Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Open wider, those fangs take up half your mouth—”

Twilight complies with a muted huff, resisting the growing urge to bite Hyrule as the traveler pokes and prods at him. In theory, yes, he understands why this is necessary—but the way his team are hovering around, gawking at the sight with laughter held upon their tongues is making it awfully hard to take it seriously himself.

“Hm,” Hyrule says after a moment. “Looks a lot less angry. Maybe you were telling the truth about feeling fine.”

The rancher wants to roll his eyes, but the gesture fizzles mid-way, leaving him looking into some insignificant corner of the room, sight averted. Time’s been slowly pulling his armour back on piece-by-piece, and the faith that rides in that fact is what Twilight decides to focus on, for now. With their leader, the others followed, gathering stock of their own things and preparing to set back out.

Hyrule checks his forehead again, eyes narrowed slightly in concentration.

“Yeah, I think he’s fit to travel,” he says after a moment, angling his head back, toward the rest of the room. “You really had us worried for a while there.”

“Sneaky one, he is,” Warriors tacks on, fiddling with his pauldron. “We could’ve gotten out of here much quicker had you not pushed it, you know.”

“I know, I know,” Twilight says, for what feels like the eightieth time that week. “Sky’s been sure to let me know plenty.”

“Hey, speaking of…” Wind pivots, an orchestrated swivel of his head pointed to the corner of the room…

Sky’s fast asleep nestled in his bedroll, oblivious to the commotion like he so often was. It had more or less been agreed upon that they’d try to get back on the road today, but not until Twilight’s good health was ensured, given the medic’s full seal of approval. Early morning was always what they hoped for, but the group had learned over time to plan several hours earlier than they intended, chronically distracted by a million different things in the process of getting ready. Generally, Sky was also a factor—even the best of them were slow to rise in the morning, but the chosen hero often needed a dedicated unit to keep him awake.

“Should we, uh,” Wind says. “Let’im know?”

The room is silent for a moment while everyone considers this, looking at the bundle of blankets that cocoons their predecessor within it. Then, unanimously, every head starts shaking in the negative.

“Let him sleep,” Wild says for them, tidying his counter-top. “Hylia knows he deserves it.”

The late morning turns to an early afternoon as they realize just how much of a pigsty the house is. Belongings are strewn about and mixed with one another, the few dishes Wild has are piled and rotting in the sink, someone’s clothes are in the risers—Twilight squints at that, wondering what the healthier of them did while he was busy, unconscious and living in fever dreams. It makes sense, of course—no one was really in any condition to keep things clean.

Surprisingly, though, spirits are high as they wander around the cramped space and do their best to make it sparkle again. Time’s humming that song that Epona likes, Twilight melts into its notes and joins right in as he dries the dishes that the old man’s washing. As lovely as Wild’s home is, they’re sure the champion would hardly be offended when they inform him they’ve seen more than enough of it.

The cleaning, in that regard, feels absolutely divine. Tangible, physical evidence that finally, finally, they can be on the move again. No one has to say it out loud—the spirit of the hero carries with it a wanderlust that is utterly unmatched, the hardship that blankets it almost worth it, for how much of the world it brings one to see. Downtime is hardly anyone’s strong suit.

Even Sky, snoring quietly on the floor and utterly dead to the world, can’t stay cooped up for too long—his downy wings longing for clouds beneath their feathers. The hurricane around him winds down, a bit—bodies move slower, taking the room in. They’re just about done, it seems—the floors could use a sweep, maybe, and Four remembers at the last second they have clothes out on the line, stubbornly refusing to dry in the damp autumn air. Overall, though, things are perfect—the weather is clear and Wild says it’ll stay that way, and by now the group knows to trust him. The house looks better than it did when they got here—lived in, but clean enough, charming scuff-marks on the wood floors.

The champion had always thought something was missing, before, an emptiness he couldn’t entirely place. Now, he thinks he understands.

“—nose goes, or somethin’,” Wind’s saying when Twilight comes back into the conversation.

“That’s rigged in the old man’s favour,” Legend argues, and Time chokes on his own laughter. Despite himself, the vet’s finger flies up.

“Vet should just stay on Sky-waking duty,” Four adds. “He’s the fastest.”

“He’s violent,” Twilight points out.

“That’s the only way to get the damn guy awake!”

“I can do violence,” Wind says, pleasantly.

“Are we doing violence?” Wild peeks his head in the door from outside, one bushy eyebrow raised.

“Often, I worry,” Time says with a smile that betrays his words. He leaves the sentence there with no further elaboration.

Twilight holds in a sigh while they wander off-topic, their focus shot and out of practice with all the time they’ve spent at rest. He’s about to rise to his feet without another word, about to wander over to Sky and take responsibility himself, when he’s interrupted—when something else gets the job done for him. Twilight freezes mid-gesture, elbow half-propped against his tented knee.

From Sky’s bedroll, the sound commands silence, thrown like a heavy blanket across the room—the wheeziest of coughs, struggling and tired.

The conversation is discarded. If collective heart-sink had a noise, Twilight thinks, it would be ringing in his ears, right about now. Maybe that soundless pain is its cadence, the lack of any words loud in its own right. Eight nervous sets of eyes begin to meet, eight furrowed brows knit deep with concern.

And, ever the grounded one, Time laughs a little, untying his hair and sitting back down.

“This is the timeline that Hylia abandoned,” Legend says, following suit.

Twilight’s moving like lightning—the others all try to be the first to Sky’s bedside, but they’re no match for the fierceness with which their rancher seeks to soothe. Instead, they wait on the fringes while he’s gingerly pulling covers back from Sky’s face.

True to himself, Sky keeps his eyes shut—stubborn as ever in waking, he turns to the side with a groan when the fan of sunlight travels across his eyelids. It draws another cough from him—muffled into the blankets he has curled around his fist—and he shivers needily in the absence of warmth.

There’s no denying the truth of it. Sky’s skin is paler than Twilight’s ever seen, its lively sunglow faded save only for the ominous red staining his cheeks while he breathes far too shallow, open-mouthed and whistling. After everything, after they were certain the ordeal was over, after they had accepted and reveled in their freedom to move on—of course it had finally happened. Of course Sky had fallen ill.

It’s only when Twilight’s hand is on his cheek that Sky stirs, eyes pink and weepy while he rises on his forearm and blinks sleepily up at the rancher. It’s as though he snaps back to form the second he registers Twilight, mirroring the gesture in a way that’s so predictably Sky, it makes a few of them laugh as they watch. Sky sits up fully and palms his friend’s face, concentrating intently in an attempt to check him for lingering touches of fever.

“Twilight…?” he croaks—how’d his voice get deeper?—his brow knit with worry. “How are you feeli—i—”

The way he tries to keep talking through it, it’s clear the sneeze sneaks up on Sky—a generous half of the boys see it coming in the way his face crumbles, though, hands covering their ears in a gesture that’s well-practiced. Sky’s loud even when he’s healthy, and the circumstances definitely haven’t helped that fact. He’s ear-splitting as ever, the noise heavy and laced with pain in every corner. It scrapes across his throat and makes him cough more, and Twilight has to pull back a little to avoid their heads knocking together with the way it bends his friend at the waist. Sky blinks again, looking genuinely confused, like he isn’t entirely sure what’s wrong, just that he knows something is.

“Aw, Red,” Twilight says, a bit of a frown forming on his face. “I’m… I’m fine…”

He presses his hand back to Sky’s forehead, trailing it down his sweaty face, his burning cheeks. Sky’s gaze follows, doe-eyed and curious, trying to piece everything together.

“You, on the other hand…”

A couple more slow, crawling blinks, like the chosen hero’s not sure if he’s still dreaming, or not. He swallows experimentally, then touches at his neck with a pinched look on his face.

“What’s—” Sky tries, but the words fight him every step of the way—they snag in his throat and he coughs harder this time, irritated tears in his eyes spilling over. He can hardly make it through his next breath, let alone a sentence, and Twilight’s behind him quicker than he can make note of—

“Touching,” he announces.

Through the betrayal of his lungs, Sky makes an attempt to nod his consent, and Twilight’s hands are on his back at lightning speed, soothing and strong.

The whole group softens, shoulders dropping alongside their slowly-falling expressions. It’s as though the air in the very room changes entirely, and one by one the young heroes start propping their things back up against the wall, wordlessly disrobing out of armour and gloves and bracers and layers.

“You, uh,” Twilight tries to flash a smile, but he knows he probably still looks a bit sad. “You sound a little under the weather, Sky.”

Sky opens his mouth to respond. Every last soul in the room can tell, instinctively, that it’s to argue this point. Instead, his nose twitches and he sneezes again, somehow even louder this time. On the outskirts of it all, Wind grumbles and hands Four what one can only assume is a pouch full of rupees, scowling the entire time.

“You look so surprised,” Hyrule says to Sky, bright as ever as he’s taking stock of their remaining elixir supply. “You had to have known this was coming.”

“But I—” Sky says, struggling to reign in another sneeze. “I held out so long—”

“Yeah, gotta admit it’s kinda freaky how well he did,” Four says, counting the change in his palm.

“Truly admirable, soldier,” Warriors drops to a sit next to him, earnest as he’s ever been. “Indeed, you fought valiantly until the end.”

The captain unfastens his baldric, gets to work pulling off his boots, and Sky can’t help but keep his eyes trained on these actions, concentration pushing through the fog in his head. It occurs to him just then, and a cursory glance across the room confirms it—oh. They were getting ready to head out. The house is spotless, things are packed, they were simply waiting for Sky to wake up, and he slept in, late, and now they’re staying here, late—

The words tumble out of him without much filter.

“I’m s—”

“If you’re a wise man you won’t finish that apology,” Time interrupts—firm, leaving no room for debate. Sky wants to try it anyways, guilt weighing heavy over his aching heart. It’s not fair, they’ve been through so much these past weeks—all of them were so sick he was worried they’d never get better, some nights, and on top of it all they were stuck in one place feeling all cooped up, it was miserable for them, and now instead of freedom or any reward for all their hard work they’re just being forced to hang back even more—

The agony is radiating off Sky in waves. Every soul in the room can feel it, a cloud of despair at the thought of keeping them shackled here. Sky’s always been that way—nervously punctual, wheezing from the back of the group, a million sorries on his tongue, this marked anxiety everyone feels alongside him. More than anything, it seems, he worries about time passing around him, leaving him behind. It’s written all over his face, now—it might just be the illness, but his eyes are watery and sparkling, his jaw set tight.

Naturally, of course, the boys begin to flutter around him like fairies, settling down around his bedside as though he’s fallen headfirst into a sacred spring.

More than a few of them approach with blankets in hand, and it isn’t until he’s being swaddled like a child that Sky realizes he’s shivering. All of them start sitting, re-opening bags, easing back into the domesticity of before—Hyrule inches closer, near Twilight, near the captain. The rancher palms for his waterskin, passing it over to Sky, who he knows has no idea where his own is—a wordless order to imbibe is spelled out in Twilight’s icy blues, and Sky takes it without complaint and shuts his eyes, drinking.

Wind’s voice comes next, light and breezy like the gales at his behest. Sky can’t see him with his eyes shut, but somehow, he knows the boy is leaning back on folded elbows, carefree as ever.

“It’s pretty nice here, Wild,” the sailor says with a relaxed smile in his voice. “I don’t think I mind staying for just a bit longer.”

Some of the older heroes seem to glow with pride. Hyrule gives Wind a smile, Warriors looks like a sun upon the earth. The captain draws himself closer to Sky, and it’s such a contrast to the distance he demanded before. He’s warm.

“I haven’t much gotten to enjoy the interior,” he says. “Seems as good a time as any to play catch up.”

As soon as Sky’s done drinking someone pushes something else into his free hand. He pulls his eyes sluggishly back open—Legend’s scrutinizing gaze is sizing him up, taking him in while he hands over the elixir. He’s silent, but the look on his face speaks volumes—drink and don’t argue with me—and so Sky complies, pressing it to his lips and choking the awful thing down. He makes a sour face when he’s done, going back for the waterskin.

“Told you,” Legend says, trying—everyone can tell—not to grin.

“Ugh,” Sky rasps out, draining Twilight’s water supply with a ferocity unmatched.

“No kidding,” Legend agrees, and takes the empty vial from the chosen hero’s hands. His voice goes up an octave as it falls across the room, “Old man, put the damn kettle on before we lose the patient.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Time says, wandering toward the stovetop, and Sky squints at the room as it moves around him, trying to put his finger on the feeling creeping so lovingly into his racing heart.

No one… no one’s upset.

No one’s disappointed—if they are, they’re hiding it damn well. No one’s complaining, there’s not a single particle of negativity floating across the autumn air. Every last one of them returns right back to how things were, back when only Legend was ill—talking amongst themselves, doing things with their hands, burying their noses in books. Sky doesn’t understand why he’s tearing up—fevers never made him weepy before, but his soul spills over in a way that’s notably distinct from its usual overflow, the waters rich with something he can’t identify.

The hearth kicks back up, crackling itself to life, and Sky sniffles, feeling a little bit like he’s sprung a leak.

Whatever these ribbons draped across his heart tell of, he tries to zero in on them, to memorize their cozy warmth. It doesn’t shoo away how bad he feels for holding everyone back, especially when they’d all done their best to fight hard and recover… but there’s a harmony living on his friends’ faces he feels he’s never seen before, something he wonders if he could identify if only he were feeling a little better.

For now, Sky just curls up tight, rubbing at his stuffy nose and leaning on Warriors’ shoulder. Twilight’s hands are in his hair, the captain’s hands are around his waist. Nails scratch his scalp, and it shudders down over him like a sunbeam, warm and buzzy in all the best ways.

“How’s going back to sleep sound, Red?”

Sky’s way ahead of him, drifting far away. “Divine.”

Legend’s not sure when the sun vanished, exactly—it had stayed clear for hours before the overcast rolled in, sunlight pulling dew from the grass long into the afternoon. Now, the skies are an ugly grey—not telling of anything particularly ominous, just dreary and cold as they mix with the chimney smoke, billowing upward in the hidden sunset.

“Three fives,” Warriors announces, throwing the cards in question down.

“Bullshit,” Wind sneers, coming back to himself. The captain narrows his eyes with a smirk, motioning him forward, and when Wind flips the discards over it looks as though he’s going to try to flip Warriors upside down as well.

“I know you’re cheating, asshole!”

“Pot, kettle—” Warriors counters. “I’m fairly certain you invented cheating.”

“Time came before me, he invented cheating—”

Time pulls the Lens of Truth away from his eye, expression unchanging. “Nonsense.”

They go on bickering, and Legend elects not to participate for once, all the space for antagonism in his body occupied by other measures. This argument breaks out every time they play cards, and still they never reach the conclusion that every last one of them is cheating. It’s one of those hero’s spirit caveats, or whatever—noble courageous heart, absolutely rotten sportsmanship, the point is none of them are free from sin. Legend briefly wonders if he could leave—for the bathroom, obviously—and crawl back as a painting on Wild’s cabin wall, eyeing everyone’s hands for a quicker victory.

Someone shouts so loud their voice cracks, and Sky rolls over from his post in bed, head in his hands and with a low whimper in his throat.

“Can you guys put a damn sock in it?” Legend tries to whisper, but it comes out sounding more like a raspy scream. Seven heads turn to face him, and instead of being met with the angry ruffle of rose-gold they’re expecting, they see the veteran hero looking impossibly soft. The back of his hand meets Sky’s forehead, and Legend looks like he might pull a muscle with how tight-strung his whole body is. The squabble the rest of the boys are having is discarded—they play in almost complete silence, feeling more than a little bad.

Legend’s teeth scrape across his bottom lip, he rocks a little on crossed legs. Sky’s burning up—he’s burning up badly, he feels hotter than Legend remembers the others feeling. He wonders if it’s just his mind playing tricks on him, but the way the chosen hero’s tossing and turning and moaning, he feels like it might be the case.

And Sky’s breathing really loudly, Legend doesn’t like the sound of it at all. He’s so congested that the veteran can see it, feel it when he touches the swell of Sky’s face, it makes his heart drop and twist and hurt and he feels like he kind of wants to punch a wall to make the excess of it leave. Sky breathes fast and depthless through his mouth, and Legend is starting to become really uneasy with the way his airways crackle and snap with every unsteady inhale.

That wasn’t there with the others. They were wheezy but it wasn’t anything like the awful sounds coming from his sick friend, now. Something’s wrong with Sky, and Legend doesn’t know much of anything about medicine or care, but he’s going crazy sitting still. He tries his best—to emulate the chosen hero’s methods, reaching a hand out and trailing it through Sky’s sweat-soggy tangles. Half-awake, Sky rubs at his itchy nose, curling up tighter.

“Never thought you of all people would be the mother hen type.” Legend’s not expecting to hear his friend’s voice, or whatever bad impression of it the illness has twisted it into. He jolts a little before realizing he doesn’t give a fuck, actually, and keeps on with what he’s doing, petting Sky’s head.

“Yeah, well,” Legend looks elsewhere. “I never thought you of all people would be capable of getting yourself this sick.”

Sky’s smiling his same old smile—despite how uncomfortable Legend knows he’s feeling. His optimism is almost infuriating—doesn’t he know he’s allowed to be upset? The chosen hero is about to open his mouth to say something more, but he can barely get near the words before his body goes haywire and he starts coughing, and coughing, and coughing, and once he starts he cannot stop.

Legend’s there on the fringes, hands pulled back, waiting for the fit to subside so he can dive back in, rub Sky’s back, bring him water, do something that isn’t sitting there frozen.

It doesn’t.

Sky stumbles as he’s trying to bring himself to a higher rest—shaking, suffocating, propped up on one wobbling forearm. He’s coughing so hard Legend can feel it in his own throat, every breath in seems like it’s more painful than the last. It isn’t until Sky’s face is going red that Legend’s able to find his words, refusing to give a rat’s ass anymore about how small and scared he sounds.

“Guys,” he yelps out toward the rest of them, completely interrupting whatever irrelevant thing they were talking about. “Help.”

All pretense is lost as the group looks to the scene—Legend looking like a terrified child with hands braced, shaking, and Sky coughing with an ugly rattle behind his breastbone, crumbling to nothing before their eyes. He’s sweating, and trembling, and fighting hard as ever to get a single breath in—but they come shallow and wrong, a third of what they’re supposed to be, refusing to fill his lungs with anything that matters. He gasps and wheezes and falls apart, and he doesn’t stop, and Warriors and Hyrule are on their feet so fast it seems like the two of them might collide with one another like flint and steel.

“Sit him up,” Warriors barks the order on his way there. “Now!”

Hyrule’s presence seems to wash over the veteran like a wave of calm, and that alongside the very clear instruction see him moving without another word. Legend and Hyrule knit their arms beneath Sky’s own—pulling him up carefully, like they’re nervous he might shatter if handled too indelicately. He coughs all the way through it, tears streaming down his face, hands clawing madly at the pin that keeps his sailcloth in place.

Something’s really wrong, the way he’s treating his most prized possession—like he needs as far away from it as possible, like he’s desperate to get it off his person, Sky would never do this if he were well. Warriors pulls the chosen hero’s hands from it with a twist in his heart, conflicted that he has to use such force—but he’s careful to make up for it as he unhooks the item and pulls it from Sky’s neck, draping it across the chosen hero’s lap, instead. This seems to suffice, and Sky curls towards it, holding it tight and bunched up in the gaps in between his fingers, like it’ll save him from whatever has him in its clutches.

Propping him up seemed to be the right idea, because it’s only then that Sky’s able to wheeze out, through impossible breaths, “Bag—Potion—”

The rest of them scramble, trying to identify whoever’s closest to Sky’s things. It ends up being Four, who’s shockingly calm despite everything—he throws open the flap with purpose etched across his face, holding himself together with impressive aplomb. There’s quite a few potions in here—most of them green and glittering, the glow of a single bottled fairy. Four tries to project from where he is across the room—“Which potion?”

Legend grits his teeth, coiling around with his hand on Sky’s cheek. He pats at the chosen hero a little, like he’s trying to wake him from a dream. “Hey, Featherhead—stay with us, damnit—which potion?”

And Sky tries, he really does—but he can’t force the words again, so he aims his quickly fading vision in Wild’s general direction, hand shaking as he curls his thumb in and signs, blue.

“Blue one!” Wild tells Four, and Four’s hand is on it before the champion can finish the word, and at Sky’s side even faster than that. The chosen hero tries to grab it himself, but Four’s yanking the cork on his way over and Warriors won’t risk Sky dropping the thing. The captain holds it firm in his hands, raising the bottle to Sky’s lips.

They can tell from the forced rise and fall of his chest that he’s trying with everything he is to focus his breathing enough to choke the potion down—gradual sips, steady and slow. When the bottle’s half drained Sky paws at Warriors' hand and pulls to the side, and the vet’s practically snarling as Sky ducks toward him—

“Stop being stubborn,” Legend demands. “Finish it, Sky.”

The chosen hero shakes his head, and he’s not coughing much, anymore—small sounds, behind his teeth, settling down. “I only have one of those.”

He pauses, inhaling deep and long—as long as he can manage, the breath shaking as he lets it go.

“I need to conserve it in case that happens again.”

“Wait, was that normal?!” Wind’s pale as a sheet. “You looked like you were drowning!”

Questions make Sky’s head swim. He shuts his eyes, he doesn’t want to talk, his throat feels like it’s been torn to ribbons, he’s hot and he feels weak and there’s something sitting on his chest, it aches like it’s never ached before. He nods, voice struggling against itself.

“It doesn’t happen often, just when I move a little too much or too fast for too long,” he explains. “I always have an air potion on me, just in case. They’re the only cure we’ve found.”

“But…” Wild fusses. “You’re not moving at all.”

Warriors runs his fingers through perfectly-coiffed tresses, eyes on the ground.

“His body’s still working overtime,” he says, turning to Sky. “Does this often happen when you’re ill?”

Sky squints at nothing, trying to remember any incidents from before, but he comes up dry. “I don’t… think so? Never… like that.”

A nervous hush falls over the room. Several of them exchange unsure glances, not at all pleased by that answer or the lack of experience it brings.

At some point Wild had nicked the half-full potion bottle, and now the champion’s eyes are narrowed at its crystal-clear finish as if the action will tell him of its components. An air potion, Sky said? He’s never heard of anything like that.

“I don’t suppose you know the recipe for this one?”

Sky shakes his head, eyes downcast. “Luv brews me those ones for free, but she’s tight-lipped as ever about her process.”

Another silence sinks in, uncomfortable like moisture hanging in the air after rainfall. The lot of them eye the metaphorical wall they’ve hit, cycling through items and weapons at their behest in a bid to climb it, coming up dry despite how well prepared they feel they all should be.

Time crosses his arms, and though its a moment before he says anything, the gesture in itself commands their attention.

“We’ll just have to ensure the situation doesn’t call for it again,” he says, firm as ever. “One more dose is not enough.”

Twilight had wandered to Sky’s side, at some point, crouching down for no reason other than to be closer to his friend. He’s got a freshly-moistened rag in his hand, impossibly gentle as he wipes some of the newborn sweat off Sky’s face. The chosen hero leans into the gesture, shutting his eyes. He’s exhausted.

“What helps, Red?” Twilight says as he’s working. “I bet you know.”

“Sitting up. Sitting up was good,” Sky says, weakly. “Cold. Cold air. Cold drinks. It feels like my insides are on fire when that happens, so…”

“Legend,” Warriors says, and the veteran hero’s already moving toward his pack.

“Way ahead of you.”

He pulls out an ice rod, and Sky’s focus is lost somewhere in the burble of conversation kicking up while everyone puts their heads together to improvise. Wild’s got his ice weapons too, in case they need extra power, that’s the last cohesive thing he hears before he starts drifting in and out of sleep. His eyes are tired. His lungs are tired. Sky is tired.

Someone’s nudging him back down toward his pillow—on a better day he might be able to discern who, today he’s hot and uncomfortable and itchy and everything’s a little unbearable, but the feeling of being cradled and safe as he dozes off is pretty nice. Still, he can’t ignore the squeeze in his heart as it hits him how rotten he feels—gods, they all felt this bad, they must have been in so much pain. Sky wants to leap from bed and hug every last one of them and never let go, no one deserves to feel the way he feels right now. Right now, though, Sky’s not sure he’d be able to lift his arms above his head, much less cuddle them the way they deserve to be cuddled.

Instead, he just thinks it, as loudly as he can—you guys deserve so much better—and buries his face in his sailcloth, sending silent apologies through the aether to Zelda for getting his germs all over its folds.

The night rolls in, and Sky gets worse.

The quiet popping behind his chest refuses to relent—a tiny, otherwise unobtrusive sound, but it screams like cannonfire in its constant recurrence. He coughs like he’s trying to keep it away—mouth closed, deep in his lungs—but he’s not fooling anyone with the way he struggles and heaves, coiling in on himself like a serpent in the snow.

The fever’s stopped climbing, but it’s plateaued somewhere high—Sky shivers and sweats and tosses and turns, every attempt to keep his eyes shut is futile and he snaps back awake in minutes, heart racing and eyes heavy.

Most days, the group of them were certain of one single truth: Sky was good at sleeping. Sky was good at staying asleep. Sky could sleep through the end of the world.

Tonight, he’s wide awake. 

The chosen hero’s been trying to get back to bed for hours—fever dreams throw him from sleep, coughing fits pull him out of the slow drift back, his throat throbs and aches and itches so bad he feels it rootlike in his ears. Every nerve he has feels cut open and bleeding, a slicing pain in every ounce of him that demands to be acknowledged and leaves no room for rest.

Time doesn’t comment on it when Wild grinds up some blue nightshade and sprinkles a generous helping into his tea blend. He supposes that’s fair—in all its power in utterly knocking the drinker out, it probably wasn’t made to fight whatever has Sky under siege right now.

Their skyborn is already propped up when the kettle whistles, half-awake on Twilight’s chest in an attempt to calm down another violent fit of hacking. Time sits down beside the pair, desperate to not let the thrumming ache in his heart show on his face—and when Sky offers him a sleepy, grateful smile and takes the mug from his hands, he thinks he’s probably failed in what it does to his composure.

Does Sky’s patience have no end? His resilience in love is so unmatched, so persevering—Time thinks, in that moment, that he finally understands where their stubborn spirit comes from.

He can tell it’s difficult for Sky to work up the appetite, even for something as easy as tea. But he does—slowly, he gets through it—and for the first time in what feels like ages, he’s out like a light as he lays back down, looking as peaceful as one as sick as him can.

As soon as the kettle itself is drained, Hyrule has it in his hands, and he’s grinding something with mortar and pestle, lip jutting out in concentration. It’s some kind of herb—the smell is pungent, cool and sharp—and a couple of the boys hover in curiosity as he’s tossing the weeping leaves into the water that fills the receptacle. The heat’s left on low, and before long the air is muggy with the weaving scent of mint and woodsmoke.

Legend draws the covers over Sky as he’s changing out the washcloth resting atop his blazing forehead. At this point, he’s done pretending like he isn’t proud of the work he’s doing, here. Sky would do—Sky had done—the same for him.

With the chosen hero mostly settled, Legend waddles himself on knees back over to the rest of the group, who are sitting in a messy circle on Wild’s floor, contemplative. Sky’s quiet, save for the ever-present whine in his stressed lungs, silencing itself a little with the humid, cool-tanged air. Twilight’s the one who breaks the silence, letting a heavy sigh fall from behind his chest, one they’d collectively been sitting on for hours, now. He looks at his socks, poking out from beneath crossed legs—and so does everyone else, feeling much too heavy to even raise their heads.

Sky coughs, softer than he has been.

“It’s not… good enough,” Hyrule finally says, desperate to piece the words together. “We’re treating his symptoms, and it’s working, but it’s just—not—”

“It’s not Sky,” Wind agrees, balling his fists.

The room falls silent again, soaking in those words. The sailor’s exactly right—as effective as they are as a unit, no one has the soothing power that Sky does. Until now it seems it was impossible to put a finger on—but there's a certain emptiness even in all they're doing, a fuzzy silhouette of what they long for that's difficult to crystallize.

Time raises his one-eyed gaze from the floor, arms crossed—he’s been stuck in that stance all day, like letting go of its shape would mean crumbling himself. Pieces fall into place, and so he tries a smile.

“He was there for each of us,” Time says, putting plain words to their anxious thoughts. “It stands to reason we’d all ache to reciprocate proper.”

“Sky’s different, though, he—” Legend hunches his shoulders up. “—he doesn’t just take care of people, like Roolie said, he’s tapped into some… other nonsense that just makes you feel…”

The vet’s sentence trails off into nothing, and the quietude takes its place once more. It’s clear, in that moment, that all of them are lost in fever-hazy memories, trying to fall back into every precious moment shared with Sky and his gilded soul.

There in their memories, the events turn to sensations turn to sentiments, made only of flowering bursts, splashed like watercolour against the canvas of their hearts. Back in Ordon, Twilight’s bandaging Colin’s skinned knee, and the boy’s looking up at him with eyes that sparkle like starlight over the rolling prairie. Warriors falls back, arms spread with laughter booming across the empty battlefield, held aloft mere inches from the ground by a thousand tiny, sunlit hands that cheer captain! in his ears. Those same tiny hands are fewer as they rest at Time’s neck, weaving braids dotted with buttercups and wildflowers as he naps in the kingdom’s wide open fields. Hyrule leans back against the cave wall, relishing in its coolness, the relief of a safe niche to sleep while the rain patters down in lulling rhythm outside. Wind’s toes are buried in hot sand, salt on his tongue and seaspray nipping at his ears. In the castle, the princess of Hyrule steals away to bring dinner to the knight she hates, she can’t stand him, he drives her positively mad, and it’s mere coincidence that the meal is spiced to utter perfection. Pulling closer to the light of the forge, Four falls asleep to a metal lullaby, the glow of art taking shape warming his fingertips as he and him and him and him drink their tea. Legend awakens to a clear sky—not a cloud in sight, not a single choppy wave—and there on the fabled horizon he sees the shores of—

Home.

Softly as anyone’s ever heard him, he says it aloud, eyes glowing a little as the realization hits.

“Sky feels like home.”

There’s a lot of ways to account for how they see that same horizon in perfect tandem—the immortal soul they share, the magic that swirls around their kind, the way the Goddess sews their hearts and minds together. More realistically, though, they’re brothers—it takes no divine touch or otherworldly enchantments to stitch two or three or nine headspaces into a perfect quilt of one.

“That’s it, isn’t it…?” Twilight marvels, blue eyes wide.

Murmurs of wonder and agreement spread throughout them. How did he always know? How was he able to see through to those comforts of home, draw them closer to where they were right now?

“That’s easy, then!” Wind says brightly. “We just have to figure out what he misses from his home, right?”

Easier said than done, Legend thinks. Sky’s home is a fairytale, suspended in the clouds in an era so long ago it’s mere myth to most of them. He’s not exactly tight-lipped about all the goings on he remembers, but they feel difficult to emulate before Legend’s even thought about them.

Wild stands with purpose, pulling the Sheikah Slate off his hip. The expression on his face is the same one he wears in the heat of battle—complete focus, like he’s somewhere else, like time is moving at a snail’s pace around him, nothing existing besides him and all he seeks to accomplish.

“Who wants to help me cook?”

Squinting at the simmering pot, Wild bounces his knee with an increasing ferocity. It’s poetic, he thinks—stirring the orange concoction with the ladle Sky so lovingly crafted him—as he attempts to make sense of this otherwise basic soup that the captain had called heavenly.

He sips it again. It’s good, it’s definitely done by his own tastes—maybe lacking more spice, but the others have no appreciation for spice, and this is for Sky. He makes a little noise of discontent, scrutinizing the food.

“Staring at it isn’t going to make it fix itself,” Legend says, poking at his side with a gilded index finger. “Captain, make yourself useful.”

An acrid look is shot his way, and Warriors pulls the ladle from its rest in the cookpot, sipping it himself. It’s held on his tongue for a moment—to savour, to analyze, and then simply for mere pleasure—and his eyes fall poetically skyward as he’s trying to zero in on what conclusion to come to.

Skyloftians did something to pumpkin soup. By all means, it made no sense—he’d only been there a short while, but he was certain the sky was far less in ingredients, he doesn’t understand how that lent itself to so much more. No dairy, little fruit, was it really all in the spices and aromatics? He just couldn’t put his finger on it. Sky’s cooking was the closest to replicating it that he’d tasted thus far, but Sky couldn’t exactly help with that, right now. Warriors sighs, shaking his head.

“A little more ginger, perhaps,” he suggests. “But this… might be as close as we’re getting.”

“What about coconut milk?” Wind leans over the pot.

“No coconuts in the sky,” Warriors says.

“Apples?” Legend tries.

“No apples in the sky.”

Wild’s about to dunk his head in the soup in an attempt to drown himself. “Beef?”

“Hylia on high, there are no cows in the sky!”

“Okay, so what about protein in general?” the champion fires back. “Sky likes fish—”

“You have tasted his recipe, soldier,” the captain says, two fingers folded, his forehead leaning upon them. “Tell me, was there fish in it?”

Wild can only sigh in response to that, going right back to cutting ginger as finely as he can, periodically tossing scraps of it into the swirling, spice-speckled liquid.

Eventually, he relents, ladling his best impression of Sky’s home dish into several bowls and stowing them away in the slate where they’ll stay piping hot for the foreseeable future. His helpers stay at the pot to get a second batch going, and the champion feels like that’s a simple enough task, but still he makes a mental note to not spend too long in the house and away from their culinary incapability.

Peeking his head in the door, Wild’s met with the sight of the rest of them—looking about as helpless as ever, present on every side of Sky. Twilight, more than anyone, looks terrible—heavy bags under his eyes, face shuttered tight in agony, he almost looks worse than the sick one he’s caring for. They’ve got Sky sat up again, but this time he’s asleep through it, leaning once more on the rancher’s torso with eyebrows drawn together in fever and pain.

“He… doesn’t look great,” Wild says, moving closer. Hyrule’s in the middle of pressing his ear to Sky’s chest as the champion enters, listening carefully to the sounds coming from his friend. He pulls away after a torturous moment, eyes on the floor.

“His lungs just sound really bad, I—I don’t—”

Four’s eyes remain elsewhere while he’s deep in thought. There’s a blue glow on the windowpane they've become well-acquainted with—just barely there, a reflection of a reflection. It’s a distinct blue in this era, he knows—they’d seen it plenty as they trekked back to Wild’s cottage, its sapphire gleam lighting their path. On the river outside, the mirror of the ethereal tower wavers and shifts in the running waters, and Four’s eyes concentrate on it, calculating.

“Hey,” Four says to the room, a little suddenly. “Do you think he’s fit to spend some time outside?”

Time and Twilight share one of their looks, and Hyrule tilts his head side to side, looking a bit like a puppy who’s trying to hone in on a distant sound. The answer refuses to come to him naturally.

“I… I feel like he’d be dead on his feet,” Hyrule says. “Why, though?”

Four’s eyes fall back to the glistening glass of the window, and in that moment Twilight too pieces together what he’s going for.

“Of course,” the rancher says. “Cub, you can teleport to those towers with your strange magic, right?”

“Yeah, but…” Wild looks nervous. “You want me to take Sky with me? Teleporting can be… a little tiring.”

They all look ready to shut the idea down when they hear that, all but Four, who keeps on—

“He’ll have a rougher recovery at this altitude,” the smithy says. “Sky was born and raised above the clouds. He needs thinner air.”

All eyes fall back on Sky as he leans there, wheezing and fighting and barely able to catch a break. Of course, that makes so much sense—the reason he was always so tired, the reason he had trouble keeping up, the reason he struggled to get air in his lungs even when he wasn’t ill like this.

“Is that really it?” Hyrule says, contemplative.

Time angles his head toward a shoulder when he notices the gazes pointed toward him for input. “It’s certainly worth a shot.”

Sky writhes against Twilight, pitching forward to cough more. It sounds a lot worse, fills all of them with an urgency they can’t bear to ignore. The noise crawls wickedly out from deep within him, angry and inflamed and begging for relief. All Twilight can do is knit his digits through Sky’s messy hair, praying to every god he’s known the name of that this nightmare passes soon.

Wait. Wait.

Wild all but leaps forward, resolve burning Sheikah-blue all across his eyes.

“If he needs to be high up,” the champion says. “I might have somewhere even better.”

Sky wakes at dawn, which is never a good sign.

The sun’s just began its slow crawl across the sky, he can tell by the way his teeth chatter, his muscles ache. There’s a pounding in his head that begs him to shut out every light, and so he buries his face into his sailcloth and tries desperately to smell a single molecule of Zelda through the congestion hammering across his face.

It’s so cold. Why is it so cold? He ducks further down into the impossible amount of blankets that’ve been piled atop him, chasing a warmth that always seems five steps ahead.

Something glows warm at his side. Fi, he registers with a smile, and nudges closer to her scabbard. Zelda on one side of him, Fi on the other—it’s pleasant, here. Enveloping. He thinks maybe being sick isn’t so bad.

And then he’s coughing again, and those thoughts are cut short. He’s so cold, but his lungs feel like he’s breathing nothing but flames, every last gasp leaves him with ten more. It runs his throat far too raw, and Sky feels like there’s no relief for miles—there’s a creeping horror that comes along with the realization that he’s never been this ill in his life.

He coughs. His head pulses, his face pulses, his body pulses. Constant, thrumming, without end. He curls closer to the remnants of his dearest friends, begging their leavings to take him somewhere nice.

“Are you awake, Sky?”

A soft voice—raspy, like it rarely saw use. Wild, Sky registers, holding back another fit.

“Yeah,” he confirms, and wants to say more, but his head is too clogged to fit any more thoughts in, so he leaves it at that. More coughs crawl up his windpipe, and he tries with all he is to mute them, turn them small and timid instead of the volume they crave. It works—kind of—but Twilight stirs anyways, wide awake and on Sky faster than he can blink.

“Touching,” he says.

“Mhm,” Sky mumbles, eyes shut.

Twilight’s palms on his face make him shiver, and he scolds his body silently for being so impolite. It’s nice to touch Twilight, he reminds it with a metaphorical hand on his hip. As if to defy, he leans into the rancher’s palm, so wrapped up in the gesture he doesn’t hear the nervous way he clicks his tongue.

“I think it’s time, Cub,” Twilight says.

“Roger,” Wild says. “Wake the others for me, would you?”

Twilight nods—Sky feels the motion travel to his friend’s hands before they leave his face. Finally, he blinks his eyes back open, clearing his throat with a wince.

“What’s happening…?”

“I think we figured out a way to make you feel a lot better,” Wild says. “But we… need to teleport with the slate to make it happen. It’ll feel a mite weird, but I promise it’ll be over quick.”

Sky nods at that, still not feeling much like talking. Twilight’s back at his side with a yawn, then—one that passes through the group as they begin shuffling around, gathering supplies. The rancher is sitting him up, and he lets himself become a ragdoll in Twilight’s arms, leaning his head on his friend’s shoulder. He was right, it is comfy.

On every side of him is movement—the patter of feet light on the floorboards, the shifting of leather and wool and metal lulling Sky back to sleep. We’re leaving, okay, Sky notes as his friends become a quiet flurry on every side of him. Not for long—they leave their armour, most of their weapons, a few swords are strapped on but not much else. Where are we going? Has teleporting always been an option, why’d we walk all the way here from the portal? Sky has a lot of questions, and he can’t really discern whether it’s them or the fever that makes him feel so dizzy. The world moves around him, and he leans on Twilight and lets it.

The chosen hero doesn’t know when he fades—only that when he comes back, it’s to Wild jostling him as gently as he’s able, trying to pull him back to the world. Sky wakes up coughing—what else is new—and blinks himself back with a sore groan. He’s being lifted, again—or rather, nudged upward by the arm beneath his own—and he fights against the protest of his legs to stand, leaning on the champion for support. It feels pretty rotten, being vegetative like this—but Sky reminds himself there’s nothing he can do about it, scoots closer to the image from before of how serene his friends looked at the thought of taking care of him.

It feels good to love, he reminds himself. Don’t you dare be a hypocrite now, Link.

“Alright,” Wild’s voice fades in over the otherworldly beeping of the slate. “We all have to be touching for this to work.”

“Delightful,” Warriors croons. “Join hands, class.”

Snickers of laughter. What a lovely sound, after so long without its chorus. Wild had already been supporting Sky’s weight, someone else grips his shoulder—Time, he can tell, from the wiry imprint his fingers leave.

“—is this gonna hurt?” Wind says, sounding a little anxious.

“Nah, it’s easier than the portals,” Wild assures. “Just, y’know… brace yourself.”

Sky hears their voices coalesce into a cloud of general acknowledgement, and then Wild’s shifting at his side and counting down from five. He keeps his eyes shut, feeling a little shy standing up like this—all the looks probably angled where he’s barely on his feet, the knowledge that this little side mission of theirs hinges entirely on whatever it does for him. Despite being so vulnerable all this time, it’s only now he feels the heat on his cheeks, the errant thought of being exposed.

He doesn't have much time to dwell upon that. The champion hits the final digit, and Sky’s nowhere, and he’s everywhere, and he’s in a million pieces. The wind across the plain, the rush of it through his hair—he feels like he’s free-falling for the first time in ages, the velocity of it whistling past his ears as he throws his chest forward and recklessly dives. He’s buzzing and cold and tingling and a million other sensations he has no words for, it’s just noise, fuzzy noise that yells until it doesn’t, burns until it harmonizes. And it does harmonize, and he’s back in one piece, and his eyes are still shut but he knows with absolute certainty that there’s solidity to him once again.

“Holy shit,” he hears Wind gasp out, and for a moment, he thinks it’s a reaction to whatever that was, until someone says—

“Sky,” Four. “Open your eyes.”

And when he does, he’s certain he’s dreaming.

Blue on every side of him, stretching as far as the eye can see—the horizon is unending, like an ocean of limitless clouds. They hang at his feet—white and fluffy and beneath, oh Hylia, beneath!—and when they break apart the vastness of Hyrule looks so small below, its massive sprawl a single ant as birdcalls ring above it, around him. The sun lights the world so different, up here—touching every heavenly inch of the sky, the sky, the sky.

Sky falls to his knees and bawls.

The rest of the boys make a few noises of general concern, slowing his descent to the mossy stone underfoot with arms spread across the chosen hero’s form. He hits the ground gently—or maybe he doesn’t, he’s too caught up in the glowing gold of the sunlit cloudcover to remember that pain as a sensation exists.

“Great work, champ!” Legend near-guffaws. “You killed him!”

The ache in Sky’s throat had seized his words long before this moment, but now it’s the awe that keeps them from coming, like his body and mind are searching for a million different ways to render him mute. He thinks, after a lifetime of voicelessness, that this is his favourite silence of all. His lungs relax, he breathes—he breathes deep, it’s so easy to breathe all of a sudden, even with tears clogging him up twofold, his best day on the Surface can’t even compare to his worst up in the Sky.

“Red?” Twilight kneels in front of him, brushing his bangs away from his face. His tone is worried, but there’s a smile on his face, woven into the tilt of his eyebrows.

“What…” Sky tries, choked up and croaky. “Where are we?”

Wild stares out at the heavenly expanse before them, his chest puffed up proudly as he curves his body back with a hand on his hip.

“Welcome to Divine Beast Vah Medoh, Sky.”

Legend takes a few steps forward, throwing out a hand for effect as he talks, “Those sure are words.”

The urge to explore has already set in, and Wind and Hyrule tear off across the ancient contraption, intent to see every inch of the thing. Wind’s jumping across platforms with deku leaf in hand when Time gives Wild a look and a bit of a grunt, “You’re certain it’s safe up here, Cub?”

“Positive,” Wild responds. “My mate Teba’s on the upkeep, as long as they don’t mess with the controls we’ll be fine.”

“Controls?” Twilight eyes him.

“I have her running on autopilot right now,” explains the champion. “But Medoh is… well, she’s an airship, I guess.”

Beneath the awning adjacent, Hyrule and Legend are admiring the intricate designs carved into the divine beast’s walls, their conversation far-off and unheard. Four settles down into an alcove of his own, getting to work repairing some equipment he’d been procrastinating on. They find simplicity where they can atop this grand place, making themselves at home within its walls and its wide-open wings all the same. Sky stays where he is, eyes wet and massive.

“Probably best we keep to the upper levels,” Wild says. “But we can definitely stay here until he recovers. I’ve spent a couple nights up here myself, it’s a little chilly but it’s hospitable.”

Twilight’s not sure he trusts anyone here not to touch the control panel, and so he makes a mental note to lightly guilt-trip them away from the idea with only the gentlest of reminders that Sky needs them on their best behaviour. For now, he turns back to the chosen hero in question. Knuckles at the tear-tracks beneath his bright blue eyes, Twilight wipes the moisture away and speaks as gently as he can.

“How’s that sound, Red?” Twilight gives his shoulder a firm pat as if to ground, but Sky’s floating in the blue far up above, impossible to reach.

Entranced, aloft, surrounded in empyrean, pure-white bliss—Sky rises on shaking legs, looking like he’s walking on ice as he takes a few steps forward, stumbling. He’s nowhere near the edge, but still Twilight trails behind him, nervous he might just dive off of it. Sky is slow and staggering as he walks, but he walks with purpose toward the aimless horizon, and the action draws silence from everyone else, too, its sentiment bleeding into all that hover around him.

A gust of wind blows past, ruffling his hair—

Sky’s on birdback, wild and free—up as high as he can go, Skyloft looks like a tiny green dot below Aepon’s talons. He takes his hands from the harness and throws them above his head, fists balled as he whoops, and cheers, and laughs—and his loftwing laughs along, a wheezy-sounding chattering from the back of his beak, powerful and proud.

Drop! Aepon sends Sky excitedly, and the chosen hero’s still cackling as he dismounts and falls, arms at his sides to dive faster, more effectively. His heart’s pounding in his ears as cloudspray whips at his face, he keeps his eyes shut tight from the force and leans into the feeling of all his nerves going alight. He feels more than sees Aepon zeroing in once more, pulling back in his descent with arms angled out—and then his fingernails tangle ungracefully in scarlet feathers, their softness betraying the wild soul who bears them. Aepon caws an ear-splitting caw, pulling into the sharpest turn he can manage without throwing Sky off again, and Sky laughs, and laughs, and laughs—

He falls back to his knees, closer (but not too close) to the edge—and he won’t leap from it today, but heavens, how he longs to. The wind is blowing, the clouds are new, the sun is rising—and Sky throws his arms out, desperate to feel more of its bite across his skin. He’s laughing, he’s crying, he’s sobbing—

He’s home, he’s home, he’s home.

Drawing closer to the fire, Sky tucks his chin into the downy feathers at his neck in a bid to warm up. Wild’s snowquill set definitely helps, but nights up here are just as cold as Sky remembers, it’s no wonder the nine of them wound up cuddled close to the fire, bodies pressed together, any and all pride be damned.

Despite everything, Sky just can’t find it in him to feel much other than bliss. He’s shivering, his nose is running, he can feel it dripping down his itchy, angry throat—and still he smiles through it, every rattling cough and pang in his muscles. Floating away, Sky simply lets it all exist alongside him.

“—I get back to the future and she says that I proposed to her, and I’m like, ma’am I just work here—”

“No, no, shut up actually, hold on—” Warriors interrupts Legend’s story, careful to keep his voice down while Sky drifts on his shoulder. “The tree?”

“No, the flowers,” the vet rolls his eyes. “Yes, the tree! Don’t laugh, ladies man, like your track record’s much better—”

“How was a tree proposing to you—”

“Probably with her mouth, dipshit,” Wind snorts. “You really never met a talking tree before?”

“I’m not that uncultured, just—” Warriors splutters. “Does a tree court? Can a tree… do they breed? How does—”

“I was fathered by a talking tree for approximately a decade,” Time says, flatly.

“You’ve got to stop doing that,” Four says, grinning. “No one can tell when you’re lying.”

“Who says I’m lying?”

“That! That’s the face you always make!” Legend says, pointing impolitely at the old man as the corner of his mouth curls into a smile. “Every time you say something insane you shoot us that look—”

“That’s hardly an obtuse statement,” Time counters.

“I agree,” Warriors says, nudging him. “Give us another, once more with feeling.”

Time crosses his arms, thinking for a moment. “One time I fought two castle-sized moldorms drunk and won.”

And Warriors throws his head back, a short syllable of clipped laughter. “Started hitting the bottle the second you came of age, eh, old man?”

“I was eleven.”

“Oh, I give up,” Twilight says, rubbing at his temple.

Their banter is cut short when Sky coughs a sleepy cough, half-awake on Warriors’ shoulder and mentally checked out, content to just listen when he can. No one can prove it, of course—but it’s a very interesting coincidence that Sky, space heater that he is right now, chose to cuddle closest to the one of them who seeks warmth most often. Even shackled by illness, he finds a way to comfort, and the captain is very notably not shivering at all right now.

Warriors braves the world outside the blanket he’s got draped around his shoulders, poking out an arm and ruffling Sky’s hair softly. “How’re you feeling, sleepyhead?”

The nickname is warm as it sinks into Sky’s heart, and he broadens his smile, leaning into the touch. “Sick.”

A few of them offer quiet chuckles, impossibly endeared to the grin that pushes past the gravel in his voice. Sky’s a treasure. They rather like Sky.

The wind’s gone quiet, alongside the night—mercy from the gods, perhaps, as the temperature dropped and they huddled together, surrounded by more of Wild’s fire weapons. Beneath Medoh’s wings, Hyrule goes dark—lights blinking off, lanterns being shuttered, stables dimming their glow down. The castle looms like a shadow upon the horizon, scaffolding poised around its walls.

“About dinnertime,” Warriors observes. “Think you can eat, Sky?”

Sky moans a little in response, nuzzling his face into the fluff lining his tunic. A negative.

“Oh, come now,” says the captain. “I bet I could change your mind.”

Sky’s quite comfortable with his eyes closed, and so he keeps them that way, nestled like a loftwing chick in feathers and fur while the world moves around him. He hears shuffling, looks exchanged in silence, the light of Sheikah-blue across his eyelids, a comforting gleam. Then, something warm billows up toward his face, caressing his eyelashes in the freezing night. The smell alone is enough to get him to open his eyes.

He’s still a little stuffy, but the aromatics push far past it, determined to find their way straight to his sentimental soul. As soon as the sight in front of him registers he has no choice but to concede to the captain’s claims—his stomach practically leaps forward with anticipation, intent to devour the soup until there’s absolutely nothing left of it. Steam on his face, warmth in his hands, spices lingering in the back of his throat, home.

Wild starts pulling out rations for the rest of them, comments about how he hopes they aren’t sick of pumpkin soup yet, and in the quiet commotion Sky closes his mouth upon an overflowing spoonful and it feels like his whole body goes elsewhere.

What—

How did they—

Warriors.

The chosen hero needs to lay prostrate before him and beg for the secrets of his process. All pretense of him lacking an appetite is thrown off Vah Medoh’s edge, and Sky starts wolfing it down—the spoon’s turned into more of a paddle to get soup into his mouth faster, and it’s so warm and just spicy enough and sweet and savoury and perfectly smooth, there’s tears in his eyes again but he doesn’t care anymore. Surrounded by suspended stars—constellations he’s memorized by heart, refusing to change—he eats his peoples’ soup and drifts.

Zelda kind of hated pumpkin.

Pumpkin desserts, pumpkin dinners, pumpkin snacks, almost none of them were free from her outright scorn—she’d make an exception for pumpkin cider, but she’d still scowl while she threw it back, making it clear without words she was there for the warm fuzzies, not the taste. A childhood full of nothing but had soured her, she’d defend herself with a huff, and Sky always found it hysterical how the pride and joy of Skyloft had no stomach for their national crop. She hated pumpkin, and it was one of Sky’s favourite things about her, how she’d vehemently refuse to kiss him after dinner, sometimes—how he’d wrap his arms around her and press his lips to her chin while she shrieked dramatically and lightly punched him and called him gross.

Most of all, he loved how every single time he was sick like this—without fail—things would go the same way. Back at the academy, she’d show up at his door with windswept hair and a foggy bottle in hand, all but forcing the soup down his throat to get it out of her hands as quickly as possible.

He loves her.

A particularly noisy crackle of the fire brings him back to present day, and his friends have shifted and moved around while they’re finishing up their own bowls, the newfound warmth of dinner resting in their bellies encouraging them to get up and stretch their legs. At some point Time had started playing ocarina, and Sky didn’t realize until just now how much he missed the sound of it. As if he’s sensing this, Time shifts his key—pulls the instrument from his face, and takes a deep, metered breath before he dives back in to a flawless rendition of the Ballad of the Goddess.

There’s warm bodies on every side of Sky, and pumpkin soup in his hands, and Sky knows how Time feels about Hylia, but still he plays Sky’s favourite song, in Her name, with all the reverence the chosen hero himself would.

Despite everything, it sounds beautiful, its notes swelling with love and power into the quiet of the night. It smells like smoke and pumpkin and cold, cold air, and Sky leans into every inch of this feeling, wishing he could bottle it like a fairy and keep it at his hip forever.

On his way back to the fire, Four perks up a little at the notes as they travel along the singing winds. More of them are drawing back around now, content to remain silent as they melt into the song. 

“Oh, I know this one!” the smithy says, and that pulls Sky’s eyes back down from the stars, their shine now bursting within his foggy blues.

Time laughs, pauses. “Do you, now?”

“Pretty sure,” Four says. “Keep playing, let me see—”

And Time does, and Four’s face focuses for a moment before he nods, and closes his own eyes, and—

Sings.

“Go, brave young one,”

And Sky swallows the feeling that rises in his throat, lights him up like a sunrise in his veins.

“Wise steel, guide you—”

A few of the other boys share awestruck looks—that Four’s voice sounds so lovely, that he’d have the mind to share it at all.

“Ground, lead you—”

Time almost loses the melody himself, utterly enchanted by everything about it. Four breathes the final line of the verse with something beautiful hiding in his tones.

“Raise your sword skyward…”

Lyrics? Time marvels. It has lyrics? Sky’s played a million renditions of this song in the short time they’ve known one another, just sitting on the fact and too shy to sing? Four blushes a little himself, scratching at the back of his head.

“I always forget the second verse,” he admits, and—perhaps a bit deviously—Time takes a deep breath and keeps playing anyways.

In Sky’s lap, Fi pulses and hums, and it’s the happiest he’s felt her to be in so long, the joy practically radiating off her blade in waves. Fi loved to sing, and she sounded so beautiful, her speaking voice was a melody on its own, her singing voice incomparable to any earthly or heavenly thing Sky knew. Under the stars one night he asked her why she sang, and she seemed confused to be asked, unsure of the answer. It ran deep in the ancient code that compiled her, an artful soul that the Goddess so carefully crafted despite the spirit’s cold calculation—so often, Fi reminded Sky that she had but one purpose, no feelings of her own to accent her duty, Hylia made her to do one thing.

A tool wasn’t meant to sing, to dance, to persist, to love—but Fi did all those things. Logic dictates, Sky had said, using her own words like a weapon against her.

Sky remembers the first time he heard Fi sing, there on the tower with sunlight glinting golden off her lustrous skin. She can’t sing now, not the way she did then.

Time plays the ballad she sang him that day, and Sky clears his throat, determined to rectify.

“Twin whirling sails, pointed homeward—”

He wraps a hand around Fi’s hilt. She cheers in his heart, gilded gratitude, billowy blue and violet draped across his soul.

“Sing, songbird—up on Light’s Tower.”

He’s not much of a singer to begin with, and his voice is all but gone, a pretty pitiful imprint of the deep, rich tones everyone’s used to. But Fi wasn’t meant to sing, either, and still she did, with everything she was. So Sky sings for her, and he sings for Zelda, and he sings for himself, and he sings for home.

His brothers are looking at him with earnest, heavy eyes, bursting with a swath of emotions his head is too foggy to pick apart, to be anxious about. Not a single part of him feels anxious, actually, his head isn’t running circles, trying to figure things out. It’s quiet, save for the wind, the owls, the ballad he loves more than he knew he could love a song. He breathes deep, and easy, and snuggles back into Warriors’ shoulder.

“Right, right!” Four breaks the comfortable tension. “What a pretty song.”

Sky beams, eyes shut. “It’s my favourite one of all.”

At some point, another bowl of pumpkin soup is deposited into his hands. Sky did not ask for seconds, but he’s surrounded on all sides by eight people who love him, knowing what he wants long before his feverish mind knows itself. He sips at it, trying to exhibit some temperance, this time—savouring every sip, clouds at his feet, stars around his head, wind in his hair, a song sunk deep into his weary heart.

“Soup's okay then, yeah?” Wild asks from beyond the aether. Sky nods, eyes closed, blissed out.

“It’s about as close to the proper recipe as we could get it, I’m afraid,” Warriors says, and Sky doesn’t know what he’s talking about, acting like it isn’t perfect.

Twilight, then, “I don’t suppose you ever figured out what it was missing, did you, Red?”

Another spoonful, and Sky lets it sit there, sun-flavoured and melting upon his tongue. The Ballad of the Goddess floats through the heavens, down past the clouds at their feet, over the wind, above the whirr of Medoh’s propellers, looking so much like the windmills dotting every corner of Skyloft, bright and constant with the breeze that wafted across its bustling paths.

The warmth of his friends envelops him, stranded on some island in the sky somewhere, asleep and serene in a well-placed sunbeam. Warriors tangles his fingers in Sky’s hair, Aepon nuzzles his beak there, too, its sharp hook impossibly gentle as he preens. His loftwing heaves a loving sigh, and so does Sky—clouds underneath him, sun on his skin, feathers at his fingertips, suspended in dreamless sleep.

“Yeah,” Sky says, voice a contented whisper. “I think I did.”

It's much later when dawn rolls across Hyrule—every eye shut, they curl into one another, and even in the fledgling first light it's impossible to tell where one body ends and the next begins.

Tearing through the open skies, nine birds fly onward in a perfect V.