This was prompted by seemingly nothing but it's the first productive thing my brain has done it a while so here
“What’s the craziest scar you have?” Wind asked randomly one night.
The other heroes stopped what they were doing and looked to each other. Blue in all shades, and one set of hazel, flashed in the firelight as a few smiles formed and others smirked.
Four motioned to their left ear. “A cat bit off the tip of my ear when I was a kid.”
Warriors spun in his seat to look at the smithy at his side, “Is that why you hate cats?”
“Yep.”
Well that made sense. It also explained Four’s issue with people talking about claws. Wind had noticed that Four tended to shiver when those were brought up and he’d always sort of wondered.
Time holds up his hand, on the outer side of it a small pink scar can be seen, one which most of them tended to gloss over but Wind had always assumed was because the man nicked himself with his sword once or something. “My mom bit me when I was a kid.”
Faces fall and the heroes stare in shock and horror until Hyrule kicks their leader. “Your mother was a fairy, Time! How else was she to discipline you?”
The man smiles but pulls his hand back, eye sparkling at their still frozen faces.
Twilight hums softly. “I had my arm chopped off once.”
All eyes instantly turn the rancher’s way. He still has his arm. Both of them. “When did that happen and how do you still have it?”
A shrug. “A goat put it back. Scars still there though. It’s weird, sometimes I get phantom pains ‘spite still havin’ my arm. My brain just can’t process that it’s s’posed to be there or somethin’.”
Warriors nods slowly. “Mood. I almost lost my leg during the war and I still have to remind myself it’s there sometimes.”
Well, this is going downhill fast! He wanted to prompt some stories! Not a trauma fest!
Wind shoots a look at Legend, the man usually has something to say at times like these, but the vet just stares back and shakes his head slowly. “Nothing interesting, sorry, sailor. Not the kind of stories you’re looking for.”
Poop. Maybe Wild then?
The champion chuckles, rolling up one sleeve to show a rather impressive scar on his good arm. “See this?”
“How could we not?” The captain grimaces, looking more than a bit pained.
Wild smirks. “Splinter.”
Eyes widen and gazes trail back to the rather massive scar.
“How big of a splinter?” Legend asks warily.
The champion doesn’t answer, he just rolls his sleeve back down and gets back to doodling in one of his notebooks, looking entirely pleased with himself.
“Champion, how big?” Warriors presses.
Wild still doesn’t answer, he doesn’t even react and though Wind is dying to know he could also kiss his brother on the cheek for helping to lighten the mood again and playing coy the way he is.
The rest of them huff, exchanging glances (and grins in Time’s case) and start discussing quietly among themselves. He knows he hears Warriors trying to calculate how big the thing must have been and Hyrule correcting him softly about whatever mathematical formula or nonsense they’re trying to use. Sticks are grabbed from the woodpile and the dirt is etched over several times before the captain caves and darts for his own bag and notebook.
The rest of them watch, both entertained and intrigued by the answer, and it’s quiet in camp for a moment before Legend breaks it with a drawl. “Surprised the old man didn’t say he got scarred with a sliver of the moon or something.”
The leader’s brows twitch just the slightest bit. “And who says I didn’t? Wind asked for craziest scars, vet.”
Violet eyes twinkle slightly as Legend leans forwards, leveling their leader with a stare that’s met with equal force from the other side of the camp. The fire flickers between them, casting odd shadows and making them look quite strange indeed. “And being bitten by yer ma is the craziest you can get, Old Man?”
“I don’t hear you beating that, vet.” Time’s lips quirk upwards for all of a second before his face is blank, only his good eye flickering enough to show a slight smile.
Legend scoffs, but leans back into his own space as a few of the others giggle, Sky especially. The Chosen Hero nudges his friend gently, looking down at the vet with a teasing look. “What, you’re not going to tell them about the goat thing?”
He’s never seen Legend blush, and he almost thinks the other will, but Legend only shakes his head, smiling slightly as Twilight looks to him in confusion. “Goat thing?”
“Not explaining, rancher.”
Sky rolls his eyes with a scoff. “Fine then.” Bright eyes turn Wind’s way with a smile he loves and which holds more warmth than their fire. “Zelda accidentally stabbed me with a knife when we were kids.”
Across the fire, Warriors chokes and both he and Hyrule start up to stare at the Chosen Hero.
Sky continues, entirely clueless, or else fully aware and pretending to be clueless. “We were pretending to be sword fighting and had stollen some knives from the school kitchens. I managed to trip her, but she ended up careening forwards and stabbing me in the leg.” He chuckles. “It hurt bad, and we were grounded for weeks, but it’s only a little scar and I honestly can’t feel it most days.”
Four nods slowly, sagely. “I fractured my own ankle once trying to convince someone of something. It didn’t scar, but it sure hurt a lot.”
To his surprise, while most of the others look vaguely concerned, he knows he sees Time crack a smile and Legend sniggers a bit into his hand.
Hyrule nods though. “I once broke my leg in a keyhole. The bone cut right through and the scar is really nasty.”
That gives them all pause save Legend who jumps up with a look of horror. “Excuse me you what?”
Some mistakes get made, but at least I have you - Chapter 1 - TheIdiot17 - Multifandom [Archive of Our Own]
https://share.google/ZOD7qTBbiiiu2TuLb
My The Handler backstory fanfic if anyone is interested
Lily sat silently on the airport bench tapping her feet on the legs of it. Her light-up sketchers flashing pink and purple with each bump. Her cold blue eyes scanned the airport patiently as she tapped her fingers on her legs, the little digits thumping quietly as she waited for her mother to return. Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw her mother's curly auburn hair as she walked towards her. Her sweet brown eyes lit up as she spotted her baby girl. Jada's hands reached out towards Lily as she walked to where she sat. Lily jumped up from her spot on the bench excitedly running into her mother's arms. Jada hugged her daughter as tight as she could, wrapping her arms around her small form as if to absorb her being entirely. She had only been gone for a week but being away from her was the worst feeling she had ever felt. Jada never knew what it was like to love someone so much until she entered the office of her adoption agent. Jada's life hadn't been the easiest up to that point, she spent her teenage years believing no one would love her due to her inability to communicate properly. Being deaf kept her from making connections with people who refused to learn sign, which was most of her peers. When she started college she found people to be more accepting of her disability and spent time learning to communicate with her instead of ridiculing her for not being able to speak well. One of those friends was a man named James Fractus, a tall thin man whose sparkling yellow eyes lured her into his spell. She was encapsulated by him, everything he did made her fawn for him more. So when he got down on one knee in front of the campus library, she couldn't say no. But his charms didn't last long, the more time she spent with James the more she realized he never truly wanted her, what he wanted was attention. Specifically attention from the people who pitied him. They would say things like:"You're so strong for being with someone like that, I could never." And they'd praise him and shower him with affection, all the while Jada would sit silently beside him, unbeknownst to them, understanding each lip movement as they ridiculed her and praised her incompetent husband for being the strong one right in front of her face. She hated the way he just let them say those things about her, but she stayed with him nonetheless, because whether she liked it or not, he paid the bills, he was kind to her; HE made her feel special. But one day that all changed. About two years into their marriage, James decided he wanted kids. They had discussed it before, but never went further than just the possibility of it. But now he was sure, whether Jada was ready or not.They tried two months for kids. Nothing. Two months turned to three, three months turned to five, and five months turned to a year. By January, James had had enough.They had consulted a doctor a month into trying, who had told them the possibility was slim to impossible, and Jada would probably never have kids, but James wouldn't take that answer, so they kept trying. Finally, after a year they gave up, to Jada's relief. Truth be told she wasn't too much in favor of having children and had grown tired of the relentless sexual attention her husband was giving her, but that relief didn't last long. -
You'll have to read the rest on ao3 if you want the whole story 😉
legend has a days without going on an adventure board and once the chain came he had a 80 day streak. he destroyed the board after that
Maybe not what you were hoping for, but inspiration struck me when I read this again so....
Have a ficlet?
Zero Days
It was stupid.
He did it on impulse, so tired of adventuring and going around and trying to help people only to care for them and inevitably have them -have everything - torn away.
So, maybe it was stupid, but in Link’s opinion he had a right to a few stupid things.
When you spend your teen years -which he’s been told are supposed to be a time of exploring yourself, not the entirety of Hyrule’s allied kingdoms, a time of realization and experimentation with how a person presents ones-self and how they want to be; something he never had a choice in, much less a chance to test out before having to stick with it- traveling all around and saving lives and governments and kingdoms and islands that aren’t even real, it’s only fair that you get the chance to do something stupid for yourself when you’re done.
And Link was done.
Four adventures are enough, thank you very much! It’s more than any of the heroes before him ever had, much more, twice more even! It’s only fair he gets a chance to rest now.
So, he put up the board.
He wasn’t sure why at first.
Was it supposed to be a form of comfort? ‘30 days since the last adventure’? A reassurance that he was retired now, that he could rest and just play with Gully and the village children when he wasn’t busy at the forge? Was it meant to be a taunt at the goddess? A final declaration that he was done, that she could no longer use him as she pleased, like some exhausted puppet with half it’s strings cut and it’s body drooping and worn?
Whatever the reason, he took inordinate pleasure in painting out the tiles to mark down the days.
Painting was reassuring, it was grounding. He could focus his whole being on the tiny details of a bird’s wing or the shine of an apple, instead of letting his mind drift back over the sea to an empty place where he knew an island should be, but where one had never stood and never would.
The number cards started out rough, just a slap of bark he’d hung up for the time being when the idea sprung into his head. But by the time he was hanging the tiles to mark his twenty-seventh day free from adventuring, he’d actually bothered to craft something suitable to hang on the wall.
Just a wooden board at first, but he’d drawn and etched and carved away at the wood until the top resembled trees reaching out with long branches full of apples like he would spend the last of his days harvesting, birds flying overhead and a path: barred off even if the one it was based off of was not, a reminder that all roads were now closed for the Hero of Legend and that he wasn’t leaving anymore.
How wrong he was.
He’d had to add another peg to the board once the days had been nearing one-hundred. And on the morning of the ninety-ninth day, he’d hung his card with a smile that almost felt real, even to himself.
“Take that, witch.” He murmured to the heavens.
Hylia took personal offence and dropped a purple rabbit on him that night.
.........
When at last he’d finished fighting Yuga; the mage’s power lost and the corrupted princess brought to rights alongside all of her kingdom, he’d been all too ready to say goodbye to it all and just leave, but...
But this was his last adventure. For sure this time. He would let himself linger, let himself talk and be with the princess and her advisor and his own princess (his sister) as the four of them set all things to rights.
He didn’t really hang a new card on the empty pegs until Ravio had gone away again.
Everything still felt like an adventure with the bumbling merchant and his strange bird-like pet around. He felt like it wasn’t really over until Ravio had been pulling him into a hug that would be too tight if Link hadn’t been holding on nearly as tightly (not that he’d ever admit it). Ravio was an adventure himself; always different, always new, so full of surprises and tricks and questions that challenged Link and forced him to act, to think, to question the world and himself. It wasn’t even the bad sort of an adventure (Ravio, not this blasted alternate worlds and corrupted Triforce bull-crap), but it was one regardless.
So, he waited until the house was empty when he woke up. Until breakfast had been a muddled affair as always but done in almost complete silence, save the bees that danced outside (Ravio hated bees and he’d promised not to let them in during meal-time). Until he’d found himself staring around at his house and all the items his new adventure had earned him and wondering where to put them. Until he’d spent all day in the strange stillness that was left without the merchant’s constant chatter and Sheerow flitting about their heads. Until the house was clean to his standards in the first time in who knows how long (two-hundred and thirty-eight days). He waited until it had been a day of silence and working in that silence before he let himself hang that first card.
“One.” He murmured. The first thing he’d said all day.
And then he’d gone to lie down on his own bed, in his own house, on his own land, surrounded by his trees, his bees, his items and everything else that was his.
Except his people.
But adventures are like that, they leave you lonely at the end.
He’d only hung cards for eighty-two days before he decided that he needed to get out.
The harvest had kept him busy at first.
Getting ready, clearing space in his cellar for the apples and making sure all the equipment was ready to make the kegs of cider he’d need to sell to ensure funds for the winter (not that Zelda wasn’t happy to offer him a monthly salary as a knighted hero or an allowance as a prince) took up nearly all of his time those first twenty-six days. Gathering the apples before they hit the ground and were ruined (but leaving a few for the animals because heaven knows he understood how it felt to be defenseless and hungry) and letting the village children help him carry baskets and bushels down to the cellar and then smiling as they watched with wonder as he juiced and spiced the fruits, making the cider his family was famous for, took him another thirty-three days (he had a lot of trees and he still didn’t fully like the idea of other adults in his house). The last twenty-three days had been spent hauling everything to town and selling it off, and even though the Four Swords Festival and all of its chaos and fun had taken some time and helped him sell a good portion of his goods, not to mention giving him an excuse to travel, he found that at the end of it, there was an itch.
He left the cards alone, justifying his absence as a well-deserved vacation.
“Screw you.” He hissed at a dilapidated goddess statue he passed on the roadside, one from a time before when Hylia was known to the people.
Hylia returned the compliment with a cursed princess and some rather questionable fashion choices.
When he made it home from Hytopia, half convinced it was all a fever dream and half relieved it wasn’t- he had made friends, people who couldn’t leave him and others who didn’t want to! He had promised to return nexr year and visit again because heavens know it was warmer there and he wasn’t keen on suffering the arthritis Hylia gifted him in Hyrule’s harsh winter months- he had turned almost at once to his board and carefully removed his cards again.
He painted new ones after that. Changing the card backgrounds from tranquil forest scenes and roaming fields to include more color, more pizazz.
A smile danced over his lips when his brushes forged out three pointed festival tents on one of his ‘3’ cards. Green, blue and red peaks stared back at him, like pointed little caps set over matching faces, and he smiled back as he hung the card on the third day home.
He waited until the sun was set fully before hanging the first card, of course, but that didn’t stop him from checking it daily.
It was nice, the reassurance, the promise that it had been six days... seven... nine, since he had come home.
It was spring again in Hyrule and he spent his days working the orchard in preparation for another year's worth of apples. The days were rainy and his hands and back and knees hated him for it, but each time he would find himself sitting before the fire as droplets beat against window-pains while their brothers hissed and steamed from a kettle of cider (because no matter how he tried, he could never manage to replicate Ravio’s cocoa; like him, it always came out too bitter), he would glance over at the little board and nod. It was like a little friend. It didn’t talk much, but it told him just what he needed to hear.
'It’s been seventy days since your last adventure, Link.'
The third peg still hadn’t been used.
The days were adding up slowly, and anticipation gnawed at Link’s bones as he eyed the unused place eagerly. A smile would touch his face before bed at the thought of finally getting to hang a one there, letting two zeros trail after it like the ducklings that followed him home every time that he visited Lake Hylia (he sent them back of course, but it still made him smile).
“Seventeen days.” He whispered as he hung his card.
“Sixteen.” He sighed softly into a mug of failed cocoa that he still wasn’t willing to set down, no matter how bad it tasted.
“Fifteen.” He grinned, two weeks away from his goal.
“Zero.” He huffed as he flipped the cards back off and into their basket, a bag thrown over his shoulder and a portal staring from where it blocked his front door. “Screw you, Hylia.”
He never did get to line the cards up too one-hundred.
