Chapter Text
There are whispers in the holy courts. Hushed over hidden pools, whispering in shaded corners. "She's searching," the god of deep-water will mutter in passing, "She wants heroes," an old war goddess growls.
There is unrest in the holy courts, even young zephyrs can see it. Hylia has not been in this place in a millennia, but she will take what is theirs all the same. Spurred by the will of their creator, a flock of fresh breeze spins down to the world below, panicked and eager to warn their creator's chosen.
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Conversely, down in the mortal world, that stress is entirely absent.
It's a bright night tonight. The stars glinting above hold their position, their arrangement carefully crafted to imply late summer; warmth in the air that sits like a blanket corroborates this. A large full moon, too, with a calming yellowish tint. Even the waves are calm, lapping gently across the sides of the boat. Link himself... dozes, resting his head on the gunwale and letting his fingers drift through cold salt water.
Cutting through the silence, a gust of wind caresses his cheek and whispers playfully (if a little strained) for his attention. He blinks groggily before sitting up slowly, grabbing one of the ropes and unfurling the sail as he goes. The wind tousles his hair impatiently, letting him finish tying everything down, before snapping into the sail and pulling him in a new direction. Off course, but he wasn't really in a hurry anyway.
Besides, you should never just ignore the wind, not when it clearly has something important to show you. Any sailor worth their salt knows that.
They sail on this mystery path for a good while, fully silent besides the wind whipping through canvas and the wake of the boat. He falls asleep at some point, and the wind is content to let him. When he wakes its only the position of the stars that tells him that any time passed at all.
Its not until dawn breaks hours later that he sees their destination.
Its a small island, barely larger in surface area than Tetra's ship, and completely unremarkable from an outside perspective shrouded in the marine layer as it is. But... Link knows this area, it's right near Windfall. He's sailed it hundreds of times, maybe more, and even in his sleep-addled state he knows for a fact that the island shouldn't be here.
It also, he squints... has a shrine on it. That explains some things.
The boat slows to a stop right at the shore and pulls onto the sand with nary a splash. Not bothering to tie it down (whoever this island belongs to wouldn't let it float away), he begins a small trek up the beach to where water becomes sand becomes weathered, sunbleached white stone steps.
The shrine itself is cracked and warped with time and erosion, old but still stunningly beautiful. An arch stands sentinel at the entrance, painted blue, once, maybe, but now bone white and tinted gray in the foggy morning. Small flowering succulents crack through the stones at his feet, as though welcoming in place of a keeper. He smiles and skips past, careful to step over and not on them.
The altar itself is minimal, a pedestal adorned with dried windflowers and an old stoneware teacup, glazed but plain besides. Above it, an even older archway stands. Peppered with holes in bleached supports, Link knows this arch is built to sing when the wind blows through it. Said wind pushes his hands encouragingly, causing a small atonal hum to reverberate through the island. Right.
Its not every day your favored god wants to talk.
Rapidly shaking off the last of his sleep, he digs into his travel bag and pulls out a small wooden statuette of a frog. Its rough, unpolished and lopsided and made of driftwood he found on the beach at home, but he made it all by himself just for this.
Nervous and carefully hiding it, he steps forward and places his statue on the altar. The prayer he whispers is short and informal, but it's the thought that counts anyway.
Moving back, he sets his stance loose, portraying the confidence of someone who's done this a thousand times. Confidence is very, very important for this next part. He lifts his head, takes a deep breath, and-
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Every mage knows that elemental magic is a communion. A resonant joining of the inner and outer natures that, like most magics, needs a physical catalyst to do physical effects. Every element (when anchored in the body and not in an artifact) has a corresponding area, whether it be the blood for water, the spine for lightning, or the bones for earth.
All air magic starts, of course, in the lungs. Some prefer simply breathing, a lot use singing, others cast with chants or prayers. Link just thinks most important part of it is communicating intent because, well. The wind has a LOT of stuff it likes to do, and your idea is just one in a billion. Its important to make your idea loud.
○•●----------●•○
-He hums, starting with a variation on the wind's requiem. He lets the magic gather in his lungs without releasing the spell, not just yet. Slowly, a cool breeze begins to circle around his feet.
(To Link, the wind's requiem works like a conversation. The song itself works something like: "hello" and the wind responds "hello yes what?". Then the caster moves, pointing with their body and mind to say "this way please, for a little while" and the wind says "of course!". And any change to the formula will completely change what you say, because the wind is finicky like that.
So instead of "this way, please", Link says "come here, close, listen listen, come here!" And that gets the wind very excited, because Link is their friend.)
Slowly, he shifts to kneeling in front of the altar, careful not to loose his balance in the whipping winds. The once-gentle breeze is morphing into a whirlwind now, centered around him and listening, listening, excited.
The altar remains carefully untouched.
Slowly, he shifts from the wind's requiem into the wind god's aria. The strain on his magic is near tripled, but he barely acknowledges it. He's done this part enough times to know what it takes.
(The wind god's aria is a much longer spell, and as such has a very specific purpose and meaning. For mages, the original call and response goes: "Hello, its me, you know me and i am safe. Will you allow passage?" And the gods of wind and sky and force say "Yes, we know you and you are safe. We will allow you entry." And that is that, because talking to outer gods requires very precise wording that most mages can't speak with. Usually they let other people translate it first and just use that.
But Link isn't just some random mage, he's their hero. Of course he can, and does, speak in the wind's language. Often. Though most of his crew doesn't know it.
So he bows and says "Greetings" and not "hello" because there is a difference in politeness even if most people can't even understand him anyway. And he says "Greetings, I am yours, claimed as few before by trial of journey and wisdom gained through action. You know me, and we have spoken." And he says "Mentors, originators, guardians of action itself, if you would speak i would listen." And the gods agree, and if any of them notice the shakiness in his voice they don't mention it.
Their little mortal is just so cute.)
Stronger, louder, older voices join the aria. The eldest wind spirits, each from their own cardinal direction, are more than happy to be a part of this moment, to sing with him and be heard. The young whirlwind whips into a proper twister, pulling and shoving and excited! Excited! Looking and listening and twining and swirling and here!!! Here hello!!!!
Link, near blind and safe in the eye of the storm, flares the spell into a crescendo. Its a new song, one he wrote after Bellum. Desperate, almost, writhing and lonely and hurt, his voice alone amongst the storm. He sings his lonely solo, his song that says "I miss you, where did you go? Why did you leave?" and finally, voice hoarse with effort, he
-casts-
releasing the wind and song and intent all at once into a swirling, storming beacon.
The force of the spell disperses the early morning marine layer, turning the once dull gray sunrise into a kaleidoscope of pale yellow and pink and orange.
Its not polite like greetings, or silly like hello, just a loving spell screaming "HEY!!!" to anyone with half a mind to listen.
He bows his head to catch his breath, and the wind falls with him. It's quiet, without the storm winds' deafening power. They sit in silence for a moment. Just.... just to breathe.
They stay that way for a bit, 20 minutes at most. Link lets the wind card through his fingers, watching it play with a few flower petals that had been blown loose by the earlier twister. The wind itself gets bored easily, though, quickly switching between little games while they wait. It plays with a few pebbles by his feet before- before rising and he looks up with it and-
"YOU'RE HEEEERE!" He shouts, raising his fists in tired, triumphant victory. He's grinning like a total doofus but- but!
Zephos is here! And he's hugging him!!!
"Link, boy! Where have you been?" He holds him out at arms length, quickly scanning as though searching for something. Evidently he finds it as Link is pulled in for another boneless, magically exhausted bearhug. Froghug? Whatever.
He smiles into it and kicks his feet, soft leather gently scuffing against the stonework. "I could say the same about you, you old fart!" His smile dims a little. "Didn' even visit after I saved Oshus n' all. You know what kinda messages that sends a guy? I thought-" his voice breaks with unexpected emotion, hard to hold back after a huge spell like that, "I thought you were mad."
Slowly his feet touch solid ground again as Zephos lowers the both of them into a sitting position, Link kneeling polite but shaky, Zephos hovering centimeters above the ground, leaning forward, listening closely.
When it looks like he wont elaborate, Zephos tries to give him a reassuring smile. "Tell me?" He says it so gently, and Link can't meet his gaze. He takes a deep, shuddering breath instead.
"Its- its just... after I helped him I realized that- that I didn' ask you first and... I thought maybe you'd- you'd think I abandoned you? And I didn't I swear but.. but you never showed up and I just- just thought maybe..." His rant is cut off by a sob, small and choked off like he was trying to hide it. Hot tears drip onto his hands, and he blinks as if trying to will them away. It doesn't work. "M' sorry..." He nearly whispers.
Softly, as if he could push it away with just a word, a hand reaches out to wipe away his tears. He holds back from leaning into the touch. "Kid, I-" Zephos stops and laughs, gentle and quiet, like an inside joke shared just between them, before starting again, "I don't think there's a single thing you could do to make me mad at you. Not a single thing."
Link finally looks up at him and immediately freezes because. Because Zephos means it. Because he's looking at Link like how grandma looked at him after he accidentally broke something important, like he's special and loved and maybe they're a little disappointed but it was all gonna be ok because he was family and. Oh-
Were they? Family?
Tears gone, shocked in the moment, he blinks into a shaky smile. "R-really?" He laughs, fragile but real, "Nothing at all?" Zephos crosses his arms and huffs, pretending to think it over, "Welllll, I can think of maybe one or two- no, you silly boy, I said nothing and I mean it." His last sentence is punctuated by grabbing Link around the waist and pulling him into a noogie. He shrieks, already mussed and wind-blown hair getting worse by the second, but his laugh this time is a lot stronger too. "Graaahh that's what you think of me, ah? I'll show you, boy!" And the noogie transitions into a full blown play fight, fake kicking and biting and guffaws and just fun, light and airy and silly.
It goes until Link needs a break, tired from tussling and crying both.
Late morning finds the both of them basking in the sun after a good breakfast, Zephos lounging in his cloud and Link fully starfished on the warm stone beneath. They're comfortable, so much so that Link almost forgets that-
"Oh, right." He begrudgingly pulls himself into a cross-legged sit. "What did you bring me here for, anyway? Besides just wanting to spend time with your favorite person." He adds after a pointed look.
Zephos looks away, thoughtfully scratching his chin. "Mrm... well.... ah! I remember now. It's two things, actually! The first..." He pulls out a letter with a casual flourish and hands it over.
Its like nothing he's ever seen before. The envelope is new, for one, parchment made with neatly pressed flowers and clovers in no particular pattern. A strange silver coin is pressed into the wax seal, adorned with vines and leaves with a copper tint. Inspecting it further, Link flips it over to find it addressed to "Hylian Link of Outset, Our Hero of the Great Sea" with the directions to "open at your safest convenience" written in a fancy loopy script that gives him a headache to read.
Noticing his confused expression, Zephos explains. "Fairy messenger gave me that one." Link's eyes widen, bewildered, before nodding in a "yeah that tracks" sort of way. "HA! Yeah, that's what I thought too. Apparently its an invitation to their New Era celebration? I didn't catch the specifics but it sounded real important. Oh! Messenger wanted me to let you know there's no time limit, just open the letter when you're ready. She was real insistent about that part."
"Now," his smile fades, "the second thing isn't quite as fun as that." Link sits up straighter, placing the letter in his mail bag. "How to explain it..." Zephos crosses his arms, thinking. "Mm. You remember what I told you about Hylia?"
Link grimaces. "You mean that old goddess of light? Who deals with most of the other heroes?"
"That's the one."
"Awh, fuck, this is gonna be bad isn't it."
"For us? Yes, very."
Link frowns. "Can I at least get an idea of what it's about?"
Zephos looks away, thinking for a minute. "I don't know, kid." He holds up a hand at Link's indignant expression. "Its not that I don't want to. Trust me boy, I think all of us would appreciate getting you an advance warning, I'm just not sure how much I'm allowed to say." He scratches his chin with a frown, mumbling. "Too complicated for our own good, honestly." Then, louder, "I'll try my best to say what I can, just... well I'm not sure how, ya know?" He huffs.
"Okay... shit uh, try good news and bad news?" Link winces, clicking his fingers quietly.
"Right," Zephos grunts, "good news... it wont take as long as your first quest, and you'll get some good friends out of it! Bad news, that's because of the time travel."
"The ti-" Link hisses through his teeth. "Right. No paradoxes." He slows, a dawning realization causing his hands to freeze mid snap. "You said... this quest involves Hylia. It involves Hylia and time travel, but that- you don't mean-!" He whips his head up to stare at Zephos, nodding solemnly.
He would later be proud to say that the expletives that come out of his mouth in this moment could make even Tetra blush.
○•●----------●•○
The portal doesn't come until months later, swirling and voidlike and entirely out of place in Outset's pristine fairy forest.
It actually takes him a few moments to even realize what he's looking at, sword out and pointed threateningly even after he remembers. An older westerly wind is swirling around his feet protectively, reminding him a little of one of Tetra's ship cats.
Its lucky he'd been keeping his gear on him, whoever made this portal has no consideration for his schedule. Honestly.
Brows furrowed, he inches forward with the wind to investigate. It doesn't feel bad? The magic is a little cold, definitely, but warping magic is always cold, so that doesn't mean much. It feels a little divine, if anything. Poking the Phantom Sword in causes the surface to... goop? It goops, warping the surface tension like thick soup or chu-chu jelly, flashing an oily iridescence. Gross.
He leans forward to get a closer look, feeling the wind shuffle nervously. Figuring out magic signatures like these are especially hard, mostly because the magic is actively doing something and that TOTALLY changes what the magic looks like. Trying to pick out the signature from the spell takes tons of focus.
The breeze shuffles a few leaves nearby and- no, wait. One of his ears perks. There's a scuttling, shuffling like bug legs through the leaf litter behind him, too big to be anything but a monster. It... probably hasn't noticed him yet, but if he moves too fast it'll pounce.
Slowly, he tries to turn to look, carefully shifting while keeping his eyes up. His stealth is immediately ruined by one of his boots stepping on an errant twig that shouldn't be snapping that loud, whyyyyyy.
A warbling trill is the only notice he gets before the wind at his feet suddenly shoves, causing him to loose his footing and pinwheel forward. Luckily, it slips him directly out of range of the VERY LARGE snapping Mothula. It also, unfortunately, shoves him directly into the nasty goop portal.
The first thing he can definitively say is that: first observation correct! The portal is cold. It pinpricks every single cell with freezing sensation, like a thousand numbing needles all at once. He desperately curls in on himself, partially to conserve heat, but mostly because the stupid portal is making him motion sick, like he's some kind of newbie getting seasick for the first time. It sucks.
It spits him out unceremoniously after what feels like hours, skidding his face directly onto hard ground.
His first order of business is to, of course, absolutely yartz his entire lunch and maybe breakfast into a nearby bush. He's warped before, sure, but never like that. Enacting his vengeance, he turns to stick his tongue out at the offending portal-
The portal is gone.
It's gone gone, barely even a wisp of the stupid thing and... and he is very suddenly forced to reconcile a few facts.
So! Looking at the situation:
1) He has no idea where he is. Genuinely he has no idea where he even could potentially be.
2) There appears to be no ocean within the immediate horizon, which sucks and is bad to think about. Bottling that and moving on-
3) His immediate surroundings appear to be cliffs, cliffs, path, blessed flowing water, distant patch of weird empty ground, group of heavily armed people walking towards him (?)
He can probably work with that last one.
As casually as he can make it look, he (nonsuspiciously) shuffles away from the yartz bush, stepping out onto the path like this is exactly where he's been the whole time, yup, practically born on this dirt what are you talking about.
The strangers freeze.
Not taking the time to think about it, he sets his shoulders and heads out in the opposite direction, projecting confidence and completely normal and please gods don't notice me while I pass you please-
Eventually walking close enough that he can get a better read on them, he notes... a few things, actually.
The first thing (and it's kind of hard not to notice), is that they are blindingly magical. Most of it looks like its channeled through items, but a few of them are just. Straight up mages. Like they could cast spells at him like a wizzrobe and also they are 100% clocking that he is also a mage, fuck!
One of the strangers leans over to whisper to another, unfortunately too quiet for him to listen in on.
Second thing! Lotta ghosts with these ones. Too many ghosts. Its actually- its a little hard to casually walk around them with all the ghosts he's not gonna lie. And they're weird ghosts too, don't even have the decency to be normal about it. He knows ghosts, and these are- they're weird.
His smile strains as he walks past, one of them breaking off to (probably) greet him. He doesn't want to be greeted right now.
Third! Third thing. He's not walking faster, that would be stupid. Third thing is that the tall guy who is chasing casually walking up to him has just entirely too much armor and- you know what? Actually fuck this.
Sprinting away from something has never felt so good in his life. Boots hitting packed dirt, a playful easterly wind joining the chase, various frustrated expletives as he dodges whatever the fuck they just threw at him-
A potent wind enchantment hums from somewhere behind him and he quickly rolls left as one of the people he's running from suddenly lands right where he'd been just a second ago, cussing up a storm and keeping pace. Also, trying to talk to him?
"Shit, bitch ass, my knees, kid wait, fuck you're fast, we just need to talk." Says the bright pink stranger with enough magic to take Windfall off the map.
"I Think The Fuck Not!" Says Link, teenager with common sense.
This, apparently, is the wrong thing to say, because the strangers activates ANOTHER WIND ENCHANTMENT and proceeds to slam and pin him to the ground.
Not even bothering to blink the stars from his eyes or catch his breath, its quick work for him to find the nearest patch of undefended skin and bite as hard as he fucking can. The stranger doesn't even flinch, but he doesn't give up that easily. Flooding magic into his power bracelets and pulling right, he forces the stranger into a reversal, slipping a dagger out of his boot in one fluid movement and pressing it to the stranger's cheek (not neck, yet).
He looks back to see that the rest of this bastard's friends have finally caught up, stopped roughly 10 feet away from their... conversation.
It's at this point that he notices one of them has the actual fucking Master Sword strapped to their back, which, for all intents and purposes, makes NO damn sense. Noticing his stare, the Should-Not-Have-That-Sword Holder steps forward with a sheepish, worried little smile like, what, this is all their fault? Holding their hands up in surrender, they call out, "I think, there might have been a misunderstanding?"
"Yeah no shit." Weird pink guy says into the dirt. Link has to agree with that one.