The Chain WILL be giving child!Wild a stuffed animal, and nobody can stop me. Will he get a sand seal? Will he get a goat or a sheep? A blupee? Just a bear? We shall see.
He will also be balancing it on the other Links’ heads when they’re within reach, and walking it up onto them while they’re sitting or laying around, and offering it to them when he notices that they’re upset. And the Chain will also be doing this on Wild in “retaliation” aka because it’s so goddamn fluffy and cute and they’re his big brothers.
“Heehee, Zelda seal-ed the Calamity away!” Wild says between giggles while holding up his stuffed seal. (Even better if he says this TO a normal canon-aged Zelda (Link has amnesia x2 in the fic I’m writing this for btw)).
“He loves you beary much,” Twilight says, handling the teddy bear so that it’s giving Wild a hug.
Legend caught in a very grumpy mood, ready to go beat up a tree stump, when suddenly something soft and plushy taps his shoulder. He turns around and comes face-to-face with a stuffed goat. It has a little smile sewn on its face, staring back at him. When Legend looks down, Wild has a matching smile. He blinks between the two for a long minute, before finally awkwardly patting the stuffed goat on the head, and then ruffling Wild’s hair. “Thanks, kid,” he says low enough so the others won’t hear, even though he knows they could very well see them. He turns his face away from the other heroes so they can’t blackmail him with the uncontrollable fond smile upturning his lips.
Four having a raging headache, laying down with an arm over his forehead, when something fluffy lands on his head. He carefully moves his arm, so not to knock the item over, and Wild is leaning over him and staring sincerely. He whispers, “Sheepy wants to help.” Four’s just about melting with how adorable this is. He wraps his hand around the stuffed sheep and gently presses it to his forehead. It helps very minutely. Four thinks the gesture itself helps the most, settling his stomach with something warm. “Thank you, Wild and Sheepy.”
Wild waking up from a nightmare, and he’s been kicking in his sleep and it’s dark so he can’t find his stuffed bunny right away, and he’s genuinely about to cry, but Sky saves him and walks it over to Wild (clicking his tongue to make little clip-clip noises ofc) and has it press a kiss to his cheek before pressing it to his chest for Wild to fully snuggle. Wild pulls Sky into the hug. More comfort follows. Cuddle pile. Sky confessed that he gets nightmares, too. Wild, scrubbing away the remaining tear tracks from under his eyes, murmurs, “Me and Bunny can help you feel better next time.” Sky brushes a hand through Wild’s messy hair. “That would be very sweet of you, kiddie.”
Shout out to @ourevergreen for not wanting to murder me with my 1am questions. Thanks babe
Twilight was in a good slumber when Wild began to stir. Was it stirring? Wild was sure moving a lot. Sleepily, Twilight felt around for the child and felt his hand sit atop a small chest. Twilight patted it a few times to make sure it was a body and not some pillow. He was about to draw the child in when Wild let out a gasped shock which made Twilight snap wide awake. Peering down at the small boy, Twilight realized the grimaced look Wild sported.
Soon, the sleeping child began to convulse and choke on nothing but air. “Wild?”
Shaking the boy slightly, it did nothing more than to make Wild take in sharp gasps of air.
“Wild! Breathe!” Twilight became frantic. Wild was choking and he wasn’t waking up. “Wild!” He tried once more.
That finally got the child to snap his eyes open as he took in a big gulp of air. Wild could do nothing other than just sob and rub at his eyes. Twilight immediately took the small boy within his arms and hugged him close. The door was slammed open as the others all peered within. Twilight just looked up at them, slightly nodding his head to acknowledge their presence as he rubbed soothing circles on Wild’s back.
Wild just held on to Twilight as hiccuping sobs slipped from his mouth. His mind was reeling from the dream. His conscious was reassuring him that all is well and that he is okay. It was all just a dream. Logic began to supply that some parts were memories, but the rest was a dream. He didn’t believe himself. Dream, memory? It was a blur. He doesn’t even remember what the first part consisted of. Just blurred faces come to mind. All except for one. The soldier in his dream was what he vividly remembers. The cold hand, the venomous voice, the wrath on his face, and the way he spoke for the last time. It all sent another wave of sobs to wrack on the poor boy.
The arms around him were comforting him enough to make him realize that this was familiar, that everything around him was real. The comforting arms around him were warm and loving, not cold. The murmurs he heard were not malicious, rather, reassuring. His sobbing was reduced to hiccuping sobs and Wild heard the others.
“Wild, you are okay.” Twilight murmured in his ear.
“Is he okay?” Sky tentatively asked.
Wild just held on to Twilight even more. Pride aside, he didn’t want the others to see him in this state.
Twilight continued to make soothing circles on his back as his head was tucked under Twilight’s chin.
The others soon began to pour into the room, unsure on what to do.
Malon gently placed a hand on the small child’s back and softly spoke, “Wild, honey, did you have a nightmare?” A whimper with a small nod was all she got in response. “Let me take him, Twi. Come on, dear. Let’s go get you cleaned up and then we can go feed the animals. Would you like to do that?” Wild just rubbed his face against Twilight’s shoulder and slightly nodded after a few seconds of silence.
Peeking from the crook of Twilight’s neck, he saw eight concerned faces. He just rubbed his eyes as hiccupped sniffles shook his shoulders. He saw Malon’s gentle smile as she held out her hand for him to grasp, in which he took. Small fingers wrapped around her hand, or at least what they could, and teary baby blues looked at her with so much trust.
As she guided Wild out the room, the others soon came closer to Twilight. Concern all etched on their features as their eyes gave away their intentions. Twilight just looked at his arms. He didn’t want to let Wild go. He wanted to hold onto him a little while more, comfort him. Maybe it was for the best that Malon took him. It should get his mind off of whatever plagued him. Sighing, he finally met the gazes of the others.
“You all look at me as if I know exactly what happened.”
“We know you don’t, Twi. But to be awoken with such great alarm is not an ideal morning,” said Four.
“I don’t know. He was fine when we went to sleep, I swear! I was just feeling around him this morning, just to make sure he was okay and covered up. But I just started hearing him moving and then choking.” Twilight became a bit distraught.
“Choking?” questioned Sky. “Was it because of his own spit?”
Twilight shook his head. He closed his eyes and remembered how Wild began to convulse and gasp for air as if it were denied. “At first, it was just a grimace that he was sporting. Then after he just started to convulse and gasp for air when I was about to bring him close.”
Warriors laid a hand on his shoulder. “It could have been a nightmare. Maybe from the last event.”
“I think we all should tread lightly with him,” suggested Hyrule. “I am sure I speak for all of us, but I cannot bear to see him like this.”
“Which is why I do not want to see him fight against monsters and the like,” added Wind. “He could have an episode and freeze up or something. I won’t forgive whatever caused him to be like this.”
“Then it’s settled. The trip to the forest is in order as soon as we are done here with the ranch and had breakfast. Luckily, the trip to the forest is easy and safe.”
As everyone filtered out from the home, childish laughter caught all ears as every gaze went directed to the sound. Walking more into the ranch, the heroes came to the track where Malon was leaning against the fence, shouting words of encouragement to the little boy in green.
Upon closer inspection, everyone saw Wild running after the sheep, trying to herd them around the track. Whoops and hollers came from Wild as he laughed away in the morning sun, sheep bleating and running away from the crazy boy. The scared little boy from early this morning was no more. Just a little boy happy as can be, chasing sheep like no tomorrow. Malon gave one more cheer before she flashed a smile to the others, beckoning the others to join in cheering the boy on.
Wind itched to help the boy as he saw three sheep stray away from the track. And before he could stop himself, he went after the sheep as well. Wild became elated as he gave directions to Wind in herding the stray sheep. It was an endearing sight.
“You let the sheep out of the pen?”
Malon gave a big smile to her husband as she looked back to the boys running around. “I couldn’t see him in such a sad state, my dear. So I did what I could to liven up his spirits.”
Time couldn’t help but smile at the carefree attitude Wild had at the moment. It felt so right. An elbow to his side from his wife caught his attention.
“Careful, Mister Grumpy, your soft side is showing,” she giggled.
Time couldn’t help the smile from growing bigger. His mind reminded him of the others who were sneaking glances at him, smiles adorning their own features. “Don’t you guys have anything else to do? Like your chores?”
Rolling his eyes, Legend walked off, “Sure.”
Hyrule sent one last goofy smile to the couple before he ran off to join Legend for his chore. Soon, everyone began to disperse. The only ones left were Time, Malon, and Twilight.
“You know,” Malon got the attention of the two, “He reminds me so much of you, Link. So full of energy.” Malon then directed her gaze to Twilight. “Did you know this man right here ran crazily after a cucco in the town square when we were kids?”
Time could only throw a frown to the two who were laughing. He didn’t need to close his eye to remember what his wife was talking about. “It wasn’t just me, you know.”
“Yes, yes. That little girl may have been chasing after the poor bird, but none were more determined than you. Wild reminds me so much like you.” Malon laughed.
Time couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride bubble within him. Luckily, they don’t know, but just seeing Wild run after the sheep and herding them into the pen with Wind’s help made him wonder if he would one day experience this in his life again. Thoughts aside, Time realized that Wild was running straight at them, each step filled with vigor.
“Did you see?! Did you see?!” exclaimed the little boy.
Malon bent down to scoop the child and spun him around as she praised him. “I did! You were just so amazing out there! They also thought you did wonderful as well!”
Looking back at Time and Twilight, Wild just flashed the cheekiest grin. “I did such a great job! Well, Wind helped me.”
“You did so great, cub.” Twilight said with pride. “I thought you were going to let all the sheep escape.”
“But I didn’t. Because I am just that awesome. But Malon! We gotta go feed the rest of the animals!” Wild remembered.
“Yes, yes,” she smiled. “We should go and do that hm.” And off they went. The child comfortably in her arms as Wild continued to chatter about how cool it was to herd the sheep.
“He didn’t seem to protest about being carried,” noted Twilight.
“Maybe he didn’t realize. Or maybe my wife just holds things with such tenderness. Either way, let him enjoy this moment. And then we can tease him about it later.”
Twilight just scoffed. “No need to get sappy and mischievous, Old Man.”
Time just threw him a smile and followed Twilight to get the needed chores done before heading out to the forest.
----------
As Time kissed his wife good-bye, the others waited by the entrance by the ranch as they talked amongst themselves or watched Wind help Wild catch a bug. Once Time made his presence known, they all set off to go to the forest. The walk was uneventful. The breeze carried the song of the birds and Wild’s chatter as he talked about the cool bug he got or anything that caught his eye.
Seeing the beginnings of a forest, Time made the group pause as he stopped to look at a tree. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Time looked longingly at a particular tree branch. He almost missed the being that occupied that spot once. Gathering himself, Time turned to the others and explained, “It has been a while since I came back to the forest. The Kokiri are wary of strangers-”
“Just like the Sheikah from my world!” proclaimed Wild.
“Yes, Wild,” Time continued, “But please don’t go running off in unknown areas. I need you to stay close to me. You got it Wild?”
“Sure, Time.” said the boy.
“Wild, he means it. Otherwise, I will tie you to me.” Twilight added.
Wild just rolled his eyes and said, “I know how to follow directions. Gosh, what am I? Four?” he muttered. “Can we just go in? I wanna go in.”
Ruffling his hair, Warriors looked to Time and nodded for him to continue in leading the way. Walking even further into the trees, the others became amazed at how thick the woods became suddenly. Breaking out from the treeline, eyes widened in awe as they took in the forest haven. Crystal clear waters and the greenest of vegetation filled their line of sight. Childish laughter filled their ears as they saw small children chasing one another.
“A village of… children?” questioned Hyrule.
“Appearances can be deceiving,” Time responded. “Stay close. They don’t tend to take adults lightly without fairies.”
Twilight stuck his hand out for Wild to grasp, which said child took it begrudgingly, and followed close behind Time. As a group of Kokiri and their fairies came running, the fairies stopped in their tracks, alerting the kokiri. Eyes went wide in shock as they took off running the other way.
“Mido! Mido!” one of them cried out.
“Uh… should we be on guard or something? They won’t be attacking us?” asked Warriors.
“No need for worries. I know the one they called out to,” reassured Time.
Footsteps soon caught everyone’s attention as a voice spoke, “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Link.”
Staring down at the red-haired kokiri, Time smiled fondly. “Mido, it is nice to see you.”
“It has been awhile since you last came. What business do you have to make this visit?”
Instead of saying anything, Time just stepped aside and showed Mido his companions, but more specifically the child Twilight was trying to restrain from wandering off.
“You’re showing me your…companions?” questioned Mido with some confusion. Realization quickly dawned on the Kokiri as he made a terrible assumption, “There’s two of you?!”
Looking incredulously at Mido, Time looked between him and his companions, and then once more. “You do realize there are more than just two… right?”
Laughing to himself, Mido teased “Still dense as ever, Link. They cannot all be your sons. Maybe that other young one in the back can be… but then again...”
If Time was younger, he would have most likely choked at the mere assumption Mido just said. So he just resulted in widening his eye in shock. “No! I mean… These are my companions. And this one here,” he gestured to Wild who was trying to walk off, “He is a nephew.” Time finished that sentence quickly. He knew he didn’t have Mido convinced, but he would have to settle for that half-assed answer.
Mido looked at how Wild was fighting Twilight’s grip, “Why not let the kid go? He can go play amongst the others as well.” Mido looked off at the distance as the group of Kokiri who were playing earlier were sticking their heads out from a hiding place. With uncertain steps, they approached their leader and the older group. “You all know of him, do you not? Why not take the kid and have some fun.”
Recognition shown in the eyes of the young kokiri as they realized that the man before them was none other than Link, a hylian accepted into the kokiri race. A single fairy flew around Wild and beckoned him to follow the other kokiri and fairies in a game of chase. With no regard to the others, Wild yanked his hand from Twilight’s hold and ran off with the others.
“I know how to follow directions,” Legend mocked. “I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
“There is no need for it,” Mido said, “This is like a safe haven.”
“That’s exactly what I worry about. With this mini moron running around, nothing will be safe.”
Before Mido could say another word, Time just sighed and shook his head.
“Heh, so the boy is dangerous. Just like someone I know.”
“Oooo! Would it be another of your kind?” asked Wind.
“This guy here,” Mido pointed to Time. “Mr. Half-Man here was just like that boy. When he got his hands on his first sword, he was drunk with power as he swung that thing around like some toy.”
There were surprised noises coming from the others as they tried not gawking at the older hero. Malon had said some things about Time, but they were at times hard to believe that someone like Time would do such a thing. For them to learn something about the old man, it was gold.
Heads turned when a creaking of a door was heard and other Kokiri poked their heads out. Mido just lifted his hand in greeting as the Kokiri went back in. Please forgive us, my people are wary of strangers. Well, the rest of you.”
“There is no need for explanations, Mido. I have already let them know what to expect.” Time looked at the others as he said those words.
“You would always avoid my questions, Link. What business do you have here? I can see this is not just some friendly visit.”
“That, I cannot fully explain,” Time said. “But I do have something to ask of you.”
Off in the distance, the others would hear Legend yelling at Wild to get off from the fence and not jump off.
-------
“So the waters do help with restoring the clothing then.”
“Yes,” Mido confirmed. “For a while, not sure if you realized, but the waters began to lose their magical properties. I have had some nightmares ever since the Great Deku Tree passed away. Monsters overran the land and forced us to hide away in our homes. We couldn’t take them on. But I awaken and immediately find relief once I see the young Deku Tree.”
Time and the others just listened on.
“That’s horrible,” Wind spoke. “But at least they are nightmares.”
If only they knew, Time thought to himself.
“But the waters are back as they were before everything happened. You would just need to dunk the boy in the water. Normally, it would have been in a graceful manner, but sensing the boy, it seems like he wouldn’t tolerate it.”
Twilight rubbed his head at the mere thought of how Wild would behave in such a ceremony.
“I’m actually shocked the boy isn’t yours, Link. He seems to mirror you in your younger days. But you know… Now that I have gotten a good look at all of you, the boy seems to have more resemblance to you.” Mido said as he looked at Warriors. “Could he actually be yours?”
“Oh, Hylia...” Time groaned.
As the group continued chatting, a fairy appeared and whispered in Mido’s ear. He cleared his throat to catch the attention of the others. “It seems your boy has run off into the lost woods.”
Faces went pale as the heroes scattered out the door.
As Time was about to walk out the door, Mido called out, causing said hero to halt his step. “Worry not, Mr. No-Fairy,” he gently teased, “Remember, the Lost Woods will just spit him back out at the entrance. But if you still decide to venture further, Saria would be ecstatic to see you once more. You know what to do.”
Sending a genuine smile, Time bid his farewell and left from the hut.
A child Wild made his way over to the backpack man. “Hullo, mister.”
“Hi!” he cheerfully greeted, beaming. “I’m Beedle.”
“Like the bug?”
“Yes, yes!” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at his pack. “My bag even has beetle horns!”
Wow. This guy was serious about his beetles!
“Say, if you happen to have any beetles on you, Beedle would be obliged to buy them from you! Well-priced, of course! There are lots around the Faron rainforest, especially on trees!”
Wild swiveled to look at the huddled group of heroes on the other end of the stable. “I’ll go see if I can find any for you, Mister Beedle!”
“Thank you!” he sung.
Which of the heroes seemed most likely to let him go bug-hunting, or to help him with it? His eyes locked on the one with the lobster shirt. Lobsters were sorta like bugs, right? Close enough.
“Psst, Wind.” He tugged on the blue fabric, drawing the boy’s attention. “Can I go look for beetles for Beedle? Please?”
Wind’s attention perked, eyebrows raising. “Beedle?” He caught the backpacker’s eye over Wild’s shoulder. “Sure, as long as I can come.”
“Yay!”
Wind informed the others of their whereabouts, and with a warning not to go too far, they were off, Wind grabbing Wild’s hand on the way out. He used the other to salute Beedle.
…
When Wind and Wild returned, both of Wild’s hands were cupped over something. He practically skipped over to Beedle, who was still sitting in the same spot.
“Ta-da!” He opened his thumb enough to give the salesman a peek at the golden beedle in there.
“Huh? Could that be? Th-That’s an energetic rhino beetle! It’s a rare beetle you almost never see! P-P-Please! Would you please consider giving your energetic rhino beetle to Beedle? I will certainly offer you something as thanks! How about a hasty elixir? It’ll make you extra fast for five whole minutes!”
“Yeah!”
Under Beedle’s instructions, Wild carefully passed the beetle over into his hands.
“Thank you! I will surely cherish this beetle forever.” He held onto the bug with one hand, and used the other to pull out a stoppered bottle of thick blue liquid. “There you are.”
As soon as Wild grabbed the elixir from his hands, Beedle gripped the bug tight enough to keep it still as he left the head open to the air and raised it to—
He chomped down on the beetle with a grotesque squashing sound, its guts dribbling down his chin. It crunched loudly as he chewed, sighing in bliss, completely oblivious to the looks of utter, speechless horror on Wind and Wild’s faces.
When he finished eating the poor beetle, wiped his mouth, and glanced back up, he seemed to suddenly realize that his sellers were still staring and his eyelids opened wider to reveal pitch black eyeballs, all the way from one previously white corner to the other. He blinked, and they were back to normal.
“Ah, yes, well. A beetle a day to make the dark lord obey! I mean, keep him at bay!”
Wind wasn’t sure if Beedle had just stretched his back, but he could have sworn he saw that big backpack move, as if something inside was alive…
Wind laughed nervously as he wrapped an arm around Wild’s shoulder. “Haha, you betcha! Welp, see ya!” Under his breath as he speed-walked the two of them away, he added, “hopefully never.”
Beedle’s voice was as cheery as ever. “Bye! Be sure to bring me any more beetles you get! I’ll know if you don’t!”
Wind sped away faster. “The fuck is wrong with that guy…?”
Fic summary: My take on the kid!Wild and Wild-meets-the-Chain tropes, with a bit of a twist in that he is mentally a child as well—memories included.
A/N: This chapter is around 11k words
*Also, fair warning: I literally have not read back over this since rewriting the whole thing in a different setting. Frankly, I just don't feel like it, because I'm focusing on drafting later content instead of being stuck in the first parts, and I'm curious if others will enjoy reading this as much as I like writing it. So, y'all are basically the beta (pre-AO3) readers. If you find any errors or have any suggestions, let me know, and I'll make minor edits here and polish it up the rest of the way for the eventual publishing to AO3, once I've written more and feel better with it. As of right now, I'm a little over 35k words into this fic, and most of that was originally supposed to be within the FIRST chapter. In other words: it's gonna be a longer one.*
Chapter 1: What a cute lil horse-lion-man!
The world faded in, slowly. First came hearing. Heavy but distant thumping, like a galloping horse, came to replace the buzzing in Link's ears. When had they started buzzing in the first place? Link wasn't sure.
The last thing he remembered, he'd been trying to fall asleep in his bed, the noises of a gradually quieting night in Castle Town leaking through the thin walls of his dad’s house. So why was there a horse galloping toward him? And why was his whole right side wet?
Link opened his eyes.
Apparently, he wasn't in his bedroom anymore. In fact, he was about as far from that as one could get: laying in a stretch of muddy grass. A big drop of water popped on his nose, making him scrunch up his face. The sky was gray, but it wasn’t raining at the moment, so it must have fallen from the tree overhead.
Despite the ache down to his bones, Link pushed himself to sit; he was beyond caring that his butt was getting muddier, what with the entire back of his clothes already soaked. His back immediately felt relief at not having hard objects digging into it, although Link was aware that something was still back there. A hood had fallen over his head when he got upright, blocking most of his vision. He pushed it back.
A glance over his shoulder found a sword, shield, bow, and quiver. The sword and bow were the royal kind that some of the knights in the castle (like his dad) used, but he didn’t recognize the shield. In fact, now that he was looking closer, these clothes were definitely not his either. He was wearing a large blue shirt and cream pants in addition to the dark blue cloak.
He had no idea how he had gotten here, or where he was, or why he was there. He didn’t know where these weapons had come from, or whose they were, or why he had them on his back. He didn’t know whose clothes these were or how he was wearing them—had someone dressed him?
“Be wary of strangers,” Link’s dad had told him many times over. “The Yiga Clan disguise themselves as strangers in need of help, and then attack. They have been known to rob and hurt people. Sometimes, they kidnap people—take them away from their families. They target young boys in particular. So, you need to be very careful. If someone suspicious tries to harm you or get you to come with them somewhere, and nobody is around, you scream and fight like hell to get away, okay? No giving up or freezing, got it?”
Had Link been kidnapped and dumped in this random forest?
In summary, Link knew next to nothing.
He looked around his surroundings, but didn’t see any people—only a cute horse-lion-man creature looking at him in the distance. Its mane looked super fuzzy.
He kept scanning the area, realizing how high up he was. He seemed to be at the top of some kind of cliff, and though it was too foggy (misty?) to see far, he could hear a waterfall nearby. This place didn’t look or feel anything like Zora’s Domain, though.
Should he stand up and look around the area more now? He couldn't yet bring himself to move and risk scaring the creature away. It wasn't like he was going to die if he took five minutes to gather himself. This wasn’t freezing up—and it was warm, anyway.
He closed his eyes with a nice deep breath in, and then let it out as a scream when something sharp and scalding burrowed deep into his shoulder. Eyelids flying open, Link was already leaping up onto his feet, his legs almost immediately giving out as they shook uncontrollably and cramped. He was also suddenly aware of exactly how oversized each article of clothing was on him, swamping his eight-year-old self. The weight bouncing on his back reminded him of the gear, and he scrambled to reach back at the sword’s handle—a task that was proving far more difficult than any of the soldiers made it look, not helped by his erratically spasming muscles and short arms and the tearing pain in his other shoulder.
At the same time, he became aware that the creature he had deemed cute just a minute earlier was now wielding a bow and staring him down from a couple yards away. It was interesting how it appeared both majestic and soul-crushingly terrifying.
'Terrifying' was rapidly becoming the more accurate term, as the creature seemed to grow bored of shooting arrows and instead whipped its gigantic sword out. It gripped the hilt with more purpose as it locked eyes with Link.
Oh no.
Link turned on his heels and ran through the wet grassy landscape as fast as he could with pants so big they threatened to slip under the gigantic shoes he was wearing at each flutter of his pumping legs. He didn't stop, even as the loose boots on his little feet got stuck in the mud and fell off one by one, even as his socks soaked through and his soles only perilously balanced with each step, even as his chugging arms repeatedly disturbed the arrow still embedded in his shoulder and sending aftershocks through his body. He kept pushing forward.
…Until he slipped on his obnoxiously long pants and face-planted into the mud. He screamed as the impact bent and shoved the arrow deeper into his flesh—embedded in the muscle, at this point. Link hardly had time to force himself to his feet before his shin ripped open as the creature's spear slashed him in one fluid swipe, knocking him down to one knee again.
The leg erupted in searing agony and his stomach twisted with nausea, but he couldn't give up, so he got leverage against the ground to get back onto his feet, adrenaline needled his hands and his gloves coming off whilst he crawled out of the muddy indent his fallen body created.
For a moment he thought he might fall back down when his shin stretched like it was being torn apart (it probably was) and the liquid red he had learned was called “blood” stained through the white of his pants. His legs were anything but sturdy, tingling and wobbling, but they kept him up and that would have to be good enough. He urged himself forward, leaving a splotch of crimson behind him.
A roar flooded the air like water gushing out of a broken dam. It washed over Link, drowning him in more terror than he'd ever felt before. He chanced a look over his shoulder—the pull on his wounds was constant at this point, so at least that couldn’t shock him, and adrenaline was beginning to numb them anyway—and he found the creature charging after him, hands outstretched and ready to snatch him from the realm of the living itself.
As he sprinted, gripping excess pant fabric to keep it from tripping him again, there was an orchestra of sounds chasing him: his heart pounded behind his ribcage, his breaths gasped in and out of his mouth and the humid air burned its way through his throat and lungs, his socked feet squelching on the ground off-rhythm, and it was all tied together by the galloping hooves growing louder—closer—with every desperate, fruitless step Link took.
Then, he reached the other side of the clifftop, which cut off abruptly and descended a solid 20 feet to the next cliffed chunk of land—this one with water, but too far for Link to reach in a jump.
It dawned on him, then, that there was no way he’d be able to outrun this thing. So, he had three options: run in circles and inevitably get speared to death, jump and get pelted with electric arrows to death, or fight and almost certainly die that way, too.
He stopped in his tracks and spun around to face the beast that was charging at him, simultaneously unsheathing the sword on his back. It outsized him, unlike his practice sword at home (which was honestly more akin to a boko stick), and was heavy in his arms—far too much so for him to try to hold a shield along with it. The sword would just have to do.
He limp-dodged to the right like he practiced at home while playing knight. The sword he was clenching with red pudgy fingers did look a lot like the one his dad used as a royal knight. Link attempted to fool himself that this was just another game. Totally the same thing. Not like his life was at stake here. Not like the monster wasn’t imaginary but a few feet away, close enough to smell.
He had no time to ponder that train of thought for longer than a second, though. The beast jabbed its spear at him, and Link dove out of the way again, barely avoiding being skewered.
He had been waving sticks like swords since he could hold one, and he pulled all that he had picked up on swordsmanship in his six years of existence to the front of his brain. As he charged forward with his blade extended, he tried to channel his dad’s skill as he’d displayed it on a dummy. Mentally, he cheered when the sword pierced the beast, but quickly pulled himself together as he remembered to pull it back.
The creature roared at him with another thrust of its weapon, which Link dodged, then rushed to catch his balance before he could land on his backside. He was doing it! Some of the fear crumbled away in the wake of this accomplishment. (He did not comprehend that he had gotten in only one hit so far, against Hyrule’s most unyielding monster.)
Maybe Link wouldn't die, after all.
The idea sent confidence into his muscles to join with the adrenaline and determination currently flowing through his blood, the trio together forming a powerful concoction that had him swinging his sword back at the creature before him with all the feral energy of a young child. Another solid hit.
Link had this in the bag. At this rate—
At this rate, Link was done for, because when his sword made contact with the beast for the third time, it shattered into a hundred pieces, several of which sliced or planted themselves into his arms and hands. At least the panic had his back, numbing some of the pain, and the relative injuries in his shin and through his shoulder hurt enough to drown out everything else—enough that he could maintain his focus to throw himself out of the way of another attack, just barely missing the opportunity to be cut cleanly in half at the hips.
Link braced himself as the creature returned its spear to its back for some reason. He was fairly certain the beast wasn’t going to give up just like that. No, surely it must have had something else up its sleeve…
And it did, Link discovered, when fireballs came rocketing out of its face. He leapt out of the way, switching into a run as he circled the beast and narrowly avoided blast after blast after blast.
He shrieked as one of the fireballs slammed into his side, the force of it knocking him to the ground. The pain lingered long after the fire had been smothered in the wet ground, leaving fresh scorch marks in the long blue tunic. His body pleaded to curl in on itself.
But he couldn't give up, and he couldn’t freeze. He had to fight! But how could he, without a sword? As far as he knew, all he had was the shield and bow, and he had barely started learning to use a bow—the most he could do was make an arrow fly off the string in a random direction. In conclusion: all he could do was dodge and defend now.
Only, neither of those things would progress this fight. They would just wear him down, until... until...
Okay, maybe running was the better idea, after all. And so he went.
"No!" Link cried out when his foot caught on his goddess-forsaken pants again (which he had forgotten to bunch up), sending him tumbling over. "No, no, no!" He screamed.
Hyperventilating at this point, Link scrambled to get up but couldn’t seem to get his footing—completely dissolving into panic at this point, everything burning, everything slippery—and the beast was already looming above him, the foggy golden sunrise breaking through the cloud cover to cast its shadow over him.
He twisted, reaching behind him for the shield in a final desperate move, but it was so big, and his position made it hard to grab, and his hands were numb and still occasionally spasming and spiked with shards of metal and he couldn’t manage to properly close his fingers around the shield.
He locked eyes with the monster, and in that split second, all was still, and he had never felt more afraid, alone, or helpless in his limited years of life.
Then, an arrow whizzed out of nowhere to strike the side of the beast’s head, and everything burst into a mess of sound and motion once more. The monster’s head slumped down to its chest, stunned for the moment.
Taking his miracle, Link quickly rolled backward enough to tug his pants out of the mud and into a clump in each fist, then used the momentum of his pumping legs as he rolled forward to finally get back on his feet. The beast regained its senses, returning its furious glare to Link for only an instant before a loud whistle interrupted its concentration.
While the demonic horse-like creature reared and swiveled around toward the noise’s source, Link swiveled in the direction of the cliff’s edge and ran, trying to ignore everything else going on in favor of carefully placing his steps and keeping his balance. Don’t think about the monster behind you. Don’t think about the yelling going on behind you. He skidded to a halt where the flat ground cut off. Don’t think about the height of this drop.
Sparing a swift glance back at the commotion, Link found a large group of people had swarmed into the scene, already landing attacks on the beast. One person was sprinting after him, a sword in hand. If he was thinking logically, he may have understood that this stranger was most likely not going to cause him harm, considering they were part of the group of people who had diverted that beast’s attention from him, thus saving his life not one minute ago.
Alas, at this point, Link was too far in danger survival mode, which meant that he saw a stranger who was not a Hylian knight charging at him with a weapon and his brain immediately cried, unsafe, threat, get away! His body didn’t need to think to know he couldn’t climb down—not with hands covered in sword pieces, and an arrow in his shoulder, and a gash down his shin, and seemingly everything being coated in a layer of slipperiness. So, he made the snap decision to hurl himself off the ledge with nothing but a prayer to Hylia and a dream to live to see tomorrow.
He tried to remember how he practiced jumping from high places while playing around Castle Town. Bend the knees—
That was all he had time to recall before he made contact with the next level of solid ground, and his bent legs gave him another second of transition from falling to stopping before his knees crashed into the wet grass, sliding forward a foot on the wet grass and, in the process, ripping the cut in his leg open wider. His own cry of pain drowned out that of the person who had been following him above, so Link had no warning before someone landed nearby, rolling to break their fall infinitely more smoothly than he had (and also dirtying their clothes).
Link tried to force himself to hit feet—he really did—but if his leg had hurt before, it was hell now, and he only succeeded in splaying his bent legs out enough to see the blood oozing out onto the grass. His vision spun, and for a long moment, he thought he might be sick.
The stranger landed on their knees in front of him. Link managed a pathetic whimper. They held their hands up in the universal gesture of peace.
“Hey, hey, hey. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help. I’m a healer. Please, will you let me help?”
And, well, Link really didn’t have much of a choice, did he? The stranger—a boy—had put his sword away, and he figured that if he really wanted to harm Link, he would’ve had the perfect opportunity right then. So, he held out for a pregnant pause, waiting to see if the boy would take the chance to attack. He didn’t; he just kept staring at Link with pleading eyes, waiting for Link to give his permission.
Slowly, Link nodded.
The stranger gave him a tiny smile. “Thank you. I’m going to pick you up now and move farther away from the battle up there, just in case, okay?” Again, he waited for some sign of consent before touching him.
Arms curled under Link’s knees and back, and in a dizzying motion, Link was rising off the ground. Gentle as he was, and careful not to actually touch the arrow shaft poking out the front of his shoulder, the pressure to his shoulder blade still evoked a whine from him.
"I’ve got you," the boy carrying him reassured around panting breaths as he finished hefting Link up with firm but careful hands, keeping both arms cradled around him as he began hurrying them away, around a small body of water and down a (far less steep) slope.
Although the boy’s hold remained steady, Link still felt unbalanced—certainly not helped by the lightheadedness—but he couldn’t hold onto the boy when his hands were a conglomerate of broken blades. Everything hurt, even when he wasn’t moving a muscle. This random person was getting away for him; did this mean Link had given up? He wasn’t supposed to give up.
Despite himself, Link whimpered into the stranger’s shoulder—an expression of pain, a release of fear, a rush of hope.
The hand on his back tightened ever-so-slightly, holding him steady as his sprint rocked them. “You’ll be okay,” he soothed.
The boy fell into a pattern of panting and repeating comforting words to Link, running all the while, until they finally stuttered to a halt.
"All right," the stranger said between huffing breaths, "I think we should be good now." He gently set him down onto a cushion of moss at the base of a rock.
The fear coursing through Link's veins thought otherwise. What if the beast started using it's bow again and shot at them and they weren't prepared for it because this person said they'd be fine but really they weren't and—
"Hey," the stranger uttered, and Link flinched out of his thoughts. "You're hurt."
He had mussed curly brown hair, and wore a green sleeveless tunic and brown undershirt—although the green was now stained brown where Link’s blood had soiled it.
When he followed the boy’s gaze to his shin, Link’s gut churned. Now that he had a good look at the slash, he realized how badly it was bleeding; the entire bottom half of his white pant leg was a dark maroon where the thick coating of dirt mixed with the blood, and the soaked fabric clung to his skin. It felt like a layer of his skin was being ripped off as the stranger carefully lifted his leg up enough to slowly peel the fabric up to his knee, exposing the full wound. Link’s stomach was almost grateful that the blood and mud mixture—blud, he slightly hysterically dubbed it—covered up the more grotesque details of the gash.
One would think that, because he was still now, things would hurt less—but evidently, giving attention to his injuries increased his awareness of the pain tenfold. His consciousness wished to fly outside his own body. A guttural moan escaped him.
“I really don’t feel good,” he found himself whimpering to the stranger, whom he had apparently deemed thoroughly safe to admit this vulnerability to—or maybe he was just too deep in his own agony to worry about that anymore. His face twisted up like he was about to cry. (He was.) What had he done wrong to deserve this?
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m going to start fixing you up now, though, so you only have to hang in there a little longer, alright? You’re doing great.”
Link shook his head. He was afraid. Terrified. Shaking. That was bad, Link knew it. He wasn’t supposed to be scared. His dad sure thought so. Fear was bad—and that meant Link was bad.
“You are. You’re being very courageous.”
Another shake of the head, eyes squeezed shut this time. Maybe it was because his entire thought process was fogged up by all-consuming pain and panic, but Link found himself confessing in a whisper, like a deep and horrible secret: “Scared.” Instantly, that presence in the back of his head kicked him in the ankle for admitting that out loud.
“That’s a reasonable and okay thing to feel right now,” the boy stated, sounding so certain that Link could almost see through his own confusion with it.
The boy took a deep breath; unconsciously, Link found himself breathing along—he hadn’t even realized he’d stopped until air was expanding and contracting his tight lungs again.
The stranger scrutinized the gash in his leg and winced before meeting Link’s eyes again. “I’m going to need to wash this out to prevent an infection before we close it up.” He grabbed a flask from a pouch at his back and twisted the cap off. “I’m going to pour some water over the cut to flush out the dirt. It might hurt, but it’s important. Okay?” He hovered the flask over Link’s shin, but his eyes remained oddly trained on his until he nodded his understanding.
Even with fair warning, Link hissed as the boy poured water into the gash. Red waterfalled down the sides of his legs and puddled under him in the moss, turning it an ugly brown.
“Sorry,” the boy said, sounding genuinely apologetic, if only for the need to cause further pain. “It’ll feel better soon.”
Link squeezed his eyes closed, not caring to see what the deeper layers of his skin looked like. The flow of water paused for a few seconds—long enough for him to make the mistake of cracking his eyelids open—only to be replaced with the infinitely worse sting of a wet cloth scraping around the slice. He gasped, unable to hold back the tears that welled up and slipped out, rolling down his cheeks.
“Hey, wanna know a secret about courage?”
Honestly, as the scrubbing went on, he just wanted something else to focus on, so he hummed a strained “mhm” between sharp, shallow breaths.
“Bravery is being fearless: not feeling fear about something at all,” the boy explained. “And a lot of people confuse it with courage, and believe it to mean the same thing—but that’s actually not true.”
Link’s back arched and he coughed a sob. “R-Really?” He spoke, if only to further distract himself.
“Yep,” he said, still sounding calm. It made Link feel slightly safer. “In reality, courage is doing something despite being afraid. So, it’s okay that you’re scared; you’re still being very courageous right now. Does that make sense?”
No; no, it doesn’t, Link immediately thought, because that was definitely not how his dad saw it. Or, maybe his dad just didn’t know the secret about courage yet? But his dad was a knight! He would know something like that. Maybe the boy was just saying that to comfort him. Well, he appreciated it, even if he wasn’t convinced of the idea. Maybe he should take this as motivation to strive for bravery over courage, instead.
“Yeah,” he replied. Link visualized himself approaching this experience with more bravery, until finally, after a few more dabs around the skin, the cloth was pulled away. Water was poured over his leg once more, and this time, he actually almost relished in its comparative gentleness.
“All done cleaning. I recommend keeping your eyes closed for a few more seconds for me, though.” There was the sound of rummaging, the clatter of bottles. “This is going to feel a little weird, but it shouldn’t hurt much—just a pinch, and kind of tingly, and then it should feel a ton better.”
Link appreciated the way that the boy was explaining what he was doing in a way that he could (mostly) comprehend. True to his word, although there was a spike of pain at first, relief quickly spread through his leg. The burning shifted to a stretching sensation, then something that almost tickled, and then a blissful numbness.
“Alright, your leg is all healed up,” he announced.
Link opened his eyes—which immediately went wide as saucers as he saw the smooth skin visible through the large rip in his still-bloodstained pants. A purple scar was all that remained of the massive gash that had been there seconds before. His eyes darted up as he redirected his gaping to the boy. “How did you do that?” he exclaimed.
The boy winked. “Magic.”
“Are you a wizard?”
The apparent magic boy’s pupils locked onto his shoulder next. He hummed. “More of a fae.” His gaze flicked up to meet Link’s confused expression, and he added, “That’s like a fairy, if you didn’t know.”
“Oh. Wow!”
“It’s a secret, though.” He held a finger over his mouth with a playful shush.
Link nodded solemnly. “I’ll keep your secret! Promise.”
“Thanks. I’m going to need to take the arrow out now, okay? Again, this is going to hurt before it gets better.” The frown worried onto his face made him nervous, but Link had been beyond terrified for his life minutes prior, so this was a marked improvement. Besides, this boy was a fae, and he had already proven his healing magic. Link could trust him; he knew that fairies helped people.
“Hey, what’s your name?" the fae asked, and it occurred to Link that he should have asked that first, earlier. In his defense, he was in a lot of pain here, and it was hard to think straight.
Automatically, he responded, "Link," and when the boy inhaled sharply with wide eyes, he remembered that sharing his name with someone he didn’t know was a bad idea. But he could hardly call this person a stranger anymore, right? Strangers probably didn’t heal the gashes in your leg. He had never heard of a Yiga having healing magic, either.
“Oh.” The fae’s expression settled back into something warm and soft. "I'm Hyrule."
Link’s face scrunched up. "Hyrule?" That was a silly name.
'Hyrule' chuckled. "It's just a nickname. You can call me Rulie, if that helps." With a feather-light touch, he grasped the arrow shaft.
"What's your real name, then?" Link asked, the question coming out more demanding than he intended through the twinge in his shoulder, but he was mostly just curious.
"Link. Just like you.”
Woah. Link stared at Hyrule in shock. He had never met anybody with the same name as him before.
“If you’re ready,” Hyrule announced, “I’m going to take the arrow out now, all right?”
Link nodded with a hum.
“It’ll be over quickly,” he reminded him. “Here we go. Three…” Link took a deep breath in. “Two—” Something moved behind him.
“Watch out!” Link cried, but it was too late. A silver lizard monster—a lizalfos, he remembered—blasted a yelping Hyrule away with a powerful shot of water, effectively ripping the arrow still clutched in his hand out of Link’s shoulder, far more roughly than intended, and for a short excruciating eternity, all he knew was burning pulsing from his shoulder out over the rest of his body. His ears were ringing and muffled, but he was screaming, and he distantly thought he heard a splashing sound.
He had only just jolted up to sitting—barely noticing the wet crimson spreading down his tunic as the motion put dark blotches over his vision—when another wave of water came rocketed out of the lizalfos mouth, hitting him in the chest with enough force to knock the wind out of him as it shoved him backwards. He didn’t even get to attempt to catch his breath before he was swallowed by the water behind where Hyrule had settled them, face submerged and senses disoriented and body sinking.
Link did not know how to swim.
He flailed, the motion sending another rush of excruciating pain pulsing from the open hole in his shoulder. Red spread in the water.
His feet touched the rocky bottom, and he tried to shove off of it, but the events since waking up had consumed most of his energy, and without any air in his lungs, he had next to nothing left to power his muscles except the sudden returning flood of panic, which had him involuntarily breathing in—inhaling only water, burning his nose and windpipe and lungs, triggering a reflexive cough, which again just opened the way for water.
No giving up or freezing, got it?
Link kicked.
His face surfaced, and he hacked. He slipped under again, in the middle of a cough, inhaling more liquid. He kicked harder, and this time when he came back up, he tried to call out for Hyrule, but all that came out was a wet choked sound before he was under once more. Terror flooded his veins, freezing despite the warmth of the water.
And then a foreign hand wrapped around his arm—the one not bleeding—and tugged until he was breaking the surface, this time for longer than a second, held up.
He coughed up water while the hand pulled him to the edge, then let go for the briefest moment while they went back under to put both hands on Link’s waist and push him up.
Another set of hands wrapped under his arms and lifted him out, the sturdy grip feeling like a second arrow stabbing the space that the previous one drilled out. His choking swallowed up any screams he might have otherwise released.
“Sorry,” an unfamiliar voice said through the rushing in his ears.
He was on his side, fully out of the water. There was splashing nearby, and a thump beside him. A fist pounded his back lightly until his hacking became dry. The water in Link’s ears popped sometime during that. There was the clashing of metal on metal somewhere close.
Using the elbow of the arm that didn’t feel like it was going to fall off, Link made to push himself up, but a hand pushed him back down—a palm pressing directly on top of the puncture through his shoulder. Link cried out and scratched wildly at them, succeeding in eliciting a squeak and getting the pressure on his shoulder off for a second before his forearms were being forced still and the stabbing pain was back.
“I’m sorry, kid, I know this hurts, but you need to stay down and we need to apply pressure to slow the bleeding until Hyrule can finish healing it up. You need to be extra careful with your hands—they’ve still got blades embedded in them. It’ll be okay. Just try to hold still.”
Link was laying on his back, and a new, tattooed face was hovering over him. He twisted his head side to side, searching for Hyrule.
The fae moved into his line of sight, on the other side of his body from the new stranger—a man with a wolf pelt draped around his shoulders. “It’s okay, he’s right,” Hyrule soothed. “This is Twilight; he’s with me.”
Link’s struggle slowed to a stop, and Twilight released his arms. To his dissatisfaction, Hyrule’s palms stayed tight against the gap where the arrow had previously impaled him.
“Sky will shield us from any stray attacks while the others take down the lizalfos,” Twilight spoke up over him, “and I’m keeping watch, too. You focus on healing yourself and the kid.”
Link craned his neck as much as he could, holding his breath to push through the way it pulled at his wound. He caught sight of a third person standing between the three of them and whatever battle was going on (judging by the clashing sounds and yelling). He was wearing a white sailcloth like a cape, and held a sword and readied shield.
“Sky is another friend,” Twilight said before Link could ask.
Hyrule hummed along. “Try to relax your neck—and, well, your upper half as much as you can, please.”
Not wanting to disobey the boy healing him, Link followed his instruction, looking at the sky. There was a glow in Link’s his, and then, like it had before, his skin pinched, itched, and tingled for a minute before the pain there dissipated to the same dull ache as was in his shin. Now, with the two main pain sources gone, Link could feel the burn on his side and the damage from the sword shattering, on top of the soreness in his throat and lungs from the water.
He turned his head to the side—the action shockingly painless compared to when he had an arrow lodged in his shoulder—while still obediently keeping his back to the ground. Beyond the defensive statue that was Sky, he caught glimpses of motion from the remainder of the group that saved him from the beast earlier and now saved him from this monster—although they were largely blocked from view by the large rocky pillar bulging up from the center of the water that Link must have been dunked in a few minutes ago. It rippled beside them; they were still only a couple feet from it, as he and Hyrule had probably been before getting blasted in. He shuddered.
“Can we get away from the water?” he asked in a whisper, a disguised confession of fear.
Hyrule swore under his breath (a curse word that Link probably wasn’t supposed to hear), scrubbed a hand over his face with a shaky inhale, and then turned his concentration onto Link, still leaning over him from his place at Link’s side.
The fae was looking at him like he had just accidentally stabbed him. The calm front from before was visibly cracked and faltering where he tried to put it back up.
Trying to see what he had done wrong to upset him, Link managed to lift his head up enough to catch sight of his, of course, completely soaked shirt—and to glimpse the way it dripped pink on one side. Did it not heal? It felt all better…
“A-Am I okay…?”
“What?” Hyrule seemed to jerk out of it a little, confusion entering his expression “Yeah, you’re okay. Just gotta take out the metal pieces and then I’ll give you a red potion to heal that up, along with anything else left over.”
“Oh.”
Hyrule’s hands were shaking, Link realized, when he rummaged through his pouch with a clinking sound and pulled out a glass vial of something thick and green. He took the cork off with a pop and downed the whole thing in one go. The trembling settled to something more minute, while the exhaustion (which Link hadn’t entirely picked up on before) wiped away from his face, only to be flooded with an agonized look so intense, Link could practically feel it twisting in his own stomach.
He switched his wording: “Are you okay?”
A somewhat hysterical noise erupted from Hyrule’s throat. “Am I okay?” he repeated incredulously. “I’m fine. You’re— I—” He bit his lip, and Link realized his expression wasn’t physical pain, but guilt. “I’m so sorry, Link.”
In front of him, Sailcloth—Sky?—flinched. Behind him, a whisper: “Link?”
“Why’re you sorry—?”
A screech interrupted Link when the lizalfos collapsed with a thump, dead. Shortly after, the other heroes were joining them in their waterside puddle. Instinctively, Link went to press his palms into the ground to scoot himself back, but the action was halted with a cry of pain as the shards of metal still in his hands dug deeper.
“Fuck, is he okay?” someone said.
“He’s all right,” Hyrule quickly reassured. “Just give us some space for a minute while I finish up, okay?”
Many shoes scuffed the ground.
“Can I stay?” Twilight said from Link’s other side.
“That’s up to him.” Hyrule leaned farther over Link to catch his eyeline, a silent prompt.
“He can stay,” he decided, “as long as he doesn’t press on anything that hurts again.” He had pulled him out of the water. Plus, he knew that the fae trusted him, and if a fairy-adjacent person healing him thought they were safe, they must be okay, even if he had pressed on his shoulder wound earlier.
“Sorry about that, again. It was important, though.” Twilight gave him a small apologetic smile. “How about, if I need to do it again for your safety, I’ll give you a warning next time if I can?”
Link figured that was the best he would get. “Okay. Can I sit up?”
“Yes,” Hyrule replied, “if you let us help you up this time and don’t do anything with your hands.”
“M’kay.”
His second attempt at sitting was a success, this time eased up—mostly by the pair of arms that wrapped around his shoulders and back to help lift him to sit. True to Twilight’s word, he let go once Link was stable in his new position.
A bloodied arrow lay on the grass to Hyrule’s side, two mirrored yellow zig-zag points. When Link looked down at himself, all that remained of the arrow that had impaled him was a vaguely star-shaped scar and a hole in his blue tunic. “You are so cool,” he told Hyrule.
The fae’s cheeks turned pink. “Oh. Er, thanks,” he said, breaking into a bashful smile and rubbing his neck, “but we’ll see if you still think that after I take out all the metal in your hands.”
Right…
That meant staying still for a while, probably. The flowing water was still close—too close for his frazzled nerves. He looked around (something he was able to do with a much wider angle range sitting up), and although he did not spot any more monsters lurking around—just those other people semi-circling them where there was still land to create a bubble of space—his heart rattled in his chest anyway.
“It’s okay. You’re safe,” Twilight said, apparently having somehow read Link’s mind from where he was knelt at his side. “If you’re nervous about more monsters, the whole group is keeping watch over there. Nobody will sneak up on us this time.”
Link nodded, but his eyes flicked down to the flowing water, betraying his other worry. He wasn’t supposed to be afraid. He shouldn’t need reassurance.
Twilight added, “And I won’t let you fall in.”
Perhaps too vehemently, Link nodded again. He was fine. He wasn’t giving in to fear. He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t scared.
"Okay," he said, holding out his wrecked palms to give Hyrule a better view. They were really starting to sting, now that the adrenaline was wearing off and the bigger more mind-consuming injuries had been healed. His feet hurt pretty bad too. Also, his knees and elbows and forearms had gotten scraped up, so that stung.
“I won’t lie, it’s going to hurt, although probably not nearly as much as the other two things did,” he warned, and then his crinkled forehead softened, “but it’ll be over quickly and then you can have some healing potions and you’ll feel all better.”
The healer began plucking blades out of his flesh a moment later.
After a particularly deeply-embedded piece was torn out, Link hissed through his teeth and instinctively flinched away—which, in his current position, reduced to him leaning back… directly into Twilight’s chest.
“Sorry,” Link said, already prepared to either be pushed away and scolded for acting like a baby, or push himself away before that could happen.
“That’s okay, buddy,” he said easily. “You can stay there if you’d like. Whatever is most comfy for you right now, you should do that.”
Another shard was torn out of his hand, and his body made that decision for him as he slipped deeper into Twilight with a (this time successfully) suppressed whine tightening his throat. He was basically sitting in Twilight’s lap, while keeping his hands outstretched for Hyrule to pick at.
“I think I’d be most comfy if this was over already,” Link mumbled.
“Yeah, I bet,” Twilight chuckled, though he sounded more sympathetic than entertained at all. “Sorry, I know it hurts. It’ll be over soon.”
Link hummed, then went back to holding his breath as Hyrule took out another piece of metal.
“Done with one side,” Hyrule announced, releasing the hand and switching sides. “Twilight, can you apply pressure on the biggest cuts while I finish with his other hand?”
“On it.” He grabbed a cloth and folded it to fit under one of his larger hands. “Kid? That alright with you? It’ll slow the bleeding.”
He recalled how the pressure on the arrow wound had felt—like being repeatedly stabbed with a red-hot knife. However, if he said it wasn’t alright (not that he thought it would change anything), they would know he was afraid. Not that he was afraid—they would just think it, and he wasn’t supposed to do things that did that. No fear. No fear. No fear—
With an unreleased deep inhale and a bite on his tongue, Link reached up with his freely bleeding hand and clasped it onto Twilight’s extended one, the cloth sandwiched in between. Every muscle in his body seemed to tense up as the pulses of pain from before became a constant drilling instead.
“Sorry.” Twilight winced sympathetically. “Pretend I’m just holding your hand, if that helps?”
“Halfway there,” Hyrule reminded him as encouragement before resuming his blade extractions on his other hand.
A few seconds passed (painfully) before Twilight piped back up, “Would it be helpful to talk, as a distraction?”
Slowly, Link nodded.
"Are your parents nearby? We can escort you back home."
Link sucked in a breath as a shard was tugged out. He tried to focus on Twilight’s question instead of the blood oozing out of the hole in his skin. "I don't... I'm not sure.” He gasped as another bit of metal was removed. “I-I don't really know where I am. Or how I got here." The thought made his lip wobble.
He looked over the landscape again, trying to remember what little he knew of geography. It was warm and wet, and there were lots of trees, cliffs, and waterfalls. There weren’t any places like that close to Hyrule Castle. He knew that the Faron region was supposed to have tropical rainforests. It wasn’t raining, though…
The sky was getting lighter, the pretty glow of the sunrise now pupil-constrictingly bright, but dark gray clouds were moving in above them. That probably wasn’t good.
Another flash of pain. "We’re a bit lost right now, too,” Twilight said. “We can figure it out together, after Hyrule finishes fixing up your injuries, okay?"
"'Kay." Link squeezed his eyes shut, suppressing a wince. So even the adults were lost? But then, how was he going to get home? Wherever they were, it didn’t seem anywhere particularly near home in Castle Town. With a hard swallow, Link pushed down the bone-deep desire to be safe with his family right now. He wanted to be back in his bed, where he’d gone to sleep last night, where he was supposed to be when he woke up. He wanted to be with his family, where he couldn’t be afraid (ignoring the fact that he still got afraid then, too, and merely stuffed it down deeper).
The wind whispered, filling the brief silence that fell between them before Hyrule spoke up. "How did this even happen to your hands?"
Link was beginning to find it hard to concentrate through the searing over his skin, but maybe that was a good thing, in a way, if it prevented him from thinking about how little he knew. He should focus on what he did know. "I- The creature back there- I mean, my sword broke while I was trying to fight it."
Twilight’s eyebrows shot up. "Your sword? How the h... heck did your sword shatter into such tiny pieces?"
Link shrugged, immediately regretting the action and resisting the urge to curl in on himself when his still-sore shoulder complained.
“I don’t think it’s even my sword,” he confessed after a few seconds of deep breaths between Hyrule plucking metal out of him. “I don’t recognize this shirt either. I hope whoever it actually belongs to isn’t mad that I got it all dirty…” It was looking very rough, along with the pants that could no longer be called white, coated in a conglomerate of blood, mud, scorch marks, grass, blended together by the water soaking it. “But I don’t know why anyone would have dressed me up in this stuff anyway…”
Had some stranger seen him naked? He blanched. No, maybe these clothes were his and he just… forgot? Or his dad dressed him…? While he was sleeping…? And then abandoned him in a monster-infested rainforest…?
No, that was ridiculous. But someone had to have done something, for him to be here, now—and if “someone” had to be a stranger, that thought was infinitely more terrifying.
Suddenly, Link wasn’t sure he should feel comfortable near these random people, no matter that they had saved him. Hyrule wasn’t a stranger anymore, though—they knew each other’s names, and he knew the secret about him being a fae, and he was healing him.
The others, however, were still strangers… maybe. He didn’t know their names, but they had saved his life. Twilight and Hyrule had saved him more than once already! And Hyrule, the most non-stranger, did know and trust them, so then, would that make the rest of them non-strangers to Link by extension? Nobody had explained these specifics to him when warning him about suspicious strangers!
Don’t give up. Don’t be afraid. Don’t freeze. Don’t cry.
His parents and teachers had told him to find a trusted adult that he knew, if he was ever in a potentially suspicious situation. He didn’t really know these people, but he decided they could most likely be trusted, and he needed help from someone, and there was nobody else around yet.
“I'm really confused. I don’t remember,” he repeated again, like the only thing he knew anymore was that he didn’t know anything. His lower lip wobbled, so he bit it. “Why don’t I remember?” His voice cracked at the end.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Twilight rushed to comfort him. “We’ll figure it out together, all right?”
Hyrule added, “Maybe you bumped your head. Once you take some potions, that’ll be fixed up. We just have to finish taking out the bad stuff first. Okay?”
Link nodded and blinked the tears back inside. He glanced up to the clouds overhead when another spike of pain burst over his hand.
“It’ll be okay,” Twilight repeated.
“Almost done!” Hyrule said, “We just need to wash everything out—” Link’s face blanched— “but I’ll give you a healing potion immediately after, and then everything should feel all better, so there’s that to look forward to.”
Don’t be afraid. Don’t cry. Don’t be afraid. Don’t cry.
Link looked at his hand. It was covered in a grotesque scattering of crimson slits where the shards had been, which now laid on the ground beside Hyrule. Red dripped down his forearm, oozing steadily from each cut. Sick as he felt, he managed to choke out an “m’kay.”
“Link,” Twilight spoke up, still behind him, only now Link was fully leaning into his chest, desire for safety and comfort combined with his mental and physical exhaustion having trumped embarrassment. “You’re okay. Don’t be scared.”
When he said it, the phrase was so soft—but it was the same thing that his dad said. Maybe Hyrule disagreed a little, but Twilight understood. Don’t be afraid. Link wasn’t supposed to feel or show fear. It was the rule, the way of things, and breaking rules was bad.
Apparently, Link hadn’t done such a good job at it so far. Would Twilight pull away?
Link decided to pull away first, leaning away from his chest, although he stayed in his lap enough that he could keep the pressure on those cuts. Even knowing Twilight wouldn’t be able to see his expression at that angle, Link set his face into a scowl (which, on his baby face, ended up looking more like pouting). “I’m not scared.” He turned to Hyrule, not meeting the fae’s eyes as he straightened up his back. “Just do it.”
He couldn’t see whatever look Twilight was directing at the back of his head. “Listen, if you were scared—”
“Well, I’m not!” he interrupted, not wanting to hear how that sentence ended. At least Hyrule hadn’t accused him of being afraid! He’d only brought it up after Link had. It didn’t seem fair that Twilight was making up hypotheticals about it, and not accepting Link’s denial of fear. Link was doing it, wasn’t he? He hadn’t even cried! “Go away!”
“I— Kid, I didn’t mean to—”
“Twi,” Hyrule hedged, calm voice clearly aiming to deescalate, “maybe switch out with Sky for now?”
A beat passed, and then the man was shifting behind him with a sigh. The padded pressure on his palm was released and swiftly replaced with that of another hand.
“Hello. I’m Sky.” He was crouched at Link’s side.
Link was still determinedly pouting.
With eyebrow furrowed, Hyrule murmured, “Link, remember what we talked about earlier? About courage?”
This time, he didn’t justify it with a response, other than turning his head away. That was supposed to be a secret!
Another sigh. “All right, then. Sky, can I use your water flask? We shouldn’t have much trouble refilling it here, if the wet environment is anything to go by.”
“Of course, don’t worry about it.” His free hand moved to pull out the water, handing it to Hyrule.
“Ready?” Hyrule warned, and Link sucked in a large breath. No fear. No fear. No fear. “Here we go—”
Link held his breath and bit his tongue. At least he was well prepared for the overwhelming sting this time.
Distantly, he recognized the thumb of the hand applying pressure to Link’s own hand as it ghosted over one of his knuckles, ever-so-lightly massaging, comforting, reminding him that he wasn’t alone and that there were still gentle things in life. He tried to keep his focus on that, the flower surviving a surrounding hurricane.
By the time Hyrule finished washing that hand, the breath still withheld in his lungs was making its discontent known through lightheadedness and dark splotches dancing into his vision. He let it out all at once, and used the time between Hyrule switching hands and Sky removing the pad to catch his breath before repeating the whole process.
When Hyrule was finished, Link couldn’t tell if his hands felt better or worse than they had with metal sticking out of it. They burned about as much as the actual burn wound on his side.
“Potion time.”
A glass was brought to his lips, which made Link feel like a real baby, but his hands were rather out of commission presently, so he didn’t protest as Hyrule tipped it, allowing liquid that tasted faintly floral to flow into his mouth. He swallowed it.
And then, for the first time since that literally shocking arrow had broken any remaining semblance of calm collectedness he had after waking: Link didn’t hurt. The pain evaporated into a tingle, numb and fuzzy, before vanishing into the most blissful physical nothingness ever. As he let out the breath he’d been holding, his body went slack, slipping into Sky’s lap (who moved to catch him), the ‘who’ or ‘what’ that he was falling into completely irrelevant to his pleasantly floaty brain in that moment.
“Does anything still hurt?” a voice interrupted his tranquility—Hyrule, he recognized when he pulled his psyche back into the world around him.
“No.” He breathed. Not even the soreness from before remained. When he checked, there were only the faintest of scars on his hands. “You’re definitely still cool,” he told Hyrule.
The fae boy huffed a laugh. “Thanks, Link. That was all the potion’s work, though.”
“Nah.” Link winked, one blink with each eye, to unsubtly signal that he was referencing Hyrule’s fairy-like magic from earlier (and the painful stuff, too, he supposed). The gesture made the boy chuckle again.
Sky’s voice rumbled against Link from his current position as he asked, “Am I cool, too?” He lightly poked Link in the side, the touch tickling and causing him to reflexively curl in with a giggle.
“For now,” he offered. “But not as cool as Hyrule!”
“True.” Sky solemnly agreed. “I’ll happily accept second place.”
A hand extended down in front of Link. He followed the arm up to Twilight’s face in front of him. “I really didn’t mean to make you upset before.”
“I wasn’t upset!” Link complained, only serving Twilight’s point.
The man’s eyebrow twitched as if wanting to raise, but he didn’t say anything further on the subject, evidently not wishing to rile him up anymore. “Okay. Sorry for assuming.” He wiggled his still-outstretched fingers and locked his hopeful eyes on Link. “Peace offering?”
He had been pretty nice before, and he had saved him. Guilt nibbled at Link’s gut. He took the hand and let Twilight help pull him up. He wobbled on his feet a bit, but both Sky and Twilight steadied him while he regained his bearings, one on either side of him. “I forgive you. Sorry for being rude.” Link looked at his feet—still socked, muddy, and as soaked as everything else. His clothes and hair were dripping, although the fabric stuck to his skin better, creating a poor illusion of fitting (minus the pants’ length).
“You weren’t. But I forgive you, too,” he finished, seeming to recognize that Link needed the confirmation that he wasn’t in trouble to relax fully.
Link twisted to look in the direction of the others. He counted five of them—not including Hyrule, Sky, and Twilight—all of whom had been waiting within hearing distance, and now moved to meet Link halfway.
“Is everyone okay?”
Hyrule took the lead. “We’re fine. The kid got hurt, but he’s all healed up now.”
Flushing, Link put on his most polite voice. “Thank you for healing me,” he started, looking at Hyrule and then drifting his eyeline over the others, forcibly making eye contact with each of them, “and for saving me from the monsters.”
“No need to thank us,” Twilight said next to him, and Link realized he was still holding his hand. He let go, blushing harder. He was grateful that the man didn’t say anything more about it.
“Of course,” one of them wearing a blue scarf agreed. “It’s our job. We couldn’t just stand by while that thing attacked a little kid.”
Job? Link was too stuck on that part to bother arguing about the ‘little kid’ bit. His eyes widened. “Oh! Are you knights?” They didn’t really look like traditional Hylian knights, but maybe they were from somewhere else. Around here, maybe? Except Twilight said they were lost, too…
“More or less,” said a heavily-armored man with one eye. “We come from different walks of life, but we’re all heroes who fight monsters.”
That checks out, Link thought while he gazed at his saviors with new stars twinkling in his eyes—admiration, but also refueled sparks of hope. “So, then, you really can help me?”
“Promise,” Twilight said with a light pat on Link’s shoulder.
“Speaking of,” began the one-eyed man, “what are you doing out here alone?”
“I dunno,” he answered honestly. When a scattering of furrowed brows met him, he explained, “I went to bed at home in Hyrule Castle Town, and then I woke up here in these weird clothes by myself, and then that horse-lion thingy came after me.” Link blinked rapidly, trying to flush away the image of the beast chasing after him, sword posed to cut him in half. Him, hardly keeping his balance, too slow in the rough terrain.
“You were very brave,” Sky noted, and Link smiled. Sky thought he was fearless!
“The monster is called a lynel,” one of them wearing a red vest informed with a deep frown. “They’re difficult beasts, even for seasoned fighters.”
“That must have been a scary situation, huh?” said a notably shorter boy in a multicolored shirt.
Link appreciated his wording: separating the fear from Link personally, attaching it to the external circumstances instead of laying any accusations on his internal reaction. Being fearless in scary situations was what made someone brave, after all. (Link refused to acknowledge that he had been anything but fearless; so long as he could appear fearless in scary situations, he was doing well enough.)
Yes, it absolutely was the most terrifying experience of Link’s life. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—-show fear, though. His dad would certainly not approve of that (although Link thought this situation should be an exception). These people were clearly very powerful and brave, though, like his dad, and he didn’t want them judging him. He realized he was shaking, but try as he might, he couldn’t get his body to stay still. It could have just been from adrenaline, though, so he overlooked it and hoped they would, too.
He puffed out his chest and put on a confident tone. “I got some hits in!”
He took great pride in the way Blue-Scarf’s eyebrows shot up. “You know how to fight?” His eyes rolled over Link’s small form and a crease grew onto his forehead. “What did you hit it with?”
“I had a sword, but it broke…”
Multicolored-Shirt paled and stared, bewildered, past them at the metal shards littering the ground with a new uneasy comprehension.
“Is the gear yours?” asked the youngest-looking one, who was wearing a sky blue shirt with a white lobster design on it. The vague similarity prompted Link to glance down at the pattern on his brighter blue tunic—a sword.
Right. Gear. “No.” Misreading their surprise, he jumped to add, “I promise I didn’t steal it! I just woke up with it.”
“Hey, no accusations over here. Much weirder things have happened.” Lobster-Shirt shrugged easily. “Plus, even if you did, I’m a pirate, so I would honestly support it.”
“Wind, don’t encourage stealing to an impressionable little kid,” Blue-Scarf chastised Lobster-Shirt—Wind—in a hiss. His face smoothed out when he looked back at Link. “But he’s right, we’ve seen and experienced a lot of really weird things.”
Link would certainly classify his current predicament as a ‘really weird thing’. Maybe these people could help him, then—especially if they were heroes.
“It’s not mine, but I do recognize some of the gear, at least.” He reached back for the shield and bow—which became much lighter when Sky supported the weight and helped him lift it over his head. “My dad has the same sword and bow! He’s a royal knight,” he proudly shared. “I don’t know this shield, though.” It was a brilliant blue, with the Hylian crest patterned onto it. He raised it and mimicked the way he’d seen some of the knights use shields. It was big enough to cover his entire body if he curled up.
“Is that how you know how to use a sword? From your dad?”
“I mean, I kinda just held onto the handle and smacked it around,” Link admitted. It wasn’t so complicated to him, but the poorly held back laughter and looks of dismay on some of the heroes had him wondering if he’d said something wrong. “Er, but yeah, I watch my dad and the other soldiers train sometimes.”
Honestly, Link reckons that he just got very lucky with the three hits he managed to get on the lynel. That, and the sheer desperation that comes from being in a moral peril probably did something to a person to amplify whatever survival skills and instincts they had. He remembered trying to emulate the swordfighting he’d watched before, but the whole… well, everything since waking up was a giant blur.
Multicolored-Shirt refocused the group. “So, you don’t have any clue how you got here?”
Sensing the need for some hints, One-Eye added to the query, “Did you happen to touch any strange objects recently? Or maybe get hit with a spell? Was anyone mean to you?”
Link bit his lip. No matter how hard he thought back, he couldn’t remember how he had gotten into the rainforest in strange clothing with strange weapons near a strange monster and this group of eight kind strangers-turned-heroes. It had been a perfectly normal day: him playing with his sister, Aryll; his mom letting him help cook dinner; his dad coming home from work as a royal knight and humoring Link while he showed off his ‘moves’ with his ‘practice sword’ (a nice stick he found).
“No, I don’t think so. It was just a normal day. I don’t remember anything weird happening…”
One-Eye nodded, still looking cool and collection, unperturbed, which gave Link some hope. “All right. We’ll just move forward from here, then. We usually gather our information as we go, anyway.”
Blue-Scarf looked around, surveying the area. “Do you happen to have any ideas as to where we might be?”
“I don’t know a lot of geography,” Link admitted, “but I know the Faron region has a tropical rainforest, and this place seems pretty wet and foresty. I dunno what ‘tropical’ means...”
“I’d say it’s fairly tropical,” Wind said. “It’s definitely warm and humid around here.”
Blue-Scarf hummed. “Do you know where Faron is relative to the castle?”
“Um…” He tried to visualize the Hyrule map as he’d seen it in his classroom, but he only really got a blurry visual of blue and green. “It’s farther down on the map?” he said like a question. That was probably not very helpful. His dad probably wouldn’t be proud of how little geography he knew, what with all the travel he’d done as a knight and the stories he’d told him. In his defense, most of those stories didn’t specify the exact directions or relative locations, and were more focused on the place in isolation. “Sorry. I dunno.”
“It’s okay. I was just wondering if you had any hints. Even the small stuff is helpful, since we’re new to the area. We travel a lot, though, so we’re pretty well-versed in finding our way out of unknown terrain—”
“Because we get lost so much,” Red-Vest muttered.
Blue-Scarf shot Red-vest a dirty look, but pressed on more emphatically, “So, we’ll get out of here, just like we always do.”
Link’s stomach fluttered a little. He must not have done a good enough job at hiding his nerves, because Red-Vest’s face softened slightly as he eyed him. “Er, we are used to being lost, but not all of us are as bad at navigation as him.” He jabbed a thumb in Blue-Scarf’s direction. “So you don’t need to worry about it. We’re going to help you. The main point is that we have experience.”
“I am not bad at navigation.” Blue-Scarf crossed his arms.
“Says the one who’s taking directions from a… Wait, how old are you?”
All eyes focused on Link again.
He straightened his back, standing tall to his full four-foot stature. “I’m six and a half.”
There was a harmony of sharp inhales across the group, alongside winces and some muttered words Link didn’t catch. Those that didn’t drop their heads into their hands seemed to all eye each other, blinking some unspoken understanding that Link felt left out of. “What?”
Multicolored-Shirt sobered first. “Nothing. You’re just really young, to be alone and in a situation like that.” Sky seemed to agree, based on the way he softly patted his head.
Link, on the other hand, was about to protest that no, he wasn’t that young, but Wind seemed to read his mind because he interrupted, “And just ‘cause you’re younger doesn’t mean you’re not strong, too. You kept that lynel back until we could get to you, and that’s really impressive.” His reassurance was fierce, as if it was personal.
“Yeah, you did good, kid,” Twilight affirmed.
“Really?” Link had still gotten hurt, and he wouldn’t have made it out if they hadn’t come and saved him. Even knowing that, though, he couldn’t get himself to put down the praise.
“Really,” One-Eye asserted, and coming from the strongest-looking, most heavily armored guy, that meant a lot. Blue-Scarf and Hyrule nodded along as well.
Maybe it was because these people all looked strangely like his parents—and himself if he was older, he realized—but Link could almost pretend the praise was coming from his dad. It felt like a win.
-----
A/N:
Hyrule: It’s okay that you’re afraid, because that’s a part of courage. You’re stronger for it.
Link: Got it, so I should strive to be brave and fearless instead of courageous!
Hyrule: ?!?!? I— No, that’s not what I said at all—
Link: Okie dokie, adding this to my internal learning to suppress my feelings and kick myself for any fear I feel!
Hyrule: :0
...
Twilight, later, trying to be comforting: Hey, it’s okay, don’t be afraid. :)
Link: I’M NOT AFRAID!!! HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF BEING A BAD PERSON!
Twilight: ?!?!? I didn’t—
Link: Go away, you’re threatening my security in my beliefs about my self-worth. You’re not cool anymore.
Twilight, hanging his head in the corner, whimpering to Time: What did I do…? He doesn’t like me anymore. I’m supposed to be good with kids!
This chapter was thanks to @tokiriforest‘s wonderful post. It was one of the major things to inspire the story of Wildflower. Thank you so much for your wonderful art and the inspiration you gave me <3</p>
—————-
Wild woke up with a start. He went into a panic until he realized that he was in a room. Wild was tense as he took in his surroundings, making sure it wasn’t just a dream induced by Mipha’s grace. He felt a sigh of relief as he felt her power thrumming within his very core, a nice reminder despite her spirit no longer with him. Putting a hand to his chest, he held it there for a while, lost to the beating of his own heart. He was lost in thought that he didn’t hear footsteps approaching the door and opening it.
“Oh! You’re awake!” came a sweet voice.
Wild was startled from his thoughts as he looked up and saw a woman with red hair. He couldn’t help but stare at her. Must not have realized that he stared for a long time because he noticed the woman become a bit awkward.
“Do… Do you remember me?” she tentatively asked.
Wild just nodded his head. He noticed the woman become ecstatic with relief. “Where…” he was taken aback with his young voice. It had slipped his mind that he was currently young. Oh Hylia, he was young still… How was he going to explain this to her? Where were the others? Were they hurt? And that thing… Where was that thing? All thoughts were soon halted when the woman spoke once more.
“Wild, honey? You are okay,” Malon softly spoke. “You are in my home. My husband and the other boys are out and about in the ranch. Link actually came in last night and had you held in his arms. I was given a run down of what has happened. A lot to take in at first really. Before I asked him to tell me once more, I had him take you to our room so I could help patch you up.”
Wild looked at himself. He barely noticed the bandages he had on his arms and legs and the one on his face. As he took in the bandages, another thought came up. The room… he was in Time’s and Malon’s room. Time’s and Malon’s room! His small hands covered his face as the realization set in. Did he kick out Time and Malon out of their room? Questions and scenarios were whirring in his mind and Malon realized he was deep in his thoughts.
“Hey now. You have nothing to worry about. My husband and I actually slept well in our bed. Not that there was an issue!” Malon softly shut the door and walked on over to her bed as she sat on the edge, next to the mass hidden under the blankets. “Aw, sweetie. No need to be embarrassed. You actually aren’t the first to have shared a space in our bed. You fit just right between the both of us.” Malon knew she wasn’t really helping out the poor boy, but she couldn’t help it. Having someone between them felt… nice. And she wasn’t lying about Wild not being the first to have a spot on the bed. A niece of Ingo’s actually was the first one a couple years ago.
“That’s still so embarrassing. I am a grown man. To be sleeping between a couple…”
Malon just stared at the small mass under the blanket. She couldn’t help but laugh, “Aren’t you getting hot under there? And hey,” she tugged on the blanket and waited for a bit until baby blue eyes finally peeked from out the blanket. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s like when you share a bed with your companions. Besides, With your current situation, it didn’t even cross our minds. Helped me not to hog the bed, as my husband puts it.” A small laugh was shared between the both of them. That did seem to lift the embarrassment on Wild’s features.
“Wait… I remembered that you had like another room or two. Why bring me to this one?” Wild questioned.
“Well, it was my first thought to have you brought here. I have my medical supplies here. And actually, you didn’t let go of my husband’s tunic well until he sat on the bed laid on it with you next to him. Once you were all bandaged up, Twilight tried to take you to a guest room with him but you ended up whining in your sleep that you didn’t quiet down until you were back in my husband’s arms.” A giggle left her lips as she watched Wild duck back into the covers.
“Kill me, please,” came the muffled reply. “Did the others hear me?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. But you didn’t hear this from me, with you holding on to Link, my husband, he was just so happy, especially when you didn’t want to let go. Kicked out our, uh… ranch hand when he was adamant on taking you to the room with him.”
Wild giggled at that thought of Twilight getting kicked out. Thinking about Time, the giggling soon died down into silence. Memories of yesterday came to his mind. The monster of yesterday took on Time’s appearance. There was nothing amiss, even the scar and markings were accurate, all with the exception of the voice. He shivered as the voice replayed in his mind. He could not decipher what the thing had spoken. But by Hylia, he felt pure, unadulterated fear. Before he could even pursue the anxious thought further, a gentle pat brought him back to the present.
“Hey, you’re okay,” Malon reassured softly. “Once you were settled in, Link filled in me once more. Darling, I cannot imagine what you experienced through. Would… would you like to talk about it?”
Wild just shook his head. He wanted to laugh. A hero, afraid of a monstrosity such as that being from yesterday. He had seen creatures more fearsome, and yet here he was, afraid to even share the sight he saw. Maybe it was because the thing took the formation of someone familiar? Maybe. But today would not be the day he would share.
As if any more embarrassment could be added to this lovely morning, his stomach decided to growl. Wild could only clutch down on his stomach as embarrassment burned at the tips of his ears and Malon just laughed. She gently guided him off the bed and helped him put on his tunic. He was red faced by the time he came out of the room. How could he have forgotten where his arms and head came out of. He was already hating this and he was just wishing any of the goddesses just whisk him away.
Climbing down the stairs, Wild tried to compose himself as he heard soft chattering filter through. The smell of breakfast wafted through his nose and he couldn’t help but speed up his descent down the stairs.
Just as Wild reached the last step, he had a small pause as he took in the people in the room. Chatter stopped as all eyes looked to the two who entered. Wild began to fidget as he realized Time was staring at him. He took a step back only to bump into Malon. A reassuring hand was placed on his shoulders and he looked back at Malon who gave him a comforting smile.
“Good morning, Wild.” Time gently greeted.
This was the voice he knew. The familiarity and the warmth he heard was the Time he knew. It wasn’t that cold, malicious voice. It was him. Truly it was him. Before he even registered what he was doing. Wild’s legs just ran and his arms became outstretched as he slammed himself into the older man. It did take Time by surprise as he just received the young boy with a resounding oof.
Wild told himself he wasn’t going to cry. And he didn’t. He just had a sniffle here and there. He also took note of the silence and he just decided to ignore it. He sought comfort and he received it. His pride can take a few hits anyway.
Everyone looked at the pair with delighted sadness. They were all glad to see their now youngest member doing just fine. But the way they saw Wild clutched to Time as if for dear life confirmed that something indeed had happened to their dearest friend.
Malon was deeply touched at the display. Just the way her husband did not hesitate to comfort the child, just made her heart flutter. He truly was a gentle and kind soul. And a great father, whether he realizes it or not, she thought to herself. “Oh dear, such a warm atmosphere here today in this kitchen. But I sure am starving. Would one of you boys care to come help me?”
Hyrule volunteered and Wild was about to follow along, until Warriors called out, “Hey, short stuff, where’s my hug? Shouldn’t a dashing hero, such as I, get one before you go?”
Everyone knew it was in all good fun. Wild just sent a small glare his way and did a gagging noise as he disappeared into the kitchen.
Legend snickered, “Who would want to hug you and your stinkin’ leg anyway?”
Warriors just sent a kick under the table as it nailed Legend’s shin. A utteral cry of pain came from the target and a small kicking war was about to ensue until Time sent a disapproving stare at the same time the kitchen door swung open. Both Hyrule and Malon each bore two plates while Wild bore one. He insisted he carry two, but with a gentle reminder from Malon of his current situation, he relented to just one. But it was perfect either way. Wild wanted to serve the plate to Twilight first anyway. That’s why he agreed to just one.
Taking the plate from the boy, Twilight noticed the silent apology that shined within the child’s eyes. Having a soft smile adorning his face, Twilight just patted his head and thanked him as Wild bounded away to the kitchen to retrieve one more plate. As everyone finally settled down, Wild squeezed his way between Four and Twilight and began digging into his plate with such fervor. Twilight had to tell the child to slow down, lest he choke on his food. Of course, Wild just rolled his eyes and exaggerated his slow movements only to pick up the speed once more.
After breakfast, everyone did their part in cleaning up. While Wild was not within earshot, Time addressed the others that a meeting was to be called and that it was best Wild not be present. Malon understood that she would be filled in if necessary and thus took it upon herself to have the child preoccupied.
“Oh Wild, sweetie, why won’t you come and help me feed the animals? I need a big, strong boy to help a poor, old woman like me.”
Giggling, Wild took the bait, “You’re not old! And I will definitely help out, because that’s what heroes do.”
And off both of them went to do what was needed.
Time couldn’t help but look after them with a tender smile.
“So the old man does have tender feelings, rather than just stoic ones,” Warriors teased.
Time wanted to throw a glare at him. But his mouth betrayed him as a small smile took over. Time received a pat on the back as all the others shared smiles all around.
And it stayed like that for a couple seconds until Warriors became stoic and everyone else followed suit.
“So that… murky thing. Twi, I know you said some things about it last night.”
Twilight looked at Warriors as he nodded after his statement. “As far as we can tell, that inky shadow is not just a shadow. The consistency was goop-like. The creature had the tints of red and it was capable of speech, albeit it was broken and slow.”
Everyone else was in deep thought. Minds were processing as they all tried to picture the hideous being.
“Wait,” Four spoke, “Didn’t you say that it burned you?”
Thinking, Twilight nodded. “Yes. whatever it was, it burned. Anything plant life it came into contact withered and died. When I slashed at it with my sword, some of its… substance landed on me and caused small burns to occur. Luckily, it wasn’t too bad. I do not want to imagine how it would feel if it prolonged its touch.” Another thought came to Twilight in that instant. “That thing was coming after him. Do you think it was just after him? Or is there another reason?”
Time was pensive. “I know he doesn’t want to speak about it. But we all know he saw something. When I stepped into the clearing, he was filled with such terror, it was awful to see. Putting at least some clues together, that thing must have done something that caused him to fear me.”
“And he won’t have witnessed that if only I had made sure he was with us.”
“Twilight, no.” Sky interjected. “We were all caught off guard. By the goddesses, it was you who was able to find him first before that thing managed to get him.”
Warriors directed his statement towards Twilight. “I told you that you have no need to be so hard on yourself. You did what you could to get to him back and you did. The only thing he got was some trauma and simple cuts and bruises. We know he seems to be doing okay for the meantime. But you did it Twi. You helped find him first and helped bring him and Time to safety.”
“I should have been faster to finish the bastard off,” Twilight grumbled.
He received a pat on his shoulder from the old man in affirmation to what Warriors had said. “We all need to be vigilant on this child, Twilight-”
“Problem child is more like it,” Legend mumbled.
Another small smile took place on Time’s face as he heard Legend’s remark. “Yes, this problem child. We all know that we will do everything to take care of Wild. No one or nothing will cause him harm. There is no need for you to carry the burden all by yourself.”
“Besides,” continued Warriors, “I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to be fawning over him like some child.”
“He is a child, you idiot,” Legend said as he rolled his eyes.
“Which does bring me to my next concern,” Wind said. “I know it seems uncanny for me to say this, but I do not want Wild to partake in any battles. I am sure he can hold his own, in terms of defense, but I do not see it right for him to fight in battles against monsters and the like.” Wind felt it foreign to say that. It’s not that he doesn’t believe in Wild’s capabilities, but he thinks in terms of his sister. Sure defensive maneuvers are always in handy, but he would not want her to fight in battles. He can do it for her, for his family. So why would Wild be any different? He knew Wild was the one to do the blow to the creature. But he also knew Wild had difficulties in handling the sword he had. He would help protect the child like a big brother would.
“I do see your point, Wind.” Four answered. “While a small knife or dagger can be used for defensive purposes, I do not deem it to be appropriate for him to wield a weapon in his current age.”
Hyrule was thinking. Wild was pretty capable of handling himself. He doesn’t know if the rune watered down his abilities, but he understood what Wind was saying. He was not in the condition to carry out battles. This was a child, for Hylia’s sake. And it was a good thing that Wild was not here. He definitely was not going to be happy to hear that this choice was not made with him present. Maybe he can discuss with Four about making a small dagger for the boy as an apology. Of course, it will just be between him and Four.
As the small impromptu meeting came to an end, Wild burst in laughing with Malon in tow.
“I thought that cucco was never going to leave me alone!” came the small reply from the boy.
“He did seem to take a liking to your bed head after all,” Malon replied. “And that untamable hair does seem so cozy I could probably use it as a napping place.” Malon was about to reach down and ruffle Wild’s hair as he shrieked in merriment and managed to dodge it without fail.
Warrior took notice on how Wild expertly dodged the hand that threatened to come down upon him. This kid still has it in him, he thought.
Having his head protected, Wild looked to the others as they stared at him. He cleared his throat and smoothed down his hair, only to discover a lone cucco feather lodged within his locks of hair.
“Uh… what’s going on here? Did I miss something?” the child questioned.
As everyone was thinking of something to dissuade the wild child from presisting and discovering of their little meeting, Malon stepped in. “I told my husband to discuss with the boys on what chores would be assigned to who and sleeping arrangements.”
“Uh, yup!” Wind confirmed.
“And it has been decided that you will be on feeding duty with me or Malon” Twilight added.
Everyone in the room thanked the goddesses that Wild took the excuse wholeheartedly and with such contentment. Of course he would be helping. He would not be idle and let everyone do something when he knew he could do stuff. And with that, he was satisfied. He missed the appreciative look Time threw to his beloved wife. Goddess was she a blessing to his life.
“Ah,” Malon spoke once more, “I told our guest here that I have the perfect set of clothing for him. And if you would be such a dear, my love, please get them for me down from the attic.”
Time’s eye widen. No. She could not have been thinking about that clothing. She wouldn’t. Seeing the smirk she held, she most definitely would. Why in the good grace of Din would she want those clothes? He cursed himself for not getting rid of them like he told himself he would.
Upon coming to the dusty chest, Time couldn’t help but cringe at the poor fate that would befall the poor boy. He could tell his wife that the clothing could no longer be wearable. But would she believe him? Goddess, why would she? Her reasoning was that one day someone else could wear them. He couldn’t hold back a slight blush when she suggested that.
Opening the chest, Time was hit with nostalgia. This was the outfit that defined him as the little boy in green. The outfit accompanied him for most of his journey; in both the good and the bad. Lifting the green shirt, he saw some wear and tear. Nothing that could be fixed and not deemed unwearable. His fingers treaded lightly on the fabric and he felt raises on where the fabric was patched. Maybe a visit to the forest will help restore the fabric. He was told as a boy that the waters of the forest helped revitalize the clothing, even going as far to adjust the size if they began to fit a bit too tight. Maybe he could dunk Wild in it. That thought made Time laugh to himself. He took out the rest of the outfit and frowned. Was he always this small? It was a bit of a shock to see how small the outfit was.
Soft footsteps brought Time out of reminiscing when he saw his wife poke her head into the attic.
“I was beginning to think you were destroying them,” she lightly laughed.
A small huff left him, “I should have done that before you came in.”
“Darling, I know that these bring up some nostalgia, both good and bad, but remember these were the clothes I saw you in when we first met.”
“Ah yes,” Time closed his eye in remembrance, “I stuck out like a sore thumb. It was why you singled me out.”
“Well, you did aid me, fairy boy” Malon taunted. “Besides, you looked adorable in green. Helped me to single you out when you were in the town square. When I saw you years later, the green just jumped out to me. Sure I couldn’t remember your face, but-”
“My dashing looks stood out to you,” Time finished.
A laugh was shared between the both of them. Malon took Time’s hands in her own, holding onto the clothing as well.
“He will be okay, Link. He is in safe hands. Whatever that thing was, it will not prevail in bringing harm. Now, let’s get him these clothes. He will be as dashing as you were when we first met,” she giggled. “Although, I think we will need to alter it to fit,” she said as she examined the cloth.
“No need. I think a trip to the forest is in order. I was told of tales that the waters in the forest revitalized the clothes of a kokiri. I suppose they were true. I never had issues with my clothing.” Time rubbed his hands against the fabric once more.
“Well, we should get these clothes to the little rascal. I am sure everyone is waiting. I guess I am going to have to tell them I had to stop you from destroying them.” Malon immediately snatched the clothing from her husband and booked it out of the attic before he could even put a word in.
When they both finally reached the living area, the clothes were present to Wild. Twilight had to clear his throat in order to prevent Wild from turning his nose from it. Wild, of course, would not be ungrateful, but it was a lot of green. His eyes strayed to the cap that was neatly folded on top of the tunic. Wild made a face at it. His older mind was asking why would he make a face at the cap when he himself didn’t mind them. But the child within rejected the hat. He did not like hats and it wasn’t part of a uniform anyways. So, in essence, they couldn’t force him to wear it.
Wild thanked them and meekly asked Twilight to come with him, just in case he needed the help. Not that he didn’t, but it was just in case.
Stepping from out of the room and following Twilight to where the others were at, Wild shyly stepped out. The fabric felt cool and there was a faint scent of forest rather than musk, which greatly pleased him. Everything was a bit big on him. Oh great goddess, why he had to be such a small child. The waist belt did help him hold the clothing together. When Malon presented him with a mirror, he could not help but stare at himself in amazement. Small hands touched his unmarred skin. He could not believe his scars were no longer there. And he felt saddened. His scars were a part of his identity. With them gone, he felt foreign with his own reflection.
A reassuring hand appeared in his reflection. It was Twilight’s own as he looked down at him with a sincere smile. Looking back at his own reflection, the cap that sat on his head drew him out from lamenting his loss.
“I look so stupid with this cap,” Wild said as he pulled it off from his head. His hair became more untamed with the action. He sighed in exasperation as small hands combed through his hair.
Four smugly replied, “If only you kept that cap on. It would have kept that crazy hair hidden.”
Wild couldn’t help but stick his own tongue out in response as he peeked from the side of the mirror. Baby blue eyes soon landed on Warriors. He realized how intent Warriors was looking at him. Did Warriors not realize it?
Wild began to fiddle the hem of the green tunic. Sensing his uncomfort, Warrior snapped out of his stupor.
“Uh sorry… You look great, Wild!” Warriors assured him. “You just remind me of an excellent fighter I once knew. His son was a spitting image of him,” he lied.
“Good to know. I was beginning to think you didn’t like it or something.”
“Nah, you’re looking pretty good Wild. Of course, not as good looking as me,” Warriors added.
That earned him a scoff. Warriors was glad when the attention of everyone else was taken by Time who started to divulge his plans to visit a forest for tomorrow and what not. Warriors honestly wasn’t paying much attention. His focus was still on Wild. He obviously made sure not to make the boy be aware he was watching him, he would let his eyes wander elsewhere and hum his approval as everyone else pitched in their ideas to vist the market square tomorrow.
As the small meeting concluded, Legend pulled Wild aside and tied small bands around the shorts to hold them in place. Despite the top fitting loose, it still stayed on and in no need of immediate adjustment. Turning him loose, ran to Twilight as both boys went out to feed the livestock once more before the day was done.
With the absence of Twilight and Wild, everyone else went to do what they were required to do around the ranch. As Warriors was left to his thoughts, he went back to Wild. He cursed himself for making his gawking obvious. He was just too into his appearance. He thanked whoever helped him come up with the excuse. Wild did bear similarities to him, but it was just coincidence, right? Unless… he would have to shove that out of his mind for now. He cannot afford the others to question him at the moment.
—
As the day came to a close, a bath was drawn as everyone took their turns. Wild made it clear to everyone that he was in control of bathing himself and needed no help in handing him anything. Afterwards, everyone settled down for dinner and a homey atmosphere reigned within the house as lively chatter and the clattering of utensils sounded throughout.
When it was finally time for bed, Malon teased Wild and offered their bed once more as Wild just flat out rejected the offer with embarrassment etched on his features. He decided to just share a pelt with Twilight instead as said hero sent a triumphant smug to the old man.
As both boys began to situate themselves on the pelt, Twilight was about to bring Wild close until the young boy kicked his leg out.
“This is a space barrier. You cannot cross it,” said the young boy.
Laughing to himself, Twilight responded, “There is no shame in a simple cuddle, Wild. It’s like when you hug Wolfie.”
Wild just rolled his eyes, “Well that’s diffint. Stop making fun of me. I’m going to sleep in the corner and make it seem like you hogged the whole space.”
Oh this was priceless. The grumpy face Wild had just did not help his situation. Twilight could only lift his hands in surrender and scoot back a bit. Wild just grunted and turned his back to the older boy.
“Aw, Wild. No good night for me?” Twilight amusedly questioned.
“I hate you right now. Good night.”
“Okay, okay. That was good enough for me. But just know that if you end up on top of me again, it wasn’t my fault.”
No response was given, just soft snores. ‘By the goddess did he fall asleep quick,’ thought Twilight. Checking over Wild, Twilight brought up the blanket and made sure the child was covered. As he laid in the dark, Twilight just stared at the sleeping child. His mind was constantly telling him to sleep, that Wild was okay and present. It was a constant hammering thought. Reaching out and gently placing his hand on the blond locks, Twilight let out a breath he didn’t even know he held. His hand was touching a warm body. A small, warm body. And he was relieved. Wild was here and breathing. And Twilight be damned if it wasn’t so.
As the sun rose in the sky, the heroes stirred from their slumber and began to filter out of their rooms, all with the exception of three. Laughter and a groan were heard from the room that housed the other three companions.
Wind was about to volunteer to see what was going on with the other three when Warriors came out of the room struggling to contain a fit of laughter.
“Baby faced boy!” before all other words were lost to laughter.
As the others rushed to the room, they were met with a concerned Hyrule speaking to a mass under the blankets.
“Wild, it’s not bad! Just come on out.”
A muffled no was heard.
“What’s going on?”
“Warriors hasn’t stopped laughing.”
Off in the distance, the cackling continued as broken words of apology spilled from the young man.
“Shut up,” came the muffled reply.
“It’s just… Wild has regressed and-”
The small mass moved, “Don’t you dare say it.”
“His voice cracked,” Hyrule whispered to the group.
A groan just resounded with the blankets.
“Wild, it’s okay! Just come on out.”
With a sigh of resignation, Wild removed the blankets and stared at the other six. Messy blond hair accompanied a disgruntled face.
“Pfft… Baby face! I’m sorry. I need to go.” Legend left to go join Warriors outside.
Wild just deepened his glare. Baby blue eyes soon landed on the other five. Smiles of varying degrees were observed. “Just out with it, will you.”
“You are so adorable!”
“Honestly, it isn’t that bad. You still are you, cub… Just younger.”
“I look stupid!” Eyes became wide. Snorts of laughter left some and Wild just hid. “My voice sounds so stupid!”
Despite Time being amused, he gingerly placed his hand on the mass under the blankets. “Your voice cracked. We all went through that.”
“Yeah, Wild. I sometimes go through that myself. But you look pretty neat though! And don’t mind the baby face. I also suffer from the syndrome as well.”
“Okay, okay. Can you please leave? I’ll get ready so we can see Impa.”
As everyone left, Twilight stayed behind, “If you need help, just call out, okay?”
Scoffing, Wild became offended, “As if. Now get out of my room.”
“Bossy, bossy. We’ll be waiting for you.”
----
Legend and Warriors waited for the others as they regrouped nearby.
“I shouldn’t have laughed. But the way his voice cracked made me lose it. Normally I don’t let things get to me, but it was just different. I guess it was the baby face that did me in.”
“He’s not ready to go?” Legend looked around.
Before anything else could be said, the sound of a creaking door grabbed the attention as eight heads swiveled around to see a meek-looking face peering from the side.
“Twi? I need help.”
-----
Exiting out of the inn, Legend commented, “Oi, didn’t your clothes shrink with you or something?”
The boy harbored his usual garb, minus the boots. His champion tunic hung off of one shoulder and his pants were rolled up and a piece of torn fabric looped around the belt loops to keep the pants somewhat in place.
Looking Legend up and down with a glare, Wild responded, “Wouldn’t you and your pasty knees like to know.”
Laughter erupted from almost everyone.
Flabbergasted, Legend became offended. “You leave my knees out of this, brat!”
He only earned a stick of the tongue. Legend had to be held back by Sky before he smacked the young boy upside the head.
Upon arriving at the grand home, two sheikah guards stood at attention and blocked the entrance to the staircase with their weapons. Shoving the others aside, Wild came up to the two men.
“Hey guys! I’m here to speak with Impa. It’s for important business. And these guys are with me.”
Upon looking at the young boy, both men saw the sheikah slate hanging by a piece of fabric- at the demand of Wild to Twilight.
“Ah, Master Link! Apologies. We have been notified by Impa to be expecting your visit. We did not recognize you at all.”
“As stated, please step on inside. Impa awaits your visit.”
“Thanks Cado, Dorian! Come on guys!” Wild began making his way up the stairs as he held on to his loose pants and looked behind him as the others all filed along and followed after the smaller boy. Upon reaching the grand doors, Wild adjusted his pants once more and pushed the doors open, allowing himself and his companions to enter along.
“Ah, young champion, I have been awaiting your arrival,” an old voice called out. “So there was truth to what Purah had said. You do not look a day over ten.”
“I assume Purah has told you everything there is to know?”
“Indeed I have been made aware of the unfortunate incident that has befallen you. It has been such a long time since these old eyes seen such a young lad.” Impa hadn’t missed the bashful smile that graced Wild’s features. “But I must ask how you have been feeling so far, young hero?”
As Wild began to delve into how he had been feeling, soft footsteps took the attention of the others in the room as a young sheikah woman made herself known.
“Grandmother? Has Master Link arrived yet?”
She stopped at the footsteps and her bashful nature took over as she noted the others who were in the room.
“Ah! I-I’m sorry! I didn’t r-realize our guests were here al-ready!”
“Paya!”
A gasp left the woman as she was soon overtaken by a hug from a young boy. Looking to her grandmother, she received a nod from the elderly woman and realization dawned that the young boy hugging her was the champion she deeply admired and low-key crushed on.
“M-Master Link! S-so good to s-see you!” She couldn’t help but hug back awkwardly.
“Paya, why don’t you accompany the young champion and get him at least a set of clothes that will properly fit him. Link, here. This should be enough to buy you something.”
“Such kindness you harbor for me, oh great village chief. Thank you.” Taking the rupees, Wild immediately ran to Paya, grabbing her hand and leading her outside with such energy that the poor young woman did everything to not trip over her own two feet.
The smile soon faded from Impa as she directed her gaze back to the others in the room. “Purah tells me that there were instances that he recalls memories of long ago. What has he said or what has he shared?”
Both Warriors and Hyrule looked at one another.
“Well, when we arrived at the dead of night at the inn, Wild, I mean, Link, was just exhausted. Swaying as if he spent days with no sleep.”
Hyrule continued, “He just started responding to someone or something. Something about flowers and how he needed to go see you. I tried to bring it up this morning, but he had no recollection and was angry.”
“Angry? Because of his predicament or because of something else?”
“Well, you see,” Warriors became a bit meek, “I laughed at his voice. It just cracked. I don’t know why it made me laugh, but it did.”
“I see. But nothing else?”
All heads shook.
“Just to clear things up, Purah did let you know that his behavior would change, correct?” all heads nodded. “The display of affection was not of his character. At least it hasn’t been since a while. I know questions are whirring in those minds of yours, but do not utter them. Those conversation pieces you heard last night must be from his young life that is bleeding into his current memories.”
“So you say that it’s not just behavior that would change but memories will surface?”
“Aye. how far and to what extent is truly unknown. I pray to Hylia above that it is not harsh on him. I do have one major concern for him. The Yiga.”
The room became cold. Time swore his breath could be seen. “There has been mention of that group.”
“A group of assassins whose goal is to murder the Hylian champion for the blood spilt from their lord and master. With the defeat of the Calamity, the pursuit of the hero has decreased some, but not enough to stop completely. Link is not out of danger. I am aware of the switching of worlds, but I urge you all to use caution when you are in this world.”
“I think we can manage,” spoke Time.
“I believe it to be ideal to pick and choose names when in the company of strangers. I do not believe titles would be wise as the Yiga are aware of the title of the champion. The only ones who are currently aware of Link’s condition are a select few. Zelda has also been notified. But I have a feeling that you lot will not be able to see her as the goddess has a timer currently set.”
“We will be careful. Thank you for that. And we will be taking good care of him, worry not.”
“Thank you.”
And at that moment, the doors opened as the young woman before stepped in, “I’m s-sorry… Master Link demands you all join him and Koko for breakfast.”
Standing up and dusting himself, Twilight turned his attention back to Impa. “I believe that is our cue to leave. You have our promise to watch him safely.”
“May Hylia above grant you patience and strength. He was a wild child.”
“I freaken knew it...”
-------
Exhaling a breath, Paya looked to her grandmother. “He was such an endearing young boy. So energetic and lively.”
“He wasn’t always like that. Younger? Yes. But it felt like eons since I saw that energy once again.”
“It must have been nice to see once more. You were very kind to give him some rupees. He was able to purchase a hylian tunic set. He was a little embarrassed to have asked for assistance in measurements, but he was so elated. He claimed it to be a gift from the ‘Great Village Chief’. He would have thanked you, but he saw Koko cooking and wanted to help prepare a meal for his companions before he demanded I come get them.” Paya could help but laugh as the memory of the small Hylian puffed out his cheeks to come get the others.
“What’s the matter, Grandmother?”
“I have been filled with such great sadness, my dear granddaughter. Those rupees were a mere gift to slowly attone for the sin I have committed against the young champion. I cannot help but fear a storm is brewing. I just hope they all exercise caution.”
Paya wanted to inquire for more. But she did not. Nor did she want to worry her poor grandmother over an acclaimed suspicion of a merchant that both her and Link encountered. Paya, like other sheikah, has been wary of outsiders that come to visit Kakariko. But that one merchant just sent shivers down her spine. There was no time as Link pulled her inside the Enchanted Armour shop, losing sight of that merchant. But it must have been her nerves.
Before she could excuse herself, Cado came bursting in, followed by Dorian.
“A dark portal appeared and Master Link with his companions all went in!”
“The portal then disappeared and there is no trace whatsoever of the young master!”
“Calm yourselves. If it were a dark source of energy, I would have been out the door praying and creating a barrier of some sort, would I have not? It was the will of the goddess that that portal appeared there. You may go in peace. You are also excused, Paya.”
Finally alone, Impa began to pray, “Hylia above, watch over them.”
It does get a bit heavy at the end with some violence directed towards a child. Please proceed with caution.
As the first rays of sun began to illuminate the sky, a certain household was beginning to stir. Raen had gotten himself suited and ready for the day ahead. Having his wife making a small breakfast, he went to his children’s shared room and proceeded to wake his son, only to find both children ready and getting dressed. Ilé shuffled about in the closet trying to pick a suitable dress to wear as she grabbed the small uniform to hand to her young brother.
Link was rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he grabbed onto the uniform his sister held out from him. As he took it from her, Link stumbled along the room to go to the bathroom, only to crash into his father. Now a bit more alert, he soon relaxed as he realized it was just his father in the way.
“Morning, Wildflower, Autumn Leaf,” Raen greeted.
“Morning, father.”
“Morning, Papa.” They both greeted in unison. Both children wore small smiles as sleep was still evident in their features. Despite their minds protesting to go back into the warm covers, they both knew that it was a demand ignored. It was now common for them to wake at early hours when the sun was first peeking up. It was just a way of life for them.
Link excused himself and Raen was about to head back into the kitchen when suddenly his eldest child called back to him.
“Father, I know that this is an important day for you, but is it still necessary for Link to go to the citadel? He no longer has time to go truffle hunting with me. Nor does he have time to go out and play.”
Patting his daughter on the head, Raen answered, “The king suggested it, sweetheart. Besides, it will just be a scouting mission and maintenance for the citadel. My men called for my assistance and it will be good for Link to get the lay of the land.”
“Father, you said the same thing when you were requested to go to Zora’s Domain. Why do you lie to yourself, father?”
Raen just sighed. He knew he couldn’t fool his daughter. But how can he tell his daughter that the king demanded his son go? He threw in every protest in the book but the king took none of it and demanded his son go. His men had sent reports that monsters were rallying together and a blue hinox decided to take residence nearby. He would have his son safe within the walls of the citadel. He may have bested men, but monsters were a completely different thing. Link hasn’t come across monsters as of yet.
Raen secretly made his men keep him updated on the whereabouts of the king. He had gotten reports back that the king did not make plans to go to the citadel himself. He was greatly relieved to have heard that. Since the king would not make the trip, he would have his son tucked away within the safety of the walls and he would dispatch the monster rebellion himself with his men.
The king would have no need to know anyway. So as long as the report of the defeat of the monsters reached the castle, all would be well.
“My little fox, do you believe your brother cannot put up a fight? And remember, he has his father with him.”
Ilé just rolled her eyes. “Father, I know he can. But he is a child. He should be running about with children. Truffle hunting with me. Hearing tales from Mama by the fire pit. The king just uses the excuse of your lineage-”
“Ilé, I know your distaste runs deep for the king, but our lineage has nothing to do with it. Link is just a quick learner. Takes after your father.”
“And the legends before you,” Ilé mumbled.
Raen just hugged his eldest close. “I will be keeping your brother safe, my dearest. Now,” holding her a little at arms length, “go and help your mother. I will be checking on your brother.”
Ilé just huffed as she went her way towards the kitchen. Raen just stared at her back. His daughter, now 11 years old, just caught on things too quick. She was slowly leaving her childhood behind. And it greatly saddened him. Both his children were growing up too quickly for his liking. His son, just only five years old, a child that should have had a childhood was also growing up too quickly. He cursed himself for placing his son on the line of sight of the king. If only he had denied his son from picking up that wooden sword at the age of three. If only he didn’t put his son in the spotlight. If only…
If only…
But fate seemed to have funny ways in working in his life. It doesn’t help that his lineage is basically known to everyone. He prides in it, yes, but not when it causes demands aimed towards his children, in particular to his son.
A gentle tug of his pants brought Raen back. He looked down to see his son looking at him with worry etched on his features.
“Papa?”
Raen just bent down and hugged his son tight. When words could not suffice, an embrace would.
“Papa, my clothes,” Link spoke.
Letting go, Raen just looked at Link. “Oh my darling boy. Let me help you with your belts.”
As Raen buckled Link, Ilé came into the room and notified both her father and brother that breakfast was ready to be served and stated that his wife made a threat if he did not hurry.
Link ran to his older sister and showed her his uniform. Link didn’t take notice of the sad look in her eyes as he just went off on how his dad helped him put on the belt and buckles. She just smiled and patted his head.
When the family sat down to have breakfast, a knock sounded and Raen went to answer. Noticing it was his soldier, Raen excused himself from his family and headed outside.
“What is the meaning of this interruption,” questioned Raen.
“I apologize sir. I understand that you had a set time for us to head out to the citadel, but word has been wrong all this time. The king has had a change of mind and will be accompanying us. I came to let you know as soon as possible.”
Raen’s breathing hitched. This was not part of the plan. If the king comes… Oh how cruel fate was playing. Raen thanked his soldier and sent him off. He had to regain his composure before going in, lest he worry his family. Once he felt that he wasn’t shaking and he was indeed calm on the outside, Raen went in and stated that he needed to head out within the hour.
As everyone had started to clean up, Link was about to bound up to his father when his mother called out to her son. “Ah, ah, ah. My little soldier boy cannot go out looking like that,” Adele laughed. She pulled out a damp rag and cleaned up Link’s face from the crumbs that littered around his mouth.
Link just did protesting noises as Ilé mocked her brother. “Such a baby,” she would say.
Of course, that would cause the both of them to bicker back and forth until Adele reprimanded them both and sent her daughter to find something more suitable to wear to wear for the day. As her attention went back to Link, she smoothed out his uniform and brushed off the remaining crumbs. Adele sat on the floor and gently cupped her son’s face in her hands.
Link just sent her the biggest grin. Adele returned it with added affection as she kissed his forehead. “We can’t forget this,” Link’s mother said as she procured a blue beret from her apron pocket.
Link just made a face as he touched the hat.
His mother just looked at him with love. “My, my… such a handsome boy in my house. Reminds me of another handsome man I know of.”
“I hope that handsome man you know is me,” answered her husband as he walked back in the home.
Standing up, Adele responded, “Maybe, maybe not. Only the stones know of my secrets.”
Raen looked to his son. Pride swelled within his heart, only to be drowned in sorrow. Link shouldn’t even have to have a uniform tailored for himself yet. And even if he did, it would have been for formal events to reflect his father’s status, not his own.
Raen’s hands felt clammy as he reached to take his son’s hand. Everything felt mechanical in movement. He wanted to feel numb. The king was coming. And he had to formulate something quick to keep his son safe. But he felt his fate sealed once his hand grasped the small hand.
Only the gentle hand of his wife pulled him out from his turmoil. Worried baby blues came into his view as he realized his wife asked him a question.
“Everything alright?” she repeated.
“Yeah.”
Between the few seconds of silence, Link tugged on his father’s hand, “Papa? We going?”
“Yes, yes we are. Why don’t you go and wait for me outside. Need to tell your sister goodbye and give your mama one final kiss.”
“Ew!” came the reply as Link ran out and avoid the gross scene before it took place.
A gentle hand made Raen turn his attention to his wife. “Take good care of him, Raen. May the goddesses watch over the both of you.”
A loving embrace was shared as a sweet kiss left before the two parted. Sighing, Raen excused himself and went to bid his daughter farewell.
As Link patiently waited outside, he was greeted by a soldier.
“There you are. We must part. Your father will meet us at the castle grounds.”
Link pulled his hand from the soldier’s grip and stared at the soldier. “Papa said to wait. I will wait. I can't just leave without him."
“Your father will meet us at the castle grounds.” Grabbing the child in a bruising grip, the soldier began to drag the unwilling child. Kicking and screaming was all Link could do. Why wasn’t his father coming out? Why was no one else coming out? There should have at least been one living soul to check out the commotion that was currently occurring.
As Link fought away at the hand, something in his mind began to scream at him nothing was right. Streets were eerily quiet, save for his scuffle, and no one even bothered to come out. The hand that had a tight grip on him began to seep a cold temperature. With that, even more alarms were going off in his head. Link began to claw at the hand in a blind panic and even went as far as trying to bite at the offending arm.
One final lash had the soldier letting go with a guttural sound. Link didn’t hesitate to turn tail and immediately book it back to the safety of his home. He prompted his legs to sprint it. He was almost home! Almost there! Almost there!
Almost…
A harsh tug from the back of his collar had the poor child choking as he was roughly slammed on the wall. His breath left his lungs and the enraged look of the soldier was in view of the child’s vision as stars danced across.
“Your father will meet us at the castle grounds,” the man hissed.
Link could only whimper as he weakly called out for his father. “P-Papa.”
“Your father will meet us at the castle grounds,” he spat venomously, one hand slithering dangerously close to the young boy’s neck. “Your father will meet us at the castle grounds.”
Link began to feel pressure on himself. Soon, he was starting to choke. Small hands began to claw at the cold hand.
Wild…
“Your father will meet us at the castle grounds, h̸̨͕̬͍̟̯̪̹͑͗̅̄̐̒̌̌͑͐̀̄̔͜͠ȅ̴͉̏̅̈͌͛̃̇͝r̴̼̘̥̓̽̍̌̏̈́̄̈́̍́͗̍͐͝͝ơ̶̞̖̪͔̝̳̪̥͉̼̍̀̄͋͆̒̂̚.”
