Chapter Text
It starts with a sneeze, high-pitched and half-stifled into Legend’s fist. He fights with all he is to make the sound unassuming, let it drown alongside the murmur of endless nature around them to no avail. Warriors jumps a little at the startle of it, having been utterly lost in the breathing world around them himself. An aside glance is cast toward the vet as he’s sharply wiping his face, and Legend shoots Warriors a look that’s dripping with ire. The captain tries it anyways, a smirk pulling at his lips.
“That cannot have been—”
“No. Shut up.” Legend interrupts him with an aggressive sniffle. “Whatever you’re going to say, I’ve already heard it.”
“And what’s once more in my lilting tones?” Warriors says. “Who knew you could be so adorable.”
Four buries a chuckle into his palm, far more amused than antagonistic. “...that was pretty cute.”
The air hanging around is muggy, weighing down on the lot of them and making their collective smattering of scars twitch and ache. It’s green as far as the eye can see, no civilization for miles, and Time lets out another heavy breath, the serenity of its quietude battling with the nervous err in his heart.
“—sounds like the noise the ship rats would make when I’d grab ‘em by the tails!”
“Right? Like a fairy that’s got hiccups!”
“I swear on the Three,” Legend seethes. “No one will ever find your bodies.”
Time clears his throat, only half-paying attention to the banter behind him as they dredge through the forest.
“Forgive me for interrupting this important discussion,” he says. “Has anyone figured out where we are?”
Wild halts a little where he is, pulling the slate off his hip. He taps at it absentmindedly a few times, squinting into its otherworldly blue light.
“Pretty sure we—” he brightens. “Yeah! My Hyrule!”
“It’s... massive,” Twilight notes, spinning in slow reverence on his feet as he keeps on.
“I was pretty sure we were somewhere near Faron,” Wild says. “But I’ve never seen it so… bright.”
Time narrows his one-eyed gaze, wordlessly questioning the younger hero on what exactly that means. It’s the clouds themselves that answer, churning in the far distance behind the group as thunder rolls across them. A distant boom echoes through the wood, and Legend’s nervous shifting is met with Hyrule sidling up to him, palming the vet’s hand in a silent gesture of comfort.
Legend holds his breath, inconspicuously taking Hyrule’s palm in his own. It was an impulse on a sleepless night when he’d blurted out to Hyrule that he got jumpy in thunderstorms, something about the healer that just invited confession where previously Legend would keep his mouth shut. True to his word, Hyrule hadn’t spoken a word of it, talking instead with quiet comforts and supportive looks. He gives Legend’s hand a gentle squeeze, and Legend squeezes back shortly with a notable warmth radiating off his skin.
“It’s always storming something nasty out here,” Wild says. “Drives me mad to travel in. The footpaths are winding and the cliffs can’t even be scaled most days.”
Creeping behind them, the thunder booms louder, and Legend sucks in another uncertain breath, hidden in its roar. He can feel himself sweating bullets in the heavy air, focusing all he is on not shaking like a leaf in front of his team. The lot of them are busy sharing nervous glances, their collective trying to decipher where to navigate next.
“Anywhere nearby we can take shelter?” Twilight asks.
Wild presses a hand to his hip, looking out across the expanse in an attempt to better gauge their exact location. “Hm… it’s a pretty open province. We could try and find a cave to settle into, though… we’re closer to my house than we are to any stables.”
Wind immediately brightens, practically leaping off the forest floor. “House?! Your place is out here?!”
“Not out here.” Wild grins. “Up in Hateno Village. It’d be a little cramped with all of us, but it’s the safest place in Hyrule, at the very least. We could get some much-needed rest.”
Twilight opens his mouth to say something else but is cut off by Legend stifling another harsh sneeze into his free hand, spitting some curses at Hylia herself the second he catches his breath. He comes back to himself looking at his companions with the same acidic eyes as before, wordlessly hissing at them to shut up before they’ve spoken.
Warriors doesn’t listen. “Well, we’d better pick up the pace before Leggy here catches his death.”
Now it’s Twilight’s turn to eye Legend nervously. “...it sounds like he’s already caught it.”
The veteran hero is spent on snark already, deepening the ire in his narrowed eyes and straightening himself out with purpose. “I’m fine. Hundred rupees says it’s the pollen count in this wide-open hellhole of endless flora.”
“Ha! My ass!” Wind cackles. “If that were the case, Sky would’ve passed out the second we warped in!”
Sky shoots the younger boy a scandalized look, his words dying on his tongue as soon as he realizes he has absolutely no counter to that. Legend’s own retort is lost as another sneeze asserts its presence across his face, and he’s a blur of angry red and rose-gold, wrenching a fit of several more into his knuckles.
“Seriously, I don’t know what you expect, traipsing around wearing so little,” Warriors notes.
“You talk too much,” Legend seethes up at him with a voice that’s wavering and heavy.
Sky shifts a little from the back of the group, peering into Legend’s silhouette. There’s a muted quality to him that’s previously unseen, turning his ever-present fire down to an unsteady simmer, and it makes Sky hum inside-out with empathy pains he can’t articulate. The clouds churn once more, and Hyrule grasps Legend’s hand, and Sky lives vicariously in the action and talks down his worried heart.
“How long on foot, Cub?” Time asks.
Wild crosses his arms in thought. “Mm… a few hours if we book it. At the very least, I think we can make it before nightfall. We could probably find somewhere to stop if need be, but…”
The sun dims as he says it, as though nature itself bends in tandem with his heart.
“...the storm might catch up to us, is all,” he finishes.
Warriors gives a charismatic flourish of his hands, a second ray of light up against the darkening sky.
“Well, nothing we can’t handle.”
The storm does, in fact, catch up.
Not for a lack of trying—it’s with a steady pace that the group of nine moves through the wood, the cradle of trees and tangled ferns beneath their feet slowly dissipating into far more familiar grassland. Wild’s sure they’re long out of Faron now, but her thunderous grasp digs its claws into their backs and rakes bleeding scratches down upon them, sheets of rain cascading from the crying skies. As Necluda draws nearer, the muggy heat of the rainforest fades, leaving them drenched and freezing as they power on.
And then, of course, the hinox had been a surprise.
Wild’s cursing under his breath the lack of foresight—he’d been telling himself for months now to do a full survey of any monsters left in Hyrule, marking them on his slate for reference—and here he was, his comrades’ lives in danger because he’d let it fall to the backburner. The grey wrapping itself around the world was the perfect camouflage the beast needed, and they’d wandered right into its nest without even a moment to realize it had heard them despite the clamour of the rain.
It lets out another ugly roar, black ooze spewing from the wound Wind’s sliced into its forearm, and charges the youngest with the intent to crush him like an ant. Wind’s off to the side with a well-practiced dodge roll, grinning despite the deluge whipping like a hurricane around them. He never seemed perturbed by storms, moving through their weight as though it were nothing.
Finally, Wild feels it, hears it drawing near—the telltale change in the pressure around them, the crawling sensation of static pulling at the hair on his arms. Light roars and shifts in the clouds above, and Wild calls out desperately above the rumbling—
“Drop your weapons!”
He can see the other eight in all manner of eying him, their reactions ranging from what to are you insane? They’ve all seen Wild do and suggest things that sound completely unheard of for the purpose of survival, but fighting an infected boss monster with their bare fists is a new level of—
The skies burst open with a horrific crack, lightning tearing downward and striking the hinox where it stands. The behemoth reels back in agony, a bloodcurdling scream as it falls on its backside, writhing. Around its neck, the steel hanging there sparks and sears, blackened marks crawling snakelike on its deep red skin.
Legend swallows through the daggers in his throat, desperate to steady his breathing, trying not to think about how easily it could have been any one of them struck, could have been him, could have been him again—
He throws all the metal he owns to the side quicker than anyone has time to register, and while the hinox is down the rest of them follow suit.
A wringing creeps into Sky’s hands as he’s pulling off his own, and he has to will himself not to become lost in the act of it. I’ll be right here, he tries to send to Fi, I’ll come back—
But Wild notices—the hesitation in his frame, the way he bothers his lip, every second one of utmost importance in the throes of a battle. He thinks fast, intent to pull Sky from his worries.
“Give the Master Sword to me!”
Sky looks toward him, deer in the headlights. “But—”
“Trust me!”
It’s not really a demand. Sky does. Fi does. She hums agreement in his palm, in that warm, wordless way she always does nowadays. It sets Sky’s heart at ease, and he nods with intent as he tosses her sheath Wild’s way. He heaves her onto his back and paws at the Sheikah Slate, holding it up like a cover to keep the water from its face.
The rest of them watch as the unmistakable shade of Sheikah-blue swirls around Wild in rapid bursts, and suddenly he’s wearing some off-black getup that would be laughable if not for the dire straits they’re fighting through. Mental notes are made to make fun of him later, and Wild charges the beast with the Master Sword crackling and spitting against his hand.
There’s precious little time as they get back into formation—Twilight, Time, and Warriors tearing the earth up around them as they ready arrows to fire from bows that have seen better days. Hyrule falls back, his gaze focused upon Wild as more and more voltage gathers at the tip of his sacred blade. Shielding magic sparks to life at Hyrule’s fingertips, and when the clouds shudder and shriek again it’s only Wild’s eerie nonchalance that stops him from casting.
The lightning strikes Wild head-on, and Twilight wavers his shot and cries out in worry, set to abandon his post and run to Wild’s side. Around them, the world fades back to darkness like the light never visited, and Wild cleaves the Master Sword into the hinox’s side without a single scratch to show for it.
“What did he—” Twilight marvels. “How did you—”
“Talk later!” Legend interrupts from across the divide, gesturing wildly at the monster as it falls forward and snaps to, righting itself with a firm hold of one of the many trees surrounding them. It roars through its wound as though the pain’s not there, a black-blooded tenacity they’re familiar with by now.
“Clear the way!” Four commands suddenly in the direction of the archers, and the lot of them disperse near involuntarily at the rare sound of his voice. He’s holding some sort of cane not one of them has seen before, and the second he gets the shot he takes it—waving it in one strong motion upward, feet planted firmly on the ground. The drab around them goes up in a shower of blinding light once more—this time, a bolt of brilliance from the end of Four’s weapon—and the hinox slips on something, the tree trunk falling from its grasp.
Four doesn’t have time to react to the crack at his flank—a sharp noise that echoes out even over the pouring rain around them. Sky’s baring his teeth as the whip in his hands curls around the tree, and with a fierce cry he snaps the thing like it’s a simple twig, crushing the monster beneath its weight.
“Holy shit,” Wind shouts from behind the deku stick he’s brandishing. “That was awesome!”
“Talk,” Legend repeats. “Later!”
The veteran hero’s insistence seems ill-informed in the moment, with the beast on its back writhing and felled, with Twilight’s legendary marksmanship raining down upon its spewing eye. Wild’s fought more of these things than he can count—running off the beaten path to loot them for weapons at every opportunity—and in any other circumstance he’s sure they should have won by now. Even an infected red hinox is still a red hinox at the end of the day, and when it rises back to its feet again, the champion shudders to think how this could go if it had been any other variant.
The hinox bellows out another otherworldly noise, bone-rattling and ominous, like its barely even gotten started. It pounds at the ground below them as it lumbers onward, the earthquakes across the plain the only indication as the sound of it is lost beneath another clap of thunder. Legend grits his chattering teeth, trying to focus through the obsessive need to count down to the next one.
The rain sounds like static, white noise that crawls into his brain and swims, buzzes, itches in a way that makes him feel like his head is going to burst. Most days, it’s not this bad—the thunder strikes a cold fear and he pushes through, stalwart—but today it seeps into his flesh and chills him to the bone, today he feels waves lapping at his ankles and razor winds throwing him like a ragdoll across the frozen seas.
Another peal lights the sky, and Legend’s lungs are full of seawater, he’s choking on it, unable to come up for air. Ropeburn scarring his wrists as he holds white-knuckle, the current of electric, frozen agony running down through his veins and straight to his core—
Fuck this, he seethes defiantly at the visions that dance beneath his eyelids, desperate to focus on the here and now, clinging to what little grasp on reality that’s left. He looks to his team, forcing their presence into his right mind.
It’s a coward’s move, he knows, but maybe there’s valor in admitting he’s useless as he is. Legend makes a shaky sprint to the freshly-made stump that Sky’s quick thinking produced, bringing himself to the top of it with still-trembling legs. He can’t hold the Rod of Seasons straight as he draws it skyward, and he’s not even sure it’ll work in Hyrule, let alone someone else’s iteration of it. Still, he holds as tight as he’s able, pushing the storm from his mind and dreaming of clear skies, the burning sun, the eternal summer that he never quite reaches at the hurricane’s end. Legend wills the clouds above to drain and dry, to abandon their grey and garb themselves in heavenly white.
He’s so lost in the daydream of it, of the waves in the distance and the sound of her song, warmth on his skin—he only notices it’s worked when the rest of the boys start to look around in awe, their eyes cast toward the horizon as it clears, as the summer sun starts pulling the rain from their clothes. Legend lets out a ragged breath, dropping his arm back to his side as though it’s entirely limp, eight sets of curious eyes falling from the skies back to him.
“Don’t make me say it a third time,” he says, digging into his bomb bag with a sour look spread across his face.
The rest of them snap back to it, nodding and grabbing their own discarded weapons. With the sun beating down on them, with the way in front of them clear, it only takes a few more cuts across the hinox’s girth before the beast is frayed and heaving, its furs dyed an ugly black. Legend takes a running jump toward it, lobbing an excessive amount of bombs at the thing’s feet with a nonchalance that says he’s done so a thousand times.
“Shields up,” he rasps to his team, and they follow suit in one final coordinated hurrah as the behemoth finally, finally erupts into a cloud of darkened smoke.
It dissipates, and with it goes the clamour of battle, replaced by the slow fade back into serenity. The contrast of Wild’s Hyrule is amazing, birdsong and gentle gales picking up as though their ambiance had never left. The group releases a collective breath, taking a moment to drink in the sound of it. It’s Warriors who finally breaks the silence, eyeing his team.
“Well, that certainly was a detour,” he notes. “How are we, boys?”
Everyone seems to be in surprisingly good shape, which is something that Warriors narrows his eyes at in well-deserved suspicion. Upon further examination, it does look like most of them are well enough to continue. A little bruised, of course—Hyrule shuffles over to Four and casts some low-level healing on him after he notices the other hero wincing through his steps—but good enough to carry on, intent to make it to Hateno as the sun draws closer to the treetops.
Alarm bells are going off in Sky’s head, though, pangs of anxiety he’s been feeling all day that refuse to relent as they gather up their things and trek onward. At the head of the group, Twilight and Wild are having a lukewarm argument about the latter’s stunt in the lightning storm, and the rest of the team is piling on in a cloud of snark and laughter, teasing Wild for his unorthodox thinking and his ridiculous rubber outfit, teasing Twilight for being such a worried parent… everyone’s cackling and ribbing and talking...
Everyone except Legend.
The veteran hero is at the back of the group, staring at the ground in front of him with eyes unfocused and cloudy, as though he’s concentrating all he is on staying upright. Sky can see him breathing heavier than he should be at their leisurely pace, and it’s a little disconcerting when Legend doesn’t even notice him staring. They’d bonded over it, before, on the stubbornness of their bodies to just get with the program and work correctly, Legend and his rigid muscles, Sky and his lofty lungs. Legend coughs a pitiful cough into his fist, drowned in the sound of the rest of them and their banter, and Sky falls back with a worried glance.
“Hey, you don’t look so good,” he near whispers, and Legend shuts his eyes, his hand weakly waving Sky’s concerns away like some kind of pest.
“I’m just worn out,” Legend says. “Worry about yourself.”
The bite in his voice is comforting to hear, and Sky greets it warmly, like the friend he knows it is.
“There’s really no benefit to hiding it, you know,” he says. “If it’s something small, then it’s no big deal. And if it’s not, I don’t think you’re doing anyone any favours by trying to power through.”
“I’m fine, featherhead,” Legend snaps again, and it’s punctuated with his palm pressed hard against one eye as he winces. Standing closer, now, Sky can hear the laborious sound of his breathing, and he reaches an arm out, desperate to do… something to steady it.
“Ledge, you’re trembling,” Sky says. “We can take a break. I can pretend it’s for me.”
“You’re such a goddess-damned—” Legend falters on his feet, stumbling. “N-Nuisance—”
Sky paws at the air again, a hand hovering in Legend’s blurry peripheral as he wordlessly asks the consent to comfort. Legend can’t see the soft profile of the chosen hero past the veil of it—rainwater and choppy waves smudging his vision at the corners despite the burning sun all around. Legend wobbles, and shudders, and can’t hold back another dragging cough that paints everything white-hot in unmeasured bursts. His head pulses in time with it, and he can feel the storm around him fading to that white, and white seems so preferable to the unrelenting ocean and the boom of thunder and Sky’s incessant nagging—
There’s a drop in Sky’s heart as he watches Legend fall forward, and instinct kicks in as he clumsily lunges to catch his teammate before he hits the ground. Legend’s eyes are shut tight, his breath still unsteady and ragged, and Sky swallows hard, steeling himself.
“Guys!” he shouts to the rest of the party. “We need help back here!”
It’s unsettling to them immediately, to hear Sky’s voice in the tones it’s existing in, now—shaking and unsure, an outright cry for help. The conversation slams to a halt and they turn around lightning-fast, and Warriors is at Sky’s side in an instant, angling his head around the scene like a curious serpent taking them in.
“What happened?” he frets. “Is he injured?”
“I don’t know,” Sky mutters, examining Legend with careful intent. “He just collapsed, I—”
An errant brush of Sky’s fingertips to the vet’s skin tips him off, and he follows the impulse to sweep the faded rose-tint of his bangs away and press his palm to Legend’s forehead.
“Oh—Oh no—” Sky says. “He’s on fire, he’s way too hot—”
He can feel the heat radiating off Legend even through the chill the storm should’ve left behind, and Sky realizes he can’t even tell the lingering rainwater from the sweat pouring off his teammate. Legend’s shuddering up against him beneath the burning sun, a line of heat pressed into Sky’s grip.
“That absolute fool,” Warriors runs his hand through his hair, the sting in his words burying something softer. “He’s been ill since morning, of course he has—”
“Cub.” Twilight turns to Wild, their argument long faded. “How long?”
“H-Home stretch,” Wild stutters, tearing his eyes from Legend and Sky. “It’s up the hill at the end of this forest, we can get him into bed and tend to him as soon as possible.”
Twilight nods with intent, trudging over to Sky and wrapping his pelt around Legend as he trembles in quiet agony. The two of them share a look of silent understanding, and Sky nods wordlessly and hands the veteran hero over to Twilight, who heaves him upon his back with little effort.
Legend whimpers like a child as he settles into the contact, pressing his fevered cheek weakly into Twilight’s shoulder.
The beach.
It’s nostalgic. Legend can hear it outside the window, the distant sound of waves lapping at impossibly soft sands. The dreams so rarely make it this far, anymore—fading to black as lightning touches down, he can’t remember the last time he woke back up in any bed besides his own. Open your eyes, he wills himself, but he can’t bring himself to check his bedside for her smile, too fearful of the act of falling in love all over again. He breathes in, instead, and his head is too clogged with seawater to smell it, but Legend knows it’s there—hibiscus flowers and animal fur, a swirling combination that makes his nose prickle and his head swim in all the best ways.
There’s voices, barely within earshot. Not Marin, not Tarin—so how’d they get here? Are they dreaming, too? He rolls over with a quiet moan, tries to fall back asleep as his friends talk somewhere else. His head hurts.
“...it seems like it hit him fast,” Hyrule says, eyeing Legend as he sleeps fitfully on the second floor. “We should... definitely keep an eye on that fever, at the very least. It could take a turn, easily.”
The words fall upon the room, and more than a few of them have their arms crossed, brows knit in quiet contemplation and worry. Though they’d all been traveling together for quite some time now, it was the first time any of them had come down sick. Injuries were something they’d grown fairly adept at treating—but while Hyrule knew his way around medic duty, even he seemed unsure that magic and potions could do much against illness.
Wild suddenly snaps back to himself, pulling his weight off Twilight’s shoulder with a sharp exhale. He’d faded from the present the moment they got Legend into bed, and for a split second everyone was fearful that he’d been hit with the same thing. They noticed the far-off look in his eye, though—pulled away and let Twilight work his magic while they sat and considered the situation. The champion returns with a typical jolt, a moment’s glance at his surroundings while he takes them in and pulls himself back together.
“Welcome back.” Four waves. “We worried you were down for the count, too.”
Wild brushes him off with a nervous breath, shaking his head a little as if trying to regain hold on himself. He’s silent for a moment, his past self’s stuck tongue stubbornly holding on, and when he finally talks it’s blunter than they’re used to from him, stalwart and efficient.
“Before Legend did… whatever he did with that magic wand, we were far into the rainy season,” he explains. “Around this time there’s—there used to be a flu that would absolutely rip through the barracks at the castle every year—”
He angles his head up in an attempt to get another look at Legend, barely present against the horizon of the second floor.
“I, uh,” Wild says. “I saw him and was reminded. Of the last time I had it.”
Warriors shudders a little as the champion says it, a silent action that screams familiarity.
“If it’s anything like the one in my Hyrule, we’d best be cautious,” he confirms. “The lot of us could easily be down with the same for weeks.”
Weeks sounds like a long time, even though there’s… no particular destination they’re trying for as they’re dropped at random and traveling place to place. Time turns his eye to Hyrule, gauging his levels—
“How are you feeling about that?”
Hyrule shrugs, far less bothered than the rest of them. “I have a good amount of experience tending to the sick. It’s nothing untread.”
Time nods at that, impressed but unsurprised at his conviction. “We’ll need one more to keep an eye on him whenever you’re resting. Any takers?”
He turns to the group, feeling like he already knows it’s going to be Twilight, but much to his surprise, Sky’s hand shoots up before anyone else has a moment to register the question. His eagerness seems to perplex everyone else just as much, and Sky’s face goes a little red when he notices everyone looking at him.
“Sky…?” Twilight asks, tilting his head.
“I… want to,” Sky sputters out. “I’ll get… antsy if I leave him while he’s hurting like this.”
It is, in all honesty, a very Sky answer. There’s something about the chosen hero that seems to invite comfort, silent and subtle but there nonetheless. Again, Time nods, in that sagely way he does, and everyone seems to be fine with this turn of events. Wind snickers, leaning back on folded arms.
“‘Kay, so who’s taking care of their sorry asses when they get sick too?”
“We’ll figure it out if it comes to that,” Twilight says. “For now, we play it safe and hope it doesn’t.”
He’s not finished speaking when Wild stands up, throwing open the window at his back and crawling up the stairs to do the same to the one up there. There’s quiet, careful intent in his movements as he addresses them, keeping his voice at a comfortable level so as to not wake Legend.
“Hope can only get us so far,” Wild says. “Here, keep the windows open as long as you’re able. I’m gonna head out and forage for medicine.”
Hyrule considers the summer breeze as it wafts in, eyeing the open window. “Is that… gonna help?”
Wild nods with unfaltering confidence. “My Zelda’s a scientist. She told me all about how she studied these outbreaks up close. I can’t remember all the big words she used but—I remember the part about constant airflow being important.”
He starts to gather his things, strapping a wooden sword to his back and gearing back up in every thunderproof piece of clothing he owns, groaning a little at the idea of having to spend time out in the Ridge.
“Do you want me to come with?” Twilight offers, a question that actually means do you need my tracking expertise, and Wild shakes his head, smiling to offset the negative.
“It’ll definitely be raining out there still, best you, uh, stay dry,” Wild shudders. “I’ll be back before sunrise, promise.”
With that, he’s headed toward the door, and Wind grins brightly as he goes, waving in that playful way he always seems to carry himself.
“Call me if you need anything, sweetheart!” he teases. “...or if you don’t! Hey, call me if you see a cool bug!”
Wild stifles a laugh into his palm, waving as he leaves.
“Sure thing.”
Sunlight bleeds into the ocean, wavering and shimmering orange dye that turns everything it touches the same shades of golden. With the fading of the day comes a chill that’s comfortable and soothing, a sharpening of the air that makes every one of Legend’s senses go alight. He swears, staring into the hearth of the sunset, that he can pick out colours he’s never seen before. That the taste of salty air on his tongue makes him breathe easier than he ever has before, that there’s fireworks buzzing beneath his skin when Marin pulls him close. He tries not to shudder, but it crawls through him anyways—pleasant, and new, in a way that tinges his cheeks red like the twilight hanging all around them.
She sings. Marin’s pressed into his side, an arm around Legend’s waist, and he tries not to become lost in the notes he’s heard a thousand times and wants to hear a million more. His head swirls with the scent of her this close—fresh cut flowers, bonfires on the beach, she smells like summer and young love and memory, and she holds him, and he melts into her shoulder and her wild red hair, unable to fight the impulse any longer. Legend brings a shaking hand toward her, pawing at a courage that comes so easily everywhere else, and Marin meets him halfway, lacing the fingers of her free hand with his own. Her skin is so impossibly soft, the strength in how she holds him so apparent regardless. Legend’s heart flutters and lurches and he’s red-faced and wordless—not a man who’s stared down evil and death and carnage with blade in hand, but a boy on the beach, too dumb and lovestruck to tell the girl of his dreams how he feels. Still, he tries.
“I missed you,” he says, but it makes no sense. They’ve only just met, but he swears, swears he’s known her forever. He feels like he’s talking nonsense, but somehow she understands. She always does.
“It’s been quiet without you here,” she smiles sadly, squeezing his hand. “I wish you could stay.”
The gulls sing above them, discordant and beautiful, and the sun’s nearly gone, now. Legend wonders why he has so much trouble, bringing himself to say the words, and they tumble out of him with little form, clumsily—
“I want to,” he says. “I want to—with you, I—”
His tongue never unties itself around her, it’s a marvel she sees value in his company at all. Marin giggles her seabird’s laugh, cards her fingers through his hair. The ocean breeze and her ginger touch send another shiver down his spine.
“Don’t be silly, Link,” she says. “They need you back home! There's a lotta people besides just me who miss you.”
The sun is gone, like its brilliance was never there. In the newborn starlight, with the moon casting its rays across Koholint’s waters, Marin is but a fiery outline in the darkness. Legend tries not to focus on it—how she seems like she’s fading to an imprint, now. She’s still warm, pressed against him, the flowers in her hair swaying in the wind.
“Please,” Legend whispers to her, too tired to hold back his tears and knowing she’s the only soul in this world he feels worthy to look upon them.
“I don’t want to leave,” he weeps, staring into her low-lit silhouette.
Marin’s silent for a moment, tilting her head with another smile. Legend can’t bear to meditate on the emotion wavering in her eyes, the way she’s always looked at him—she’s seen nothing of his past, of his victories, of his achievements, knows nothing of who he is upon Hyrulean soil. She looks to him, and sees only what he is in moments like this—a young man from humble beginnings, tenaciously holding onto what he has, what he loves. She looks to him, and it feels like the first time anyone’s seen him for who he is, not what he represents.
“Marin,” he says, crying like a child. “I don’t want to leave.”
She brushes her hand across his cheek, catching a tear and smudging it away. It feels like a prayer, and she infuses the gesture with all the love she can muster.
“I love you, Link,” she whispers to him.
“Let go.”
“Legend? Legend, c’mon, settle down.”
He fades to the familiar sensation—one set of hands on his face fading into another, a blurry moonlit silhouette shifting and changing to someone else entirely. Legend fights waking with all he is, desperate to turn back time, chasing the dream and all its comforts. It takes great effort for him to crack his eyes back open, trying to make sense of his surroundings.
“...Roolie?”
Hyrule brightens a little, taking his palm from Legend’s face.
“Yeah, it’s me, Ledge.”
“...where’m?”
“...Hyrule,” he says after a moment of pause. “Wild’s house.”
Legend shuts his eyes again, meditating on this information. He gives a weak nod, not feeling up to speaking much more than that. What’s real, what’s not, it’s hard to tell in the moment—when every part of him throbs and aches and screams, when his tendons feel like they’re crawling with flames, the same shrieking agony as every other time he’s found himself back in that thunderstorm. He feels like he’s on fire, being seared alive from the inside out.
Sky leans forward, brushing the veteran hero’s bangs away and changing out the washcloth that’s resting there. It feels heavenly enough for just a moment that Legend feels his bones settle, and he burrows back under the covers with a sniffle so pathetic it almost sounds fake. He drifts with a waver in his breathing, and Sky can’t keep his fingers from running themselves through Legend’s dusty pink mop of hair, a calculated rhythm he counts out in his head, willing it to be soothing.
Legend dreams. He’s thrown back to sea the moment he shuts his eyes, and for hours that’s where he stays. Thunder roars and crashes and pulls at his raft, the waves are razor-sharp as they leap out of the frigid grey ocean. At some point, the cutting chill of the rain numbs his skin entirely—if it’s the bite of it or the shock, he can’t say—he doesn’t notice himself bleeding around the ropes tied to his palm, has to paw for the will to stay standing.
It’s so cold, it’s freezing, he can’t stop shaking, can’t keep a steady hold on anything as he’s tossed around the hurricane. It's a bitter chill until it’s not, when the lightning strikes down—agonizing, blistering heat that snakes rootlike scars across his skin and fades the world to white-hot pain, nothing else existing, merciless sensory deprivation. He’s alone out here, and Hyrule’s shores are too far to hear him begging not to die. Legend writhes, and screams, and cries—
Hyrule stirs to the sound of sobbing, and when he realizes it’s Legend’s voice he feels a pit settle in his stomach that’s heavy and hard. Sky’s holding onto the vet’s shoulders, and Legend’s clawing and sputtering and screaming nonsense up at him, somewhere else entirely.
“What’s wrong?” Hyrule asks, his voice faded from sleep.
“I don’t know—” Sky says. “I think he’s imagining things—”
“No!” Legend screams at him, looking like some kind of beast with its teeth bared and ready. The rest of the boys blink awake one by one from the lower level, pained looks of empathy flaring up in their eyes at the knowledge that they’re to stay where they are.
“Legend, hey, easy,” Sky tells him, maintaining the contact in an attempt to ground him. “You’re safe! You’re safe. It’s not real, it’s—just a dream.”
“Fuck you!” Legend seethes, his eyes wide and streaming tears—the fire flares up, and crackles and snaps, and fades almost instantly, waterlogged and doused. He goes limp against Sky, who moves in closer beside him. Legend cries, and cries, and cries.
“Talk to me,” Sky whispers, holding him steady against his side. “What’s wrong?”
Legend doesn’t look at him, his fingernails dug into his hair. Tufts of pink breach the gaps, and he tugs and heaves and trembles.
“I can’t—get—home—”
Sky peers into him. “Home where? To... to Hyrule?”
Legend curls in on himself, nodding.
“The storm’s too rough—” Legend whimpers. “I can’t make it! I can’t make it!”
Sky turns his gaze from Legend to Hyrule, and the two of them share the look for a moment, silently contemplating what to do. Every last one of them get nightmares, it’s only natural with everything they’ve seen—but Legend’s seem a different flavour at the moment, the illness no doubt baking his brain without a care for what it touches. Sky shuffles closer, turning to Hyrule and whispering—
“Hang tight,” he says. “I’m gonna try something.”
He leans in to meet Legend where he is, speaking clear and concise as he can—
“Where are you, Ledge?” Sky asks. “Do you have coordinates?”
Legend pauses, processes, shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know! Somewhere west of Hyrule. I can’t see above the waves—Everything’s so—It’s all choppy, and the rain, I can’t see—”
“Hey, hey, shh, it’s okay.” Sky reaches out, brushes another tear off his face. “I see you! It’s gonna be okay.”
“You see… me?”
“Up above! I’m coming down to get you, okay?”
Legend finally looks at him, eyes wide in terror. “You can’t! It’s too dangerous, Sky! There’s no way out, there’s no way—”
“It’s safe above the clouds,” Sky tells him brightly, holding tight to his hand. “We can make it, I promise. Do you see me? Look up, I’m on the back of a big red bird.”
The veteran’s eyes are glassy with fever, one stop short of turning white and unconscious. Sky can feel the waves of heat absolutely rolling off Legend, gripping tighter at his palm. Legend looks to the shuttered heavens, his expression relaxing.
“...Sky?”
“It’s me. It’s okay!” Sky brightens. “I can fly us above the storm. It’s safe up there, and I can take you home.”
“Sky,” Legend cries, quieter now. “Be careful.”
“It’ll be okay,” he says. “I’ve done this before, and I’ve got the best bird around! Just hold on tight, ‘kay?”
Legend nods, and the way he paws at Sky thereafter almost makes the chosen hero’s heart crack open. Sky pulls forward to hug him, and Legend falls into his arms, and before either of them have a second to breathe Legend is sobbing a wet stain against Sky’s tunic. He clings with stuttering hands, muscles weak and waning, and Sky gently pulls knots from Legend’s bed-head as he runs his fingers through it.
“There you go,” Sky whispers. “I’ve got you.”
Fighting through heavy lungs and teary breaths, Legend’s sobbing evens out to something quieter, less heartbreaking. He melts into Sky’s touch, shuts his eyes and lets his grip go slack. Sky holds him like he’s made of glass as he slides a bit of distance in between them, palming the washcloth Legend’s knocked off his forehead and using it to clean sweat and tears and mess from his face.
“Lay back down, Ledge,” he says. “Leave all the rest to me.”
Legend whimpers wantonly into his palm, a weak nod that’s far more lucid than anything he’s given in hours. Sky lowers him back down onto Wild’s bed, drawing the covers back up in an attempt to chase away the shivers that return to Legend with a vengeance. It’s only a few minutes before his breathing slows to a steady rhythm, and he’s still as the earth in a dreamless sleep. Hyrule and Sky heave a synchronized sigh, and the former turns to the latter with curious eyes—
“That was really smart. How did you know?” Hyrule asks. “To do that, I mean.”
Sky shakes his head. “He… didn’t seem to react well when I told him it wasn’t real. So I just… did the opposite?”
The way Sky’s talking, Hyrule thinks, is like he simply stumbled into the right answer, and the idea that it’s not something he’s practiced a hundred times seems impossible. Hyrule isn’t sure which option is more impressive, so he moves right along and doesn’t think about it too hard.
“Well, good call,” he says, leaning over with palm outstretched to check Legend’s fever. “Yikes, he’s due for that elixir. I should head outside and see if I can get it started.”
He stands up, stretching leftover sleep from his joints for a moment before looking back down at Sky. “You’ll be alright in here? You must be getting tired.”
Sky chuckles. “I’m always tired.”
“Fair enough.” Hyrule grins. “I’ll be quick.”
He’s down the stairs and out the door in a flash, carefully stepping over the bodies of several sleep-deprived warriors as they politely pretend to be far more unconscious than they are.
When Legend wakes up, it’s with a serenity that almost feels ominous in contrast—no waver in his heart at what he might see there, no swirling razor winds tearing his vision to ribbons. The chill of the nightmares still lingers—he shudders, and coughs an ugly rattle into his blankets—but the fear isn’t there. It’s not quite dawn, what peeks into the cottage is less of a sunrise and more of a veil of deep, rich blue. His head aches like it’s never ached before, and someone gives his shoulder a delicate little jostle.
“—gotta drink this to feel better,” a voice says. “C’mon.”
Legend tries to say something, but it comes out as a barely coherent murmur, and the outlines of his caretakers blur and waver in the seaside heatwaves. He hears the ocean, but it’s oddly soothing, this time.
The voice encourages him again. It’s deep and warm and inviting—soaring and soft, the way he’d feel holding onto webbed feet, carried across the fields of Hyrule with the wind in his hair. In the hazy realm between waking and dreaming, he knows it’s Sky long before he blurs into view—for a moment, though, he looks like someone else, silhouette noncommittal in its shape and presence. Legend blinks roughly, pawing uselessly at the bottle Sky’s offering him. His hand slips and falters around the glass of it as though its made of ice, and he lets out a weak-willed groan through his waning delirium.
“Can’t,” Legend offers, sounding far more angry than embarrassed.
The world’s far too watercolour for Legend to see it—the way Sky and Hyrule share a sympathetic look before the former shifts forward to remedy the situation.
“That’s alright,” Sky says. “We’re gonna try to sit you up, okay?”
Barely lucid enough to register the words, Legend nods without much protest. Hyrule’s arms are around him, then, shuffling him upward with a strength Legend’s always found a little surprising. His head dips a little against the finished wood of the headboard, and Sky fusses the pillow higher behind him. Sunlight starts to peek in through the open windows, and Legend throws an arm over his eyes, desperate to will its radiance away.
“It’ll only take a second.” Sky scoots forward and uncorks the elixir, pressing it to Legend’s lips.
“Smells like shit,” the veteran hero bemoans, raising his arm a touch to eye the bottle.
Sky and Hyrule both have to bank their laughter for fear of waking up the others, a little elated to hear their friend still sentient beneath what the illness has taken from him. Pulling away for a moment, Sky infuses warmth into his voice, hoping Legend can hear the smile in it.
“Wild swears by it,” he says. “Said it’ll do way more for that temperature of yours than any red potion ever could.”
“Sucks,” Legend says.
“Probably,” Hyrule echoes. “But you will have to drink it.”
With a resigned sigh, Legend drops his arm back to his side. He makes another attempt to paw at the bottle but finds his muscles weighed down with that stubborn, stewing ache. Sky takes the cue and raises the bottle back up for him to drink it, and this time Legend does so without complaint, eyes shut and spirit too spent to fight the action.
The draining of the vial is punctuated with Sky tracing his fingers lightly against Legend’s sweat-damp bangs, affirmations swelling in his heart that bubble up and spill past his teeth.
“There you go,” he says, crawling closer to Legend so they’re side-by-side and pulling him into a hug. “Go ahead and get some more rest, okay?”
Legend doesn’t know why he feels tears burn the back of his eyes. On any given day he can’t decide—whether he loves or loathes Sky’s saccharine schtick, why it inspires ire in him he doesn’t feel like unpacking. He feels tantalizingly close to figuring it out at this moment, though, as he’s dropping his head to rest on the chosen hero’s shoulders and waiting, helplessly, for the medicine to kick in and wrest him back away into what is hopefully a dreamless sleep. The patience doesn’t feel real, with how stalwart it is in Sky’s heart, and it makes Legend burn with some kind of something—suspicion? Disbelief? Envy?—Sky’s so impulsive in battle, so air-headed in all else. In this and only this, though, he moves like a well-oiled machine—calculated, and comforting, and like it was what he was put in this world to do.
Everyone melts a little around Sky, everyone fights the stubborn spirit Farore’s so graciously planted within them to lay vulnerable at his feet. They talk, they weep, they hurt, and he heals. Legend feels an impulse like no other to fight it even harder, day in and day out, but right now Sky is warm against his frozen form, his bitten down fingernails carding sunbeams through his hair and down into his heart. Legend keeps his eyes closed, and he smells the seabreeze and sees the sunset, and the rockslide in his head trickles down and breaks apart until it’s sand between his toes. And Sky holds him close, and Legend knows its Sky, but just this one dawn when the fever cooks his right mind and the rest of them are asleep and he’s too sick to shield his heart, the words spill out of him—
“Sky?”
Sky doesn’t stop what he’s doing, but Legend feels him shift to peer into him. “Yeah?”
“I-Is this…”
Legend takes a breath, waterlogged and heavy.
“This is real, right?”
He wearily pulls his eyes back open to look up at Sky, vision too doubled to see the heartbreak pulling at the chosen hero’s face. They’re all so careful with their words, so silent until they’re not, but Sky shows his every thought on his face as he thinks it, journeying with purpose to the right sentence.
“Yes, Ledge. It’s real. You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
Legend’s eyes fall shut again, and he curls into Sky, holding back tears beneath the veil of his hair as shaggy bangs fall over his face and he clings to Sky with a weak, trembling hand.
“Don’t leave me,” he says. “Please don’t disappear.”
“I won’t,” Sky says. “I’ll stay right here.”
“Promise me, Sky.”
Sky hugs him tighter, leaning their heads together. “I promise.”
For a while, nothing more is said. Legend’s sobbing turns to sniffling turns to quiet, wheezy breaths, and Sky and Hyrule both press themselves into either side of him until the contact is enough for him to drift back off. He fades to the sound of birdsong as light stretches across the room, and the two of them lower him back down while he sleeps a deep sleep and toss the covers lovingly over him. Another brush of Hyrule’s palm across his cheek breeds hope, his skin feeling warm but hardly the boiling hot it’s been for hours now. Sky yawns one of his patently loud yawns, wiping tears from the corner of his eye.
“You have done more than enough,” Hyrule says. “Get some rest, Sky.”
There’s a reluctance to Sky that’s almost unsettling, and he wordlessly regards Legend, worry still flickering in his soaring blues. Hyrule’s never seen him even come close to turning down a nap, let alone a proper sleep after an incredibly draining night.
“Come on,” Hyrule pushes. “Can’t have you getting sick, too.”
Sky’s expression shifts and changes again while he thinks, and Hyrule’s heart settles when he finally nods. He watches as the chosen hero crawls into the bed beside their ailing friend, careful to not wake him as he burrows under the covers. Legend makes a small noise, stirring for a moment as Sky wraps an arm around him and buries his face into Legend’s shoulder.
The two of them settle into one another, and Legend—stuck in the ephemeral plane where dreams and reality blur—exhales a breath he feels like he’s been holding since he was a child, bright-eyed and burdened and unsure of what the future holds for him. For just one moment, it all melts away, and he lets himself drift in the arms of one of many who love him, unconditional as it comes.
Hyrule’s heart threatens to melt at the sight of it—prickly and closed off Legend looking so small and vulnerable in Sky’s arms, not even his hardened heart immune to the chosen hero’s enveloping, healing charm. He doesn’t hear the footsteps coming up the loft, of course, only startling when he hears a familiar shuttering sound from behind the scene.
When he whips his head around, Wild’s angled precariously, hanging off the railing like some kind of animal with a wicked grin upon his face—
In his hand, now more than ever, the Sheikah Slate looks exactly like the weapon it was always meant to be.