Weather Vane
A Linked Universe story, featuring Legend and Sky.
Ao3 Link
Summary: "When you go out, say hello to the weather vane. Only those who do are safe" In Sky's opinion, this is a very bold statement. A statement he is sure won't bring him or his brothers down. After all, actions speak louder than words...right?
It was a quiet morning, in Sky's opinion. A morning that he should have slept through.
Late last night, the heroes discovered a portal and decided to go through it. It probably wasn't the smartest thing they'd ever done, but the weather was lousy, they were in an awful region and even his patience was starting to unravel.
Their recklessness was rewarded though, kicking the group out among the bees and apples. The veteran's house was at their back and without much hesitation the owner took his key and unlocked the door.
It was a pleasant and quiet morning and yet something was wrong. He couldn't hear the birds outside yet, even though the windows were open, but the dawn was already shining into the large room, elegantly beginning to spread across the sky. He is awake, earlier than anyone else. Something very unusual.
Even back then at the academy, not a week went by without him waking up way too late at least twice. Most days he didn't even have time to have breakfast before class.
Sky was awake and looked around. His brothers were lying around him on various pieces of furniture. First he caught sight of Smithy. Even though he was the smallest of them all, he couldn't forget what it felt like to have his smallest brother with him at night. Before he continued to check on the others, he pulled the blacksmith's blanket up higher and made sure everything disappeared under it so he wouldn't get cold in Sky's absence.
He already knew he wouldn't be able to sleep again soon.
Opposite them was the captain, who had made himself comfortable in an armchair. His legs were hanging over the backrest, but he didn't seem to mind too much.
Next he spotted the rancher and the cook. Both close to each other and no doubt they would stay that way. At least until the cook wakes up. He always likes to have food ready when the first people are awake. Nice of him, but Sky thinks he should sleep in too.
Next to last were Time and Wind. Time was half-sitting half-lying on the couch, while the Sailor was leaning his back against his leg.
As Sky sat up and stretched, stifling a yawn, he looked at the Collector's bed and saw the Wanderer lying in it all alone. The blanket, which is normally always shaken off at night, lay over him completely and carefully. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't hide his gentle smile. Looking out of the window, he caught sight of his brother, who was probably the most withdrawn of them all. Sky wondered whether he was doing this because of a complete lack of interest in the others or whether there were deeper reasons. Reasons that not even his younger brother himself knew.
He picked up the gift from Zelda that he always carried with him and placed it carefully over his shoulders, wrapping himself in it. With a new goal set, he went to the door.
Before he pushed down the door handle, he gave the room another look. When he saw Hyrule, however, he was able to rule out a few of the reasons and left the house with a gentle disposition to join his brother.
There was a bird statue next to the house. When they went in the previous night, Sky gave it a little smile and instinctively called out to his other soul half. It didn't answer him, but it still gave him a sense of peace. Yesterday the statue had been asleep, but now it was awake with the light rays of the sun, moving gently in the wind.
Legend sat cross-legged in front of it, one arm braced on his knee with his face in his hand, the other resting simply on his leg. His eyes were closed and Sky couldn't make out his expression, but he realised that he probably shouldn't disturb him. If you took his body posture away, it seemed like he was...
"Have you grown roots yet?" Legend asked him without turning his head, but he was now looking into lilac eyes. Sky laughed softly and waved slightly, "I didn't want to disturb you, just seeing if you wanted company," after looking at the Hamonic image in front of him again, he continued, "but I think I'm just disturbing you."
Legend narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at him searchingly, "You can stay here if you want." And with a shrug, he added "don't feel forced". Sky paused for a moment, did Legend just want to be alone or did he want someone with him? The veteran always kept his feelings close to himself, Sky sometimes found it difficult to decipher him.
He mentally shrugged his shoulders and sat down next to him. If Legend didn't want something, he would say so.
They sat quietly for a while, Legend in thought and he himself trying to shake off his morning fatigue. He only half succeeded.
"Sky?" asked a quiet and not entirely clear voice next to him. He hummed to show him that he was listening. "How... how important is Hylia to you?" he asked. His voice betrayed disinterest, but Sky knew him better. He asked hesitantly, but why? He turned his head towards him. Behind his eyes, a great storm was preparing. A storm that would become a breeze if Sky had a say in it.
"She's my goddess," he replied without really thinking, "and kind of my girlfriend, I guess. Both things that were true, but most days he preferred to ignore the fact that his girlfriend seemed a little more than human. "She is a gentle but determined person and led my home to heaven to protect us" after a short pause he exhaled, "I am grateful to her for what she has given us and know that she has given us life. But sometimes I wish things had turned out differently. He certainly won't go down that line of thought now.
This was about Legend, not himself.
Legend gave a small sigh and mumbled an "understand". Sky looked at him, his hand playing with the grass on his legs, his hair not moving on this windless morning, and moved a little closer to him. "That wasn't what you were looking for, was it?"
Sky and Legend were close. Closer than a couple of their brothers, but not as close as they could be. It reminded him of one of his friends back in his time. He didn't have red hair, but the pink streak was similar enough. It wasn't difficult for Sky to take Legend gently in his arms and stop the world for a moment so that he could rest. If only he would allow it.
"Hylia..." the veteran began to say carefully, as if he might hurt Sky with his next words. "I didn't even know who Hylia was before we met," he continued digressively. "We use the word Hylia to address the majority of people here, but never as a goddess."
Sky knew that in different times, gods and saints were viewed differently to his. He himself knew nothing of the three golden goddesses until Time and Wind told him about them. In Legend's case, however, he didn't have a holy person he could look up to and beg for a blessing. At least none that he knew of.
"Do you have a holy person here?" Sky asked with curiosity. Legend turned his head and dropped slightly to the side so he could look at him more easily and answered. "Remnants of a religion that hasn't fully established itself in Hyrule. The church is part of it." Sky didn't know what a church was, but if it meant anything to Legend, he'd like to know more about it.
"So do you have someone? Or more than one?" he continued to ask, a slight hope spreading through Sky for whatever reason.
Legend sighed and looked at the statue again. "In theory? But the faith is not really practised here. However, Hyrule has told of the same faith, so I think it has become more important over time." Sky nodded and turned his attention to the bird statue in front of him.
"No, my Hyrule has no gods, but we do have fables and, well, legends," he grinned and then sighed.
He himself listened tensely as the first winds ran through his hair and the wooden bird moved more strongly in the breeze.
"And her?" Sky asked, pointing at the statue of the bird. Legend looked at him in confusion for a second and chuckled lightly. "Well, he-" and Sky chuckled, slightly ashamed "-is... well, we all don't really know."
Legend pointed upwards to the statue with an open hand. "We call these statues 'Weather Vane'. They represent a friend of the Great Fairy Venus." Now he pointed with his hand behind them into the distance. There he could see a huge house, with...part of it moving?
"Where the big house is, the 'House of Gale', the Great Fairy once lived, but she asked the princess if they could have a House built there so that an old friend could find her." he heard Legend sigh again. Not far from them, the bushes and trees began to rustle as the first animals left their homes and went in search of food. "At least that's what Venus told me in private," he pointed to the bird again with an open hand, "those statues were there before, and they say you should greet them in the morning for a safe day."
As Sky turned his gaze away from the house in the distance, he saw Legend, whose head was now resting on his legs, looking ahead with heavy eyes. Oh, had Sky crossed a line? He hoped not.
Before Sky could apologise for his words, his brother gave a wet huff. "God, why am I even telling you this, you didn't ask for any of it," he muttered, and Sky was sure he shouldn't have heard that.
The winds seemed to wake him up completely now, as he noticed how the veteran's hands were slightly cramped, as if he was trying to grab something but wouldn't let himself. The look in his eyes promised anything but calm and what made a Link so strong. Sitting in front of him was not a strong warrior who could strike down opponents without hesitation, but a young person who had already seen far too much of the world. A world that did not want the best for him.
Sky had always been the youngest in the academy, so he had no real experience with younger people and what they needed, but he had been travelling with his new group for some time. He was no longer the youngest and he had a bit of practice now.
He took his cloak from his shoulders and laid it meekly over Legend's own. The latter looked at him in confusion, but pulled the cloak further around his shoulders.
Sky gave him a gentle smile and hung his head a little. "If you don't want to, you don't have to tell me anything. However, I'm here for you" Sky's smile turned sheepish, "even if I don't understand everything".
Legend looked at him with wide eyes as his hands reached deep into the fabric of the cloth. A moment passed between them without either of them saying anything. Then two moments, then three. Until Legend dropped his head on his knee with a little too much momentum for Sky's liking and picked himself up completely.
"It's nothing big," he snorted, looking everywhere but Sky. Okay then…this wasn’t sad but whatever this was, it wasn't Sky's plan either.
"These statues are all over Hyrule and Lorule-" Whatever is Lorule ? "-, maybe I destroyed it in Kakariko once and got told off for it, whatever." Legend fizzled out quickly, kicking the earth back and forth in front of him.
Well, he wasn't sad anymore, but now he seemed pretty annoyed. Legend waved his hands back and forth, pointing his finger at the statue in front of them. "Since whenever anyone has seen me praying to him, I've been told off and told that he won't save my day. Whatever!" he huffed and crossed his arms.
"It's not like he's really protecting you!"
Sky paused for a moment and took a good look at the bird statue. The stone block on which it was sitting was covered with some grass and moss, but only what could grow in a few months. The bird didn't look too old either, as if it had been repainted this year. Overall, it didn't look shabby at all. You could see the signs of the years, but you can't prevent that.
The boy next to him didn't stop talking, or rather didn’t stop complaining.
Oh Legend...What would Sky do just to be able to give him a hug? However, he knows very well that this would not be well received.
"I think," Sky began as Legend got a little more settled. His brother stopped talking immediately. "You shouldn't believe everything people tell you".
However, he now looked at Sky in confusion, "Yes, obviously. There are far too many liars and thieves in the world," he said as if this was a fact that everyone should know. And yes, everyone should know this, but not everyone is old enough to understand it properly. Maybe he should...
"Even friends and family don't always tell you the truth, for a variety of reasons," Sky formulated with carefully chosen words. He didn't need to make Legend think that one of them was lying to him.
"What's your point here?" Legend questioned, pulling the cloth closer to him again, as if it could give him the comfort Sky wanted to give him. At least part of him could do that now.
He thought for a moment, considered his sentences which were spoken from the heart but not with complete logic and came to a conclusion.
He exhaled dramatically and stretched his arms above his head in a stretching position, "oh who knows," he then said in a voice far too loud that morning. A morning Sky would not soon forget, but a rosy morning he would not give away.
Now Legend looked at him with perplexity written all over his face and moved his hand slightly, as if he wanted to grab Sky's thoughts and read them himself. Not that he could, both their scripts were too different for that and the nuts they ate at the beginning of their journey couldn't translate writings for them.
"Yes, I hope you do! Why are you even awake yet?! Has the lack of sleep taken your brain cells?" Legend asked indignantly, but without any anger behind his words. Sky just laughed heartily and stood up.
He patted his clothes clean of the light dirt he got on his trousers while sitting and turned to Legend with a closed-mouth grin. "Maybe so, oh how can you wake me up so early?" he shrugged and turned to the door. He went to the it with a lighter heart, while Legend stammered behind him and continued to babble something about 'not awake and 'sleep'.
When he was inside again, he closed the door quietly behind him and looked up in surprise when he saw Twilight's blue eyes. The older man raised an eyebrow as if to ask what had happened. Sky just gave him a pure smile. They both knew he wasn't remotely innocent in this situation, but Twilight just rolled his eyes with one of his tired smiles and leaned back into Wild again. The latter slept through the whole interaction.
Legend wasn't completely wrong though, it was far too early for him to be awake. So he went back to his sleeping place next to Four and lay down next to him. Four grumbled slightly and turned to him. Sky was already lying down again and put one arm around Four's small figure.
Four turned his head up to look at Sky. His brown eyes were still completely hazy from sleep and Sky knew their smith could go back to sleep. So he stroked blond hair and 'shh'ed in the hope that sleep would pull him back down. Not 10 seconds passed and Four's breathing was slow and deep again.
Sky checked one last time that the blanket was properly over both of them and followed his companions into the land of dreams.
