the heart of Lon Lon Ranch with a single-minded purpose: his visits needed to end.

He dismounted and fought against the comforting familiarity that rose to meet him as he approached the ranch house. Even this small stretch of yard held sweet memories. Once, in a fit of playful frustration, Malon had upturned an entire jug of milk over his head in this very spot, laughing melodiously all the while. They’d both gotten in trouble with her father at the time. Now, he smiled to recall the refreshing shock.

If he stepped just a little further onto the grounds to the main corral, he’d come upon an older memory. His favorite memory of her, but one that only he knew:

“I can’t believe it, but peace is returning to this ranch! It’s all because of you! I owe you so much! Thank you! Thank you, Link!”

He clung to that memory like a candle in darkness after returning to his childhood, for though he’d been forced to reforge many friendships, rebuilding Malon’s trust had frustrated him the most. At first, he hadn’t thought much of that frustration. The memory of their first meeting burned brightly in his mind: she’d been the only child in a sea of strange adults filling a strange town, back when he was fresh out of the Kokiri forest and utterly overwhelmed. But she seemed safe, so he was drawn to her like a moth to a vivid red flame. Years later, she’d somehow remembered him after he emerged from the Temple of Time. Losing such a meaningful history with any friend was bound to be frustrating, or so he’d justified. But then their relationship grew beyond what had been lost, and he found himself thinking of her constantly. He hadn’t realized until too late–she'd become his haven.

The weight of his feelings for her hadn’t struck him until his last visit, when she confessed to thinking of him often, too, before delicately pressing her lips to his cheek. Her kiss blindsided him with happiness. But that euphoria lasted only until he was back in the saddle and leaving the ranch. Once he was out on the open road, he’d finally been able to think. He’d been so caught up in joy that he’d almost forgotten his most painful lesson in trusting others; he knew what inevitably happened to the people he placed his comfort in...

Link sighed loudly to shake away his thoughts, turned to the ranch house, and forced his hand to knock at the familiar wooden door.

Just say what needs saying. Then leave, he coached himself as he waited at the threshold. He could even leave the message with her father. She was usually out with the horses at this time of day, so he could just speak with Talon and leave her undistracted. But the stifling heat must have interrupted her daily schedule, because when the door flew open, he found himself face-to-face with Malon.

“Link!” she exclaimed. Her eyes shone with excitement and her lips–the same soft lips he now felt in his dreams–broke into a huge smile. Distracted, he couldn’t get a single word out before she pulled him into an exuberant hug, trapping his arms by his side and scattering his thoughts completely.

“I’ve missed you, fairy boy! Looking for some more work?” she asked. He smiled at the nickname. He’d grown taller than ever before, yet she still teased him as she had when he was a boy.

“You picked a heckuva day to do some farm chores,” she warned him with a teasing smile. She pulled the back of her hand across her glistening brow.

He focused on fixing this memory of her in his mind: her blue eyes full of laughter, one hand still clutching his arm, her vibrant hair framing her flushed face.  If he walked away now, he could remember her this way, always.

He took a deep breath.

“I actually... came to say goodbye,” he told her. “For awhile, at least.”

Malon’s expression turned wooden. “What do you mean…?” she asked.

“I probably won’t be back for a long time,” he told her, staring at the yellow kerchief draped over her shoulder so he wouldn’t have to meet her eyes.

If she was upset, she hid it well, and Link silently thanked the goddesses for Malon’s gracious spirit.

“Where will you stay tonight?” she asked, her voice becoming surprisingly cheery. “Won’t you stay with us, just for one night? The spare room is made up already, you can sleep warm and cozy there.”

She peered up at him and he nearly drowned in her blue eyes, brimming with hope beneath deep lashes. Link didn’t know how to refuse.

“Fine,” he agreed.

One night. In the morning, he’d say goodbye.

***

Wild carefully nocked three arrows onto his bow. He glanced down from the low cliff he stood atop to mark his makeshift leaf targets knifed to a tree nearly fifty meters away, then he leapt from the cliff and drew back the bowstring in a single fluid motion.

He exhaled steadily as he fell, seeking the familiar state of perfect concentration when the wind in his ears would quiet and the world would stand still.

Instead, the wind roared and the world blurred around him. He felt a surprising twinge of pain as he let his arrows fly, before rapidly stowing his bow and switching his hands to grab the handles of his glider in well-practiced coordination. His left forearm stung. As he floated back down to the ground, Zelda’s voice echoed in his mind:

“May I ask, do you really remember me?”

A second voice followed. Warriors, this time, from the night before:

“...and a guy like him? He’s well collected, acts like he’s always on duty.”

Wild’s feet touched down in soft grass and he stowed his glider, glancing at his forearm which sported a red, angry welt where the bowstring had whipped across it. He hadn’t made that mistake since the Great Plateau—and even then, the muscle memory of pulling a bow had quickly cured him of the habit. It was amazing how much his subconscious remembered; if only his consciousness could have followed suit.

He marched to the target-tree. Two of the arrows had at least met the trunk, though the third was nowhere to be seen. He peered into the forest and tried to catch a glimpse of the fletching amid the dull green grass.

Footsteps crunched from behind him.

“You missed?” Legend called out incredulously as he emerged from deeper in the forest. The man’s red tunic stood out against the dark greens surrounding them, though the contrast was less striking than usual. Wild realized with a slight start that the light in the forest was waning.

Legend stared at the targets. “We may have to revoke your ‘Greatest Archer of All Link-Kind’ title,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m surprised you’re still out here, I thought you were heading back early to cook.”

Wild sighed and said nothing. Legend took the hint.

The soft clink of armor and the nearly imperceptible pad of a second pair of footsteps against the forest floor met Wild’s ears. He turned to see Time and Twilight making their way through the underbrush from the direction of camp. Twilight smiled and raised a gauntlet-covered hand in a casual wave as he approached. Wild managed to twitch the side of his mouth into a half smile for his friend, but the slight darkening of Twilight’s expression told him that he hadn’t been very convincing.

“We’re heading out next, thought we’d come find you two since, uh...” Twilight trailed off.

“We weren’t sure if you were still cooking,” Time picked up smoothly, turning to Wild, “or if you wanted someone else to? If you need more time training, any of us can step in, the job doesn’t always have to fall to you.”

Wild dropped his gaze and nodded. “I’m fine. Let me grab my arrows, I’m done,” he replied flatly. He turned and started off in the direction of his lost arrow, acutely aware of the telling silence from the other heroes behind him. Did they really find it so strange that he’d lost track of time?

After a quiet moment, he heard the distinctive steps of the mentor-and-student pair as they walked deeper into the woods. Wild crouched among the forest foliage and tried to find a piece of broken grass or skid-scored dirt that might announce his arrow’s path, but the day’s light was failing fast. Besides, he reasoned, he had hundreds of arrows in his Sheikah slate, what point was there in collecting this one? He straightened up, dismayed, and turned to find Legend waiting for him.

“No luck, huh?” he asked Wild, raising his eyebrows in a rare show of genuine concern.

Wild shook his head and strode to where Legend stood, then they started back toward camp together. The only sounds between them were the quiet jostling of gear and the swishing of Legend’s tunic.

“Hey, Legend,” Wild said softly as he pushed aside a low-hanging branch. “Thank you. For what you said last night.”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, anytime.” Legend shrugged. “I was getting damn sick of it too. Plus, I have a feeling that I’ll win this bet.” He smirked.

Wild wasn’t so sure, but he gave Legend an amused smile in return. He wasn’t necessarily sick of the Wife Debate. But the conversation at camp last night had stirred a deep realization inside of him, leaving him unsettled.

Ever since the heroes had learned of Time’s mysterious wife, they had taken to swapping theories about her identity each time the Old Man left camp. Everyone was curious. Well, everyone except Twilight, who likely knew more than he let on, and Legend, who had kept uncharacteristically quiet during the discussions, until last night:

“My money’s still on Zelda,” Warriors reiterated. To no one’s surprise, Sky nodded his hearty agreement.

Legend stood up suddenly and joined the banter for the first time. “You think he’s married to Zelda?” he asked Warriors, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“He speaks so highly of her,” Warriors explained, “and a guy like him? He’s well collected, acts like he’s always on duty. It’s got to be the princess herself.”

The pair had bickered lightly until Legend finally ended the discussion by throwing down a bet. Still, Warriors’ words had already stuck in Wild’s mind like a splinter he just couldn’t pick out. They poked at his conscience, and he found himself running over the words again and again long into the night, becoming increasingly frustrated. Because Warriors’ reasoning about Time was sound; the older man never quite seemed at ease. Was that the price to pay for winning the princess? Though, Legend apparently disagreed...

Wild glanced at the other Link walking beside him. He hadn’t realized it before, but he and Legend had something in common: the ability to listen and see. So maybe he’s right, Wild considered. Legend did a great job of feigning indifference behind fast words, but his actions betrayed his insight. Like now, as they walked through the forest, sharing the comfortable understanding that nothing more needed saying.

Later that evening, Wild sat beside their campfire and halved mushrooms with a short paring knife while his mind still spun. After last night’s talk of partners and princesses, couldn’t help but replay that final evening with his Princess Zelda–the night he’d been whisked away. He’d returned from his upsetting encounter with the orphan in the swamp, but said nothing about it to Zelda. Instead, he sat beside the fire and listened. Zelda spoke ceaselessly of Zora’s Domain which lay ahead, her eagerness to meet with Prince Sidon after so much time, and her relief to be traveling Hyrule once more. Wild had been quiet. She was so captivating, and passionate, and he couldn’t bear to break her excitement.

Deeper, unspoken words still hung between them, but Wild had always struggled to voice the unsaid. In honesty, he wasn’t sure what she needed from him. With only a few scraps of memories to work from, he didn’t dare hazard a guess at her deeper thoughts. Still, he’d seen enough in his memories to guess at what she expected of him, and he fell easily back into a half-remembered regimen of simply listening and doing his job.

He’d gotten up to stoke their campfire when the scenery around him shifted abruptly and he found himself standing barefoot in an entirely different Hyrule with no way back, despite how desperately he tried to return to her. So, he kept moving forward. He’d done a fair enough job of keeping her out of his mind, at least until the Wife Debate began.

A rustling noise rose behind Wild. He automatically turned away from their brightly lit camp to peer out into the forest, but his eyes couldn’t see much in the darkness. He turned back to the stew pot and continued slicing, unbothered. The woods were teeming with wildlife, plus he trusted in Wind and Hyrule’s ability to keep their watch. And even if enemies lurked out in the forest, Wild had probably fought worse.

But what about his Zelda, alone and a world away? He tried not to worry. After all, she was clever and resourceful, and the monsters across their Hyrule had lost some ferocity since Calamity Ganon’s defeat. Not to mention she proved a quick study with a sword. She slew her first bokoblin with a scimitar near the Hylia River in a flashing gleam of steel and ruby. He suspected that she’d been secretly practicing long before he began teaching her. Wild had full confidence in her abilities.

The matter of her safety aside, half of his heart still ached to return to her, and to their journey across Hyrule. His own Hyrule, the one he had worked so hard to rescue. Yet as he journeyed instead with the heroes of ages past, he began to realize something else, too: he felt happier here, adventuring, than he’d ever felt back home. His heart was conflicted. He knew what he should want–but he was altogether sick of ‘shoulds’. He’d had enough of duty for duty’s sake. Sure makes things easier though, he reflected. A duty was clear, while his own desires were proving fickle.

Wild shook his head and threw the heaping pile of mushrooms into the boiling pot, then he thumbed the painful welt on his forearm. Stewing over stew, he mused to himself with a quiet chuckle. At least some things never change. ___________ Author’s Note: thanks as always to @clumsydarknut for beta-reading. 

[myssamyss]

Everything Stays, Part 1 of 6

Summary: Wild struggles to find a balance between duty and freedom after Calamity Ganon’s defeat. His unexpected departure into the Linked Universe forces him to examine his relationship with Zelda.  Millennia prior, Malon and a stubborn Time stumble toward a budding love in the years since his return from Termina.  A string of fate connects the pairs across time and destiny... Based on the Linked Universe

Part 1: The Moon Controls the Tide... 

Link and Zelda stood at a fork in the road. The sound of croaking frogs rose from the nearby wetlands and the setting sun cast long shadows across the grass. Link took a surefooted step toward the left-hand path.

“North?” Zelda questioned. “Why north? The quickest route to Zora’s Domain is through Lanayru Wetlands, not around them. We’ll cut through Goponga.”

Link opened his mouth, then shut it again. He nodded and changed direction, heading right.

“What is it?” she asked, noticing his hesitation.

He glanced down the winding path that disappeared into swamp weeds. “We’ll get wet,” he said simply.

“Oh,” she murmured with soft realization. There may have once been a bridge or proper road cutting through the smattering of islands, and someone had at least tried to keep the swampy route passable by lashing together logs to make a rudimentary walkway, but many sections were now sunken beneath water and muck. It was crossable, and Link wouldn’t have thought twice about taking the path through the ruins a few months ago. But he’d been on his own then. Now he was once again the princess’s escort. And, if he were honest, he didn’t know her well enough to assume she’d be comfortable splashing through a bog.

Zelda shrugged. “We have one hundred years of absence to make up for. If through the swamp is the quickest route, then through the swamp we’ll go. I’ve had enough of convention, and of wasted time.” She punctuated the end of her sentence with a formal nod, but then she froze theatrically before breaking into a wry grin.

She suddenly leapt off the path and into the reeds with a great splash, spraying mud in a wide circle. Her hair streamed behind her in a golden arc as she swung her head back around to share a gleeful smile. Link couldn’t help but laugh. He was learning that her actions could speak just as loudly as her words. Acquiescing, he bowed his head, strode into the lead, and the two began trekking into the swamp.

They pitched camp in the wetland ruins later that evening and set their boots to dry near the crackling fire. Then, a barefooted Link left to fish and catch frogs in the waning light. Darkness had fallen and the moon shone as he made his way back to their camp. He noticed a light coming toward him along the muddy path, reflecting off the surrounding water. Likely a traveler, yet Link raised his guard.

Someone carried a lantern, though it hung far too close to the ground. As Link drew near, he realized why: the light was clutched in the hand of a small boy. His clothes were filthy and he carried a large pack stuffed to the seams. Link splashed loudly as he approached to alert the boy to his presence in the darkness. The boy froze in fear.

“Hey, it’s alright!” Link called out to him. He stepped into the warm lantern light. “It’s ok, I’m a friend.”

The boy’s eyes were huge and sad, his face heavy with exhaustion and caked in grime. He looked up at Link with hesitant hope.

“Where are you headed?” Link asked him.

“Wetland Stable. Then Trilby Plain,” the boy told him.

“Family there?” Link asked.

The boy frowned and his eyes shone in the flickering light. “A cousin at the stable. And my brother Russ wrote about business in Trilby,” he said sadly. Link could guess why a grubby boy might be traveling across the wild country alone—he didn’t need to ask more. Though the boy’s words sparked a memory in Link’s mind.

“Russ?” he asked the boy. “He doesn’t sell shields, does he?” Link gave a half-smile as he recalled a sandy-haired salesman and the joy of shieldsurfing down a hillside.

The boy nodded. “He does! Ma and dad said it was a waste of time. Before...” the boy’s voice broke and he trailed off.

Link stared down at the lonely boy. If he were honest, he wanted nothing more than to accompany this boy on his journey. Not only for the boy’s protection (though that was certainly a reason, Link worried about anyone walking past nightfall), but because he wouldn’t mind a shieldsurfing detour, nor the warm beds and cheerful music of Wetland Stable. Had he met this boy months ago, he would have eagerly gone along for a short side trip. But now he was in the midst of a pressing mission that couldn’t be bookmarked. Zelda was determined to reach Zora’s Domain as soon as possible.

She’d already held back the darkness for one hundred years while desperately waiting for her chosen knight, and now she held grand dreams for their ruined kingdom, grander than any he could imagine. Who was he, to act like an errant adventurer instead of the steadfast friend she needed? He wasn’t alone anymore, he reminded himself, so he couldn’t just run off and help each needy person they stumbled upon. Zelda’s noble hopes for all of Hyrule were worth that small sacrifice.

Still, he could offer the boy a warm place to sleep. “We have a camp, me and my traveling companion,” Wild told the boy while pointing over his small shoulder. “Off that way. You’re welcome to rest for the night.”

The boy shook his head. “Our home is lying empty, there’s too many things to carry. I need to tell my family before we lose everything to monsters. But thanks,” he told Link. The boy started walking down the path again.

Link put a hand to the boy’s arm. “What about rupees? A weapon?” he offered, but the boy simply shrugged him off, shook his small head once more, and continued walking.

“The night is dangerous,” Link called after him.

“I know,” the boy called back, with a tone far too dark for his years.

Link stood for a conflicted minute and watched the bobbing lantern disappear down the path in the direction of Hyrule Field. Then, he returned to his princess.

***

Countless years before, another conflicted young hero rode his horse across an unseasonably warm Hyrule Field. This Link was clad in a green tunic, with a large, two-handed sword and a colorful steel shield at his back, secured by a leather strap that crossed his broad chest. The sun beat down on him and scorched the shield, which radiated scalding heat. He considered reaching into his saddle bag for his ocarina to call a storm. Rain would be a better fit for his mood anyway, he thought to himself. He only deliberated for a moment, before changing his mind. He hadn’t played the ocarina in a long time.

He finally caught sight of the ranch glimmering in the distance, nestled softly between grassy hills. His visits there had grown in frequency through recent years. When odd jobs ended and he hit the road once more, he’d find himself absentmindedly turning the familiar bend in the dirt road that led back to the ranch. And as much as he wanted to blame Epona, he had enough self-awareness to know why he kept coming back: the ranch was the closest thing he had to a home. But that was precisely the problem, as homes were made for leaving. At least, his homes were. How many times had he felt the sharp wound of a lost place, or worse, a lost friend? Most days he could travel on and on with an easy joy, but every now and again he felt a dull ache from his pockmarked heart, reminding him of the bitter losses he’d suffered at such a young age.

Bitter losses that she should never have to taste, he thought to himself as a beautiful vision of a redheaded farm girl rose in his mind. He was determined to return to the ranch once more and say goodbye—a word that had too often gone unsaid with his own losses. Then, to spare them both, he would move on. You’ve already grown too close to her, he chastised, remembering the soft wisp of an unexpected kiss she’d pressed to his cheek the last time he’d visited. Too close indeed.

He rode on, sweat slipping down his back in the heat as he braced himself for the difficult conversation that lay ahead.  

__________ Author’s Note: special thanks to @clumsydarknut for being the best beta reader a writer could ask for. Go check out his stuff, you won’t regret it. 

[myssamyss]

Archive: Aftershocks

Master post with links to each part: 

Part 1

Part 2

Summary:  An earthquake stirs up difficult memories of Sky’s fears and foes. Zelda (Sun) comforts him. 

[myssamyss]

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