(a little snippet from a future freshly posted story) [story link added Nov. 4, 2023]
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
It was strange this time, waking up inside the Four Sword. Parts of him ached as though he’d been stabbed recently. His brothers were out of easy reach, though he could still sense them in the back of his mind, away from him but alive.
Then Vio remembered, and with the memory a blast of pain fired through his chest, an echo of where he’d been run through with a light weapon of... some... sort...
No, not just any light weapon.
That had been the Master Sword.
Fi.
Oh geez, what the heck had he been up to recently, that one of his brothers in the Chain had had to stab the four of them?
Wait, four?
Where was Shadow?
Panicked now, he forced his eyes open.
Purple walls. Not black from four colors or rainbow spiraled from six, meaning they weren't merged. He was split, and his sword was wedged in a pedestal he recognized, one that lived deep in the Palace of the Four Sword.
But why was his sword alone? They didn't leave the swords alone when one of them was resting in their sword, nor did they often rest in their swords while split. So why were they split now?
Vio didn't know. He shoved against the purple walls, releasing his spirit form to look around the room. His sword's pedestal was the only one in the room, and in spirit form he wouldn't be able to draw his sword. But the only exit door was locked from the outside; he couldn't leave once in his solid form, and his sword would be left behind even if he drew it before he left.
Sighing, he reached for his brothers instead to compare notes, and found them slowly waking up as well. None of them seemed to know why they'd been stabbed by Fi, nor where Shadow was, though they were sure their brother was alive and somewhere nearby. They just had to find him.
But they had to figure out how to get out of their rooms first.
Red remembered first that it had been Legend who stabbed them, though a younger Legend than they remembered. That left a sinking feeling in all of them, knowing their brother had had to fight them (and probably kill them, at least as far as tiny Legend knew) before they'd even properly met him.
None of them wanted to think about what had happened to them that made a tiny Legend have to fight them.
Slowly, Link turns his head, staring at the closed doors.
"And who are you, to come calling for me like a banshee at three in the morning?" he replies.
The voice behind the doors sighs. Despite this, Link cannot hear any other means of letting out stress and frustration.
"First of all, these city folks are terribly uneducated if they're calling 'The Devil Went Down to Gerudo' a banshee's screech. Second, I may not be you, Old Man, but I can tell when's when, and I know you wake up early."
A boot tap.
"Third, if you can't remember our voices my reportedly terrible country drawl should've ticked you off. COME IN HERE SO WE CAN TALK FACE TO FACE HERO OF TIME."
Sighing, Link opened the doors to the Temple of Time.
