Linked universe & Guide!Reader: Hold my light, gently
conversations and the guide getting caught up to speed
Characters (who speak): Like all of the chain, reader
AU: Linked Universe + Guide!reader insert
Tags: humor, fluff, hurt/comfort, Wild-centric
Words: 1,099
Masterpost!
It’s Wind who decides to pick them up, this time, shooing away larger, more scarred hands to delicately cup their former guide between his fingers. He carefully avoids the one crumpled wing, and lets them curl up into a half-ball against the creases of his palm, his brown eyes large even against their fuzzy light
The little thing hums at the motion, a short tune that rings familiar in Wild’s ears and makes them prick up on instinct.
Surya still has a fairly shocked expression, behind their light which had temporarily dimmed in their surprise. They look up at him with hopeful curiosity, and then at them, large eyes landing on their clothes and soaking in the sight of their faces after so long.
“How-“ They start, and Wild shivers at the melodic sound of their voice. A sound he had dreamed of and dearly missed, ever since they had left, not of their own volition. A sound akin to the softness of petals and rich like being nestled beside a warm campfire . “How are you all here?” Their sentence quivers at its end, and Wild feels a foreign sort of heart-break hearing it.
If the guide had known all of them... just how many goodbyes have they done?
He watches Wind brush the end of his thumb against their good wing in affection, a fleeting sort of comfort, and it flutters lightly in response.
Their neck curves up as Surya smiles up at him, eyes teary.
“…It’s another quest.” Legend answers, something so tired and weathered that Surya snaps their head over. “So I guess it makes sense, that you’re here.”
“But-“
“So late, though?” Warriors wonders out loud. And he’s right. Ever since they had met up, they had been stuck in Wild’s era without direction for weeks, travelling and camping and fighting together. So why only now?
Did the Goddess, or whoever was leading them around think they needed them that badly? Wild is unsure whether to feel offended or grateful.
Sometimes, when he truly lingers, he remembers cold, iridescent blue liquid retreating from his skin, and opening his sticky eyes to a little face looking down at him with thinly disguised curiosity and excitement. Little feather-thin fingers tickling the apple of his cheek, and pattering like droplets against the bridge of his nose and along his hairline.
He had almost shit himself.
Surya had been there from the start. From the very, early beginning. Delighted at the sight of him awake, even in the dark of his tomb. Wild’s eyes following their path in the air with an innocent, undisguised wonderment.
Nowadays, he has become much more jaded. But he fights to keep that wonder, that curiosity - the way Surya would.
For the longest time, he had wondered if Surya died too - they learned a lot about Hyrule, together. But interestingly, Wild had never seen Surya in the memories he had to regain. Not once.
Wind jolts up straight, and the passenger in his hands clutches tighter at the fence of his fingers with a squeak. “Were you fighting? Is that why you were injured when you came out of the portal?!”
“What-! No!”
He slumps a bit. “Oh. I’ve got nothing then.”
Hyrule steps forward, hands raised up. “Do you want me to heal your wing? It looks painful.”
They send him a grateful look over Wind’s curled fingers. “Would you? Thank you so much.”
Hyrule’s ears redden behind the locks framing his face, taken-aback. Wild feels happy for him.
He had noted before, Surya's odd way of speaking. In an accent he had never heard before, but perhaps that was common with fairies. How they had exaggerated every thank you, never held back in praises and found even the most littlest of things extraordinary. Even their odd swear words.
Wind offers his hands out and in an instant, Hyrule’s glowing hands are hovering over Surya’s crumpled wing, blue healing magic drifting from his hands and curling into the air like steam. Creases in the wing straighten out and vanish, and Wild can finally see the linear, branching patterns on the thin organ clearly enough that they glimmer in the thin afternoon light. It had always been an odd pattern to him in the past, and he likens it to the faint puzzle-piece patterns he sees in the Sheikah Slate screen from time to time.
Their guide hums soothingly under their breath, and they all slump over in unison. Even Time, who drops an inch or two in height.
Twilight starts giggling under his breath, and chokes when Wars elbows him right in the side.
“What’s this quest about then?” Surya asks after a brief silence, and twitches as their wing snaps into place. Ouch - that looked painful. “Do we have to beat Ganon again?”
And that’s a thought. How many times has Surya helped them beat Ganon? If they have been around for all of their adventures, then surely they have helped beat Ganon more than the veteran had.
That’s… terrible.
Even he barely could handle facing Ganon twice. And Surya is a little fairy. Did Surya have any choice in this?
They traded looks over their head, and the guide followed the motion with furrowed brows, as confused as they have ever seen them. Seeing them so disoriented after so long of them knowing exactly what to do in every situation was… disconcerting. It didn’t lend well to what they were doing there.
“Monsters have been getting stronger, and smarter.” Time starts, “Once killed, we can see that their blood is as black as tar. But that is all that we have.”
“There were already signs of them before we met.” Four added quietly. “They had been hunting down travellers in our eras, most of whom had barely managed to escape with their lives. That’s how it started.”
“So you guys have been hunting them down?”
“Anytime they appear, yes.”
“Oh okay.” Surya brings their arms up to cross them, resting them on the tips of Wind’s fingers. A thumb comes to rest between their teeth. “And you’ve got samples?”
Wild stared. “Of what?”
“The blood!”
“Why… would we do that?”
“I thought we were trying to figure out what was up with the monsters?”
Time had his hands out in front of him, trying to understand. “Yes, yes. But how would that help?”
“Well, maybe you can hand it over to Purah or Kilton and see what they find?” They suggest brightly, smiling at their non-understanding faces. “For one of your Zeldas, perhaps?”
Drawing and practicing color theory when I should be doing math homework!? I would never! I mean seriously who would ever skip out on their GEOMETRY work?—
