[Image Description: Colored digital art of Linked Spirit Links in various Dark World transformations, with one group picture with a dark background and a series of close-ups. Engineer is a humanoid robot with a single red wheel leg and gold eyes wearing his engineer tunic and hat. He looks nervous, holding a hand up to look at. Wind is a seagull with a red sash around his neck with a gold swirl clasp. He sits on Wolf Ordon's back, one wing spread in gesture. Ordon's wolf form is the same as canon. Next to him is Bunny Link Rinku, wearing her red vest sitting on the ground. Beside her is Hope, who has red diamond wings, and a half-skeletal face with purple fur-like skin. She is crouched, one leg up, arm rested on her knee. The triforce glows on their hand. Glider is a blue deer, with white spots and brown legs, a white marking up his chest like the Champion Tunic. His antlers are shaped similar to the wings of the Hylian Crest. On their back is Mouse, a small brown mouse with white markings. Forest is a Stal, wearing his usual outfit, covered in flowers and vines. Behind him, Bean is a Golden Wolf puppy, looking happy. Smith is a multicolor hummingbird with a minish tail, hovering above Sky. Sky is a Remlit, with his sailcloth tied around his back, and a blue marking in the center of his forehead. End ID.]
Dark World/Twilight Forms! Hope is a partially transformed Anti-Fairy (ala alttp fairy lore), the Triforce is doing a lot of background heavy work here.
Engie was nearly a Tiger tho (under the cut)
[Image Description: Lineart of Engie as a tiger cub, with a heart pattern stripe on his chest and a triangle on his forehead. He looks back at Seagull Wind on his back. End ID]
If they got airdropped into like, the Dark World or the Twilit Realm or wherever’s most convenient, what animals/creatures would they turn into? We know about Twilight and Vet, but what about the others?
~ SCP-42605 ✨
Excellent question!
Before I get into the spirit of your question, I must add a clarification: I think of the Dark World and Twilight Realm as completely different circumstances for transformation. The shape someone takes in the Dark World represents what is in your heart or mind, but most Hylians lose their bodies entirely in the Twilight Realm. The only reason Twilight keeps his shape is because he possesses the Triforce of Courage. He's actually quite worried about what the Shadow Crystal could do if someone accidentally touches it.
[Twilight] wasn’t sure what would happen if one of these boys got ahold of it. In a worst-case scenario, they might be cursed to wander the land without form like those who were caught in the twilight. And if the Crystal was absorbed into them like it was when it turned him into a wolf, no one would ever know what happened to them because he could only sense those spirits as a wolf, and he wouldn't have access to that form anymore.
—A Few Introductions, the Four Swords, and More
I am also worried, because the only ones I know would be 100% safe in such a circumstance would be Mask and... I'd have to double check on Cap. I think he still has his Triforce piece at this point in the timeline, but it might be in Cia or Ganondorf's hands. I don't remember. But everyone else's Triforce is in the Sacred Realm, sitting on a statue, in a bag, missing entirely, etc. Gen might be okay because he has the Light Force, and if Mouse is carrying his bag, he's probably fine, but the others would be in danger.
That being said, onto the point of the question! 👏
Dark World forms
Fun fact about the Dark World: your Dark World form could be a ball, a hand, or even a tree! As I wrote in another post that required a lot of scrolling so I'll screenshot it instead of linking it:
On to the boys' Dark World forms! If these ideas look familiar to anyone, it's because I talked about this some time ago, but it was in a tag game, so it required a bunch of scrolling.
These are very up in the air. I've starred the ones I'm most certain of, though tweaks are still likely even for those.
⭐Sky - A bird crossed with a lion - not like a gryphon, more like a bird with lion ears and teeth. Lions are sleepy but mighty. I imagine primarily gold and white colors. I actually have sketches of this one.
Maybe I'll ink and color it one day.
Verdi - Something chameleon-like? Maybe a like cuttlefish or something. Undecided.
⭐The Colors are elementals - Ember is fire, River is water, Forest is air (they would think Forest had vanished at first; cue panic), and Quartz would be a Prince Rupert's drop. Someone would inevitably accidentally step on his tail, and he'd shatter dramatically. People would be freaking out, but Quartz would just reform into a bunch of glass shards in the shape of a person. With the help of the other three's elements (mostly River's water vapor and a little heat from Ember), Forest could get a cloudy appearance, so people could see him. (I would like to write at least this scene one day, as a hypothetical. The missing Forest, the broken Quartz, the visible Forest. It sits in my brain.) The merged Link would be a golem. (Get it? It needs to be made with all four elements? Earth mixed with water to make clay, which would be fired and given the "breath of life"? I'm proud of it at least.)
Twilight - Since the Dark World is different from the Twilight Realm, I'm not sure that Twilight would still be a wolf. A wolf is the triforce's way of protecting him from the Twilight. The Twilight is not the Dark World. Maybe he would be a herding dog? Or he could still be a wolf. Or something completely different. I haven't decided. He'd love it if he was a goat or horse, but I don't think it fits. Sorry, bud.
⭐Vet would still be a bunny, but I think he would be changed in some way due to his experiences. It could be that his color changed, or maybe he has some different features. I'm leaning towards blue.
Wind - raccoons may be involved in some way. I'd like to somehow include wind. A gust jar? Things associated with wind: clouds, wings, rams (multiple Egyptian gods), horse/swan (Greek god Zephyrus)... I lost steam in researching this. Blue and green can both be associated with air.
⭐Cap is a bunny, too. A different color, though. Maybe purple? Or periwinkle?
Mask - I'm thinking cucco features. I call him a mother cucco. Maybe he's starting to get the golden wolf thing going, but he's not fully there.
⭐Mouse - I considered just making him a fairy, perhaps tweaked in some way, but it occurs to me that a literal mouse might be fitting for him. Particularly a Southern grasshopper mouse. Those things hunt scorpions. Maybe mixed with a jerboa? His color scheme wouldn't change much from his usual palette.
Mini - I have flowers listed under my brainstorming notes for him. Crocuses (youthfulness and joy), daisies (innocence and cheerfulness), and stuff like that. But unlike the tree-people in the Dark World, I would like him to be mobile. Something else is needed. I considered a Minish, but that would be like someone's Dark Word form being a Zora or something. Maybe I should go look at pokemon for inspiration haha.
Gen - I have tentatively written "puma" down for him, but while it works in representing leadership, they also represent fierce independence, which isn't him. So some tweaking needs to happen there. I was considering giving him the shaggy bark of a hickory tree because one website said a hickory represents community (among other things), but I don't see community in relation to this tree anywhere else, so maybe not. I think his color scheme would be on the warm side of the color wheel. I don't know which, but possibilities include pink, orange, and/or yellow. But it could really be anything at this stage.
Wild - I need to do more research into the symbolism of various things for him. I have "monkey bits" hesitantly written down, as is "mountain goat," but I'm not confident at all in what I'm doing for him. As for color, I think green and/or red would be good.
Junior - I haven't gotten very far for him. I have "goat?" written down because he's a dutiful kid, and goats have that association apparently, but that's just a first attempt. Maybe a purple weeping willow tree?
Engineer - something like a sheep? He's sleepy, airheaded and a bit self-sacrificial.
Aspect - I have "crow?" written down, but it's literally just because he's smart. His color scheme is probably more desaturated, soft, or pastel.
⭐Echo has lion-like qualities, so he'd be something that would draw upon those features. Color: likely primarily orange. Possibly some yellow. I think someone should be a dragon or dragon-like, since that represents courage for some Hyrulean cultures. (Think Zonai.) Maybe Echo is similar to a Chinese lion, like you see in parades. They look very dragon-like to me.
I believe that's all of them, as iffy as most of them are. I haven't put in the research work needed to come up with good representations of their inner selves. I'd like to invent some more original creatures, like the ones featured in ALttP. The majority of those NPCs are bipedal, and many of them aren't instantaneously recognizable as something specific. I'd like to do something like that, but I haven't gotten that far. That being said, if you ever see these guys in the Dark World, it will be a bonus story - an AU of the AU. I can't imagine a circumstance in which they'd end up in the Dark World within the context of the story. However, I do hope to finish their designs one day, just for fun.
