Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Link asked. He was sitting on the floor of the Ja Baij shrine, fletching arrows. Zelda was busy digging through the guts of the shrine’s data transfer pedestal.

“It will work perfectly,” she declared, about a dozen books and documents spread out on the floor around her for reference. “And now Purah cannot complain about monopolization of her equipment. Mine will be here! All I have to do is input and test out Purah’s runes. Oh it’s so exciting, Link! Imagine the advancements we can make by creating novel runes!”

“If anyone can do it, you can,” he said honestly.

Zelda looked over her shoulder, face smudged with a little bit of gunk from the pedestal inner workings, and gave him a sweet smile. “Thank you, Link.”

“Don’t forget I have to go clear out that Lynel after lunch if you’re not done.”

“I believe I shall be done before then.”

He focused on fletching his arrows again while Zelda launched into an excited ramble about what she was doing and how she thought it would work. He really was listening, but her sudden delighted gasp still startled him.

“I’ve got it!” she shouted. “Link come here, come look!”

He hopped to his feet and hurried over. She held out the slate for him to see.

“I’m interfacing with it! Purah’s runes are in that core just there—” she pointed to a glowy bit in the mess of tech ”—hooked up to the terminal. We should be seeing them added to the shrine’s data reservoir any moment now.”

They watched in anticipatory silence, but as the moment stretched, Link started to get a little nervous. “The data you used,” he said slowly, “did it include all of Purah’s stuff?”

“Yes, of course,” said Zelda. Her enthusiasm was undimmed. “I’ll be working off of her prior research.”

“Including the de-aging rune?”

Zelda paused. “Well… it is in there, but I certainly won’t be touching it.”

“But it’s in there?”

“Yes.”

“Loaded into the terminal. Right now.”

“Well. Yes?”

“Huh. Right. Maybe we should back away—“

The terminal chimed serenely and lit up… and kept lighting up… and lit up so much in such a short period of time that Link could only wrap a hand around Zelda’s arm before everything went white. He passed out before he could even shout a warning.

When he came to, his head hurt terribly and he didn’t remember hitting the floor. It took his eyes a few moments to focus when he opened them. He got a hand under him and started to peel himself up off the floor, but he felt wrong.

“Zelda?” he croaked, and almost fell over when the sound of his own voice startled him. He gasped, hands flying to his throat. The feeling of wrongness redoubled, and—why did his boots look so small?

A groan caught his attention. He sat frozen with shock as a little mop of blonde hair pulled up from the floor. A girl, maybe six years of age, pressed one small hand to the side of her face. Her eyes were green, the shape and color of them etched permanently into his memory even when they seemed too large for her face.

“Zelda?” he asked, horrified.

The little girl blinked. “Link?” Horror dawned across her face too. “Link?”

“Oh Goddess, we shrunk!” he realized, holding his hands out and flexing them just to make sure the tiny digits really did belong to him. Unfortunately, they did.

“The de-aging rune,” Zelda realized, her horror growing. “Oh no. Oh no.” She fumbled for the slate, balance completely off thanks to her suddenly diminished size. “We have to get back to Hateno!”

Link shuffled over to her, making careful movements to acclimate to his own new size. It wasn’t so bad, really—honestly it was pretty similar to when he’d first woken up in the shrine of Resurrection. He was already calm, evaluating his new (and possibly permanent) physical capabilities.

Zelda tapped frantically at the slate. “No!” She whimpered in panic. “The map is frozen over the Plateau! I—I can’t get it to zoom out!”

“Can we get to our inventory?” Link asked, infusing extra calm into his voice for her sake.

“I—yes. Yes, we can. But we cannot get home!”

He put his hands over hers and squeezed gently. “Hey, it’s alright. We’ll just go the slow way. I’ll evaluate my abilities a little bit, then we’ll decide on a travel path together. You can whistle for Snowdrop as soon as we get off the Plateau, and then we’ll ride home. It’s slower than teleporting, but we can do it.”

Zelda looked at him, blinking rapidly and sniffling a little. “…okay,” she said. She took a deep breath. “My apologies, I feel… very strange and off balance. You are right. We’ll be fine.”

“The Calamity is gone,” he reminded her softly. “Even if we’re stuck like this, we’ll be okay. We have time now. Right?”

She squeezed his hand. “Right.” She took one more deep breath. “How were you going to evaluate your abilities?”

Link frowned thoughtfully. “Hmm… a little bit of combat will do it.” He stood to his feet, hopping in place to test his balance. “Yeah. As long as I can fight we’ll be fine.”

“Combat?” Zelda echoed. “What did you—“ She stopped, wide-eyed as he pulled his savage Lynel sword from the slate. “Link, no!”

He grinned. “Link yes!”

Zelda could not, as it turned out, stop her Knight when he got a notion into his head.

“LINK, PLEASE!” she yelled, hands wringing anxiously as she stood safe behind cover and watched her suddenly tiny friend approach the Lynel.

“IT’S FINE!” Link yelled back, supremely (stupidly) confident as he marched toward the beast with a sword bigger than he was held in both hands. His bow was stored in the slate by necessity, given that he could only carry it horizontally when he was this small. The fight would mostly be a test of how quickly he could draw weapons from the slate and put them away again.

On top of, you know, not getting hit and dying.

“SURELY THERE IS A BETTER WAY!”

“STOP DISTRACTING ME, PRINCESS!”

Her eye twitched. “DON’T YOU ‘PRINCESS’ ME RIGHT NOW, YOU STUPID, STUBBORN HERO!”

The Lynel, for its part, looked angry and then immediately confused by the sight of a tiny child lugging one of its own swords toward it. The confusion only lasted as long as it took the beast to decide that even tiny opponents would meet their end at its hand. It roared and charged.

Zelda shrieked and put her hands over her face, peeking out from between her fingers. She knew Link was capable. She knew that. But there was something distinctly more nerve-wracking about watching an apparent six-year-old facing down such a fearsome opponent.

“LINK!”

Her extremely stressful best friend whooped out a laugh as he successfully backflipped over the Lynel’s sword and rushed in to land a flurry of blows. “YEAH!”

Zelda was so absorbed watching Link literally hop his way neatly out of death that she almost missed the group of adults entirely. They charged across the field from the direction of the Temple and her breath caught in her throat. Even at a distance she could tell something very strange was going on. All were armed, which wasn’t exactly unusual, but they all somehow looked remarkably like her Knight.

They were all running directly at the Lynel with either fury or terror on their faces. She didn’t think—didn’t have any idea of how she could protect Link—before she was up and running too.

Link didn’t notice them until he dodged the Lynel’s fire attack and used the updraft to soar into the sky. Zelda saw him jolt as he looked down. “HEY, STAY BACK!” he yelled at the approaching strangers.

“ARE YOU NUTS?!” one of them called back.

“MAYBE!” Link let go of the paraglider, rapidly exchanging it for his bow. Midair was the only place he could actually draw it properly, considering how much bigger than him it was. As the men beneath him screamed, he loosed seven volleys of bomb arrows directly into the Lynel’s face and snapped out the paraglider with just a few inches to spare.

Not that he needed to. One of the men made it just in time to snatch him from the air, rolling across the ground to disperse the force of impact before he got up and kept running.

“Hey!” Link complained as he was spirited away from the battle and toward Zelda.

“Shh,” the man said, eyes wide and face pale. “Don’t talk until I’m not about to have a heart attack, kid.”

“Why? I had it!”

“Shh!”

Zelda hurried toward them as fast as her short legs could carry her. “Link!” The man slowed to a stop and knelt, setting Link down. Zelda slammed into him, hugging tight. “That was stupid!”

“I mean, maybe,” he said, hugging her and patting her back reassuringly, “but I had it. And I was right, I can keep us safe.”

“Are you hurt anywhere?” the stranger asked, looking between them. “Either of you?”

Link stepped away, crowding Zelda behind him protectively. It didn’t work very well; while Link was only a bit shorter than her in his adult form, she towered over him by half a head like this. He summoned his Lynel blade from the slate. “No. Go away.”

Zelda glanced at the rest of the strangers past the very concerned man who’d grabbed Link. They were busy murdering the Lynel with a special kind of vindictive fury. She probably would have been the same if she’d seen one trying to murder an apparent child.

“Where are your parents?”

Link opened his mouth to answer, but Zelda pinched his side to make him shut up. “My father’s hut is over there,” she said truthfully, pointing in the direction of the abandoned structure. “Please leave us alone.” She had no idea if these people were Yiga or not, but it was better not to take that risk.

The man glanced in the direction she pointed, then offered a hesitant, confused smile. “Right… Listen, you don’t need to be scared of us. We’re going to keep you safe and get you back home, so be honest, alright? Are you two Link and Zelda?”

“No,” Zelda said, probably a little too quick. Link crowded her back another few steps, sword raised in a defensive guard.

“Really? Then why did you call him ‘Link’ and why did he call you ‘Princess?’”

Oh yes, they had been yelling at each other quite loudly, hadn’t they?

“No,” said Zelda, a little too unsteady to be convincing. The other men had finished up and were now heading in their direction, which only served to make her even more nervous. “We were… playing a game. About the, um, the hero and the princess from the old stories.”

“Yeah,” Link said loudly, “how could we be Link and Zelda, they died a hundred years ago when the Calamity came. Do we look over a hundred to you?”

“Stop helping me,” Zelda hissed.

Most of the other men (and at least one youth, now that she was looking at them more closely) held back, but the one who was missing an eye came to kneel beside his compatriot. Link backed Zelda up another two steps.

“What are your names?” he asked, not unkindly.

“Oh, um… I am…” her eyes flitted down to the wildflowers at her feet. “Flora. And he is… Wild.” It wasn’t even an alias, really, just a statement of fact.

“He sure is,” one of the strangers muttered in agreement.

“Who are you?” Link demanded, drawing up to his full six-year-old height.

“This may sound a little strange, but my name is Link too. In fact, all of our names are Link. The Goddess brought us here to find the hero of this era.” He looked at Link with a sort of tired, resigned expression, before his attention returned to Zelda. “Can you tell me where he is… Princess?”

Yiga. Definitely Yiga. One hundred percent Yiga, and they were (maybe) going to die, because eight against one tiny hero was probably a lot even for her Knight. Zelda grabbed Link’s shirt with a white-knuckle grip and found herself too terrified to even speak. The memory of tumbling helpless to the desert sand, death above her, was fresh in her mind.

Luckily she didn’t need to speak. Link slipped her the slate behind his back and began backing them both away in earnest, jaw clenched and sword ready. She fumbled to pull up the map. It was still frozen on the Plateau, but that would be enough. It had to be.

“Hey, it’s okay,” one of the Yiga soothed, stepping up beside his friends and crouching down. “We’re not going to hurt you. You’re safe.”

“Old Man, I think we’re missing something here,” said the one with the wolf pelt.

Zelda pressed the icon for the Oman Au shrine and threw her arm around Link’s shoulders. Startled shouts followed as they dissolved away in blue light, but the Yiga couldn’t stop them and couldn’t know for sure where they’d gone.

They had at least bought time.

Chapter Text

Link pulled Zelda into the shelter of the shrine entrance as soon as they landed. He listened hard, but there was no sound of any Yiga nearby.

“Oh Goddess, the whole clan is going to know what happened to us now,” Zelda murmured, calming herself down once the threat wasn’t so immediate. Her hand still gripped his shirt tightly. “How are we going to get home?”

“Fast,” Link said, putting his Lynel sword away. “We’ll paraglide down, then summon Snowdrop. We can ride without stopping. If there are too many attacks by the time we hit the Dueling Peaks stables, then we’ll turn and head for Kakariko.”

“Impa can provide us with an escort to Purah,” Zelda agreed. She took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

They half snuck, half sprinted for the edge of the Plateau, trusting their new tiny sizes to conceal them more than any actual stealth abilities on their part. Zelda clung to his back as he took out the paraglider.

“Don’t let go of me,” he said.

“I won’t.”

He jumped. Zelda gasped in his ear as their stomachs lurched, but he snapped the paraglider out much earlier than he would have if he was jumping alone. They glided smoothly down to the path below, although Link’s tiny arms were burning by the time they touched down. Zelda put her fingers to her lips as soon as her feet were on the ground and whistled for her horse.

Or at least… she tried to whistle. What actually came out was more of a sad hissing noise. She looked at her hands like they’d betrayed her.

“Zelda?” Link asked.

“Er. Hold on.” She tried again, only to create another sad hissing noise. “Link… I don’t know how to whistle in this body.”

The ancient equipment on Snowdrop wasn’t keyed to Link anymore, so he couldn’t summon the stallion himself. “Let me try,” he said anyway. “Maybe there’s a trick to it.”

It was only when he tried that he realized the entire structure of his mouth felt different. He, too, could only make a kind of pathetic spitting sound.  “Oh. That’s not good.”

Zelda put her face in her hands for a moment. “Children have undeveloped mouths. We don’t even have the same teeth anymore. We’ll have to re-learn how to whistle.”

“No time.” Link grabbed her hand and pulled her into a brisk jog. “We have to run. We can cut across the fields toward Riverside Stable and pick up Roam. If we go straight for the Dueling Peaks on foot, the Yiga will see us.”

“I—I’ll try to keep up,” Zelda said. She was plenty fit, but not nearly as much as Link was after months of running around Hyrule as fast as he could.

“If you get tired I’ll carry you.”

“Link, I am quite a bit larger than you right now.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

They ran through the Gatepost Town ruins, glancing behind only when they were about to hit the cover of the trees. In the distance, on the edge of the Plateau they’d fled from, they could just make out a group of men rappelling down to the land below. They turned and ran faster.

It felt uncomfortably like their hurried sprint to safety (to his death) a hundred years ago, but Link forcibly blocked those memories out. He didn’t have time to deal with them. 

Zelda gripped his hand tightly and did everything she could to keep running, but she tired well before they hit the stables. He stopped and knelt without a word, letting her climb up onto his back. “Hold onto the slate,” he said. “If we have to, we can go back to the Plateau.”

“Even you… can’t keep going… like this… forever,” Zelda said through gasps.

“No. But I can go long enough.”

He started running again.

They got tantalizingly close. The Owlan bridge was in sight, and the stable wasn’t far beyond it. Link was tiring quickly in this body, but he knew he had enough energy to at least get them to Roam. Zelda even felt recovered enough to get down and run hand-in-hand with him again, letting them move much faster.

Then he heard the sound of a large animal sprinting toward them across the gentle hills, and his heart dropped. They didn’t have time for this!

“Stay behind me,” he panted, taking the slate and pulling his bow from it. He could manage a side draw on the ground. Even without adult strength and armspan to put full power behind his draws, it would still be enough to drive off an animal.

Sweat plastered his hair to his head. He nocked an arrow and drew back, setting his sights on the wolf that was sprinting toward them. When he released he expected it to hit home right in the center of the odd beast’s forehead, but the wolf… dodged. It leaped to the side in an unnervingly intelligent move. Link drew a sharp breath, stomach dropping, and released three more arrows in quick succession. His arms shook from the effort.

The wolf dodged all of them and slowed to a stop a few feet away, staring at them with intelligent eyes. Zelda shifted uneasily behind him. “Link,” she whispered.

He swapped the bow for a one-handed frostblade.

The wolf whined at him, pawing at the ground, and then… laid down? It set its head on its paws and kept staring at them, eyes big and pleading like a dog’s. Link hesitated to raise his sword.

“…we’ll back away. Slowly,” he said to Zelda, keeping his eyes on the wolf. When they did, the wolf whined again—sharply this time, like a reprimand—and followed. They stopped and it did too.

“We don’t have time for this,” Zelda said.

Link took a deep breath. “I’m going to charge it. You run, and I’ll catch up.”

“…okay. Be careful.”

“If the Lynel couldn’t kill me, a wolf won’t.”

She still hesitated. “It’s… not behaving like a normal wolf, though.”

“…yeah. Ready?”

“Ready.”

Link shouted and charged the wolf, trying to keep its attention on him. A wave of frost radiated from his blade, but to his astonishment the wolf not only seemed to know what it was, but leaped over it. Link moved into a guard as the wolf bounded toward him, but it wasn’t necessary—the beast passed him.

Toward Zelda.

“NO!” he shouted. His boots slipped across the grass, panic making his tenuous control over his altered body even shakier. He swiped viciously, sending out another wave of icy magic, but it only frosted up the wolf’s fur.

Zelda shrieked, stumbling back when the wolf passed her and whipped around. Link fumbled to draw his bow as he ran, nocking an ice arrow to freeze the beast before it could tear into her, but…

It didn’t.

Zelda stumbled back into Link as the wolf grumbled at them, snorting and pawing the ground. Link gripped Zelda’s arm, making sure he was between her and danger. They both stood and caught their breaths, watching the wolf with wide eyes as it laid down again like—

“Is that… are we sure it is not a herding dog?” Zelda said. “Did it just herd me?”

Without needing to communicate, they both started trying to edge around the wolf and toward the stables again. It got up when they had moved too far to the side, and sure enough it tried to herd them back in the direction from which it had come. Link drew his frostblade again to make it stay at least some distance away.

Stumped, they stood there and held each other for a long moment.

“Maybe it’s… friendly?” Zelda suggested.

“Why does it want us to go somewhere, though? It can’t be the Yiga, dogs don’t like assassins.”

The wolf’s ears pricked up and its eyes turned intent, but it stayed on the ground with its head resting on its paws. 

“I swear it can understand what we are saying,” said Zelda, suddenly far less terrified and far more fascinated.

“I hope not. That would mean we announced our strategy out loud to it like idiots.”

Zelda politely cleared her throat. “Excuse me, sir wolf,” she said. “We need to get to the stable over there. Could you please let us leave?”

The wolf made a strange noise—a sort of nonthreatening growl followed by a grumbling whine—and moved a little closer to them.

“Did it just tell us no?” Link asked, incredulous.

“Perhaps!” Zelda said, delighted despite the circumstances. “How fascinating. Sir wolf, we must keep going. We are being chased by assassins. You are welcome to accompany us, if you would like.”

“The people at the stable might not like you so much,” Link warned.

This time, the wolf made an oddly human noise, like a soothing hum. It crept a little closer, keeping eye contact with Link.

Hesitantly, Link let his sword fall to the side, allowing the wolf to get within touching distance. Even low to the ground, the beast was more than half his height. It could rip his arm off with very little effort.

Gently, the wolf nosed against his dominant wrist, then his hip.

“Oh, he is friendly,” said Zelda. She held her arm out from around Link. The wolf gently bumped her forearm too. “Will you go with us, sir wolf?”

Link tried to step around the wolf toward the stable, but it whined at him and quickly cut him off. He backed up obligingly, exchanging a glance with Zelda.

“We have to run,” he said to her, briefly cutting his eyes to the frostblade still in his hand. Even if it was friendly, he would freeze it so they could flee. She bit her lip and nodded.

“Wolfie!”

Link sucked in a sharp breath at the sound, quickly assessing the approaching threat versus the wolf, and backed off at an angle so that he was mostly between Zelda and both the wolf and the Yiga. 

Because it was the same Yiga clan members, approaching at a run from the direction of the Plateau. His mind worked fast. Were they friends with the wolf? What was he missing here, and how badly was it compromising his ability to keep Zelda safe?

‘Wolfie’ made a snuffling sound and finally rose to his feet. Link barely came up to his shoulder. His tail wagged. He looked pointedly back and forth between the Yiga and Link and Zelda, like he was trying to reassure them that imminent death was fine and dandy.

Link tightened his grip on his sword and took a deep breath. “Just stay behind me,” he whispered to Zelda, unable to see a better way out. “When I use Urbosa’s Fury, run. I’ll hold them off.”

The wolf whined loudly. Link leveled his sword at the beast.

“Hey, it’s alright, kids,” one of the Yiga called, waving as he approached. “Did we scare you earlier? I’m sorry.”

“Bananas!” Zelda whispered, tapping away at the slate, and suddenly Link felt a glimmer of hope.

“All of them!” he whispered to her.

Some of the Yiga hung back, but the one with who was talking to them crouched down just a few lengths away. He smiled, and if Link hadn’t known any better he would have said the Yiga looked genuinely kind. Zelda pulled a bunch of Mighty Bananas from the slate and pressed them into Link’s hand behind his back.

“I see you met Wolfie. He wouldn’t hurt you, I prom—ACK!”

Without any warning, Link whipped around and threw the bananas directly into the Yiga’s face, cutting off his words. Zelda threw down the rest like cover fire. Link seized her hand and they both ran as fast as their feet could carry them.

Something occurred to him a split second too late. “Bananas don’t work on wolves!”

Zelda thought fast. The wolf was quickly bounding over to intercept them, but she pulled a whole hock of gourmet meat from the slate and threw it with all her might. “Fetch!”

It did not work even a little bit.

Link yelled as the back of his cloak was seized in lupine jaws, choking him for a moment before he fell to the ground. “Keep running!” he managed to cry to Zelda, waving his free hand. “Go!”

She hesitated, but it was too late anyway. Link cried out in dismay as his sword was wrested from his hand by the one-eyed Yiga. The Yiga with the blue scarf easily outran Zelda, neatly scooping her off the ground. She shrieked, trying to fight her way free, but couldn’t. Worst of all, she lost her grip on the slate and one of the other Yiga picked it up.

Link snarled wordlessly, fighting his own battle against the hands trying to pin him. He, too, lost. Badly.

“Stop,” one-eye said, holding both of his wrists. “It’s alright. We’re not going to hurt you.”

“I already know who you are,” Link snapped. “What are you waiting for?” He bared his teeth, furious with himself for failing to protect Zelda. Again. “Kill me, if you can.”

“No!” Zelda cried. Oddly, her captor tried to soothe her.

None of them revealed themselves as Yiga. One-eye remained implacably calm as he asked, “Who do you think we are?”

“Yiga,” Link spat, although he was starting to feel a little bit confused. Why had the bananas not worked? Why weren’t they taking advantage of having both the Hero and the Princess at their total mercy? Why were they being relatively gentle? It didn’t even feel like his wrists were going to bruise.

“I don’t know who or what Yiga are. Can you tell me?”

Link hesitated, brows furrowing. “The Yiga Clan swore to serve Calamity Ganon. And…” He hesitated again. On the off chance that they really weren’t Yiga, did he want these nutjobs to know that he was Link? “And… the Hero killed Master Khoga,” he said slowly.

Not a single one of them reacted to the name of the fallen Yiga leader. Instantly, Link knew that they were telling the truth. These weren’t Yiga footsoldiers. Real Yiga had a fanatical devotion to Khoga and practically started frothing at the mouth the moment he was mentioned.

“Oh,” said Link, relaxing. “Um. Nevermind.”

One-eye’s brows shot up. “What? Did something change your mind?”

“You’re not Yiga. They lose their minds whenever I mention Khoga and his dumb belly,” Link explained, just to double check. Since no one lost their mind, he was certain.

He blew out a breath. His exhaustion asserted itself for a moment, but he pushed it away. Not yet. Not until Zelda was out of danger.

Who knew what these crazy people all claiming to be him wanted with her?

Chapter Text

One-eye observed Link’s shaky breath and obvious relief at the fact that they weren’t Yiga footsoldiers. “Why are they trying to hurt you, Link?”

“I’m not Link,” Link lied, unblinking. “I’m Wild.’

One-eye did not look impressed by his lie. “I’m very sorry we scared you by making you think we wanted to hurt you, but we already heard Princess Zelda calling your name. You need to be honest so we can help you.”

“No, we were just playing Princess and Hero. I’m Wild. She’s Flora.” He glanced at Zelda to make sure he wasn’t doing something she didn’t want. She looked uncertain, but not enough for him to change course and tell the truth.

“Link, normal kids don’t ‘play’ by fighting actual monsters. And they definitely don’t win.”

“I’m not Link.”

One-eye sighed. “If we let go of you, are you going to try and run away?”

“No,” Link brazenly lied.

One-eye let go of his wrists, and whoever was holding his upper arms pinned to his torso let go too. Link looked surreptitiously around for his frostblade, but it had been moved well out of range by multicolor-shirt guy.

“Put me down,” Zelda said, squirming.

“Maybe not just yet,” said blue-scarf apologetically, hefting her into a more comfortable carry.

“Where are your parents? Back on that plateau?” one-eye asked, although he sounded dubious.

Link glanced at Zelda, trying to get on the same page without being able to actually communicate with her. She nodded slightly. He nodded back.

“Kakariko.” “Hateno.”

They glanced at each other again.

“Hateno.” “Kakariko.”

So much for being on the same page.

“So you’re both lying,” pink-hair said bluntly. Link maintained a perfect stone face; Zelda blushed but stood her ground.

“How old are you?” the one Link had beaned in the face with a bunch of Mighty Bananas asked, nothing but honest concern in his eyes.

“Hundred seventeen.” “Six.”

This time, Zelda glared at him. He smiled apologetically.

“...right. So, six,” said banana man. “Where were you heading?”

“The stable,” they said together. Zelda added, “so if you could please set me down and let us continue on, thank you.” She tried to squirm out of blue-scarf’s grip again.

“Nice try,” said blue-scarf. “We’re not about to let you run off and fight another… what did Ledge’ call it? A Lynel?”

Link squinted at him, trying to subtly edge toward the youngest of the group, who was curiously examining the Sheikah slate and not paying all that much attention to the discussion. “You don’t know what a Lynel is?”

One-eye spoke again. “I know it’s difficult to understand, Link, but we really are all incarnations of the hero’s spirit from different eras just like you. Not every time or place has the same threats.”

“Uh-huh,” said Link, edging away faster.

Banana man laughed a little. “Here, what if I show you this?” He pulled a sword out from under the cover of his cloak and—

And—

It was a pristine replica of the Master Sword, except that it felt real. Link stumbled away from it until he bumped into blue-scarf’s legs, and the stranger steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. The sword chimed. His stomach dropped. It suddenly felt like the whole earth had been ripped out from under him, things he’d never even considered for more than a passing moment suddenly all too possible.

“Oh,” said Zelda, surprised.

Link swallowed hard and reached up to yank on blue-scarf’s shirt. “Put her down, I need to talk to her,” he demanded.

Blue-scarf looked at his pale face and then slowly set Zelda down. Link was allowed to drag her off a short way, although the strangers unsubtly arranged themselves so that there was no way they could bolt.

“Zelda,” he whispered into her ear, cupping his hand over his mouth. “That’s—it’s real.”

“I know,” she whispered back. “Do you think they got her from the Korok Forest while we were busy? Although that doesn’t explain why she looks so…”

That wasn’t what disturbed him. “I—I don’t know. But—do you think… when I died…” He took a shuddering breath. “Do you think the real Hero was born and I was supposed to stay dead—”

She looked at him sharply and her voice rose above a whisper. “Don’t you dare say that!”

“But—”

“No!” She glanced at the strangers and lowered her voice again. “No. Maybe they’re crazy or maybe they’re telling the truth, but either way you’re the one who fought Calamity Ganon and helped me seal it away. You are the Hero.”

“But… he’s holding the Master Sword. She talked to him. What if it’s my fault…” What if it’s my fault she broke?

“No. I will not entertain this discussion anymore. There is nothing wrong with either of us.” She paused. “Well, besides the obvious.”

Link closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure what to believe, because this was just… impossible. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else who could wield the Master Sword. He didn’t know what to think, so he decided to stop thinking about it entirely. Zelda was a lot smarter than him anyway.

“Okay?” she asked, pressing their heads together.

His hands came up to cradle her elbows. “Okay.” He took a deep breath and put the existential crisis from his mind. “What do you want us to do?”

“Play along for now. I doubt they will let us go when we look like this. I think, perhaps, it would be wisest to get to Impa first. The Sheikah can defend us in a worst case scenario.”

“They still have the slate.”

“Getting it back will be our priority in the meantime.”

They pulled apart, glancing at their… well, possibly protectors and possibly captors. It remained to be seen. Either way, the adults were watching them with strange expressions and the youth had finally bored of the locked slate and started to pay attention to them as well.

Link leaned in to whisper in Zelda’s ear one more time. “And if we get the chance to sneak off with it?”

“Then we will. Perhaps we can spare the time to check on the Korok Forest and verify their claims, as well.”

They nodded to each other and linked hands, cautiously approaching the crazy strangers again. Banana man gave them an odd little smile, still crouched with the second Master Sword across his knee. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

They said nothing.

“Why don’t you hold her for a minute, then?”

Link physically recoiled from the offer, held in place by Zelda’s grip on his hand. An unbecoming surge of fear made his breath catch. What if the sword rejected him? What if it really was his fault, his weakness of spirit, that had let her break? What if they’d both needed to sleep for a hundred years because of him?

“Only the Hero or the Princess can hold the sacred sword,” Zelda said primly. “So we cannot. Please put her away and do not offer again.”

Banana man’s smile grew. “But you recognize her,” he said significantly.

“…and?” Zelda asked, giving herself away with a pretty pink blush. Link opened his mouth to cover for her, but she elbowed him. That was probably for the best.

Wolfie made a conversational grumbling noise and pointedly nudged Link’s arm.

“That’s enough arguing for now,” said one-eye. “The children look like they’re about to fall over.”

“We should be on our way,” Zelda agreed, as if there was even a remote chance that they would be allowed to part ways. “Please return my slate and Wild’s sword.”

“Four will be keeping the sword for now,” said one-eye. “As for the other item, what is a ‘slate?’”

“It is mine,” Zelda said sternly. “You have no right to keep it.”

“Tell me what it is and what it does first.”

Zelda pursed her lips and elbowed Link again when he opened his mouth. “It is an artifact of great scientific and historical value.”

“Which does…?”

“Nothing,” she lied, blushing again.

One-eye was neither fooled nor impressed. “Wind will keep it safe until you tell me the truth.”

“You have no right to accost us or steal from us!”

“We have every right to keep you safe and escort you to your parents instead of leaving you in the wilderness, Princess.”

Zelda stomped her foot, which Link found quite startling. “I am not the Princess!” She immediately looked embarrassed by her outburst but didn’t apologize.

Banana man interjected. “You wanted to go to a stable right? How about we all go there and rest for a while before trying to talk again?”

Link glanced at Zelda. She sighed. “Very well. Follow us, if you must.”

A few of the strangers seemed to find that funny, but Link and Zelda turned around and started leading the way to the stable. Once they started walking, the exhaustion hit Link again. He could tell it hit Zelda too, but much worse. They’d only just reached the road when he squeezed her hand and knelt down, offering his back.

“Oh, no,” she said, tired but still worried about him. “I can make it to the stable W-Wild.”

“Probably,” he agreed, staying where he was. “But that was harder on you than me, Flora.”

“Kids,” blue-scarf interjected, sounding pained, “if you’re too tired to keep going, we can carry you.” He got some murmurs of agreement from his compatriots.

Link gestured to their spectators with his chin. “See? You sure you want to keep arguing?”

Zelda sighed and gave up, climbing onto his back. She tucked her face down into his shoulder. He stood up and was very, very careful not to show any signs of his own fatigue as he marched on.

“You don’t have to do that,” said blue-scarf, hovering beside him. “Look, I can carry both of you at the same time, you can stay close to each other.”

“Touch her again and I’ll bite you,” Link said coolly, since his teeth were just about the only weapon he had on hand.

The youngest one—Wind?—laughed. “That name really fits you, huh Wild?”

Link ignored him.

“Aww, grumpy guts.”

Link ignored him harder.

“You two sprinted all the way out here without stopping, didn’t you?” banana man murmured, a worried pinch between his brows.

Link side-eyed him. “Yeah. And?”

“How often do these… Yiga try to kill you?”

He shrugged, which made Zelda grumble at him. “Just sometimes.”

“Hey, if you’re not Link then why are they trying to kill you?” Wind asked curiously.

Zelda had the good sense to prop her chin up on Link’s shoulder and answer for him. “They want everyone dead by their Dark Lord eventually, and they’ll kill anyone who even vaguely resembles the Hero or the Princess. You all should be careful of suspicious travelers too. Especially if they’re really fixated on bananas.”

“Is that why you nailed Sky with bananas?” pink-hair asked, incredulous and amused.

“It would have worked if you were really Yiga,” Link grumbled. The stable was slowly coming into sight down the road. He sped up his pace, even though that made his tired body protest.

“They are… uniquely stupid,” Zelda clarified. “A threat, but not a serious one any longer.”

“Oh? What changed?” one-eye asked casually.

“Calamity Ganon is gone and their leader is dead. They lost.”

“I see. Who got rid of them?”

“Not us,” Link and Zelda chimed together.

Link grinned, a genius idea coming to him. “Ask around the stable. Someone will tell you the stories and rumors.” And they would all be about two adults, not two small children.

“Hmm,” said one-eye, looking at them thoughtfully. Link watched him from the corner of his eye and smiled with nothing but pure innocence.

“You know, you can ask us questions too,” said multicolor-shirt guy. Link didn’t bother to remember his name (entirely because he wasn’t giving back the frostblade) and kept quiet. Zelda stayed quiet too, which said a lot since she always had questions about everything.

“You don’t believe us at all, do you? And here I thought children accepted strange things easier than adults,” said pink-hair.

Link took that as a tacit admission they were either lying or crazy and sped up even more. The sooner they could get away from these people and check on the Master Sword, the better.

“Don’t say it like that, Legend, they’re going to think we’re lying,” said multicolor-tunic guy. A semi-incomprehensible squabble erupted between about half of the group.

Alright, maybe they were just crazy. 

The stable was tantalizingly close. Link could see Beedle sitting outside, admiring his beetle collection. If he could just get the slate back, then they could sneak away, or get Roam and bolt. He glanced at Wolfie, who only now peeled away from the group, and changed his mind slightly. They definitely needed Roam to outrun Wolfie.

The stable staff looked surprised and a little alarmed by the size of their group; seven people and two children was not a normal thing to see, even a few weeks after the Calamity had been defeated. Link set Zelda down and took her hand again. They hesitated just before entering the stable.

“Give me my slate,” Zelda said, holding out an expectant hand to Wind.

“What does it do?” one-eye asked implacably.

Zelda sighed. “Don’t you dare steal it, but… it holds all our rupees. We cannot rent a bed without it.”

One-eye held her gaze for a long moment, but she was being truthful this time (even if it wasn’t the whole truth). Only the lightest blush dusted her cheeks as she stood her ground. “Wind, give it back,” he finally said,

“This thing holds rupees?” the youth said, shaking it near his ear before he actually handed it over. Zelda scowled at him and cradled it protectively to her chest.

“It does. Perhaps you can understand why we would not want people who accost us to know where we keep our money.” She turned and marched into the stable, towing Link after her. Unsurprisingly, they were followed closely.

Ember obligingly moved inside to speak with them, leaning against the counter on his elbows because they were too short to actually look over it. Out of sheer spite, Link dipped down, locked his arm around Zelda’s hips, and lifted her up so that she was closer to her old stature.

“Ahem,” she said, ignoring the way Ember and a few of the strangers hid smiles or coughed to disguise a laugh. “We want to rent a bed. A soft one, please.”

“Alright, little lady,” said Ember, bemused and amused. “Forty rupees.” He peered at the two of them when she handed over two red rupees. “Do I know you two kids?”

“No.” “Yes.”

Zelda kicked Link’s knee with her heel.

“Uh-huh,” he said dubiously. “None of my business, I suppose. That bed is yours for the day.” He pointed.

“Yes, thank you,” said Zelda. The strangers were already dispersing through the inside and outside of the stable, poking around or striking up conversations with the staff and travelers. Link set Zelda down and they retreated before anyone could confiscate the slate again, hopping into their rented bed and drawing all the curtains closed.

“Kids, don’t you want to clean up a little before you take a nap?” Sky asked, following them about halfway.

“No! We are tired and it is your fault, so let us nap!”

Ember cleared his throat. “Well, travelers, what’s your relation to those kids… exactly?” he asked suspiciously.

Link prodded Zelda as they listened, motioning for her to join him in some stretches. They would probably both be sore after sprinting for so long in bodies whose limits they didn’t know, and muscle cramps were the last thing they needed.

“We rescued the two of them from a Lynel. We’d like to return them to their parents, but they’re being very… evasive. Have you seen them with parents or guardians here before?” one-eye answered.

“Can’t say I have,” said Ember, still suspicious. “But their folks’ll no doubt appreciate your heroism.”

“I’m sure. Speaking of heroes—“

Zelda whispered in Link’s ear as one-eye took their advice and started asking about rumors and stories. “If we wait until night, surely we can sneak out and Ember will help us.”

Link nodded, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. “Sleep?”

“Sleep. I doubt they will be able to find anything compromising in the meantime.”

They finished stretching, tucked the slate safely between them where they would both wake if someone tried to take it, and curled up under the covers to sleep until night came.

Chapter Text

Link snapped awake the moment the curtains around the bed were ever so slightly moved aside, letting an eddy of cool air in. He stayed where he was, hand curling around the slate beneath the covers, and kept his breathing deep and even. The curtains closed again a second later.

“Are they alright?” sword-thief asked softly.

“I think they’re just tired and dirty,” banana man—right, his name was Sky, wasn’t it?—said.

“Maybe they’ll sleep until tomorrow and save us the headache.”

“More like delay the headache. Besides, they should eat after exerting themselves so much. I can’t believe they ran so far and still had energy to fight.” He sounded troubled.

“Well, itty-bitty Link was winning against that Lynel. We’re definitely missing something here.”

They walked away. Link glared up at the bed’s canopy. It wasn’t as if he could have known this would happen, but he definitely should have known Zelda was right (as usual): fighting the Lynel had been a bad idea.

Part of what Sky said really caught his attention though—the food part. He could feel how strained his new body was by everything that had happened in the past few hours. Zelda would likely feel much worse. They needed good food and a lot of it.

He waited a little while longer, watching Zelda’s peaceful sleeping face, before he carefully got out from under the covers and tucked her in. He had to take the slate with him, but that would be fine. The cooking pot was in earshot; he would hear if she started having a nightmare or called for him.

All eyes were on him the moment he pushed out from behind the curtains. He ignored them, padding outside to the cooking fire, and was amused by the way two strangers scrambled to follow.

There really was no need. One-eye was sitting outside with pink-hair beside him. They both watched Link retrieve a water bucket and carry it toward the river, and he would at least give them a little credit that they didn’t chase after or try to haul this cooking water back for him. They did, however—along with the other two that had followed him from inside—move closer to the cooking pot.

“Hey, Wild. Did you have a nice nap?” banana man asked with a smile.

Link grunted in vague agreement, filling up the cooking pot with water so he could prep the rice.

“What are you making?”

“Food.” He hesitated to pull his rice from the slate, then remembered that they’d already seen Zelda pull twenty bananas and a huge chunk of meat from it. If they hadn’t figured it out already, then he didn’t need to worry at all—clearly, that would make them far dumber than even the Yiga. He pulled the rice out and dumped it in the water.

Banana man was undeterred in his sunshiny attempts to win over Link. “Yeah? Do you like cooking? None of us are very good at it.”

“Understatement,” pink-hair said under his breath.

Link sensed an opportunity. “Look, if I make enough for all of you, will you shut up?” he asked bluntly.

“I’ll take it,” said pink-hair immediately. He mimed locking his lips shut and tossing the key. Link gave him a thumbs up.

“Deal,” said one-eye, echoed by the younger fun-ruining guy who’d snatched Link from his Lynel battle. Even banana man didn’t hesitate long before he agreed too.

It was a nice, peaceful hour of cooking up enough meat and rice for ten people. The other strangers drifted over eventually, including the wolf-pelt guy who’d been missing since the Plateau. They were vaguely polite enough to tell him their nicknames when he handed out bowls. He deliberately ignored most of them.

Naturally, the deal broke as soon as they had their food in hand. “So, kid,” said wolf-pelt guy, “where did you see the Master Sword?” 

Link hooked his thumb at banana man and crammed food into his mouth as fast as humanly possible.

“Cute. Seriously though, if you’re not Link then you must have met him to see the sword… right?”

“Must have,” blue-scarf agreed when Link stayed silent, eyes down as he focused on inhaling his food. “It’s weird though, all the stories we got from the people at the stable made him sound… kind of like you, Wild. Tiny, good at beating up monsters, blond, scarred… Same with the little Princess.”

It took Link a long moment of blank, confused staring before he realized that all the comments about his stature were finally coming back to haunt him. These strangers thought that those descriptions of a short, relatively young guy somehow fit a six-year-old. Acknowledgement of his height didn’t bother him much on a normal day, but it sure did now.

“Course they do,” he blurted out. “I’m his great grandkid.”

Stares met his words—some blank, some incredulous, some vaguely impressed at his audacity.

“Give up already,” said pink-hair. “The hero is way too young to even have a kid, nevermind a great grandkid.”

“Not if he time-traveled,” Link said.

Oh, Zelda was going to be so disappointed in him.

“...what?” said fun-ruiner guy (whose nickname was Hyrule of all things).

“The real Hero and Princess fell a hundred years ago with the Calamity and only woke up recently. So they, uh, got to meet their great-grandkids. Who are us, because we’re not them. Anyway bye.” He removed himself from the situation before he could make it worse, speedwalking into the stable interior. Zelda was still peacefully asleep when he crawled back into bed. He hoped the gourmet meat and rice bowl would earn her forgiveness for opening his stupid mouth.

At least he hadn’t said anything about aliens this time.

When Zelda woke up, only the soft glow of lanterns bled through the bed curtains. Link was sitting up, tapping at the slate, and she smelled fresh food. When he glanced at her, though, his expression was sheepish.

She sighed and sat up, pushing her sweat-crusted bangs from her face. “Alright, was it aliens or secret siblings this time?”

“Neither. We… may have gained time-traveling great grandparents though.”

“Link.”

“I’m sorry! On the bright side, they’re very very confused now. I had to cover because um, everything that people were saying about us didn’t exactly convince them that the Hero and the Princess are adults.”

She lifted her face from her hands. “What?”

“Well… we are… pretty short…”

“Oh heavens.”

“I did my best.”

She patted his hand. “I know you did. Thank you.”

He pulled a fresh gourmet meat and rice bowl from the slate. “Here, this is for you. I already ate.”

She dug in without much worrying about manners, since no one but Link could see. “Did they bother you while you were making it?”

“Not really. I fended them off by making enough for everyone. Apparently they’re all terrible cooks.”

She smiled into the bowl. “They certainly cannot be you, then. You could make a royal banquet over a campfire.”

He preened a little bit, tapping at the slate again and falling silent. She quickly finished eating and wiped her mouth clean.

“The sun just set,” he told her, putting the empty bowl away. “Do you want to bathe?”

“I am… certainly in need of a bath,” she said, poking at her hair with distaste. “And it may give us a chance to speak with Ember privately.”

They shuffled off the bed, poking their heads out from behind the curtains. As usual, the stable was fairly quiet. Parcy was engaged in conversation with the man who’d grabbed her (she hadn’t yet heard his name) and Legend. Three were nowhere to be seen, and three more were sitting around a table and talking amongst themselves. Those latter three included their one-eyed leader, who immediately zeroed in on Link and Zelda.

Link unsubtly put himself between the strangers and her.

Zelda raised her chin and ignored them, pulling Link over to Ember at the inside desk. The stablemaster, too, had quickly turned his attention to them the moment they stirred. “Pardon me, Mister Ember,” she said politely. “May we rent your bathing facilities?”

He seemed surprised she knew his name. “Of course, little lady. It’ll be free for you two, as thanks for bringing so much business by.”

“Thank you, Mister Ember,” she said. To her surprise, he called one of his stablehands over to man the counter, and walked them to the baths himself.

It wasn’t anything fancy, just a tub with a manual water pump, screened in on each side for privacy. Most travelers just bathed in the river instead of paying, but Link knew a few tricks to heat the water up. Ember showed them how everything worked and primed the pump, assuming that they didn’t know and lacked the strength to do it themselves. Link took over pumping; Zelda grasped the stablemaster’s forearm.

“Mister Ember,” she said quietly, using the noise of the creaky pump and the rushing water as cover. He crouched down to hear better. “We need your help.”

“Are you kids in trouble?” he asked, voice almost inaudible.

“We do not know yet. I am… not sure those men are bad, exactly, but we do not want to lead such a large, armed group home. You understand, don’t you?” She used her biggest, most pleading eyes.

The stablemaster nodded slowly. “You’re talking like you have a plan, little lady.”

“We do. We have permission to borrow a horse that belongs to Link, the one named…” She sighed. “The one named ‘Roam Buckphoramus Neighrule.’”

Link studiously avoided eye contact as he continued to pump water. He’d only told her the full name after she’d finally realized he was hiding something about his fastest steed and forced it out of him. If she’d had even a slightly better relationship with her father, she probably would have been offended on his behalf.

Ember’s eyebrows shot up into the region of his hat. “Roam? Well… if you know the full name I reckon you do have permission, don’t you? I suppose if the logbooks don’t act up, then I can have him saddled and ready before you’re done washing up.”

“We are… not sure how easy it will be to sneak away. It might take us a while. Can you leave him with the stablehand, just off to the side?”

“I can. And I’ll see if I can help you sneak away too.” He took Zelda’s hands. “I’m sorry we can’t do more. What’s your name?”

“Flora. Please do not be troubled. Eight against even the wild swordsman himself would be a challenge. We would never want you to come to harm.”

Ember glanced at Link, something both considering and vaguely confused in his expression. “If I see him, I’ll send him after Roam,” he promised. “That boy has a strange way with his horses. I’m sure he’ll be able to find you and help.”

Zelda smiled. “Thank you.”

He left to go quietly begin the process of getting Roam saddled and ready. Zelda blew out a breath. One challenge down, although it remained to be seen if they would even be able to take advantage of the stable’s kindness.

“Come on,” Link said, pulling a fire rod out of the slate. “I’ll heat it up and you go first.” He dunked the rod in the water until the whole thing started to steam pleasantly, then took up a post by the entrance to the bathing area with his back to her.

“The rest of our clothes will no doubt be too large to wear,” she observed as she quickly peeled out of her sweat-dried outfit, keeping her voice too quiet to be easily overheard.

“A few of the historical tunics I have would technically cover us, but we’re mostly out of luck.”

It was unpleasant to get clean and then shimmy back into her dirty clothes, but she’d certainly endured far worse. Link bathed after her while she kept watch, then did the same. They could both hear that some of the strangers ‘happened’ to be nearby.

It was truly dark by now as night set in. Their only light came from the thin crescent moon and from the stable’s lanterns. While Link drained the washtub (it was good manners), Zelda considered their chances of sneaking over to the other side of the stable.

“I can cause a distraction,” Link murmured in her ear.

She eyed him warily. “What kind?”

“…bomb arrows over the river.”

“Whoever is waiting for us to emerge will hear the bowstring twang.”

“We only need them to look away for a minute.”

Zelda pursed her lips. “…fine.”

Link grinned, pulling out a Lynel bow and bomb arrows. He took a deep breath and drew back as much as he could, blindly aiming up into the sky. He knew the area well enough to accurately judge where the arrows would fall, even under duress.

“Kids?” They both froze, but that was one of the stablehands calling for them. “Do you need help?”

“We’re just cleaning up,” Zelda called back. Link hastily put his incendiary arrows and bow away.

The stablehand poked her head around the screen, smiling at them reassuringly. “What perfect manners you have! Come here, let’s go find a few spare rags to dry things up before you go to bed.”

Maybe they wouldn’t need to cause a distraction after all. Zelda didn’t hesitate to take the hand offered to her, and Link took the other. The stablehand casually walked them around the side of the stable, toward where they truly did keep their supplies—and also the horses. Zelda was very careful not to glance at the two strangers keeping watch nearby.

Hope swelled in her chest when they didn’t follow.

Roam was waiting just outside of sight of both the front and back of the stable in a spot where only the staff were likely to notice him. The stablehand calmly walked them over to the saddled stallion. Link got up on his own without an issue (he was used to mounting his gigantic Gerudo mare, Noble Pursuit), and the stablehand lifted Zelda up behind him.

“Be safe, kids,” she whispered, squeezing Zelda’s knee before she stepped away.

“Thank you so much!” Zelda whispered back.

Link spurred Roam straight into a gallop, bursting out onto the path like a black bolt. The strangers noticed, of course, because who else could two tiny figures on a stallion be except them?

“Wait!” cried one, and “Kids, no!” another, and “Come back!” a third. Zelda paid them no mind until the one with the wolf-pelt burst out from the treeline right into the center of the path. She gasped, alarmed. Roam was a stallion used to not only carrying Link into battle, but to trampling enemies himself. As much as she wanted to escape the strangers, she had no desire to see them harmed.

Her Knight was well-prepared, though. He whipped the slate forward, grabbing the stranger’s chainmail with Magnesis, and flicked it to the side. The man was thrown out of harm’s way with a startled cry and only seconds to spare. Roam’s hooves pounded across the hard-packed dirt where he’d just been standing.

Zelda looked behind her, holding tight to Link’s belts. The stable rapidly fell away behind them. Unless the strangers could pull a horse as fast as Link’s top-tier stallion from thin air, there was no hope of anyone catching up to them. She blew out a relieved breath and buried her face in Link’s shoulder for a moment.

“Where to?” he asked, voice raised to be heard over the rushing wind.

“We mentioned Hateno and Kakariko to them already,” she said. “Perhaps it would be wisest to visit the Great Deku Tree for a little while before we return to inform Purah of our predicament.”

“As you wish, Princess.”

He was already back to teasing. “You stop that, Sir Hero! Don’t think I’ve forgotten that we now have time-traveling ancestors.”

“Sorry, Princess.”

“Link!”

He laughed, bright and relieved. She couldn’t help but join in, hiding her grin against his cloak. The last of her worry fell away, even if it was only temporary

As long as she and her dearest friend were together, they could handle anything.

Chapter Text

Ember was a simple man. He managed a very quiet stable and liked that just fine. The travelers he did get were usually interested in the ruined castle not far off, and some were even brave enough to venture in. At least, they were before the darkness had returned and the machines woken up. He knew how to deal with monsters (by hiring help, usually) and he knew how to deal with the occasional hostile customer.

Eight armed, capable men (or seven men and at least one youth? Two youths? Either way, they seemed capable as well) were well beyond his capacity to deal with. Had they been actively hostile from the start, all he could have done was pray that Link would miraculously show up in time to save him and his stablehands.

As Ember watched the two little children flee on Link’s infamously fast steed, he felt relieved on their behalf, but not his own. Depending on how the strange travelers reacted, he and Brook and Gotter might be the ones in danger now.

The one-eyed leader, Time, ran to the one that had been thrown out of Roam’s path by some means Ember didn’t even pretend to know. A few of the others did too. He saw at least one traveler hastily changing his boots of all things. Time helped his friend up and said something. The younger man nodded and ran off into the woods beside the path.

“Don’t chase them,” Time called to the rest of the group.

“They’re going to get themselves hurt!” one whose name Ember hadn’t caught protested.

“Twilight is going to handle it for now. In the meantime…” He turned his attention to Ember, who tried to stand his ground as bravely as the children who’d asked for his help in escaping.

“I understand why you did what you did,” Time said, even-tempered but clearly frustrated.  “If it had been my wife confronted by a similar situation, I would have wanted her to let the kids go as well. But you have to understand that we found those two fighting a Lynel. They seem to have no problem putting themselves in danger. What would you have us do?”

Ember’s eyes widened. “Fighting a Lynel?” He’d already had some suspicions about who that little boy was related to, but this new tidbit of information made him almost certain. “Were they winning?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Sky snapped. “They’re little children! Do you want them to get hurt?”

Ember kept his temper in check. “You want to make sure they’re safe, or so you say, but if the lad was winning then I think I know whose he is. You don’t need to worry about any child of his. Not sure about the girl, but I suppose it doesn’t matter since they seem to be attached at the hip.”

That was a partial lie, considering how much her manners resembled the Princess’s, but he wasn’t about to put Flora in danger by implying such a thing.

“Yes,” said Time, “he was winning. Whose child is he?”

“The same man you were asking after earlier,” said Ember. “Link. If any little lad could fight a Lynel and win, it would be his, and Link will find them wherever they’ve gone. I doubt your intervention is needed.” His expression darkened a little in warning. “He’s a kind man, but he might not take kindly to you scaring his kids.”

Time let out a slow breath. “You’ve seen Link here before?”

“I have.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

Ember shrugged. He wouldn’t have told them even if he knew. “I doubt he lives anywhere. The man is as wild as a bear.”

“So that’s a dead end,” Warriors (what a strange nickname) observed, staring in the direction the children had fled.

“Which is closer,” Time asked abruptly, “Hateno or Kakariko?”

Ember was very pleased to be able to point them well away from the direction of the kids. “Kakariko is a day or so on foot if you take Sahasra Slope. Hateno is a few days farther East, on the coast of the Necluda Sea.”

Time turned to his companions. “We’ll head for Kakariko tomorrow and see if we can find Link.” He glanced at Ember one more time, and at where Brook was standing with Gotter. “We’ll just have to hope, for their sake, that the children reach safety quickly and our concern isn’t needed.”

Ember didn’t regret what he’d done. He was, in all honesty, too simple a man for that.

But he did worry.

Oh Goddess, hear my prayer, and keep those children under your protection…

Zelda trusted Link more than she’d ever trusted anyone. She knew that for as reckless as he was with his own safety, he would die before he risked her life—not that she exactly wanted him to default to such extremes, but she knew he would no matter what she said. So when he guided Roam off the path only a short distance from the stable, she trusted that he had a plan in mind to keep them safe.

She wasn’t above asking him to share that plan, though.

“Link, where are you going?”

“We don’t know what tricks they have up their sleeves, so we’re taking a shortcut to skirt past the castle.”

A frisson of alarm crawled up her spine. “But you haven’t cleared that area yet, it’s on the schedule for next month!”

He conspicuously did not say anything.

“Link!” she said, exasperated. “Alright, when did you get bored enough to scour it?”

“Remember when you went into that research trance with Purah and didn’t know what day it was for a week straight?”

Okay, that one was on her. “Ah.”

“Yeah. Anyway, it’s clear. All that’s left are Guardian shells and debris. Roam can outrun anything else that’s migrated in since then.”

“Good.” She looked over her shoulder, but there was still no sign of pursuit. Roam moved like a force of nature beneath them, gliding across the grassy landscape. She was going to be sore later from the effort it took to stay balanced in the saddle.

Of course, even Link’s King of Horses couldn’t gallop forever. Link slowed him down to a canter once he was sure they weren’t being pursued. “Good boy,” he murmured, stroking Roam’s neck. “You’ll get plenty of carrots once we reach the forest.”

Both Zelda and Link stayed quiet as they cantered along the eastern side of Hyrule Field, roughly parallel to the path. The lifeless husks of Guardian stalkers, rendered to nothing but scrap when the Calamity was sealed away, passed them by at intervals. In the moonlight they looked like little more than stone cairns dotting the land. She made notes of their locations on the slate, carefully not paying attention to the looming shadow of the castle.

It was far too quiet for her comfort. Link seemed to sense that and began humming the tune of the ranch that had once thrived nearby, although she doubted he remembered that was where he’d learned it. She pressed her forehead against the back of his neck as a silent thanks.

“Almost there,” he said to her as they passed through the Romani Plains and hit the path again. Boneyard bridge was visible in the distance.

“I’m fine,” she said, and it was true. None of this was pleasant, exactly, but it was manageable. She could feel Link’s warmth pressed against her, and the cold bite of the wind through her hair— tangible pieces of evidence that she wasn’t alone in the darkness again. Even when she looked over her shoulder and spotted an expected wolf in the distance, running across the fields in pursuit of them, she felt calm.

She noticed that the moonlight over the grass was beginning to take on a strange, reddish cast.

“Zelda!”

A violent gasp tore from her throat as she whipped her head up, following Link’s pointing finger to the moon high above. The pure silver of it was rapidly curdling to blood red, painting the night sky deep purple.

“No!” she cried. “The Calamity is gone! That shouldn’t be possible!”

Link spurred Roam into a gallop once more. “Hyah!”

She lurched with the movement and gripped his shirt tightly. “We have to get away from the castle!”

Link didn’t respond. He only bent lower over Roam’s sweat-lathered neck, encouraging Zelda to do the same as they tried to outrun impending disaster.

“The Guardians cannot come back to life, there is no malice to corrupt them! The Calamity is sealed! My—“ She stuttered, pressing closer to Link in terror as she realized the full extent of the danger. “My powers are diminished!”

“It’s too late to turn back for the Orsedd bridge. We’ll just have to make it through the Forest Park before midnight,” Link said tightly, though they both knew it wasn’t possible. They would be lucky to make it halfway.

Roam labored beneath them, straining to meet the desperate demands of his riders. No malice rose from the ground like wisps of toxic vapor, but Zelda could still feel… something. Something bad. Something full of hatred and wrath and evil, not the same as Calamity Ganon but close enough that she knew its intent.

The clock struck midnight.

The trees around them shook as something vile screamed.

Zelda choked on her fear as she turned, watching something not unlike the Calamity and its Blights take form on the path behind them. It wasn’t any of the foes they’d witnessed, but that hardly mattered when it so clearly intended them harm. The one looked much clumsier than even the Calamity, like a smear of amorphous blackish goo amalgamated with broken and discarded Guardian components. It whirred and gurgled, lights flashing and then disappearing beneath the blackness.

A red lasersight centered on them as they fled.

Link looked back over his shoulder and Zelda witnessed a familiar, eerie calm settle over his face. “Zelda, I’m going—”

“I’m not leaving you!”

“—to jump. Take Roam and keep running.”

She was furious and terrified and incredulous all at once. “You cannot fight whatever that thing is as a small child! We must both run!”

“There’s no time!” he snapped, and she was blindsided when he shoved a wooden shield into her chest and the reins into her hand. “Take this and go! I’ll cover you!” He stood up, balancing on Roam’s back. The lasersight centered on his chest.

“Link!”

Wind whipped around her in a gale force, making Roam startled and nearly throw her off. Link was yanked high into the air as he caught the magical gale with his paraglider. Zelda screamed as the bright flash of a Guardian laser split the darkness, but Link was well-practiced at this. He dropped midair, dodging the deadly fire, then caught himself again and glided toward the unknown blight.

She wanted to turn around. She wanted it just as much as she’d wanted to shield Link on that day a hundred years ago, before her powers had awakened, but this time she already knew her own powers. She knew they had weakened. There was nothing she could do but hold tight to Roam’s reins and watch as Link pulled out a Lynel bow midair and began firing volley after volley of bomb arrows into the monster.

Link landed hard, Hylian shield on his arm. It covered his entire body when he was this small. The smoke cleared away, revealing what little of the amalgamated monster could be seen in the darkness of midnight. Its dark goo roiled and shifted as it changed the configuration of its cobbled-together parts. Three lasersights focused on her Knight.

He snapped his fingers, making the ground tremble and the forest light up with Urbosa’s Fury. The monster did not falter, something like an arm made up of stalker legs pushing out of its body in a lurching motion. A massive, club-like shape took form, indistinct in the darkness. It swung, and the ground shook with the force of impact. 

Link backflipped out of the way, but he cried out for a reason she couldn’t see. The night lit up again as three lasers fired, one after the other, when his feet had barely touched the ground. Link managed to dodge the first, bringing his shield back up as the light of Daruk’s Protection began to gather around him. The second shattered the spell almost before it had formed. The third caught on his shield and threw him violently down the path.

Moonlight gleamed on the blood that suddenly splattered the path. He didn’t get up.

“LINK!”

Roam neighed wildly as she pulled the reins, forcing him to turn around and gallop toward the fallen friend that she loved too dearly to watch die a second time—even if it cost her own life to save him. Please, she begged, throwing herself on the mercy of the goddess and the spirits who had always been so terribly silent. Please, let me save him. Let me seal this darkness, whatever it is. For his sake, please answer me!

The shadowy monster blurred before her eyes as it raised its hammer, roiling and shifting again. She screamed, tossing the wooden shield aside and raising her hand. Tears streamed down her face, torn away by the wind to fall behind her. “PLEASE!”

It was only a drop of power, scraped together so harshly it burned, but that was enough. The back of her hand lit up with the symbol of the ancient triforce, casting the whole forest in harsh golden light. The monster screamed shrilly, black goo burning away beneath the onslaught until only a pile of ancient scraps was left to fall to the ground. The light faded. Utter silence descended upon the forest.

“Please,” she repeated, unable to focus on anything but Link’s still form as she pulled Roam to a violent stop and almost fell from the saddle in her haste to dismount. Her ankles protested when she landed so roughly, but she didn’t care. “Link please, please!”

Only when she fell to her knees at his side did she realize that the front of his tunic had been sliced open, as if the hammer had actually been a blade or a spear. The corresponding gouge to his chest was deep and looked like it had been burned at the edges by acid. His breath was shallow almost to the point of nonexistence, and Zelda’s hands trembled as she tried to assess what she already knew was fatal.

“Hold on.” She fumbled for the slate, swiping through until she found his hearty elixirs. “Hold on, Link. You are going to be alright.” A bottle took form in a burst of blue light, and she desperately closed her hand around the cool glass.

Link stopped breathing entirely. The last of the tension in his body drained away all at once.

Of course, Zelda barely had time to choke out a sob before gentle blue light swept over him and Mipha appeared. “It was my pleasure,” she sweetly sighed, there and gone in an instant. The terrible wound to his chest mostly healed over. He took a breath, then arched violently as his body forced him to cough up the blood that had pooled in his lungs.

“Link!” Zelda’s vision blurred in and out as she sobbed, but she still managed to turn him on his side. He stopped choking only a few moments later, panting exhaustedly into the dirt. She held him and cried in a way she hadn’t since she was actually this small and her mother had been taken from her.

“‘S fine,” he slurred once he was able, weakly patting her arm. “‘M fine.”

“You died,” she sobbed, the stench of blood and evil burning her lungs with each shuddering gasp. “Again!”

“Sorry. ‘M sorry.” He shuddered, coughing again. Zelda forced herself to pull away, at least enough that she could open the elixir and hold it to his mouth. He drank without any protest.

“We—we have to go,” she said, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. Some of his blood smeared on her face. “Who knows what else is around after the blood moon.” The park was eerily silent, but that was no guarantee of anything. 

“Yeah. Okay.” Link tried to sit up, but he needed a lot of support from Zelda even for that. “Stupid thing… packed a punch,” he wheezed. “Might—might have been poison. Something.”

“I know. We can talk about it later. Save your strength.”

He grunted, getting to his feet with her help, and managed a weak whistle for their poor, tired stallion. Roam came over and kneeled when Link commanded him. It was fortunate he obeyed; Zelda didn’t think either of them would have been able to mount normally at the moment. She sat behind Link again, taking almost his whole weight against her chest and arms as he lapsed into unconsciousness when Roam stood.

Zelda took the reins in hand and set her jaw, wrapping one arm around his chest to make sure he wouldn’t slip to the side. His blood quickly soaked into her sleeve, but she didn’t have time to think about it. Her Knight needed her to get them to safety, so she would.

“Hyah!” she cried, blinking back more childish tears, and spurred Roam on toward the sanctuary of the Korok Forest.

Chapter Text

Twilight knew they’d scared the kids pretty badly. He didn’t blame the kids for bolting; if he’d been that small and (apparently) used to assassins chasing after him at the drop of a hat, he also would have done everything to get away from a bunch of suspicious strangers. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean he could just let them vanish into the wilderness. Letting a tiny Link go rampaging off was one thing (sort of), but the little Princess? Absolutely not. And Goddess only knew what kind of trouble both of them together could get into.

So he, in his wolf form, once again tore across the landscape after two fleeing children. They didn’t have as much of a head start this time, but unfortunately they did have a seriously fast horse. Twilight loved Epona dearly, but even she couldn’t have matched the kid’s coal-black steed; it ran like that was the only thing it had been born to do.

Hyrule Field was open enough that he could track the kids mostly by sight, even in the darkness of night, but he stayed on their trail by scent. His alarm climbed a little when the trail veered off the path not far from the stable. Were they heading toward the ruins of Hyrule Castle?

A disturbing thought entered his head. Did those kids live out of the ruins? He really hoped not. This Hyrule was unsettling, but the idea that the little Hero and Princess lived alone in such ruins was just… too much.

He pushed himself as hard as he could, keeping in mind the endurance of the horse and the children both. The moon lit his way as he approached the castle, curiously noting the strange cairns that littered the fields as he passed them. They smelled… wrong, but he had no time to investigate.

Just as he reached the point where the children had taken to the road again, Castle Town ruins close on his left, the moon began to turn blood red.

Evil filled the air like smoke. Nausea roiled in his gut, but he didn’t have to be a native to this land to know something terrible was about to happen. He stopped pacing himself and instead pushed into a sprint. Where were the children?

The feeling of evil intensified rapidly, coming to a peak just as he crossed a bridge over one of the castle moat’s outlets. His hair stood on end when something he was absolutely sure was a monster screamed. Twilight suddenly had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly where the kids were… and that he wouldn’t be able to make it in time.

He tried anyway.

Please, not the kids. Goddess, don’t hurt them.

The forest was heavy enough that he couldn’t see much as he ran, but he could hear just fine. The children yelled and screamed at intervals, too distant to make out words. Wind roared in a gale force, but it sounded more like magic than nature and none of it reached him. Something flashed through the sky, a bright whitish blue, and was followed closely by dozens of explosions. Twilight barely had time to feel both relieved and alarmed (the kids had bombs?) before lightning struck and thunder violently shook the forest.

The sky above was clear of thunderheads. He hoped that had somehow been part of the childrens’ arsenal of spells or artifacts. Bluish white light flashed in the distance again, three times in rapid succession and accompanied by explosions. He heard a little girl’s gut-wrenching scream.

Twilight was already running as fast as he could. Please, not those kids. They’re so small, don’t let them be hurt.

As if in answer to his prayer, divine golden light blasted through the trees. He ran blind until it faded, then blinked the spots from his eyes and barely managed to avoid running face-first into a tree. The path gently curved away from all the lights and noise. He hesitated for only a moment before abandoning the scent trail and cutting straight across.

He was too late by the time he burst out of the tree line. The kids and their horse were gone, although their scent was fresh enough to promise that he could catch up. He noted a pile of evil-smelling debris on the path; the scent reminded him of infected monsters even if it wasn’t an exact match. But his gait only stuttered when he smelled the blood—far too much blood—that had pooled on the hard-packed dirt.

It was Link’s. There was enough soaked into the ground that Twilight had no idea if he’d survived or not.

Please. Not that kid. He doesn’t deserve this.

He spared a moment to search the area, but no scent trails led off of the path. If Link was… beyond help, then he’d either vanished entirely, or the little Princess had managed to carry him away. Twilight’s only option was to keep running after her and the horse, though he made sure to howl as loud as he could before he took off, just in case any of his companions had managed to follow.

Surely they had at least seen the divine light from across Hyrule Field.

Fortunately for Twilight, the horse wasn’t running nearly as fast as before. He shortly caught his first glimpse of them crossing a bridge up ahead. His stomach dropped when he saw Link’s limp form in front of Zelda, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was beyond help. It only meant that Twilight had to move faster and come up with a way to get the kids to let him help.

They’d seemed reasonably willing to befriend ‘Wolfie’ before. He decided to approach in this form first.

The little Princess was crying in muffled, uneven bursts. Twilight’s stomach twisted up in knots until he trotted close enough to hear Link’s breathing. It was a little strained, but not enough to make Twilight think he was dying.That was an immense relief, but the smell of blood was still strong and Zelda was still crying. He fell in beside the horse and whuffed softly at her.

Zelda looked down at him, sniffling. “Oh, sir wolf,” she croaked. “You cannot herd me this time. I must get him to safety. Go back to your companions.”

Twilight didn’t know where she was going or how long it would take. He also didn’t know how serious little Link’s condition was, considering he was unconscious in front of her and hidden by the darkness of night. There was no choice left but to move ahead, change back to his real form, and attempt to convince little Zelda to let him help.

He whined at her softly before bounding ahead. She resumed crying.

Despite the necessity of it, Twilight still felt guilty at the way Zelda gasped in alarm when he sprang out from the cover of the trees a few minutes later and seized the horse’s reins from her hand. The fact that it was so dark likely didn’t help ease her fear either.

“Wait, it’s alright. It’s alright, Flora. I only want to help.”

“Oh, y-you—you’re—“ The underside of her face was illuminated by light from the ‘slate’ she had been so secretive about. It was too large for her hands, especially when she was also trying to keep Link from falling.

“We’ve met before. I’m a friend, I promise.”

She did not look much less afraid. “The wolf. The wolf led you here?”

“That’s right.” The kids’ horse tried to toss its head, clearly unhappy with Twilight being so close to its riders. He tried to soothe it as much as he could. “I know you don’t want help, but Wild—“

His breath caught as he finally got a good look at the front of the kid’s shirt. It was torn open from neckline almost to hem, soaked with dark blood. Even in the dim light, he could still tell that the freshly-closed wound corresponding to that tear had been dangerously close to fatal, if not outright fatal in the absence of magical intervention. Hyrule would have been absolutely beside himself trying to heal it when it was fresh.

“Goddess.”

Zelda looked at him with a strange expression, blinking through a few more silent tears. “Wild is… he is not in danger now,” she said.

But he had been. Twilight forced himself to be calm. “We have a very skilled healer in my traveling company,” he said. “And we have plenty of healing items. Roolie can make sure that Wild is okay if you let me help.”

“We are not turning back!” little Zelda snapped, hugging Link closer. Fear was obvious in her trembling voice. “I am taking him to safety, and if you truly want to help then you will not stop me!” 

“Okay.” If he tried to force them, he was most likely going to lose anyway. The last thing these kids needed was to waste energy running from him for a third time. “I want him to get somewhere safe too. Tell me where you were heading and I’ll escort you there. Alright? I can protect you both.”

The little Princess hesitated, looking down at her unconscious friend. They both knew she would not be able to protect him if something else happened. The wise thing to do would be to accept Twilight’s offer.

“We… we are going to the Korok Forest,” she finally said. “But you are on foot, and we must make haste.”

“Your horse is exhausted,” Twilight countered, petting the animal’s overheated neck again. “How about I lead it on foot, and you just worry about looking after Wild?” If he was really lucky, then a slow to moderate pace would give someone with Pegasus Boots enough time to catch up. He could use the help here… even from Legend.

Zelda drew in a shuddering breath. “I—alright. We must continue down this road, past the ruins, and then turn north just before the stable. The path through the Minshi Woods ends where we need to go.”

“Alright.” He drew the reins all the way over the horse’s neck so that he could lead more easily. Zelda allowed it. “Will you let me take a look at him and make sure he’s okay before we go?”

“No,” she said shortly. “He is fine.”

Her own shirt was soaked with Link’s blood. Neither of them were fine. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Her little chin lifted regally. “If anything changes, I will inform you as I see fit.”

He wasn’t going to win that argument. “Sure,” he conceded, and set off down the path in the direction the Princess had indicated.

A somewhat tense silence fell. He was busy thinking about how likely it was that Time had sent at least one person after him, given the pure evil aura of that moon, when the Princess abruptly spoke again. “His name is Roam.”

He blinked at her. Hadn’t their little lie been that the boy was Wild and she was Flora? “Who?”

“The horse. His name is Roam.”

“Oh, gotcha. That’s a good name for such a willful stallion.” Because the horse did not want to be led around, that much was clear. If he’d had more energy, Twilight didn’t doubt he would have pulled away and gone galloping off for a merry chase.

“Yes.”

He tried asking a question, since she suddenly seemed willing to talk. “What injured Wild?”

“I… do not know.”

“You didn’t see it?”

“I did.” She sounded haunted by that fact. “I do not know what it was.”

“What did it look like?”

She paused for a while before answering. “Like… pure malice, used to cobble together ancient scraps. Before the Calamity was sealed, there were many such pools and accumulations of its malice in and around the castle. But they were all gone. It—it is all supposed to be gone. I do not know what I saw.”

Oh. Oh no. “That…. may have something to do with why we were sent here. I know you don’t believe us, but Hylia gathered together heroes from across time to chase down whatever has been infecting monsters with black blood. That sounds like it might be related.”

When he looked at her, she had another strange expression on her face. “Gathering… heroes?”

“That’s right. It’s too big a problem for any one hero to handle, so she’s been recruiting a bunch of us.” 

“I see,” she said, and her voice cracked as she started to cry.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said quickly, alarmed by her reaction. “We’re going to handle it, Flora. Don’t be scared, we’ve got it.”

She bowed over Link and held him close. His head lolled across her arm. “Of course,” she agreed, though she didn’t sound any less upset.

Twilight had no clue what he’d said wrong. He decided to quit while he was ahead and just stop talking. He watched, out of the corner of his eye, as the little Princess twined her fingers into Link’s own and held on like her life depended on it.

Eventually, Twilight could make out light from another stable up ahead. He knew it was a stable on account of the giant wooden horse head that adorned its roof, just like the last one. Little Link was still unconscious, and Zelda’s head was bobbing as she tried to stay awake. Even Roam was visibly drooping.

“Flora,” Twilight said softly, nudging her foot to get her attention.

“Mmm?” She used her fist to adorably rub her eyes, although the effect was slightly ruined by the dried blood that flaked off her skin.

“Let’s stop there and rest for a little bit.”

Immediately, she was awake again. “You may stop, if you need to. Give me the reins.”

He held back a sigh. “You’re falling asleep in the saddle. That’s a good way to break your neck, kit.”

She glared at him a little for the nickname. “I am no longer falling asleep. Besides, we are not far. Give me the reins.”

“Alright, alright, nevermind.” It would have been nice to leave a message for his friends, but he didn’t doubt this headstrong little Zelda would ride off the moment he stepped away. He’d make do by steering them close enough to be seen by whoever was awake and keeping watch. With any luck, the staff could pass on a good enough description for the rest of the Links to follow.

Despite Zelda’s words, she went right back to dozing in the saddle once he yielded and turned away from the stable. Dawn approached as he led Roam through the Minshi Woods, though he couldn’t see much of the lightening sky through the thick tree canopy. The path ended in ruins shrouded by a dense, unnatural fog. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.

“Mmm, here we are,” said little Zelda, words slurring with her exhaustion. “You have to… follow what I say exactly in the Lost Woods. Or the fog will close in.”

“…right,” he said. Sure, these kids ran to find safety in the Lost Woods. Why not?

“Don’t worry,” she assured him, face illuminated by the light of a brazier and an unnatural pale glow that seemed to come from the fog itself. “I don’t even need a torch to navigate anymore.”

Despite his unease and her sleepiness, she did in fact easily navigate through the fog. He followed her directions exactly, turning at unpredictable moments for seemingly no reason, until he finally cottoned on to the fact that they’d been following the unnatural wind the whole time. The light around them brightened into something warmer and far more friendly as they entered a partial tunnel made up of hollowed-out logs.

Zelda stopped him just at the end of it. “I—“ she blinked heavily, rubbing her eyes again, but didn’t become any more awake. “I cannot unsaddle Roam. Would you…” she hesitated, glancing into what he thought was a clearing just past the trees. “Tend to him?”

She was definitely hiding something. “You’re not about to disappear into a temple, are you?”

“What?” she squinted at him. “There is no temple in the Korok Forest.”

“Alright.” At least she wasn’t likely to run off without little Link, and obviously couldn’t carry him any significant distance to accomplish that. If she wanted a secret, she could keep it for now.

Twilight gently lifted Link out of the saddle first. The kid’s tunic crackled uncomfortably, stiff from dried blood. He held little Link in one arm and used the other to help Zelda down too. She swayed on her feet for a moment, then glanced nervously between him and his much smaller counterpart.

“I shall return shortly,” she said, and toddled off at full speed.

“Kids,” he sighed.

Twilight spared a moment to check over little Link, now that he wasn’t being watched like a hawk. The kid didn’t look… great, but he also didn’t look like he was in immediate danger. Twilight set him down on a patch of springy grass, wrapped up in his furs, and tended to Roam as the Princess had requested.

She trudged back just as he finished and picked Link up again. “‘kay,” she said, tired enough to bonk straight into his hip instead of stopping on time. “‘S go.”

“Let’s go,” he echoed, tentatively reaching down to scoop her up too. She passed out as soon as her head hit his shoulder. It was adorable. Roam was smart enough to follow as he cautiously ventured farther from the tunnel and discovered a clearing. An enormous tree with a face sat at one end, but Twilight’s attention went right to the stone platform in front of it.

He didn’t have to be Sky to know that the sword-shaped object ‘hidden’ under a blanket in the middle of it was this timeline’s Master Sword.

“Hylia, you really are six,” he muttered to the Princess, who was dead to the world and drooling on him already.

The giant tree hummed thoughtfully. “Now I see…”

“Oh,” said Twilight, taken aback. “You’re… the Great Deku Tree, right?”

“I am, Hero of Twilight. I would speak with you at length. But first, I believe you should set your charges down to sleep. They have been through much already.”

Twilight didn’t particularly want to put them down after everything, but the prospect of finally getting answers was enough to convince him. “Alright. Thank you,” he said, relieved.

He was at least mostly sure that the Great Deku Tree wouldn’t lie to him the way the kids had.

Chapter Text

Link snapped awake with a gasp, chest burning, and scrambled for his sword.

Except, there was no sword, only a too-large hand that grabbed his arm and kept him from falling off the low bed and slamming his face into the wood floor below. He pulled away from the unknown hand, managing to grab the nearest object and brandish it threateningly.

“Ya ha ha!” said the Korok Link was, he realized, attempting to use as a blunt-force weapon on… wolf-pelt guy? “You’re awake, Little Mister Hero!”

“Hwha?” Link still felt a little too foggy to parse through the words. The only thing he did remember was that he was supposed to be lying. “‘M not the Hero.”

The Korok giggled deviously. “I know that! You’re the Little Mister Hero, not Mister Hero!”

Wolf-pelt guy—Twilight, but Link wasn’t about to acknowledge that—held his hands up in a calming gesture. “Hey, easy, cub. You’re still recovering.”

“Huh?” Link glanced down and finally saw the absolute wreck his tunic and torso were. All at once, he remembered the fight with the shadowy Blight. The breath punched from his lungs a second time, and he just barely recalled what he was supposed to be calling Zelda as he frantically searched for her. “Flora? Flora?”

“Five more minuteeeeeeeeees,” she mumbled right next to his hip.

Knowing that she was close and healthy enough to whine finally let him relax and think clearly. He realized he was in the Great Deku Tree’s navel, sleeping on the bed Pepp had made. Zelda was sleeping next to him. He was still in his clothes and hadn’t been cleaned up at all, which likely meant he had only been unconscious for as long as it took to ride to the Korok Forest. The only thing he didn’t understand was how wolf-pelt had followed them.

“Why are you here?” Link asked suspiciously, setting Pepp back down and surreptitiously locating the slate. He found it on the bed between him and Zelda.

“I escorted you and Flora here, Wild,” he said, sitting back against the wall and setting his arm over his upturned knee. “You were unconscious after your fight and she needed help keeping you safe.”

“Oh.” He closed his eyes for a moment, cursing himself for passing out instead of staying awake to guard her. “Well… thanks. You can leave now.”

Twilight looked incredulous. “You are still covered in blood, and you think I’m just going to leave?”

“Yep,” said Link, holding eye contact without blinking.

“Not a chance.”

“We’re fine now. You don’t need to worry about us.”

He looked a little sad. “Someone should.”

Link huffed at him but recognized he wasn’t going to win that battle any time soon. He plucked at his ruined tunic, grimacing when it stuck painfully to his skin. When he glanced at Zelda, he realized she also had his dried blood stuck to her shirt and face. He cursed himself again. She was right: he needed to stop doing things that ended in him bleeding on her.

“What caused that?” Twilight asked, nodding to Link’s torso.

“Sharp object. Hey Pepp, do you think you guys could fill a tub with water for us? And screen it off?”

The Korok bounced, eager to help Mister Hero. “Yes! I can ask for help!” he chirped, and hopped away.

Wolf-pelt guy was not deterred, so Link mentally revoked his name privileges. “You were doing pretty well fighting that Lynel. What happened this time?”

Link frowned at him, debating how honest he should be just for the guy’s own safety. “The Blood Moons were supposed to be over. I would have taken a different route if I’d known. You and your group need to be very, very careful, because something bad is happening.”

Wolf-pelt nodded slowly. “I’m… not sure if it’s related to why the Goddess sent us here, but if those ‘Blood Moons’ shouldn’t be happening, then there’s a good chance it is. We need to find the Hero.” A very, very strange expression crossed his face. “The Great Deku Tree assured me it wasn’t you, cub.”

He what? It was only Link’s hundred-year-old muscle memory of how to keep a completely blank face that saved him, because he wanted nothing more than to gape in pure shock at wolf-pelt’s words.  The Great Deku Tree had backed up their lies? They were friends with him, of course, but Link would have assumed he’d be like Impa.

Then again, the Koroks probably had to get it from somewhere, didn’t they?

“Can you tell me where to find Link?”

“Nope.”

Wolf-pelt looked a little skeptical, and Link could feel that Zelda was now awake and listening quietly to the conversation. “Isn’t he your… ancestor?”

Link shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I know where gramps is. He wanders around a lot. Everyone complains about it. Dunno why, they should just let him do what he wants and stop nagging.”

Zelda poked his leg in reprimand for the comment.

“He doesn’t look after you?”

“We don’t need anyone to look after us.”

Wolf-pelt’s eyes dropped to Link’s wrecked torso before he arched a brow. The skepticism was even stronger, but he didn’t actually comment.

Link made a shooing gesture with both hands. “So you can go now. Thanks for helping Flora, but we can’t help you.”

The traveler continued to be remarkably persistent. “What about Princess Zelda? Do you know where we can find her?”

“Nope. She’s probably with Link.” Another genius idea came to him. “You saw the castle, no one’s lived there for a hundred years. Try looking in northwest Hebra, I bet they’re over there.” Nothing was on their schedule about the far-flung areas of Hebra for several months. It was a great place for a wild goose chase.

Wolf-pelt sighed. “I’m sure, cub. Hey, what’s a Blood Moon, exactly?”

“Brings all the dead monsters back to life. Sometimes it makes them stronger, but it depends. Usually they get stronger after I—no yeah, after I’ve killed ‘em once. Or the Hero. Or anyone else, really.”

Luckily, Pepp came toddling back before he could be interrogated more. “Little Mister Hero, we made a bath for you and Missy Flower!”

“Oh thanks guys, that was fast. Anyway, good luck, bye.” Link ushered Zelda from the bed, getting them both out of range of the stranger as fast as possible. She let him; so did wolf-pelt. In fact, he didn’t object at all, just got to his feet and dusted off his pants.

“Have a nice bath, kids,” he said as he left the Great Deku Tree’s navel.

It was only when they were safely ensconced behind a partition made of leaves and branches that Link exhaled in relief. “Whew.” He glanced down at his tunic again. “Aw, I ruined the only clothes that fit.”

“Yes, well,” said Zelda, examining her own ruined shirt. “I suppose that was inevitable.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Do you think the Great Deku Tree really backed up our story?”

“I guess,” Link whispered back, bringing out his fire rod again to heat up the water. “Dunno why wolf-pelt wouldn’t call us on it unless he did.”

“You do realize his moniker is ‘Twilight,’ don’t you?”

“I’ll acknowledge that when he’s not sniffing after you.”

Zelda seized his shoulders and spun him around with alarming intensity. He immediately dropped everything he was doing and thinking to pay her all of his attention.

“No,” she whispered, eyes wide and distressed. “No, it’s not me they want. I don’t know if they are truly heroes from different eras or liars, but either way they want to steal you.”

“...oh,” said Link, cradling her elbows to steady her. “Why?”

“If they are truthful, it is because they want your help to chase down some unknown foe. But even if they are not, it hardly matters. They cannot have you!” Zelda breathed hard and shuddered, tears threatening to fall.

“Okay, yeah, they can’t have me,” Link quickly agreed, pulling her into a tight hug until she stopped trembling. “It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere. Especially uh… not like this. Hylia wouldn’t ask me to leave you when you’re tiny. And I’ll ignore her if she does. Okay?”

She took a deep breath, gripping his shirt to calm herself. He rubbed her back. “I… yes. I’m sorry. It is… harder to control myself in this body.”

“It’s okay. You’re my priority no matter what. You know that, right?”

“You can always—”

He cut her off, gentle but firm. “Don’t start that again. I wake up every day and choose to stand at your side as your Knight and as your friend. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

She raised her head enough to lean their temples together. “You cannot be rid of me either.”

“Guess we’re stuck together forever, then. Oh, the tragedy,” he said dryly, laughing when she punched his hip. “So… bath?”

“Bath. I shall go first, entirely because I’m certain the water will be unusable after you manage to get all of that off.”

He heated the water for her, then sat and kept watch while she got cleaned up. Natie came by before she was done, which was fortunate. Apparently the Koroks had managed to either create or locate some green tunics and undershirts tailored to Link and Zelda’s current sizes. While Zelda got dressed in hers, he managed to un-glue his tunic from his skin and clean himself up. The champion’s garb was a lost cause, as were two of his belts, but fortunately Natie had given him spares along with the tunic.

“We match,” he said when he joined Zelda.

“So we do. Come here, let me brush your hair.”

In all honesty, by the time they joined hands again and wandered out to go talk to the Great Deku Tree and check on Roam, they’d both forgotten that wolf-pelt was still there. That was why it was quite startling when they found not only wolf-pelt, but also pink-hair and sword-thief. The three were standing by the Master Sword’s pedestal and talking. Link and Zelda froze but didn’t get a chance to step back before they were noticed.

“Hey, kids,” said sword-thief, waving. Wolf-pelt and pink-hair were busy making strange faces at the sight of them. “Over here.”

Link stood on his tiptoes to whisper in Zelda’s ear. “Do you think they’d steal Roam if we went back to the Plateau?”

Her nose scrunched. “I wouldn’t put it past them. And… loath though I am to have you anywhere near them, we do still need to talk to the Great Deku Tree, so we cannot leave yet.”

Link scrunched his own nose back at her. “Talk, get Roam, leave?”

“A solid plan,” she agreed, squeezing his hand. “Let us go.”

The strangers were still watching them. Wolf-pelt especially seemed to sense that they weren’t about to listen and took a step forward. Impulsively, Link stuck his tongue out at the guy and then pulled Zelda along, scampering up the Great Deku Tree’s root until they ascended to a good spot for talking to him.

“Hmm,” said the Great Deku Tree. His expression was the same as always—very tree-like—but this was the first time Link had ever heard even a hint of laughter in his voice. He sounded remarkably like his grandson that way. “I was expecting to see my dear friends, Sir Link and Princess Zelda, when next I had visitors. Imagine my surprise when it was you two instead, along with a Hero long passed.”

“Yes, well, there were… complications,” said Zelda primly.

“Indeed,” the Great Deku Tree very understatedly agreed. “Do you two little ones know when I will be able to speak with Sir Link and Princess Zelda again? It would seem they are needed.”

“Um… never?” Zelda tried.

“That cannot be right, Flora. Never is a very long time. My friends are very responsible and dutiful, as well as very good at fixing the messes they find themselves in . I’m sure they’ll be by sooner than ‘never.’”

Link and Zelda exchanged a glance. She tried again. “Ten years?” That would make them sixteen(ish, since Link was fairly certain Zelda had gotten hit with slightly less of the rune’s power than he had) which was close enough.

“That is more reasonable. Try again.”

Link flexed his tiny hands. “Yeah, we don’t know when they’ll be back,” he admitted.

“Hmm. They have many friends. Perhaps those friends could be of assistance in calling them back,” the Great Deku Tree said pointedly.

“Perhaps. We were… already planning on looking into it,” Zelda said. “But that is not why we came to speak to you.”

“Oh?”

“Are—“ She hesitated, glancing in the direction of the travelers who all claimed Link’s name. “You mentioned a Hero earlier, but are they… telling the truth? Are they truly Heroes of the past?”

“They are.”

Zelda’s expression became shadowed. “I see. Thank you.”

“Little one—“

“Excuse me, we must go. Come, Wild.” She dragged him back down to the forest floor.

The three other… Links (what a weird thought) were still waiting to ambush them, of course. Zelda glared at the ground and dragged him past without sparing them a glance. Link eyed sword-thief and contemplated whether or not demanding his frostblade back would work.

“Hey, slow down, kit. What’s wrong?” wolf-pelt asked, falling in beside them.

“None of your business,” Zelda said evenly. She sped up to a jog, but their legs were tiny and wolf-pelt’s were long.

“It is now that the Great Deku Tree asked me to look after you. Where are you going?”

“He what?” Link asked, surprised. The ancient forest spirit knew full well that Link was capable even at this size. Or at least, he should have. What was he doing setting strangers on a task that was Link’s responsibility?

“We neither need nor want your help,” Zelda said, just shy of snapping. “Go away.”

Pink-hair interjected. He and sword-thief were also following. “You almost died yesterday. Like it or not you do need help from us.”

Zelda flinched badly. Link immediately switched positions, holding her hand with one of his and putting the other on her shoulder. It put him between the strangers and her, and it was more comforting too. “Don’t talk to her,” he said coolly.

“What a perfect little knight you are. Where’d you learn that, Wild, your great great grandpa?”

They had nearly reached Roam, who decided to grace them with the useful side of his stubborn nature for once. He whickered and trotted up, planting himself firmly between his riders and the strangers. When wolf-pelt tried to go around, the stallion actually attempted to bite the guy.

“Good boy, Roam,” said Link, contemplating how he was going to get both himself and Zelda up onto his back. The royal tack was hanging off a log nearby, but Link put it away in the slate. There was no chance of saddling him at the moment.

“Look, kit, if you want to go somewhere then let us escort you. Wild did almost die. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t.”

Link knelt down while wolf-pelt tried to convince Zelda, lacing his fingers together and offering them to her. She understood immediately and allowed him to boost her up into Roam’s back. It took a little bit of ungraceful scrambling, but she got seated. Roam almost managed to bite wolf-pelt again when he tried to help her. Link himself simply took a few steps back and used a running start in order to mount up. It was very similar to mounting his giant Gerudo mare at full size.

“You’re pretty good at that,” sword-thief observed. “You travel alone a lot, don’t you?”

Link looked at wolf-pelt while he got situated in front of Zelda, gripping a handful of Roam’s mane in lieu of proper reins. She wrapped her arms around his waist. “The Blood Moon wasn’t supposed to happen, but we don’t make the same mistake twice.”

“Cub—“

“Hyah!” He spurred Roam straight into a canter with his heels, toward the tunnel that led back into the Lost Woods. He wasn’t too surprised when the Heroes scrambled to follow, but that was fine.

Not many people other than him and Zelda had enough knowledge of and favor with the forest spirits to use the side exit, after all.

Chapter Text

Zelda was, to put it mildly, unhappy. She knew part of it was the way her miniaturized body was amplifying every emotion, but that was still only part of it. Even as an adult, she still would have been angry with the Goddess. How dare Hylia demand that Link embark on another quest not even two months after they’d sealed the Calamity away, before they’d even begun to recover from the damage.

How dare she demand that Zelda part with her dearest friend once more.

Link guided Roam through the fog, easily losing their pursuers as the spirits giggled around them. She held onto him, fighting back angry tears, and tried to think rationally. There was always the possibility that these heroes of the past—and oh how excited she would have been to meet them under any other circumstance—were not here to steal Link, but instead to cover for his current limitations. He simply was not capable of confronting any serious threat at the moment, unless Hylia wanted him to die over and over again.

…did she?

“Easy,” said Link, reaching his free hand back to blindly pat Zelda’s hip. “As soon as we get Roam out, we’ll go back to the Plateau. Even the smartest wolf in the world can’t follow a trail that doesn’t exist.”

“I know,” she murmured into his shirt.

“I’m not leaving you.”

Zelda’s rational side unfortunately knew better. “Will we have a choice?”

Link didn’t say anything for a long moment. “If we don’t, then they’ll have to drag me away kicking and screaming. Maybe they’ll give up just because I’m so unheroic when they try.”

His levity managed to get a laugh out of her. “They will have to pry us apart,” she promised. “I shall scream too, if needed. I hardly mind being a terrible princess if it means you are not stolen from me.”

When they cautiously re-emerged out onto the path through the Minshi woods, none of the pursing heroes were present to harass them—no doubt they had been sent back to the beginning of the path, perhaps several times until they realized they simply could not follow the same path. Link dismounted, then helped Zelda down.

“Don’t have too much fun, boy,” Link told Roam, feeding him a handful of carrots as thanks. “And definitely don’t let any other Link steal you.”

The stallion whinnied and nudged Link with his muzzle hard enough that he almost fell over, then wandered off, content to preside over the woods like an equine king.

Zelda hooked her arm through Link’s and tapped the slate. The map was still stuck in position, but it allowed her to teleport them back to the Ja Baij shrine. They both plonked down against the shrine wall, relieved.

“We outran them,” Link observed. He only stopped looking in the direction of the freshly-resurrected Lynel when she glared at him. “What now?”

“I suppose it would behoove us to at least go and infirm Purah of our predicament. Alternately, it might be wise to tell Impa about our… visitors.”

Link hummed, crossing his arms over his chest. “If we tell Impa about both, she can probably get Purah to work faster and get us out of this mess.”

“With violence?”

“With incredible sisterly violence, yes.”

Zelda grinned at him. “Let us start with Kakariko, then. At least Impa’s wrath will ensure Purah only runs minimal tests upon us.”

Link stood up and dusted his hands off. He offered one to Zelda and pulled her to her feet. “I doubt they’re still at Riverside, but we should avoid it anyway. We can pick up Noble Pursuit or Snowdrop at Dueling Peaks instead.”

“Agreed. A bit of walking will do us no harm, but please, restrain yourself from making conversation with everyone we pass. We cannot afford to attract Yiga attention,

He sighed in a very put-upon way. “Yes, Princess.”

“Link!”

In all honesty, it didn’t take them very long to forget about the heroes entirely. They were too busy enjoying each other’s company as they walked at a leisurely pace from the Plateau to the Dueling Peaks. Put another way, they were too busy playing as they walked beside the path (beside and not on it; two little children walking alone would attract attention). Something about being shrunk just made it so much easier for every knightly air and noble pretense to fall away. All they were was Link and Zelda, dearest friends.

On the second night, they stopped between the Squabble River and the Popla Foothills, well out of sight of the road. Link made dinner while Zelda looked at the slate, trying to discern if she could solve the technical problems it had been experiencing since the failed data transfer. The map was frozen in place, which was bad, but the photo album was also acting up and some of her and Link’s shared journal entries simply wouldn’t open.

“It is a miracle we have access to our full inventory,” she said at length, frustrated. Purah or Robbie were likely to be the only ones who could fix this, if it was fixable at all. She hoped it was.

“Mmm.” Link handed her a dish of risotto. She gladly dug in. Being a child in such a large world was hungry work. “It would be a lot harder to cook decent food without it.”

“You know, I can still hardly believe those heroes of legend shamelessly mooched off of your food at the stable. You, an apparent six-year-old!”

He grinned into his own risotto. “Beggars can’t be choosers. If no one can cook, I guess you become desperate enough to mooch off a little kid eventually.”

“Hmph. Well they can continue to suffer, you are my chef.”

“And here I thought I was your Knight.”

“My chef-Knight and dearest, most stressful friend.”

He laughed at her. She stuck her tongue out. He poked her side. She poked him back. Somehow, it devolved into them chasing each other around the campfire, giggling madly.

“Hey,” Link said breathlessly, seizing her hand. “Dance with me!”

“But there’s no music!” she protested even as she followed him into the start of a spirited festival dance.

“Then we’ll make it ourselves!”

He raised his voice, singing the notes of the sweet flute himself. Zelda laughed, following along with his steps. They’d both learned these exuberant new songs and dances in Hateno, so very different from the staid and formal balls of her childhood. Tentatively, she added her voice in harmony with his as they spun barefoot across the grass, joined by the hands.

Link grinned at her, teeth flashing in the firelight. She grinned back. They laughed at how breathless they were, which only served to steal their breath even more. Her cheeks ached from how wide her smile was. She lost a note of the harmony to an exuberant shriek when he lifted her off her feet and spun her through the air until they both fell over into the grass.

They were laughing too hard to continue singing, curled up close enough to feel the warmth of each other’s breath feather across their faces. Zelda knew she’d never been happier in her entire life than she was just then.

Of course, that meant things had to go wrong.

Link stopped laughing abruptly, sitting upright in a single sharp motion. She stopped too, stomach lurching in alarm. He moved into a crouch between the campfire and her. In a flash, he had his bow drawn and an arrow nocked. Someone was approaching from the direction of the road.

Zelda held back a cry of dismay as the one-eyed Hero stepped into the circle of firelight. How? He wasn’t supposed to be near here!

Slowly, Link rose to his feet. Zelda followed, staying behind him. The older hero said nothing, looking at them with a strangely haunted expression.

“Hey!”

Zelda flinched when a voice came from behind her. Link immediately moved to guard her at a new angle. She recognized Wind and the hero who’d grabbed her before as they approached from opposite the one-eyed man. It was almost certainly a deliberate decision to trap them.

“You’re alright!” Wind continued, either not noticing or not caring about the tension of the atmosphere. “That Ember guy was fu—er, was really scared for you because of the Blood Moon. How’d you get over here though?”

Zelda glared. Without saying a word, Link began backing her away from the travelers.

There was no point. Almost immediately, the remaining two unaccounted for heroes spoke from exactly that direction.

“Hey, kids,” Sky said lightly. “Sorry to interrupt your fun. Impa said you might be out this way.”

“Are either of you hurt?” asked Hyrule.

It was Sky’s words that caught Zelda’s attention. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye as she pressed back-to-back with Link, the best defensive position they could manage at the moment. “…Impa?”

Sky seemed inordinately pleased by her implicit question. “We spoke with her recently. She’s really worried about you and asked us to bring you back to Kakariko. Guess you two are pretty good at running off and making trouble, huh?”

Zelda was intensely puzzled by his phrasing. She could feel that Link was too, though he didn’t lower his bow or show any sign of it that a stranger would recognize. Had Impa lied about Link and Zelda too, like the Great Deku Tree? But Impa didn’t even have the context of actually seeing them.

Then again, that might have been exactly why she lied; it was good practice not to give anything away until she was sure of the situation.

“Please don’t run off again,” said the one with the blue scarf whose moniker she hadn’t yet learned. “All we want is to get you safely to Kakariko.”

“Yeah, the old lady gave us a pass-phrase so you’d know it’s safe,” Wind added. “She said ‘tell them I know this is my sister’s doing.’”

Ah. They were defeated by Impa’s impeccable perceptiveness, then. Zelda’s shoulders slumped at the same time as Link’s. They sighed in synchrony. 

“Very well,” Zelda said with deep, deep reluctance. “You may accompany us back to Kakariko.”

Link made a little dissatisfied noise in the back of his throat and still didn’t put away his bow.

The one-eyed leader finally spoke. “Where did your horse go?”

As Link was wont to do when he was feeling spiteful, he started to tell a bald-faced lie. “The alie—ack!” He cut off when Zelda elbowed his back. “I mean, none of your business. Roam likes to roam.”

“Do you—“

“Well!” Zelda interrupted loudly. “If we are going to continue our journey tomorrow then it is time for rest, come Wild, let us prepare our bedroll.” She pushed Link forward, toward the fire again. He swapped his bow for an ancient short sword as they drew closer to the one-eyed hero.

“I‘ve never met six-year-olds who willingly go to bed,” Wind marveled. “Aryll would be throwing a fit to stay up and keep playing.”

“I don’t think they’re actually going to sleep,” the one with the blue scarf murmured back.

Link likely intended that, but as the two of them hastily pulled out their bedding to avoid any further interrogation, she leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Do not stay up without me. We can at least trust them to keep watch, I think.”

Link looked at her, unblinking. “Is this because I almost said aliens?”

“Yes, this is because you almost said aliens.”

He pouted but didn’t argue. As the other heroes took over their camp, unsubtly making sure they were surrounded, they crawled into the bedroll and curled up together to sleep.

Link woke just before dawn, as he always did. Zelda was sleeping next to him, safe and sound. He listened to her peaceful breathing for a moment before he spared any attention to the rest of camp. The fire had been safely banked; he could hear four others asleep and one awake. When he subtly shifted to locate whoever was keeping watch, he found banana man’s eyes already on him.

“You’re up early,” Link’s predecessor murmured, as hushed as the impending dawn.

Link shrugged and wiggled out of the bedroll, making sure no cold air disturbed Zelda. He didn’t leave though, not yet, just sat cross-leg on the edge of it and evaluated banana man. Morning was an excellent time to be alone with his thoughts.

What had this guy done as a hero in his own time to have such a pristine and strong Master Sword? Presumably, he hadn’t died and then slept for a hundred years, leaving his Princess all alone. He probably had the strongest spirit out of all of them.

Banana man accepted the scrutiny with nothing more than a patient, if slightly confused smile. At length, he said, “Why don’t you come sit with me if you’re going to stay awake?”

Link considered. He would still be close enough to Zelda, and it wasn’t time to start breakfast preparations yet. Maybe if he got closer he could figure out why the sacred sword had never spoken to him but seemed to like this hero. He got up and padded barefoot across the dirt so he could sit down on the same log banana man was using.

“Where’d you get that tunic?” the older hero asked casually.

Link opened his mouth to lie, then glanced at Zelda and thought better of it. He shrugged instead and returned to scrutinizing him. Nothing immediately stood out to him appearance-wise, except that banana man’s face gave Link the sense that he was simultaneously looking in a mirror and at someone he’d known before.

A memory hovered on the edge of his mind, tantalizingly close, but no matter how hard he stared, he couldn’t get it to trigger.

“Wild? Are you alright?”

Impulsively, he reached out and touched banana man’s arm with his bare palm. The other hero felt… like a normal Hylian. Honestly, it was anticlimactic. Nothing happened.

Or at least, nothing happened until hands unexpectedly closed under his arms and lifted him up. The memory finally triggered and—

There was a knight in training leathers on the floor and Link had a sword in his tiny hands. His muscles burned. He breathed hard. “That’s my boy!” dad shouted, and suddenly he was flying through the air in a circle. Dad looked so excited, his long blond hair whipping around and blue eyes bright. “That’s my boy!” And Link laughed, making sure to keep his training sword from hitting any of the other knights and soldiers who crowded around. Dad set him on his shoulder. The knight on the ground looked a little disgruntled at losing to a six-year-old, but he still smiled when their eyes met. “You’re something else, Mini Commander.”

Link took a deep breath, coming back to himself. He opened his eyes and was surprised to find that one-eye was crouched in front of him. He also realized he was in Sky’s lap, like a real six-year-old.

“Wild? Can you hear me?”

Link’s eyes went to Zelda, who was scrambling out of the bedding with an expression of increasing alarm. “Memory,” he reassured her. She relaxed immediately.

One-eye looked between them, but it was Sky who said, “Memory? What does that mean?”

Zelda pushed her sleep-mussed hair out of her face and considered what she was willing to say. Link was content to let her decide and determinedly extricated his hands from one-eye’s. “Wild… suffers from amnesia. That was him getting a memory back.” She tilted her head thoughtfully at Sky. “I suppose you must have triggered it somehow.”

Apparently everyone had woken up, because killjoy went, “Amnesia?!” and scrambled over to them. “Let me see, did you hit your head? How long ago was it?”

“You cannot fix it,” Zelda said, eyes downcast in self-recrimination as Link fended killjoy off. He ended up scaling Sky like a tree to escape, glaring down from his new perch. “The… the adults have already tried. He can only get his memories back by having them triggered like that.”

One-eye reached for him but quickly yanked his hands back when Link’s teeth snapped together just a hair’s breadth away from his skin. “We have unusual experience, Flora,” he said, wise enough not to try again. “It’s possible we could help in a way no one else can.”

Zelda shrugged. “You can try to force the issue if you want to get bitten, I suppose.”

“Head injuries that induce memory loss can be really bad, even a long time later,” killjoy stressed, obviously weighing the odds of success against his willingness to be bitten. He seemed to be leaning dangerously close to the ‘get bit in exchange for an exam’ side of things.

“It wasn’t a head injury,” Link said, annoyed. That was a partial lie: his head had definitely been as beat up as the rest of him before he was put in the shrine. “Don’t touch me.”

“But—“

Sky stood up abruptly, which almost made Link topple from his perch. The older hero caught him before he could go far. “Was it a good memory, at least?” he asked, setting Link on his hip and smiling.

That alone made another memory hover just beyond Link’s grasp. “Uh. Yeah. I won a spar.”

“Oh?”

Link wasn’t about to elaborate, so he didn’t.

Sky was not to be deterred. “Against who?”

Link offered him a supremely condescending look. “I dunno, I can’t remember. Because of the amnesia.”

Blue-scarf coughed to hide a laugh.

“Anyway, put me down,” he said, squirming. “It’s breakfast time.”

He was pretty sure the only reason Sky did was the promise of good food, but he decided he’d take what he could get. Hopefully Impa would save them from the overbearing concern of his predecessors once they got to Kakariko.

Or she’d hand them over to Dorian and then they’d really be in trouble.

Chapter Text

Link was content throwing together a quick breakfast for everyone while Zelda politely ignored any of his counterparts’ attempts to engage her in serious conversation. They wanted to know things like ‘why are you alone’ and ‘does Impa look after you’ and ‘what’s going on with your time-traveling ancestors.’ She, on the other hand, was only interested in finding out their names and… yeah that was it. 

For someone as obsessed with history as her, that said a lot. Link knew she was holding a lovely grudge against them for potentially being here to ‘steal’ him away. He didn’t blame her in the slightest. If they’d been trying to steal her, he would have done a lot more than just hold a grudge.

Link and Zelda both ate fast, then packed up their supplies. The older heroes only seemed to realize that they were completely willing to start walking on alone when they did just that, heading for the road. Blue-scarf sprinted over and plucked them off the ground before they got far.

“No, no, no walking off alone. If we’re going too slow for you, just ask us to hurry up,” he scolded.

Link was blindsided by another memory as—

“Link,” dad scolded, toting him back to their campsite like a sack of potatoes. Link giggled madly as he was flipped all around. “You’re too fast for your old man, slow down. We’ll get to Zora’s Domain soon enough, and then you can run all over with the other kids.” Link shrieked delightedly when dad suddenly flipped him again and held him up by an ankle, like a prize catch. “Wanna run now!” he protested, wiggling. Dad smiled. “Go run up that tree and show me how good my Little Knight is getting at climbing, then.”

He took a deep breath, opening his eyes. Everyone was staring at him. Zelda was near, though in Sky’s arms. “Good memory,” he told her, ignoring the ache deep in his chest. He didn’t want to think about it when his better counterparts were so close.

Killjoy looked worried. “Does this happen a lot?”

“Two back-to-back is unusual,” Zelda acknowledged. “Wild, do you know why?”

He shrugged. “They… remind me of the late Knight-Commander. And it’s combined with the Purah effect.”

It took her a moment to catch on, but then her eyes went wide. “Oh. Oh.”

“The late Knight-Commander?” one-eye asked.

“Yep,” Link said blandly. Zelda also did not elaborate.

“So because you’re around us, you might be getting a lot of memories back as we travel?” killjoy clarified.

“Maybe,” said Link, shrugging.

“And that’s… good?”

“Sure.” He was, at least, getting memories of his dad back. Maybe that wouldn’t ever have happened if he hadn’t gotten shrunk. “Hurry up, we need to get to Kakariko.”

The grown-ups exchanged glances. Blue-scarf did not immediately put him down when he started squirming, so Link took his revenge by climbing him like a tree too and standing on his shoulders. It didn’t work very well as revenge since blue-scarf just closed his hands around Link’s ankles and allowed it.

Zelda watched him, a finger pressed to her mouth. She didn’t seem too bothered that Sky continued to hold her while everyone else packed up. Link tilted his head at her,softening his expression. She got the message and smiled, worry easing.

“I bet you’d hit a lot of monsters if you used your bow from up there,” Wind said to Link. “How good is your balance?”

“Pretty good,” Link said thoughtfully. He was much taller than even his adult form standing on blue-scarf’s shoulders. If he could learn to balance on Hylian shoulders, it would indeed be a good perch. Plus he could backflip off and get in some midair shots whenever he wanted. “I do mounted archery a lot.”

“Yeah? That bow you had yesterday was huge compared to you.”

“Yep.” The draw weight was way too much, but as was usual when he didn’t have a choice, he just made it work.

“You must be a lot stronger than you look,” said one-eye, vaguely troubled.

“I get that a lot.” Normally it didn’t bother him, but it kind of did when it was coming from his role models. He was lean, not skinny.

When they actually started out on the road again—which, to their credit, didn’t take too long—Link and Zelda were only allowed to walk on their own feet after he threatened to sing the most annoying songs he knew at the top of his lungs until his voice gave out. It took exactly half a verse of a deliberately off-key “Ninety-Nine Bottles” before they were hastily set down.

“Once we get to Dueling Peaks Stable we have permission to take either my great great grandmother’s horse or his great great grandfather’s,” Zelda said to console them. “Until then, you are perfectly capable of enduring a slightly slower pace. We walk quickly for our age.”

Link didn’t relax until he was walking hand-in-hand with Zelda again. The older heroes fell in around them in a loose circle, but they were distant enough that Link and Zelda could whisper in each other’s ears if needed. They mutually agreed to let Zelda distract the others from more interrogation by chatting about the landscape and its history. Link was far too liable to get irritated and start making things up.

It worked for maybe fifteen minutes before killjoy asked, “So what happened when you two disappeared in that blue light?”

“Um—“ Zelda stuttered, caught off guard. “Oh, well…”

Link positively whipped around toward her, silently pleading as she deliberated about how much was wise to be honest about. This was the perfect time for his favorite explanation. What were they going to do, disprove it?

She met his eyes for a moment and then sighed silently in defeat. She nodded slightly, giving permission. He beamed.

“Aliens,” they said together.

For a very, very long moment, the only sound was the river to their side and the crunch of their boots on the path.

“The… what?” killjoy asked hesitantly.

“Aliens,” said Link, pleased as punch to be able to pull another one over on these men.

“What do you mean by aliens?” one-eye asked with a very strange expression.

“People who came from outer space,” said Link. Zelda’s face was petal-pink from the lie.

“And they have to do with you disappearing… how?”

“They teleported us. Duh.”

Silence fell again. Link just barely managed to keep from giggling. It was much harder to keep a straight face when he was six than when he was seventeen.

“Well… why did they teleport you?” blue-scarf tried.

“Gramps got kidnapped once and he beat them all up, so they made a deal with him and the Princess, and we get to use it too since we’re their great great grandkids,” he answered jovially.

“No way,” said Wind, “you’re definitely lying.”

“No I’m not.”

“You are way too happy about the aliens to not be lying.”

“I guess you could try and disprove that the aliens are real if you want.”

Wind seemed a lot more entertained than truly opposed to Link’s explanation. “Why don't you prove that they are real?”

“Huh? We already did, you saw us teleport away,” Link countered with fake confusion. “How could that happen if aliens aren’t real?”

Zelda hid her face in her free hand. Her cheeks had gone from pink to crimson. For some reason, she always found Link’s flagrant lying to be embarrassing, even when she joined in.

“Can the aliens teleport you anywhere?” killjoy asked. He sounded like he couldn’t decide if he believed it or not.

“Kind of. They’re temperamental,” said Link honestly, thinking about the malfunctioning Sheikah technology that had caused this whole mess in the first place.

“So they could teleport you right now?”

He gave killjoy a narrow look. “…if they wanted.”

“Hmm. Could they teleport you to Kakariko?”

Zelda cleared her throat. “Likely not. They have been remarkably uncooperative recently. Now, can we please move on from this topic? I find it highly inappropriate.”

Link choked on a laugh. Zelda elbowed him.

“What makes it inappropriate?” one-eye asked.

She sniffed. “Politics is not an appropriate topic for discussion with visitors.”

Link had to hold his breath to keep from bursting out laughing.

“Oh, the aliens are political now?” asked blue-scarf, amused. Link was sure he had definitely come down on the side of not believing them. 

“The geopolitical situation between our great great grandparents and the aliens is highly contentious,” Zelda declared, face still red. “We only told you because of Impa.”

“Yeah, don’t be rude,” said Link, entertained.

Wind, bored the instant politics was mentioned, interrupted. “Hey, look over there. Do you think that person needs help?”

Link followed his pointing finger and sucked in a sharp breath, immediately dragging Zelda back behind one-eye to hide both of them from view.

One-eye stopped immediately. “Wild?”

“Yiga,” he hissed. Zelda pressed close to him, a grim expression on her face.

“Huh? That just looks like a normal guy,” said Wind, shading his eyes with one hand.

“We cannot let them see us and get word back to their base,” Zelda murmured. “Wild, can you take him out fast enough that he will not know what he saw?”

Link took a breath and blindly swiped through the slate. “Maybe,” he murmured back, finger hovering over his Royal Guard’s bow.

“Slow down, kids,” said blue-scarf. He kept his eyes on the Yiga, but moved to provide them a little more cover. “Are you sure that’s an assassin?”

“Yes,” they said together.

“They must attack you a lot if you knew that fast. And this far away,” Wind said, scratching the back of his head. He looked a little angry.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Sky said with eerie calm. “Just give me a summary of their fighting style and weaknesses.”

Link was surprised, although in hindsight he realized he shouldn’t have been. Of course he wasn’t needed for this—his more competent, adult-sized counterparts could be dispatched to take care of it. He looked down and took a breath to steady himself.

“They’re fast and flexible. Not so strong, but they have ancient techniques to shift from one location to another. He could be a footsoldier who fights on the ground with a light weapon and a duplex bow, or a blademaster. The blademasters can use their windcleavers for distance strikes, or perform an earthquake spell barehanded. Stay light on your feet and focus on hitting hard and fast before they disappear.”

“...thorough,” Sky said tightly. “Thank you, Wild. Stay here, Warriors and I will take care of it.”

Killjoy moved closer to them as the other two adults stomped away. One-eye stayed where he was, hiding them with his relative bulk. Link’s fingers still hovered over the icon for his bow, ready to move in an instant if something went wrong. He could catch Revali’s Gale upward and hit the Yiga with an electric arrow if it came to it. At least midair he could actually do an almost-full draw.

“Kids…” killjoy said softly.

“Shh. I’m listening.”

There really was no need for him to worry. This Yiga was one of the ones who opened with a pitch to join the Yiga clan for the glory of Master Khoga, and he barely got the first part of his spiel out before Sky smacked him with the Master Sword.

“Accursed hero!” the Yiga shrieked, slightly confused, then quickly retreated after blue-scarf joined in on the beatdown. It felt, vaguely, like Link had somehow cheated.

“I suppose I should not be surprised all Links are so efficient,” Zelda murmured.

Link snorted and relaxed, running a hand through his bangs. “I think the Yiga are just incompetent.”

“Perhaps.”

Link looked at his older counterparts and deliberately ignored their strange expressions. “Let’s keep moving.”

It was quiet after that. None of the heroes seemed to want to talk as they made their way between the Dueling Peaks, though they stole frequent glances at Link and Zelda. Any time Link spotted a lizalfos in the river and went to take care of it, he was beaten by one of the adults. It left him with an unsettled feeling in his chest.

Spotting the stable in the distance was a relief. At least now they could get one of their horses and start moving a little faster.

“What do you think, Noble Pursuit or Snowdrop?” he murmured to Zelda. It was still quiet enough that the others could hear him with ease, but that was fine for this conversation.

“Noble is a little more patient. And sturdier,” said Zelda. “The downside is… well.”

“Yeah. I’ll help you up.”

“Are you going to need Revali’s Gale to mount after me?” she teased.

He tried not to smile. “Are you sure you want me to use Revali’s Gale? I seem to recall the last time—”

“Oh. Yes. Please refrain.”

He laughed softly and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.

Tasseren, standing behind the counter and waiting for the next customer, looked a little wary about the size of their group when they approached. Link hopped up and got his elbows over the wood, holding himself up by his arms so they could actually look at each other. “Hi.”

“Welcome to Dueling Peaks Stables, little one. How can I… help?” Tasseren squinted at him as Zelda hauled herself up in the same way. “Have we met before?”

“Yes.” “No.”

“...right.”

“We have permission to take one of Link’s horses, Noble Pursuit,” said Link. He hastened to keep speaking as the stablemaster’s eyebrow arched skeptically. “Try it in the registry, Malanya will let you. We have permission.”

“Hmm… well… no harm in trying, I suppose.” He turned away to do so.

Rensa squinted at them in the meantime. “Huh. Link must be older than I thought,” he muttered to himself. Louder, he said, “You look a lot like your father.”

“Yeah,” Link agreed, because apparently it was true based on the memories he’d gotten back. He didn’t bother to correct the rest of Rensa’s misunderstanding. Assuming he could get back to his adult form, the next time he visited might prove… interesting, though.

“Well I’ll be,” said Tasseren, turning to them again. “You do have permission. Hold on a moment and we’ll get Noble Pursuit for you.” He signaled a stablehand, then gave them another dubious look. “Do you two youngsters know how to handle a horse?”

“Yes,” Link and Zelda said together.

“We’re escorting them to their home,” one-eye interjected. “We have plenty of experience with horses ourselves. We’ll make sure the little ones don’t get hurt.”

“Hmm. Good.”

For all his confident words, though, even one-eye’s eye went wide when Noble Pursuit was led out to them. Link didn’t hesitate to run up to his giant mare. She bent down and sniffed his hair, then lipped at his bangs.

“Smart girl,” he cooed, petting her velvety muzzle.

“That is a fu—er, that is a huge beast,” said Wind. He edged behind blue-scarf, unnerved. “I didn’t know horses got that big.”

“She’s a particularly large draft, I think,” said one-eye. He cautiously approached while Link got Zelda up onto his shoulders, which let her reach high enough to literally climb Noble’s tack and up into the saddle. Link was only slightly jealous that Noble seemed to like one-eye just fine. He took several steps back, intent on a substantial running start, only to be caught under the arms.

“How about you just let me help instead?” Sky proposed, lifting him up onto the horse. And unexpectedly, Link remembered—

“Hup!” said dad, heaving Link onto his gray palfrey. He mounted up after, settling in behind Link, who was fascinated by the embossed leather of the saddle. It had some symbols he knew and some he didn’t, and all of them meant that dad was important and brave and served the Kingdom. “Steady, my Little Knight,” said dad, in a fine mood. “You’ll have your own fierce destrier one day.”

He came back to himself quickly. Out of the heroes, only one-eye seemed to have noticed his lapse. Zelda had simply taken Noble’s reins and let him recall the memory.

He didn’t really like the way one-eye was looking at him.

“Allow me to lead her for you,” one-eye said, holding up a hand for the reins.

“No thanks,” Zelda refused cheerfully. “Let us go.” Link spurred Noble into a walk, allowing Zelda to steer for as long as she wanted. Since none of his older counterparts had any hope of peacefully hijacking Link’s giant Gerudo mare, they really had no choice but to follow as Noble Pursuit led the way to Kakariko.

He chose to feel a little smug about that.

Chapter Text

They did move faster now with Noble Pursuit’s massive strides setting the pace. Zelda held her reins loosely, worried about the unusual air of quiet from Link. He was getting memories of his father back, but she could well imagine how that would be both wonderful and distressing; the man had been dead over a hundred years, after all. She wished they were alone so she could talk to him about it.

But of course, they were not alone. “You said her name is ‘Noble Pursuit?’” the Hero of Time asked, walking close beside them.

“Yes,” Zelda said on Link’s behalf. “She’s named after a drink from Gerudo Town. Link has a, shall we say, distinctive sense of humor.”

Link lightly elbowed her. She was gratified to see a faint smile on his face.

“A drink?”

“I believe he was disgruntled that he was barred from purchasing one on account of his youth,” she clarified.

Time’s gait stuttered briefly, but it was Sky who asked, “How old is he?”

“Seventeen,” she said.

Wind gave them a funny look. He was standing as far as he could from Noble, with Warriors firmly between the giant horse and him. “What? I thought you said he was Wild’s great-great grandpa.”

“Yes, he is. The years hardly count if you are dead or sleeping. It is the same with the Princess. She is seventeen as well.” Zelda was surprised at their surprise. Wind, for instance, was even younger. The burden of the Goddess fell when evil arose, no matter the age of the Hero.

“Dead,” Sky echoed, mostly to himself.

“Wait, how old were they when they had your great grandparents?” Hyrule asked.

And this was exactly why Link’s terrible lies always backfired: he never thought about the ramifications. Of course, then she realized that she also should have lied here and said something other than ‘seventeen’. Her face heated up with a blush at the idea of mothering a child at sixteen, before she was even allowed to pray at the Spring of Wisdom.

“Things… must have been different a hundred years ago,” she managed to get out. “Perhaps it was wise, considering how the Kingdom fell to ruin. If not for the miracle of their survival, it is likely we would have needed to carry on their legacy.”

“Not your parents?” Warriors asked.

“They’re dead,” Link said shortly. He kept his eyes forward. His tone invited neither sympathy nor more questions.

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

The conversation stopped there. Link straightened his shoulders, finally asking her for the reins. She handed them over without hesitation. Link always needed to feel like he was doing something in order to be content.

His frustration was evident to her the longer they walked, mostly because each time he spotted a monster or two, it was taken out by the grown-up heroes without him. The one time he managed to stand up on Noble’s broad back and get off a shot with his bow and a mounted draw, Warriors scolded him for it.

“I know you’re used to fending for yourself, Wild, but you’re not used to fighting with us. If something goes wrong, you could seriously hurt someone.”

Link glared down from his perch in a rare display of open frustration. “Then let me take care of them myself!”

“I know you’re good at fighting,” said one-eye, calmly holding his glare. “But it doesn’t make sense to send one person to fight when there are five of us who can work as a team. Let us protect you and Flora until we get to Kakariko Village.”

Link gritted his teeth and turned his head away sharply, spurring Noble into a brief canter. His angry spite forced them to jog to catch up.

“It’s okay,” Zelda whispered to him before they could. “This is temporary.”

“I know,” he whispered back, knuckles white from the force of his grip. “It’s… I’m angrier than I should be. It’s hard to control. I know they’re right, I just don’t like it.”

She sighed, dropping her chin to rest on his shoulder. “Me neither.”

They were both fortunate that it wasn’t long to Kakariko. Link eagerly spurred Noble a little faster as the path narrowed and grassy cliffs rose on either side. They entered Kakariko’s bounds not long after. Within the village proper, most of the Sheikah stared more at the giant horse than the tiny children atop it, which was fortunate, but they still tried to get to Impa before anyone could recognize them.

Of course, it was only most Sheikah that didn’t look at them, not all. Dorian was standing guard at the foot of the stairs, and his jaw literally dropped when he spotted them. Link didn’t hesitate to fling himself down from Noble, catch Zelda when she fearlessly jumped after him, and sprint over to the guard.

“Dorian!” they both shouted before he could blurt out their names. They slammed into him like real children eager to greet a beloved adult.

“I’m Wild and she’s Flora!” Link hissed in his ear as he automatically crouched down to hug them back.

“What happened?” he asked them, aghast. His well-ingrained fatherly instincts from Koko and Cottla kicked in; he stood up holding one of them in each arm.

“Purah happened,” Zelda said, chagrined.

He was not fooled for even a moment. “I think you mean that playing with her research happened, didn’t it?”

“Not on purpose,” she protested.

Dorian shook his head, longsuffering after dealing with eccentric Sheikah personalities for so long. “Come, Impa is expecting you.” He offered a respectful dip of the head to the other heroes, who stood a short distance away in front of Noble Pursuit. “Thank you for bringing them here safely. It can’t have been an easy task.”

“Hey!” said Link, scowling.

“It wasn’t!” Wind agreed, cheerfully throwing them under the cart wheels. “They really like to run away.”

“Yes, they certainly do,” Dorian agreed dryly. “Please, make yourselves comfortable here in the village. I’m sure Lady Impa will want to speak with you later.” He turned and started carrying them up the stairs. Zelda peeked over his shoulder and watched as Time cautiously took Noble’s reins and went to hitch her to a fence post. Hyrule waved goodbye. She waved back.

Paya opened the front doors before they’d even reached them. She looked at Link with huge eyes and froze in place. Dorian had to pointedly clear his throat before she blushed and moved aside, closing the doors after them.

She also seemed to know immediately what had happened. “Did Auntie Purah do something?”

“Not intentionally,” Zelda assured her. “But it was her rune that backfired.” She glanced at Impa, who was watching them with an inscrutable expression.

“Oh,” said Paya, pressing her hands to her face. “Oh dear. This is not good.”

“We know,” Link grumbled. “It’s awful, everyone keeps interrupting my fights.”

Impa made a little noise in the back of her throat at that. “Come here, let me look at you,” she said, beckoning.

Dorian set them down, and they trotted over to her stack of cushions. She reached out a weathered hand to each of them. Tentatively, Zelda put her tiny hand in Impa’s weathered one. Link did the same. Impa spent a long moment solemnly scrutinizing their faces and brand new statures.

And then she burst out laughing.

“Goddess, you’re so TINY!” she wheezed.

Zelda yanked her hand back and spluttered. “Wh— Impa! This is serious!”

“This is hilarious!”

“It is kind of hilarious,” Link agreed. “I would be laughing if people just let me finish my fights.”

Dorian groaned. “Master L—“

“SHHSZHH!” Link shushed frantically.

“Master Wild,” Dorian corrected, “why do you think it is wise to fight anything while you are incapacitated?”

“I am not incapacitated,” said Link, hands on his hips. “I was winning that fight with the Lynel just fine!”

“YOU FOUGHT A LYNEL?”

“Don’t look at me like that, I was winning!”

Impa moved on to laughing so hard that she was completely silent, tears streaming down her face. She gasped and fanned herself. Paya hovered nearby, eyes huge.

Zelda didn’t think this was funny at all. She crossed her arms and pursed her lips, fighting the urge to smile as Impa continued to lose it. “Well—“ she said, looking to the side when the corners of her mouth started to creep up tellingly, “it’s not funny, it’s serious! Those… those men want to steal Link! And he’s not even half their height right now!” The burgeoning smile vanished beneath a true scowl.

“They want to do what?” Dorian thundered. Apparently this was news to him, despite their prior visit with Impa. “After they’ve seen that?” He gestured to Link’s… everything.

“Hey!” said Link.

“I stand by what I said!”

Impa hiccuped, wiping her face dry with a handkerchief from Paya. “Enough,” she said, waving a hand. “Enough. I may find your predicament humorous, but I am taking the other situation with the seriousness it deserves. Flora, what did they tell you about their purpose?”

“They want Link for a mission from the Goddess,” Zelda answered, agitated. Now that she was safe with her Sheikah allies, all of the emotion she’d been too busy to handle was rapidly boiling over. “It has not even been two months since the end of the Calamity! The Kingdom has not taken a single substantive step toward reconstruction! We have not rested, and they would dare try to steal my dearest friend, so he may continue to die, over and over, while I can do nothing? I will not allow it!”

Her voice rose and rose as she spoke, pushing into a furious shout. Then, to her mortification, she suddenly burst into tears.

Link was by her side at once, setting a tentative hand on her shoulder. She turned and lunged into a hug. Her hands gripped his shirt with all the force she could muster as she cried, grief and fear and fury too overwhelming to handle when she was this small.

“Don’t go,” she sobbed. “I don’t want to be alone again.”

“I won’t,” Link said. Zelda was both startled and comforted to hear that his voice was choked. She wasn’t the only one upset by this. “I won’t leave you.”

“I spent a hundred years waiting, not knowing if you would ever wake up,” she confessed into his shirt. “I cannot bear it again!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stay with me, please stay with me, I cannot—.”

“I’m staying. I promise.”

Impa gave up on speaking to them more, instead directing Dorian and Paya to take them upstairs. They curled up on Paya’s bed, trying to comfort each other as best they could. It wasn’t easy when neither of them truly believed they could avoid the inevitable.

When they were calm again some time later, Link handed Zelda the water skin and cleaned his face up with the edge of Paya’s blanket. Zelda cringed on Paya’s behalf but said nothing. Her eyes felt raw. She felt raw.

Nevertheless, she forced herself to speak. “We should… resume our conversation.”

“...yeah. Probably.”

They leaned against each other and didn’t get up until Paya came to check on them.

Link didn’t know what to think or to do, if he was being honest. All he wanted was for Zelda to be safe and happy, not crying into his shoulder because she was afraid she would be alone again—or, worse, crying alone because she was right. At the same time, he was terribly aware of how little choice anyone ever had in the will of the Goddess. Even if he fought, he didn’t think he could win.

He was still going to try, though. They would drag him away from Zelda kicking and screaming, just like he promised.

Impa looked at them both with surprising softness when they came back downstairs. Zelda cleared her throat, embarrassed. “My apologies—” she started, but Impa cut her off by raising a hand.

“Don’t apologize, my friend. I can imagine how difficult this is for you right now. Purah once described it as an intense amplification of her emotions and impulses. You are under duress and have had very little time to adjust, haven’t you?”

“Only a few days,” Zelda said, hands clasped in front of her. She took a deep breath. “Nevertheless, it is still my responsibility to be far more rational and level-headed than I was.”

Impa didn’t argue with her over the point. She shook her head slightly and moved on. “So they’ve told you that they believe the Goddess is calling on Link again, then?”

“Yes,” said Link. He lifted his chin defiantly and squeezed Zelda’s hand. “It won’t work out for them, though. He’s not going to go.”

The old Sheikah looked surprised by his words. “No?”

“No.”

“Master Wild…” Dorian said from where he was standing at the door. His brows were furrowed. Link briefly stared him down before returning his attention to Impa.

“I see,” she said. She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. “He certainly cannot make any decision at all until he reappears with the Princess. Perhaps this conversation is pointless at the moment.”

“Perhaps,” Zelda agreed. Some of the tension in her shoulders eased.

“I will have to think deeply about this,” Impa decided. “Why don’t you two go bathe and rest? There is no need for a plan until tomorrow, at least. Paya, Dorian, if you would accompany them.”

Link frowned. “We don’t need babysitters.”

The old Sheikah arched a brow at him. “Would you prefer that the heroes outside assign themselves to that role instead?”

“Oh. Nevermind. Dorian, carry me,” he demanded. “That’s probably the only way they’ll leave us alone.”

“I’m shocked they ever put you down,” Dorian muttered. He seemed way too pleased with the fact that Link could no longer run off once his feet were off the ground. Link narrowed his eyes.

“He threatened to bite them,” Zelda said, content with holding Paya’s hand to fend off any advances. “And nearly succeeded.”

“Of course he did,” Impa sighed. “Go on, off with you. Please don’t cause too much chaos. I’ve already sent Cado to speak with everyone about your presence here.”

Meaning, no one would accidentally call them by their real names. “Thank you, Impa,” said Zelda.

Outside, only Sky was in view, sitting beside the statue of the Goddess within view of Impa’s house. He hastily stood up and came over as the four of them descended the stairs. Link tensed, which earned him a brief glance from Dorian.

“Hey, kids,” SKy said, brows furrowing. “Are you okay?”

“What? Oh,” said Zelda, touching a hand to her puffy red eyes. “Yes. Do not concern yourself.”

Link tried to encourage Dorian to move faster by poking his shoulder repeatedly. It sort of worked.

“Excuse us,” said Dorian. “The children are overtired and need to bathe and rest.”

“Right, sorry,” said Sky, moving aside. “They’ve been through… a lot.”

Paya squeaked and blushed crimson when Sky glanced at her. Zelda had pity on her poor shy friend and pulled her along toward the village bathhouse. Link carefully did not look back at the hero and his sacred sword as Dorian followed. Except—

“Have you been rolling my baby in mud?” mom said, aghast as she took Link from dad. “It’s good for him!” dad said cheerfully. He was covered in mud too. “Adverse terrain makes for a stronger fighter.” For all of mom’s protests, she accepted a muddy snuggle from Link and tucked his head under her chin. Her belly was round against his leg, because he was going to have a baby brother or sister soon. “Honestly, dear,” she said, a little exasperated. “‘Adverse terrain’ indeed. I suppose both of my fighters need a good scrubbing then, or adverse terrain will be the least of your worries. March!” Mom turned on her heel, just as sharp and commanding as dad when he had all his soldiers around. Dad laughed.

Link opened his eyes in the bathhouse. He’d been set down on one of the benches just beside the door. Zelda held his hands while Paya and Dorian hovered.

“Memory?” she asked softly.

He nodded. “Good memory. I—” No one else was in the bathhouse at this hour, especially not the other heroes. He licked his lips, feeling strange. “I remembered my parents.”

Zelda looked heartbroken, but she still smiled. “That’s wonderful!”

“Yeah, it’s great” he agreed, shaking off the numb feeling in his chest. He hopped down from the bench and squeezed her hands before letting go. This was where they parted ways, with Zelda and Paya going to the women’s side while he and Dorian went to the men’s side. “I’ll see you later. Have a nice time with Paya, okay?”

“Alright,” she agreed softly.

Her worried gaze followed him well past the sliding partition.

Chapter Text

Link began to follow his usual routine in the bathhouse (scrubbing himself down as fast as possible so he could get out and back to work) before he realized that it was a lot smarter to slow down. He knew Zelda was going to take her time and relax with Paya, as she should. If he finished first, then Impa might try to talk him into being responsible—or worse, into being hospitable.

He grimaced at the thought and settled in for a long soak in the hot water instead.

Dorian didn’t try to get him to talk, and he didn’t try to fill the silence himself. All he did was sit down behind Link and communicate his intent though a tap. Link obligingly moved his head so that the older man could trim his hair. It had gotten a little rough since the last time, a week before he’d finally freed Zelda.

Questions plagued him. He didn’t know what to do. “…Dorain?”

“Yes?”

He kept his eyes closed. The air was fragrant and humid. “How can Link possibly choose between Hylia’s command and Zelda’s well-being?”

Dorian was silent for a long minute, hands slowing in his work. “Maybe,” he said, “there’s something Link is missing here.”

Link scowled mightily at the suggestion. “It seems pretty obvious to me.”

“But you’re not Link, are you?”

Cheater. Link huffed. “Well, what would you do? If it was between the Princess and the Goddess?” he challenged, a little belligerent.

“I don’t know. I’m only a man who’s made many mistakes in his life, Wild. You’re better off asking Lady Impa for wisdom.”

He said it like Link himself hadn’t made just as many mistakes. Not the same kind of mistakes, of course, but arguably worse. Dorian’s tenure with the Yiga hadn’t led to the downfall of the Kingdom. Although it had led to… “What if the Goddess asked you to choose between Koko and Cottla and your duty?” What if it had been between your wife and your duty?

Dorian went completely still. Link stared at the surface of the bathwater and didn’t take his question back, even when the silence stretched and it was clear the older man wasn’t going to answer.

“...that’s how I feel,” Link murmured. He ran a hand over the fresh scar that bisected his torso.

“I’m sorry, young one.” 

They didn’t talk any more after that. Link finished washing and dried off. Dorian silently harassed him into applying some oils to his scars so they wouldn’t pull so much. While Link did so, he dried off his hair and tamed it up into a Sheikah-style bun. Someone had also left child-sized clothing for him so he didn’t need to put his dirty forest tunic back on.

And the less that was said about the state of his pants, the better.

The effects of being a very stressed six-year-old hit hard as soon as he was dressed. Exhaustion almost took his feet out from under him. He would have happily staggered over to a bench and slept there, but Dorian picked him up and carried him out instead. It felt—

Link dozed against dad’s shoulder. “Commander, don’t you think you’re pushing him a little too hard?” asked one of the Knights. He was from a noble family, but he was nice to Link even though dad had refused a title when he was knighted. Dad petted his hair. “The signs are clear,” he murmured. “The Calamity is going to return soon. When the Hero appears to protect and support Her Highness, he’s going to need all the support he can get.” The knight sounded dubious. “Link is a prodigy, sir, but I’m sure we have more time for training. Princess Zelda is only seven.” Link felt dad’s smile against his hair. “Yes, we have many years. And when she’s grown, Link will be too. The Hero will have a prodigy Knight-Commander at his back the likes of which the world has never seen.”

Link took a deep breath and turned his face into Dorian’s overshirt. Even his father hadn’t thought he could be a hero.

He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter and forced himself to go to sleep.

Zelda was tired, but not ready to sleep yet. Impa had put them up in Paya’s room for the time being, assuming both of them were asleep or close to it. She laid on the mattress with Link’s head resting on her chest and listened to Impa speak with the heroes downstairs.

Warriors recounted finding them by the sound of their singing and laughter, convincing them to calm down, and the morning after as Link regained some memories. He recounted their conversation about their ‘great great grandparents,’ the encounter with the Yiga, and retrieving Noble Pursuit. He also added some interesting details Zelda did not know about their missing companions and rendezvous contingencies.

She and Link would have to be cautious about not meeting them on the road out of Kakariko.

“Impa,” Sky said when Warriors was done, “do the Sheikah look after Wild and Flora?”

Impa sighed. “We do when they allow us to,” she said. “But as you have noticed, they are very skilled at disappearing off into the wilderness.”

“Does anyone else look after them, now that their parents are dead?”

“Yes, from what they’ve told me. Everywhere they go, people look after them.”

“But no one can get them to stay put.”

Impa’s response was as dry as the desert. “You’re welcome to throw your hat into the ring if you’d like. See how it turns out for you.”

“What about Link and Zelda?” asked Time.

“Those two are the ones the children would sit still for the least. Besides, they are busy rebuilding the Kingdom so that their descendants will have a better inheritance than ruins. You will have a difficult time convincing Link to part with his Princess and his work.”

“None of us had much of a choice,” said Hyrule. “I don’t think he will either.”

Zelda’s stomach dropped.

Impa was silent for a long moment. “As it often goes, with the will of the gods,” she murmured. “Though I suppose it does simplify things. Let me be clear: I do not know how to get Link and Zelda to return. I cannot call them to me. But in order to give you the best chance of finding them, I would ask you to escort Wild and Flora to Hateno Village.”

“Impa,” said Time in an even voice, “are those children the Hero and the Princess?”

“The full story is complicated and not mine to tell, Hero of Time,” Impa said coolly, “but I assure you, Hylia is not looking for a six-year-old to send on her mission. You will only find who you are looking for in a young man who has reached his majority.”

Zelda cradled Link’s sleeping head and breathed out slowly. Impa really was so much better at lying than either of them were, and she wasn’t even lying. That being said, Zelda still frowned deeply. Was she willing to allow these men to escort them to Purah? If even they had no choice, surely it was wisest to take Link and flee somewhere truly inaccessible. Perhaps Vah Naboris—the others couldn’t enter without permission and Riju would support them.

Or, no, the solution was so much simpler than that, wasn’t it? Gerudo Town. If need be, they could ‘grow up’ there for a full decade with very little problem, even if poor Link had to wear vai clothes the whole time. That was better than allowing him to be separated from her.

“Wild, wake up,” she whispered, nudging him. He groaned quietly and turned his face into her chest. She petted his hair. “Wake up.”

“M wake,” he slurred. “Whazzat?”

“Impa wants them to take us to Hateno.”

Link raised his head, instantly lucid, and looked at her knowingly. He dropped his voice so low that even she could barely hear him. “Right. So where are we going instead?”

“Gerudo Town.”

He nodded. “Now?”

“Later. We must sneak out and get Noble.”

“Did something change your mind?”

Something certainly had: knowing that he would have no choice in his own fate, yet again, just like her. She pursed her lips. “I… will tell you later.”

“Okay.” He put his head back down. “You sleep, I’ll keep watch.”

Zelda rolled her eyes. “You’ve barely been asleep for an hour and we both need to rest. I doubt Impa will let anyone bother us until tomorrow at least.”

He grumbled a little bit but conceded the point. They both settled in to sleep.

It felt like she’d barely closed her eyes before Link was shaking her awake in the deep hours of night. Paya was asleep on a cot near them, but it was easy to sneak past her. They made it down the stairs and then slipped out of a window on the side of the house.

“I’m not sure we can get Noble,” Link murmured as they crouched in the shadows and stared at where the giant horse was still hitched to the fence post. She was, unfortunately, almost directly in Cado’s line of sight as he stood guard at the foot of the stairs.

“Well… maybe we don’t have to sneak,” she said thoughtfully. “We could just tell Cado that we urgently need to get to Hateno.”

They exchanged a glance. Link shrugged. “Teleport back to the Plateau if we fail?”

“Agreed. We’ll be much safer on Noble, especially through the canyon pass, but walking to Outskirt stable to get Snowdrop isn’t a terrible alternative.”

They casually walked down the stairs. Link nodded to Cado as they passed. The guard nodded back. They got maybe five more steps away before he made a startled noise and ran to catch up with them.

“Young master!” he hissed, “what are you doing out in the middle of the night with the uh, the Lady Flora!”

“Pardon us, Cado,” said Zelda, drawing upon her natural air of authority. “We urgently need to set out for Hateno before things worsen. Can you please assist us in mounting up?”

He hesitated. “Lady Impa did not say anything about—“

Zelda held up a hand, cutting him off. “Despite appearances,” she said, lowering her voice until it was impossible to overhear, “we are still ourselves. Wild cleared out Lanayru recently and we have Noble Pursuit to protect us. Please do not hinder us.”

Cado buckled quickly where Dorian would have stood firm. “Yes, Lady Flora.”

This was much better than she’d anticipated. The guard even helped to quickly re-saddle Noble, as her tack had only been partly removed. He lifted Zelda into the saddle while Link scaled up on his own.

“Thank you. We shall return when things are resolved,” Zelda said, nodding.

Cado bowed and hesitantly returned to his post. Zelda maintained her regal posture as Link spurred Noble into a calm trot out of the southwestern gate. As soon as they were out of sight, he moved her to a full canter. She blew out a relieved breath.

“They’ll never be able to follow us cross-country,” Link said confidently. “Relax. We’ll be at Gerudo Town in a few days.”

“Impa is going to be angry,” Zelda observed. “But I no longer have it in me to care. You asked what changed my mind. I was listening to the other heroes speak with Impa, and they said that they hadn’t been given a choice but to carry out their mission for the Goddess.”

Link was silent.

“Therefore,” she said fiercely, “I will not give them an option to drag you along!”

She could see a little smile slowly cross Link’s face. “As you wish, Princess.”

“Just this once, I will accept the title from you,” she said, smiling back. “By my authority as the Princess of Hyrule, they cannot have you!”

They rode on. Just as the path neared its end over Sahasra Slope, and the cliffs promised to give way to open hills, Zelda’s relief abruptly vanished beneath a cold chill of alarm. She gasped sharply—somehow, impossibly (very possibly, actually) the three heroes they’d evaded in the Lost Woods were walking into Kakariko down the very same path.

The men seemed equally startled by the sight of them.

“Oh no!” she cried, trying to think fast. She’d even had some level of warning after listening in on the others’ conversation with Impa earlier, and yet she’d neglected to make a contingency plan. “I—magnesis! Use magnesis like before!”

Link did not slow Noble down at all. He readied the slate, intent on throwing Twilight into his companions via his chainmail shirt and knocking them all out of the way of Noble’s heavy hooves. “They’re all heroes, they’ll be fine if we run them over a little bit,” he said tightly.

She grimaced, tightening her grip on him and bracing herself.

“Wild?! Hey, slow down!” Twilight called. Legend and Four went from startled to grimly resigned as they correctly identified Link and Zelda’s intent to run them over.

“Move or I’ll make you!” Link shouted back. He reached for Twilight with the magnesis rune.

“You asked for it, kid,” said Legend, just barely loud enough for them to hear.

Link seized Twilights chainmail and started to pull. 

Legend blurred forward at an impossible speed, jumped, and neatly snatched the slate from his hand.

Noble startled badly, rearing to a stop with a deafening bray. Zelda shrieked as both she and Link were tossed from the saddle, too small to keep their seats by the strength of their legs alone. Link twisted midair like a cat to make sure he took the impact of the fall and shielded her.

There was no need. The very same cause of their fall caught them both and eased them to the ground.

Link snarled like a wild animal and scrambled to locate the slate. Zelda did much the same, but it wasn’t in either of Legend’s hands. She tried to see if it was in the grass or on the path, but then the world tilted and she shrieked again. The grown hero stood with Link and Zelda tucked one under each of his arms like luggage.

“Are you done now?” he asked.

Link recovered from the shock much quicker. He met Zelda’s eyes from his very strange vantage point. “I promised you kicking and screaming,” he told her with nothing but pure spite in his voice, and proceeded to attempt to kick the living daylights out of the hero while screaming like a furious Lynel.

Since they were in this together, she joined right in.

Chapter Text

If Link had been alone, he wouldn’t have been nearly as furious as he was. Yeah, he still would have fought because that was what Zelda wanted, but it would have been a lot more calm and calculated. Unfortunately for everyone else he was not alone, and one of the strangers (shared hero’s spirit irrelevant) was touching Zelda.

The angry screaming was just for his own catharsis, but he was sincerely attempting to give pink-hair as many bruises as physically possible. Zelda was yelling too and squirming as much as she could. Neither of them made great headway getting free, but at least pink-hair was grimacing.

“Ugh! Twilight, get over here and take one!” he said, clamping his arms down tighter. Link contorted, but he wasn’t quite able to reach and sink his teeth into pink-hair’s arm. His efforts did not go unnoticed. “The brat is trying to bite me!” He quickly amended, “Both brats!”

Attagirl, Zelda.

Unfortunately, Link’s efforts backfired, as—

“MAMA!” Link wailed, “Rosie bit me!” Mom rushed over. “Rosie! Oh Link, what happened?” She said, quickly scooping up his little sister. “Do!” Rosie said accusingly. “Li do! Mean!” Link scowled at her. “No, I was just teaching her sword! I was being nice, mama!” Mom tutted. “My Little Knight, she’s too small. She’s not like you, she doesn’t want to learn sword yet. Just let her play with the cuccos.” He sulked. “Okay…”

He came back to the sound of yelling. “—DID YOU DO?!”

“I didn’t do anything!” said pink-hair. “He just went limp all of the sudden!”

Link stayed limp, trying to both process the new memory and make a strategy for how to grab Zelda and run. Pink-hair wasn’t holding him anymore. Someone else had him across their lap, he thought. He didn’t know where Zelda was. No good strategies presented themselves to him.

Stymied, he cracked his eyes open. Wolf-pelt had taken him sometime during the memory. Zelda watched from pink-hair’s arms, clearly worried. He didn’t blame her; he’d never gotten a memory back in the midst of combat. The need to ease her worry overrode anything else.

“The Knight-Commander had a daughter,” he murmured, silencing the grown heroes’ argument.

Zelda bit her lip and blinked rapidly. “Did he?”

He smiled even though he didn’t know what to feel. “Yeah. Her name was Rosie.”

Zelda didn’t look so upset anymore, exactly as he wanted. He attempted to squirm out of wolf-pelt’s grip and miraculously find a way to steal back the slate.

“I don’t think so, cub,” said wolf-pelt. He’d been kneeling, but he stood up. “What happened? Who’s the Knight-Commander?”

“None of your business. Stop touching her,” Link said to wolf-pelt and pink-hair respectively as he continued to attempt to force himself free. Sadly, even his unnatural six-year-old strength wasn’t a match for his grown-up counterpart.

“You just tried to murder us with that horse. You don’t get to make demands, tiny,” said pink-hair. Link mentally demoted him to ‘pinky.’

Zelda growled and attempted to punch him for the comment, bless her. Pinky easily avoided her tiny fist and got both her arms pinned to her side. “Put me down!” she demanded.

“No.”

“What were you doing riding off on your own?” sword-thief asked, likely in an attempt to head off another coordinated effort between Link and Zelda to deafen everyone. He was standing off to the side with Noble’s reins in hand.

“None of your business!” Link and Zelda chimed together. Zelda added, “If you would please put us down and be on your way, you will find your companions in the village. We are no concern of yours or theirs.”

“So you were running away from them,” said pinky.

“None of your business!”

Wolf-pelt looked both uncomfortable and resigned. “The last time we let you run off, Wild ended up unconscious and covered in blood. I know you hate us, but I can’t take seeing that again. Let’s get you back to Kakariko.” He nodded to his companions.

Link and Zelda exchanged a glance. Without the slate (or any idea where pinky had put the thing), they had no chance of running off and actually surviving. Scavenging up new weapons would be significantly harder as a six-year-old than as an amnesiac seventeen-year-old unleashed upon the Plateau.

She nodded to him. He nodded back.

They both resumed yelling at the top of their lungs and attempting bodily harm on their captors. It wouldn’t get them out of the situation, but it was better than nothing.

Some of the Sheikah and the other heroes met them halfway back, after Zelda had managed to bite pinky twice when he tried to get her to shut up and wolf-pelt had a nice sandal-print on his face while Link dangled upside-down from his arms. Sword-thief mostly just looked amused at their expense as he led Noble along.

One look at Dorian’s furious expression shut both Link and Zelda up. Paya followed close on his heels, eyes wide and worried.

“We should have just let Noble trample them,” Link opined.

“Agreed,” said Zelda with dread.

“What do you two think you’re doing?” Dorian said, just shy of seething. “Running off at night, alone?”

“We do not need babysitters to get to Hateno!” Zelda said, blithely skipping over the fact that they hadn’t been heading there at all.

Dorian confiscated both of them from Link’s counterparts, which was at least arguably an improvement. They both relaxed when he took them. “Do you take me for a fool?” he asked, calming down once he had a physical grip on them. “If you’d intended to go to Hateno, you would have taken the other gate.”

“See, that’s exactly why we didn’t,” said Link, and forced himself to stop there. Zelda was visibly impressed at his reasonable lie.

Banana man looked sleep-mussed, groggy, and vaguely wounded as he stood there with the Master Sword on his back. “Do you really hate us so much that you’d sneak away from Impa and Dorian just to avoid traveling with us for a few more days?”

Link and Zelda exchanged a glance.

“Yes!” “No...”

“We don’t need babysitters!” Link said loudly to try and cover up their lack of unified front. “I’ll prove it, let’s go see who can kill a Lynel faster, there’s one right—“

“I think this is a conversation better saved for tomorrow,” one-eye interjected. “Not the middle of the night and standing outside of the village.”

Dorian nodded. “Yes. Lady Impa will handle them much better than we can, regardless. Let’s go back and let everyone rest.”

“We don’t need to be handled!” Link protested, even though it was clearly too late to salvage the situation as everyone started walking. Dorian was placed in the middle of the group, probably to thwart any escape attempts.

Zelda took a different tack. “Fine,” she said coolly, “I will reason with Impa tomorrow. In the meantime, Dorian— that one has stolen our slate.” She pointed at pinky (aka ‘that one’).

Dorian glanced at pinky, who raised his brows in return. “…excellent work,” said the Sheikah.

“Dorian!”

“That being said,” he continued, ignoring Zelda’s outrage, “please return it to Paya. I’m afraid you cannot keep it.”

“Tch.” Pinky was smart enough to use one-eye as a visual shield so Link and Zelda couldn’t see where he retrieved it from. “Here.” Paya squeaked and blushed as she took it.

“Paya, give it back,” Zelda demanded, holding out a hand.

“Er…”

“You’ve both lost slate privileges until Impa says so,” Dorian said.

“That is patently unfair! It belongs to us!”

“Life is unfair and you are six,” Dorian said ruthlessly. “Go to sleep.”

Zelda fumed silently. Her two best counters—that she was a hundred and seventeen and that she was the Princess—were completely unusable in front of their current audience. Link gave up faster than she did and let his head fall against Dorian’s shoulder with a resigned sigh.

Part of him thought, very quietly in the back of his head, I don’t want to go. And—

“I don’t want to go,” Link said. Rosie was sobbing into his shirt. Dad was waiting outside with some of the Royal Guard. Mom was trying not to cry. “Oh Link—“ Her voice broke. “My baby, my Little Knight, you must.” She pried Rosie off of him and picked her up so that she couldn’t run back and cling again. “There is… no higher honor than to be chosen by the Goddess.” She said it, but her words ended in a stifled sob. “You will learn much at the castle and grow strong. I’m so proud of you.” Link understood that the anguish on her face was not something he could fix. She would only be burdened if he kept acting like a child. “Yes, ma-mother,” he stuttered, bowing. “I will… continue to make you proud.” The sacred sword on his back weighed heavy as he turned and left his home.

Zelda’s voice was frightened when he came back to himself. “Wild?”

He realized his face was wet and his eyes were burning. “The—“ He choked on his breath. “The—“ Carefully, carefully, since danger listened, and though he felt strange he still remembered that fact. Danger. Danger. “The Knight-Commander’s son didn’t want to go.” Zelda’s face blurred. “He didn’t want to. But he had to. I’m sorry.”

Zelda took his hand. The heroes murmured between themselves about his words. “I—I know,” she whispered. There was a fierce undercurrent to her words. She squeezed his hand. Not this time, she told him without words.

He couldn’t bring himself to believe her.

Zelda could see Link sliding back into the blank persona he’d worn a hundred years ago. She hated it, and it was all the invading heroes’ fault. Yes, sure, Link was finally able to remember his family and she thought that was wonderful, but he also seemed to be remembering the things that had driven him to absolute silence—and she couldn’t even talk to him about it! All she could do was hold his hand and watch silent, dead-eyed resignation settle over him.

“Flora,” Dorian murmured, “what’s going on?”

“Wild is recovering some lost memories because of them,” she said, unable to keep all of the anger from her voice. “They resemble the late Knight-Commander in various ways.”

“He lost memories?” Twilight asked in alarm.

Zelda glared. “I was not speaking to you.”

The hero backed off, raising his hands briefly in surrender. Dorian had a thoughtful frown on his face. “The late…” Realization dawned. “Oh.”

Link continued to stare blankly at nothing, even when both Dorian and Paya looked at him with open concern. Dorian sighed. “Wild. Go to sleep.”

Zelda hated the way he obeyed at once, though she too wanted him to sleep. Her bubbling anger at the goddess and the invading heroes grew until she had to grit her teeth and blink back tears. She wanted her friend, not the mindless automaton that he’d once appeared to be.

“Flora,” Paya said, soft and cautious. Her hands fidgeted anxiously in front of her. “Maybe… you should sleep too?”

The overwhelming and unseemly urge to throw a temper tantrum at the suggestion snapped Zelda back to rationality. She put a hand over her eyes and took a shuddering breath. “…y-yes. Okay.”

When she woke up tomorrow she would be able to think clearly again, and she would come up with a plan to get Link to safety.

This time, she would protect him before he got hurt.

Time had no idea what was going on with the children.

Oh, he had suspicions, to be sure, but every time he thought he’d figured it out, some new fact would arise to make him question his conclusions. He’d been sure they were the Hero and the Princess back with the Lynel, and he’d quickly grown suspicious that they might have gone forward and back in time the same way he had as a child. Their behavior and speech was an unsettling mix of childish and far too adult.

Then Wild had introduced the idea of time-traveling ancestors and he’d hesitated. Wild had been specific—Link and Zelda had died and somehow traveled forward a hundred years, to this ruined world. That didn’t explain anything about the children, but it did make him wonder what element of that story was true. The reports of Link he’d heard from the stable had fit Wild, but later it was made clear that the Hero was just a (short) adult, not a kid who only came up to Time’s hip. Same with the Princess.

He’d wondered if, perhaps, both things were somehow true at the same time.

Speaking with Impa had done little to clarify the situation. She was inscrutable and only gave them enough history to confirm some of what Wild had said (the Hero and the Princess really had fallen a hundred years prior and reappeared to seal away something called ‘Calamity’ Ganon just a month and a half ago ). She’d also told them she didn’t know where either of them were, but that their best chance of encountering them was by bringing the children safely to Kakariko.

The next time Time had seen the children, they were dressed in forest green as they sang and giggled and danced beneath the trees, like a vision from his childhood. He didn’t know what to think of that.

Then he learned that Wild had amnesia. Time tucked that fact away, though he didn’t know what it implied. Obviously the boy was a skilled combatant and had endured horrific injuries before. His face alone was testament to that. Injury, erratic behavior, a change in personality? He behaved like an adult, except for when he didn’t, but the same went for Flora.

So there were two distinct pairs to consider—the children and the grown-up Link and Zelda. Time strongly suspected the children were also named Link and Zelda, though whether that was after their genuine ancestors or not remained to be seen. Wild mentioned aliens, which was… not technically impossible. Time mostly ignored that particular tall tale, as it didn’t add to or take away from any theory in particular.

The children were used to assassins being after them, but not used to asking for adults to help—even when the adults were standing inches away and perfectly capable. The children were able to borrow Link’s horse (which bore an unsettling resemblance to Ganondorf’s, though ‘Noble Pursuit’ was obviously sweeter in temperament). Time didn’t know enough about how ‘Malanya’ operated to draw any conclusions from that.

The subsequent conversation with Flora, then the one with Impa, finally allowed him to settle on a tentative conclusion: there were, somehow, two Heroes and two Princess at the same time. The children seemed very, very aware of what their fate would have been without their great grandparents (they didn’t seem to have noticed that they’d accidentally begun to refer to them as their great great grandparents) miraculously returning. Wild had been visibly unsettled by, if not outright scared of the Master Sword. Flora had manners befitting a Princess. They clung to each other like they’d been raised to walk hand-in-hand to their deaths.

Perhaps that had been their deceased parents’ doing.

Time wondered at Hylia’s intention here. There had been no sign of the grown Hero yet. The eight of them had appeared in the ruins of the Temple of Time, perfectly situated to find Wild, not Link. Flora glared at them like they were about to steal her companion from her—and maybe they were, though not voluntarily. Did the Goddess intend for them to be joined by two Heroes? One who’d died, and one little one who’d been prepared as backup?

Time was certain he wouldn’t like the answer. At least that explained the children’s increasing hatred and fear of them. He closed his eyes as he listened to Flora pray before the goddess statue early the next morning.

“Goddess Hylia,” she said, soft enough that he could barely make out the words, “hear my prayer. If you want him, you’ll have to go through me first!” ’

Sometimes, he hated being right.

Chapter Text

Impa watched them silently from her cushions. Zelda met her eyes, challenging. Link kept his own eyes lowered, staring at the foot of the dais. It was just the three of them, and no one said anything for a long time.

Finally, Impa sighed. “You weren’t going to Hateno, were you?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Zelda said evenly.

“Link’s counterparts mean you no harm—“

“I am aware they mean no harm, thank you.”

Impa sat back slightly. She fell silent again, and neither Link nor Zelda broke that silence for her. “My dear friend,” Impa said softly after she’d finished considering the two of them, “I cannot help you if you don’t share your thoughts with me.”

Zelda struggled with herself for a long moment, lips pursed. Link continued to stare at the same spot. He’d forgotten how simple duty and obedience made everything. It wasn’t his job to speak or to think, so he didn’t. His fate, as always, would be decided by others.

“The Goddesses cannot have him this time,” Zelda finally said. “I will not allow it.”

“Zelda—“

“My name is Flora,” she returned coolly. “I am no Princess.”

Impa sighed again. “Flora, do you think I want Link to be sent off so soon, much less as he is and as you are? The reason I asked those boys to escort you was for your own safety. Regardless of what you choose, you’re both in much more danger than Purah ever was until she reverses the rune.”

That was a useful reminder. Link definitely needed to make sure Zelda got back to full size before he had to go.

“We managed to travel to Korok Forest and back perfectly fine on our own,” Zelda countered.

Impa gave her a look. “Did you? Because from what Dorian told me, Wild has another fatal scar to add to his collection.”

“That—!” Zelda stopped herself abruptly. The anger faded as she became purely serious. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you, did I? You noticed the Blood Moon here, no doubt. Wild and I were riding past the castle when it crested. We encountered a resurrected Blight.” Impa drew in a sharp breath; Zelda nodded. “Yes. It was… less specific than the blights Wild defeated, but it was close enough in form and function for me to name it as such.”

Impa frowned. “Less specific?”

Zelda nudged Link. “You saw it up close.”

He raised his eyes to meet Impa’s. She seemed relieved, but only for a moment. “It was clumsy,” he said. “Cobbled-together from scraps lying around instead of made to kill an individual Champion. You’re right, it did harm me. I was unprepared and inadequate to meet it head-on.” He traced a finger down his chest to illustrate where it had sliced into him. “It didn’t look exactly like malice, but it burned through my blood in a very similar way. I died quickly.”

Impa’s jaw clenched at his words. Link returned his gaze to the base of the dais. Any judgment of his failure was irrelevant to his duty. He already knew how inadequate he was.

“The sensor towers would have reactivated if Calamity Ganon had returned. The blight’s resurrection must have something to do with why Link’s ancient counterparts are here,” Impa murmured.

“And they can handle it on their own,” Zelda declared, arms crossed. “Eight of my Knight are surely more than enough to handle any challenge. They do not need a ninth!”

“I am not suited to the task,” Link agreed blankly.

Impa didn’t try to argue with them. “…Link,” she said quietly. He looked up again. Her eyes were knowing. “Every hero is chosen for a reason. You have never been any different.”

He held her gaze for a moment before he couldn’t bear it anymore and hid behind his bangs. What reason? he wondered. He’d studied all available history, myth, and legend of his title at the castle when he’d been chosen by the Master Sword. None of his role models had failed the way he had.

“Yes, Impa,” he said.

The old Sheikah sighed yet again. “You are both tired. You need rest.”

“Yes, Impa.”

“I will back up your lies, whatever they might be, and send our visitors out to clear the region. After the Blood Moon and what you encountered, there is no telling what kinds of monsters have reappeared.”

“A lot of golds,” Link murmured. His hand twitched for a sword to go out and clear the roads again, but… he was six. And there were more capable men to do his job. “I should warn them about the blight.”

“Don’t concern yourself. I will tell them in detail about the Calamity’s creations,” Impa said gently. “My dear, dear friends, I cannot contest the gods, but I am on your side. Please trust me. Rest for now and consider my council.”

Zelda looked a little bit ashamed of herself. “Alright. I… apologize. I did not mean to insult you.”

Impa softened even more. “I’m not insulted. I understand, Zelda. Truly.”

Zelda flushed and got up, mounting the dais so she could embrace her old friend. Impa’s hat clattered as she returned the embrace.

“Link?”

He looked up. Zelda gestured for him to come to her, so he stood up and did so. When she dragged him into the hug, he grunted in surprise. Impa’s affection belonged to Zelda, not him.

And yet, Impa hugged both of them with the same fierce Sheikah strength. “It will be alright, Link,” she said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Which felt like—

They kept reviving him, pulling him back from death the moment he stepped into it—force the heart to beat, force the lungs to breathe, force the soul to stay tethered by a single thread. What that really meant was that he died over and over as they raced his ruined body to the Plateau. Purah worked frantically. Sheikah guards shouted that they were running out of time to save him. The inside of the shrine lit up just as he was slipping away again. It felt like something seized his very soul in iron jaws and clamped down hard. He didn’t die again; it wouldn’t let him. Purah leaned over the basin as it began to fill with warm, magic-saturated water. “It’ll be alright, Linky,” she said in a trembling voice, hugging him as best as she could. “I’ll make sure of it. You sleep for a bit and then we’ll see each other again soon, okay?”

He came back on Paya’s bed to Dorian and Zelda’s frightened expressions. His breath burned in his throat. Important truths reasserted themselves and he cursed himself for forgetting them. 

His duty was to Zelda first, and he’d already slept too much.

Zelda forced Link to stay in bed until after he’d drunk a whole cup of hot tea and his pulse had returned to normal. His explanation of which memory he’d recovered (a memory that had made him stop breathing for a minute) was far too curt.

“I remembered Purah putting me in the shrine, that’s all.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. She was glad that some of the fire in his eyes was back, but there was a quality to it that made her nervous. “I’m sorry, I’m fine now. Some of these memories are a little much, but that’s no excuse. We need to make a plan.”

Zelda sat back and looked at him incredulously. “Make a—Link, you need to rest!”

He squeezed her hand. Both of their palms were sweaty from holding on for so long, but she refused to let go. “I’ve rested enough. We need to get to Purah so she can reverse the rune. You’re too vulnerable like this.”

Something clicked in her mind at his words. “Is this about the hundred years you spent in the shrine?”

His face turned perfectly blank at her words. He said nothing.

“Link!” she cried, upset. “We’ve talked about this! It wasn’t your fault, you literally died protecting me!”

“It wasn’t your fault either,” he said quickly, as this argument always went.

“Well, fine!” she said instead of arguing the point. “And it’s not either of our faults that the goddess is trying to steal you now!”

“I know,” he said, eyes on the blankets that covered his lap. “But… Zelda, I don’t think I’ll be able to refuse.”

She felt her eyes prickle. “You’re not even going to try?”

“I am!” he protested. “I am! My duty is to you first, and that means I have to make sure you’ll be okay even if… I’m gone.”

“Do not say that as if you are going to die!” she snapped.

“I’m not,” he said firmly. “I will come back to you, no matter what. I just think… I won’t be able to stop them. Especially once I get back to my full size.” He looked back down again. “Impa and Dorian are right. I can’t protect you like this.”

She heard what was unsaid: I couldn’t even protect you when I wasn’t like this.

“So you’re going to yield? Allow those men to drag us to Purah and then take you from me?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what will happen after we get to Hateno. I just want you to be safe.”

Zelda felt like her heart would break for her stupid, stupid friend. “Oh, Link…” She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed hard. After a moment, he squeezed back. “I won’t let them have you. I refuse.”

He sighed into her shoulder. “I don’t know why they want my help,” he muttered. “None of them had things turn out this badly.”

“Stop disparaging yourself.”

“Yeah, you first. I bet if we told them they would—“ He stopped abruptly.

She pulled away enough to see his face. “Link?”

“Hey, why don’t we tell them? They don’t want Link. He’s a terrible hero, can’t help them at all.”

Zelda’s temper flared hotly. “That is not—!”

He arched his brows at her.

“...true,” she finished weakly. “But… I suppose… they don’t need to know that…”

“They don’t.” He took her hands from his shoulders and squeezed them. “I don’t need them to. It’s enough if you believe in me, Zelda.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “It certainly does not seem that way.”

“I mean when I’m your Knight. When everyone is looking for a Hero like the ones who are out there, it feels… different. I don’t belong in—nevermind.”

Zelda certainly understood his hesitation. There were times, more often than not, that she felt like she shouldn’t be counted among the ranks of her predecessors. She was the failed Princess who had never once gotten the spirits to speak with her, even when the world was teetering on the brink of, and ultimately fell into, total destruction.

But Link was not a failed hero. The only reason he’d even fallen was because he had to compensate for her failure—her lack of compassion and empathy and wisdom. Because she knew after that day on Blatchery Plain that dry and desperate prayer had never been the answer. The sacred light in her was not intellectual. The power to wield it had always been rooted in her love for her people and her Knight.

What deep irony that the first spirit she’d heard had been from his sword, the one that she despised so deeply.

“You do belong among their ranks,” Zelda said fiercely. “My brave Knight who endured alone through death itself, you belong just as much as any of them. Yet still I say, they cannot have you! And if lying is what it takes, then we shall lie more.”

He smiled faintly and leaned forward to press their foreheads together. “I told you, I’m not giving up. We should go visit Riju once we’re back to normal.”

“Yes.” She let her eyes close, basking in his presence. “I wonder what she would have said to see us this way.”

“Probably laughed at us for being even smaller than her.”

“Oh certainly. We’re barely knee-height to Buliara.”

Link burst out laughing and fell over onto the mattress. Zelda grinned, pleased with herself for snapping him out of it, and joined him.

Link and Zelda crouched together on the deck of Impa’s house and peered down through the railing. The heroes were returning to the village after a long day of doing Link’s job.

“Which one would be easiest to convince?” Zelda pondered.

“Pinky,” Link said without hesitation, pointing to make sure she knew which one he meant. “He already hates us.”

“I did bite him twice,” Zelda agreed, cheered up by that fact. “Hmm, who would be the hardest to convince?”

“Banana man.”

She giggled in surprise. “Banana man? Which one is that?”

“Sky. You know, because I hit him in the face with those Mighty Bananas.”

She laughed again, loud enough to draw some attention. “Oops,” she said, ducking behind a railing post.

“One-eye is medium convincible,” Link continued. “I think he’d believe us but then try to ‘improve’ Link. He reminds me of m—of the Knight-Commander, a little.”

“We should start with Legend, then. He can convince his companions that Link is a lost cause. I get the feeling that he’s very persuasive when he wants to be.”

“Agreed.” They high-fived.

Impa still hadn’t given the slate back (she was entirely correct in her assessment that they would run off alone to the Plateau and/or run off to fight everything in sight just to prove they could), so they were allowed to run around the village as much as they wanted without Dorian or Cado or Paya following them. They took advantage now and scampered hand-in-hand down the stairs. The heroes looked at them with mixed expressions as they approached.

“Excuse me, Legend,” Zelda said with way more politeness than he deserved. “May we speak with you for a moment?”

The young man eyed them. “No,” he said.

“I’ll make you all dinner,” said Link.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said immediately. “We can talk. Are you going to try and bite me again?”

“I promise I won’t bite you a third time,” Zelda said, sweet as pie.

He eyed them again, obviously questioning his own decision. “…what will you make for dinner, tiny?”

“Gourmet meat curry with fruit tarts for dessert,” Link enticed.

“Alright. Talk, what do you want?”

“Not here,” said Zelda. “We only want to talk to you.”

He followed them willingly enough up to the shrine above the village and took a seat on the platform. Link and Zelda stood on the grass, which put them near eye level with him. “What’s so important that you stopped glaring at us like we murdered your dog and used your words instead?”

Link and Zelda exchanged a glance. “We thought we’d warn you,” said Zelda.

“About?”

“You don’t want Link on your mission,” Link said passionately, gesturing with his arms. “He’s a terrible hero! He dies all the time.”

A funny look crossed pinky’s face. “What?”

“Yes, he is a questionable choice,” said Zeld with much less enthusiasm. “He’s distractible and wanders off at the drop of a hat. Zelda had to yell at him before he learned to tell her where he was going. And he hunts the most dangerous things when he’s bored.”

“Which is reckless and not at all courageous!” Link quickly clarified. “He gets hurt a lot! And he’s really really busy with Zelda so it’ll be hard to drag him off.”

“And he’s not used to fighting in teams anymore, he’s spent so long alone,” Zelda added.

“He accidentally blows himself up all the time!”

Zelda really started to get into the spirit of it. “And shocks himself because he forgets how big the radius of his electric arrows are!”

“And falls off cliffs because he forgot they were there!”

“And he eats anything he can get in his mouth, which is revolting.”

“And gets kicked by horses because he just wanted to pet them even though they’re wild!”

“And he likes to get to locations by going in a straight line, even if that means he has to climb over a whole mountain, which is terribly inefficient!”

“Did I mention he dies all the time? That’s terrible and very failure… ful. Failureful. Full of failure.”

Zelda side-eyed him. “Wild, that’s not a word.”

“I don’t have a better one,” said Link with a shrug.

Pinky pinched the bridge of his nose. “Stop, stop, both of you stop talking.” He took a breath and looked at Link over the line of his knuckles. “What do you mean he dies all the time?”

Link blinked at the hero. “I mean he dies a lot. It’s pretty straightforward, really.”

“And he… comes back?”

“Well yeah, he doesn’t stay dead. Otherwise he couldn’t keep doing it.” Duh.

“Right.” Pinky lowered his hand. Link shifted uneasily, because this wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting. “Wild, can I see the scar you got running away from us?”

“…huh?”

“Can I see the scar you got on your chest?”

“Uh, no,” said Link, backing up a step. He was a little creeped out. What did the scar have to do with anything?

“Why are you asking?” Zelda asked suspiciously. She put her arm up in front of Link protectively.

“What’s the point of telling you if the answer is no?” Pinky frowned, but it wasn’t in the way either of them had anticipated. “Is that all you wanted me to know?”

“…yes,” said Zelda slowly.

“Great. Thank you for the information.” He stood up and dusted off his tunic. “Now let’s go back. You owe me some curry, kid.”

To their surprise, he held out his hands, as if he was inviting them to hold hands with him as they walked back. Link and Zelda stepped back, pressing close to each other and eyeing him distrustfully. He shrugged at their refusal and started walking back. Uneasy, they followed.

Link wondered if they’d just made some kind of mistake.

Chapter Text

Link couldn’t cook without the slate (it had all his utensils and ingredients), so he and Zelda quickly split off from pinky and ran for the stairs back into Impa’s house.

“You’d better not be skipping out on your promise!” pinky called after them, although he didn’t sound all that concerned. Link turned around enough to stick his tongue out before they ran up the stairs. 

“We may,” Zelda muttered to him, “have miscalculated slightly.”

“Slightly,” he muttered back, frowning. He closed the door behind them.

Impa looked up from writing a letter as they approached. “Hello Wild, Flora. What do you need from me?”

“I need the slate to make dinner for them,” said Link, holding out a hand.

Impa narrowed her eyes at him slightly. He smiled with nothing but pure innocence.

“Call Dorian in first. You can have it while he supervises.”

“What if I promise I won’t go fight a Lynel if you leave us unsupervised?”

Impa just stared at him until he started fidgeting, guilty for something he hadn’t even done… but definitely would have. “Yeah, okay, I’ll go get Dorian.”

Impa handed the slate off to Dorian, who in turn negotiated with Link and Zelda about its use. They settled on Zelda holding it while he carried her. She would retrieve supplies for Link at his request, and if either of them tried to teleport away they would have Dorian attached to them—which is to say, they would not be teleporting to the Plateau.

Link only sulked a little bit about nobody trusting them, considering they were absolutely right not to. It would have been a short Lynel fight, they might not even have noticed his absence!

They’d barely even reached the communal kitchen before Koko seemed to materialize beside them. “Koko will help Wild!” she said, hopping in place. She was perfectly happy accepting ‘Wild’ as a weird new playmate form of Link. He didn’t actually know if she understood he was the same person. “Koko will help make dinner!”

“Chef Koko will be very helpful,” he agreed, smiling. “We’re cooking a big meal, enough for thirteen people!”

And honestly, Koko was very helpful. She knew which ingredients were which and how to do basic prep work. While Zelda sat in Dorian’s lap and pulled things from the slate, Link and Koko whipped up a huge batch of gourmet meat curry. The heroes started to drift over in groups of two or three, and all were present by the time they started baking the fruit tarts.

Pinky had definitely said something to them, because they were, without exception, looking at Link strangely. So strangely, in fact, that he actually hid himself from view behind Dorian once he’d finished dishing out the food. He wouldn’t have been able to enjoy his food if everyone was looking at him. Cottla, bless her sweet little soul, sat down with him to eat instead of squeezing in beside Zelda on her dad’s lap.

Link sulked as he shoveled curry into his mouth. All he and Zelda had done was explain how weird Link was! He’d been so sure pinky would be on board with trashing a bad hero, but apparently not. Couldn’t these heroes just be normal for long enough to be wildly misled by his variously outrageous and plausible lies?

Link made the mistake of peering out from behind Dorian once his bowl was empty. About half of the group was already looking in his direction, and the other half snapped their eyes over at the slight movement of his head from behind Dorian’s back. Link was only a little ashamed of the ‘eep!’ that escaped him as he retreated. Having the weird attention of eight legendary heroes all at once would be a lot for anyone to handle.

“Hey, Wild,” said wolf-pelt in a friendly voice. “Can I talk to you—”

“Well,” Zelda said loudly, interrupting him, “lovely meal, time for bed, let’s go, here Dorian you can give this back to Impa.” She scrambled down from Dorian’s lap without the slate and seized Link’s hand. Instead of going down the stairs in front of everyone, they vaulted straight over the railing behind him.

“Wait, kids—!”

They sprinted all the way back to the safety of Paya’s room, startling both her and Impa as they thundered up the stairs and threw themselves onto the bed. For a moment they both just laid there silently, face-down.

“….I think we more than slightly miscalculated,” Zelda finally said, muffled.

Link blindly punched a pillow. “Why are they so… weird!”

Zelda rolled over onto her back, squishing Link’s shoulder down beneath her upper back. “Well. They are Links. And you are kind of…”

“But they’re not supposed to be!” he protested. “Besides, I’m not weird like that.”

“I mean… you are a little bit.”

He turned his face enough to give the side of her head a betrayed look. “Whose side are you on?”

“Nevermind, you’re the pinnacle of normalcy,” she recanted dryly. 

He poked her. She poked back. It devolved into a wrestling match, which she won by cheating and blowing a raspberry against his vulnerable neck. He laughed, squashed underneath her, and didn’t mind the underhanded tactics so much.

“I think we can still salvage this,” he said once he’d caught his breath.

“Oh?” She rolled off of him.

“Yeah. I think I was wrong earlier. Banana man really seems to have a strong bond with the Master Sword, which means he’ll probably doubt anyone like me. Sword-thief, wolf-pelt, and pinky all saw her sleeping in the pedestal again, so they can confirm that I… that uh, she needs a lot of time to recover after I used her to defeat the Calamity.”

“It’s not your fault that her power wasn’t enough,” Zelda said firmly, but her frown was thoughtful. “Hm. That being said, I think you’re right. The common thread between them is shared swordsmanship. Surely a Link who is hypothetically not best in that regard shouldn’t be taken along on this mission.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t think there was anything false in what he was planning to say, but that was his business. Zelda couldn’t argue with him if it ended up being the reason they didn’t get split up.

“What shall we do if this is a miscalculation as well?”

Link drummed his fingers thoughtfully on his forearm. “…finish the kid-sized stealth armor sets and sneak off to Gerudo Town?”

He could hear the smile in her voice. “Perfect.”

Of course, they couldn’t put their brilliant plan into action the next morning, because Link’s counterparts were once again sent out into the Necluda region to continue clearing out monsters. Link and Zelda themselves spent the morning sewing clothes that actually fit them. Both were experienced hands at mending damaged clothes, though Zelda was undoubtedly better. When it came to actually fitting anything though, Link was hopeless and just sewed the lines Zelda marked.

They were both tired of sewing by the time their basic armor refitting was done and they each had a usable travel outfit again. Zelda flopped back and sprawled out across the floor. Late afternoon sunlight spilled over her hair and warmed her face.

“…I want to go swimming,” she said, massaging her hand.

“Me too,” said Link without hesitation, even though she was fairly certain he hadn’t been thinking about it until she said something. “Let’s go.”

They stripped down to their Sheikah pants and went outside. The pool around Impa’s house was a little too ambitious for their six-year-old statures, but neither Link nor Zelda felt any compunctions about splashing the goddess statue as they paddled around in her pool instead. Link was entertained for about half an hour before he floated on his back and stared up at the sky, bored.

Zelda swam over to him, knowing exactly why he was bored and how to fix it. “You know, I once watched Mipha swim up a waterfall with Sidon on her back.”

Immediately, she saw a spark of interest in his eye. “You’re a lot bigger than baby Sidon,” he pointed out mildly.

“Yeah,” she agreed with a challenging smile.

“And the Zora armor fits Link, not me.”

“I know.” She waited expectantly. It only took another thirty seconds before he was scrambling out of the water excitedly.

“Come on, we’ll go get it from Impa and try on the waterfalls behind the house!”

Impa looked a little dubious when they (while dripping all over her floors) asked for the Zora armor, but she knew perfectly well that ‘swimming up waterfalls’ was a much safer pastime than ‘recreational Lynel hunting.’ She allowed Link to retrieve it from the slate and even helped them belt it to his tiny form so that it wouldn’t fall off. Then Link and Zelda raced outside again and leaped into the much deeper pool around her house.

“Hold on tight!” Link said, helping Zelda over to the base of the waterfall. He treaded water while she locked her arms around his neck.

“Go!” she said.

He swam forward a little more. Zelda held her breath and felt the magic kick in under her palms. Link surged upward, leaping through the water in defiance of all Hylian limitations. It was exhilarating, though she didn’t dare to laugh or open her eyes. Together, they burst from the top of the waterfall in an arcing spray.

Zelda laughed in delight, watching rainbows refract out from the droplets as they reached the apogee of their jump and began to fall back.

Link whooped. “YEAH!” 

Then he flailed and yelped. “The paraglider is in the slate!”

Zelda’s eyes widened. Oops.

They fell back into the pool together with undignified screams.

Dorian was in the water before they even resurfaced, spluttering. He grabbed them both. “Are you hurt?” he demanded, hair plastered to his face. His hat had been knocked off and floated forlornly beside him.

“We’re fine!” Link said. His smile was already back. “It wasn’t that high. But we need the slate for the paraglider.”

“No, no more,” said Dorian sternly, pulling them toward the edge of the pool. “If we allowed that, you would run off and get hurt again.”

“We won’t!” Zelda said, pleading. “Please, Dorian, Wild is getting bored!” The older Sheikah pushed her to climb out, and she complied since they needed to retrieve the slate anyway. “You don’t want to deal with Wild when he’s bored.”

Dorian groaned in the back of his throat.

“What if I took out all the weapons?” Link proposed, climbing much faster than Zelda and reaching down to help her up. He helped Dorian too, since the guard hadn’t exactly been dressed for this.

Dorian didn’t look particularly compelled.

“We’ll take out all his favorite cooking utensils and spice collection too,” Zelda proposed. Link gasped. She elbowed him.

“Hm. You’ve persuaded me,” Dorian said. “You can have the slate while you’re playing. Leave the weapons and cooking supplies with Lady Impa.”

“Okay!” Zelda said. Link said it too, but with much less enthusiasm. Sometimes she wondered if he loved his cooking supplies more than he loved his many, many, many swords.

The Sheikah got to see firsthand exactly how many swords he hoarded. “Goddess, child,” Impa muttered once Link had finally finished piling up his weapons in every corner of the ground floor. He grinned proudly at her and seized Zelda’s hand so they could run back outside and resume playing.

And play they did, shrieking and laughing as they went up the waterfalls and floated back down on the paraglider over and over. When that had ceased to amuse them, they started landing on the grass next to the waterfall and taking turns diving into the water below. Zelda was too nervous to do anything daring, but Link tried to put as many flips and turns into his dives as he could.

The heroes came back just as he graduated to doing three back handsprings over the edge of the cliff and twisting into his dive.

“GO, WILD, GO!” Zelda yelled, treading water as she held the Sheikah slate up to take pictures. A chorus of startled exclamations nearby made her jolt, snapping the picture later than she’d intended. Link entered the water with a splash, and she lifted her chin out of the way of the resulting wave. As soon as she was sure he was fine, she looked up and over her shoulder.

Twilight and Sky were right at the railing along the edge of the pool, gripping the wood beams tightly. Their eyes were wide, although they calmed as soon as Link resurfaced with a joyful hoot.

“Hello,” Zelda said awkwardly.

“Oh, it’s you,” said Link. And then, quieter, “oh shoot.” He ducked under the water as much as he could without inhaling any and awkwardly paddled over to her like a frog. He reached for the slate.

“H-hi kids,” Sky said. He exhaled. “Didn’t uh… didn’t realize there was such a deep pool down here.”

Zelda felt a pang of sympathy when she realized that he thought they’d been jumping down a sheer cliff onto solid ground. Link’s armor briefly flashed blue as he put it away in the slate. She deduced that he must not have wanted them to see it, especially since it was clearly adult-sized. Telling them it was his ‘great great grandfather’s’ would only raise unnecessary questions.

“Yes, it’s quite deep,” she said conversationally, trying to keep their attention on her.

“That’s neat.”

They stared at each other. Most of their companions joined them in staring down from the railing with various expressions.

“So… are you going to keep jumping?”

Zelda glanced at Link. He vigorously shook his head. “No. We’re done.”

“Oh, great,” said Sky with poorly-concealed relief. “Do you need help getting out?”

“No, thank you.”

Even though she said that, the heroes still helped them over the fence once they’d climbed the stone walls back up to the grass. Link shooed their hands away and planted himself in front of her, hands on hips.

“You can g—“ Link cut off abruptly and went stiff. Zelda realized every single one of his counterparts was staring right at the patchwork of scars on his bare torso. Her stomach dropped. She grabbed his hand and lurched into a sprint back to the shelter of Impa’s home.

It was very unsettling to her that the heroes let them go without a word of protest.

Chapter Text

The children ran away again, frightened by the fact that they’d unintentionally allowed the group to see the full extent of Wild’s scarring. Twilight’s voice caught in his throat; no one else called for the kids to come back either. They’d gotten the proof (or at least most of it) that they were looking for after Legend had relayed his conversation with the children.

Twilight’s cursory examination of Wild when he’d been unconscious hadn’t prepared him for the full extent of the boy’s scarring. The strange, blotchy burn scarring that glanced across his little face carried on down his arm and torso. Most of it was concentrated on his dominant side. That was bad enough, but the fresh scar down the center of his chest was wider and deeper than Twilight had thought even when he’d seen all the blood and the ripped tunic firsthand.

What had Wild fought that night, alone by the castle?

“There was an exit wound.”

Twilight blinked, comprehending Hyrule’s words slowly. “What?”

“Oh his back,” Hyrule murmured. The children’s bare feet pattered up the wooden stairs. Flora slipped near the top from their frantic pace, but Wild caught her. They disappeared inside Impa’s home. “There was an exit wound scar as fresh as the one on his chest. Someone impaled him.”

Twilight’s stomach lurched.

He really hated it when Legend was right.

Paya brought them towels. They sat together on the floor of her room, bundled up morosely rather than actively drying themselves.

“Ugh,” said Link, shivering. “Why do they care about seeing my scars anyway? Isn’t my face enough?”

“I think it’s a little more specific than that,” Zelda said. “Impa and the Great Deku Tree both backed our story, but I don’t think your counterparts fully believe that we are not, somehow, still Link and Zelda.”

Something clicked in the back of Link’s mind. “And we told pinky that Link dies but doesn’t stay dead.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “They were looking for proof of fatal wounds.”

“Perhaps.”

He scowled. “Well—no! I refuse to yield. I am not Link, and gramps is a terrible hero, and they should all go away and leave us alone!”

“Agreed,” Zelda said, unhappy. “If they believe you are the person they’re looking for and yet still want to take you after everything they’ve seen, then I think our best hope lies in convincing Sky that you are unsuited to the Master Sword.” She narrowed her eyes at him when he nodded in agreement. “Which is not true, just so we are clear.”

“Crystal, Your Highness.”

She bapped him over the head with the edge of her towel. “You stop that.”

They both stiffened when they heard the door downstairs open. Dorian entered. “Lady Impa,” he said quietly, but not quiet enough that they couldn’t listen in. “Our guests are asking to speak with the children.”

Already? Zelda mouthed, scowling. Link scowled too. They’d been better about giving them space before.

“I see,” Impa said calmly. “Why is that?”

“They would like to know who gave Wild his scars.”

Link swore creatively and blinked away a memory—it was brief and light, but he suddenly recalled the faces of the young noble knights who’d gleefully taught him their best swear words while dad hadn’t been listening.

Zelda had a hand over her mouth, scandalized. He must not have ever employed that particular bit of knowledge where she could hear.

“—ask them,” said Impa.

“Of course.” Dorian came up the stairs and poked his head in. He arched a brow at them, fully aware that they had been listening in the whole time. “Well?”

Link and Zelda exchanged a glance. “What about banana man?” Link proposed. “We can kill two bokoblins with one stone.”

Zelda rolled her eyes a little bit. “That’s not how the idiom goes, Link. But, if we are going to speak to anyone then I suppose he’s the best choice.”

Dorian stared at them. “Banana man?”

“Sky,” Link clarified. “I smacked him in the face with some Mighty Bananas because I thought he was a Yiga the first time we met.” He made a vigorous arm motion to illustrate his throwing technique.

“Snrk,” said Dorian. He turned his head away and coughed. “I see.”

“You may allow Sky and only Sky to come here and speak with us,” Zelda said, regally lifting her bedraggled head from her towel cocoon.

“Perhaps after you have dressed and returned everything to the slate?” Dorian suggested pointedly.

“Oh, yes.” She blushed. “Of course.”

It took about half an hour, but Link and Zelda removed the many, many, many weapons and cooking supplies from downstairs, then changed back into their Sheikah clothing (with new, dry pants, of course). Zelda offered a warning as she pressed the slate into Impa’s weathered hands.

“Impa,” she said, “we are going to be saying some very upsetting things, but it is necessary. Please do not take it too seriously if you overhear.”

Impa nodded and tucked the slate away. “I will keep that in mind,” she said noncommittally.

Zelda took a seat on the bed with perfect posture as they waited for Dorian to bring their next target. Link stood on the floor, just to her side. Even without a weapon, he still needed to reassure himself by standing guard for her. Zelda only huffed at him a little bit and scooted closer, so that the edge of her knee pressed against his hip.

They listened as Dorian escorted banana man in. The hero paused to speak with Impa, and Link could hear the smile in his voice. “Thank you for letting me talk to them, Impa.”

“Don’t thank me, young man. It’s the children who agreed to speak with you.”

“Right.”

Link crossed his arms over his chest when banana man finally entered Paya’s room. The older hero smiled at them like they were skittish foals he desperately wanted to pet ( relatable, thought Link). He snagged Paya’s cushion from her desk and sat on it on his knees with a fair distance between himself and them. “Hey, kids. Thanks for talking to me.”

“Actually, we already wanted to talk to you,” said Zelda.

His smile got a little bit more hopeful. “Oh? Of course you can talk to me, any time you want.”

“We wanted to warn you,” said Link.

Banana man’s smile became significantly less hopeful. He opened his mouth, but Link quickly kept talking.

“You don’t want Link on your mission. He wielded the Master Sword, but his spirit wasn’t heroic enough to keep her strong and she broke the day he died. He had to let her sleep in the pedestal for a hundred years and then she almost killed him when he tried to draw her again.”

Banana man’s eyes got wider and wider with each word. He looked utterly stricken. “...what?”

“Ahem,” said Zelda, reluctant and uncomfortable. “Yes, that is the case. And even once he’d returned to draw her again, he also had to take on additional trials to give her sufficient power.”

“In his underpants,” Link muttered. “Again.”

Zelda elbowed his thigh. “Shh, that’s not relevant,” she muttered back.

“I don’t know, I feel like it’s very relevant.”

“And,” Zelda said, forcefully moving them past Link’s gripes about the monks’ obsession with stealing all his gear, “once the Calamity was sealed, he again had to return her to the pedestal so she could recover. He is not a good candidate for any new mission.”

Link nodded decisively.

The sacred sword on banana man’s back chimed. Both Link and Zelda flinched. “…Wild,” the better Hero said, soft and alarmingly heartbroken, “is that why you’re so scared of the Master Sword?”

Link blinked at him. “What? I’m not—er, anyone who’s not the Hero or the Princess should be scared to touch the sacred sword, so what does that matter— I mean—no I’m not scared!” He impulsively stomped his foot, which was startling even to himself. “Wait a minute, we’re talking about Link, not me!”

“Are you sure we’re not talking about both of you?” banana man asked.

Link didn’t know what to make of that. Neither did Zelda. “…I beg your pardon?” she asked, mystified. Had they figured out that Link and Wild were one and the same? It didn’t sound like it, but…

“Are you sure that you and Link don’t both have the hero’s spirit?”

Woah. Link’s jaw dropped a little bit. How had they gotten to that conclusion? There couldn’t be two chosen heroes, unless it was like how banana man was here thanks to time-travel… shenanigans…

Oops. Yeah, Link had set them up for that one, hadn’t he?

“No way,” said Link, uncomfortable. If there were two, they might decide to take the smaller and more moldable one instead of the older one he was deliberately trash-talking. “I’m not like Gramps. What kid wouldn’t be excited to hold the sacred sword if they knew they were chosen for it? I’m only, uh, sensibly apprehensive because I’m definitely not.”

Banana man looked sad. He took the Master Sword from his back, scabbard and all, and held it across his knees. “You don’t have to be excited, Wild. She’s my best friend, but it’s a big responsibility to take her up and be the hero. Big and scary.” It almost looked like he was about to cry, which made Link’s skin crawl and his stomach flip for reasons he didn’t fully grasp. “Especially when… you’re too little to be ready for it.”

And, oh—

“Dad?” Link asked, suddenly frightened he’d done something wrong. He thought dad would be excited to see the sacred sword in his arms. The tree spirit had told him how important it was and how needed Link was. But now, the tree spirit’s muted sorrow was echoed tenfold in dad’s devastated expression. “No—“ dad choked out, falling to his knees even though that splashed mud all over his armor and royal livery. “No!” Link almost took a step back when dad reached for him, weeping. “Dad?” he asked again in a small voice. Dad gripped his arms, careful not to touch the sword, and pressed his face into Link’s shoulder. “Goddess, please,” he said, shuddering. His tears soaked into Link’s tunic and through his light chainmail. “Not this. Not my son. Oh merciful Hylia, anyone but my little boy. He’s not ready.”

This time, Link tore himself out of the memory. He didn’t want to remember more. That was enough.

He was on the floor, on his hands and knees, unable to catch his breath. Tears dripped over his knuckles. Maybe it was because he’d forcibly ended the memory, but the fear his younger self had been feeling still gripped him like a vise. What did I do wrong, dad? Tell me how to fix it. I’ll train harder.

“—ld! Wild! Please answer me! Wild!”

He opened his mouth to speak, but what came out was a choked sob. His elbow buckled. He would have fallen onto his side had someone not caught him. Zelda touched his face, but Sky was the one who’d kept him from falling.

“Wild?” Zelda’s eyes were as frightened as he felt. He wanted to explain. She needed him to explain. But when he tried to speak, all that he could manage was an anguished moan. She made a helpless noise in return and crowded close, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Wild.”

Link shuddered and sobbed into her shoulder, unable to stop. It alarmed him, the way he couldn’t make his past self’s fear go away. He’d made another mistake. He didn’t know how to fix this one.

What did I do wrong, dad? I’ll train harder. I’ll be better. Tell me how.

“Let’s get you off the floor,” Sky murmured. Link had already forgotten he was there, even though he was lying half across the hero’s lap. “It’s okay.” He lifted them up onto the bed. “I’m going to go get someone for you, alright? It’s okay.”

“Wait,” said Zelda. She cradled Link’s head against her chest. He was content to let her speak for both of them as he tried to make himself stop sobbing. “This is not your fault, Sky.”

“…thank you, Flora.” He disappeared down the stairs.

“He’s gone,” Zelda whispered to Link after a moment. “Link, what did you remember?”

“I—“ His voice was muffled into her chest. He hoped she could understand him. “I—dad. When—after the Korok Forest. He said—he said—’anyone but’ me. Wasn’t ready. I-I made the memory stop. Something’s wrong.”

“You cut off your recollection by force?”

“Ye-yes. I-I-I can’t stop… feeling.”

She hugged him tighter. “You’re allowed to feel.”

That wasn’t what he meant, but he didn’t know how to explain. Dorian came upstairs just then anyway, so Link didn’t try.

“Memory?” Dorian asked in a hushed voice. The bed sank under his weight as he sat down next to them.

“Yes. Wild also, er, ‘forced’ it to stop. I am uncertain what the effects of that will be.”

Dorian sighed. “Young master… well, both of you come here, please. It will help.”

Zelda half dragged Link across the bed until Dorian could pick them both up. It was a bit of an awkward fit since Link and Zelda were clinging to each other and refused to let go, but ultimately Dorian was right—it did help. Something about the older man’s silent, steady presence calmed Link’s lingering fear in a way Zelda couldn’t. He managed to get control of himself within a few minutes.

“I’m fine now. Sorry,” he said, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“I will not accept unnecessary apologies,” Zelda said firmly. She pulled away enough that they could look each other in the eyes. “You did nothing wrong. But why did you try to stop the memory?”

“I… didn’t want to see the end of it.” He had to close his eyes against her compassion. “The Knight-Commander knew his son wasn’t fit to be… well. You know.”

“That cannot be right,” said Zelda with a frown. She glanced at the stairs. Sky had yet to completely leave, so anything other than a whisper had the potential to be overheard. It was best to be cautious. “The—er, Princess Zelda said she remembered the Knight-Commander recommended his son be trained as the next Knight-Marshal. If anyone would be fit, it would be his son.”

“There must not have been anyone, then.”

Zelda scowled at him. “Stop it. If the son was not fit, where does that leave the, er… his friend, then?”

Instantly, Link felt terrible. He hadn’t meant for it to reflect on her in any way. It wasn’t her fault that the spirits had never spoken to her, no matter how hard she prayed. “That’s not—nevermind. I’m sorry.”

“The Knight-Commander’s son did everything he could, and so did his friend, and I am tired of arguing about it.” Zelda took his hands. “I think… if you can ever recall the rest of that memory, you should. I doubt it ends the way you fear.”

Link took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. This hesitancy wasn’t like him. He was courageous to the point of stupidity, more often than not. But somehow, when he was facing down a long-dead father he only remembered in fragments, he was far more afraid than he’d been even in Blatchery Plain or the Astral Observatory.

Link knew that, even if he couldn’t remember why, he’d loved and admired his dad enough to be utterly shattered by the thought of disappointing him.

“I… will,” he recklessly swore to Zelda. He wanted to refuse, but he could never break a promise to her.

She squeezed his hands. “Thank you, Wild. Now—“ She dropped her voice to a whisper “—I think this is a perfect opportunity to send Sky away with his intended questions unanswered. All he can do is relay our words to his companions.”

A fleeting smirk crossed Link’s face. “Agreed.” He craned his head back and up, looking at Dorian’s beard upside-down. “Dorian, can you send Sky—I mean, banana man away? I’m tired.”

“If that’s what you want,” said Dorian with mild exasperation. He absently smoothed Link’s bangs out of his face. “Do you two have enough food for dinner stored in the slate?”

“Yes. We won’t have to go outside.”

“Good.” The older Sheikah set them down and spared a moment to pull a blanket up over their shoulders. “Now, rest.”

“Yes, Dorian,” they chorused together with impish grins. Neither of them had any intention of moving, but it was still fun to tease him. They giggled at the dubious look he gave them before descending the stairs.

“Whew,” Link said, flopping over with Zelda. They snuggled close, heads pressed together, and both heaved tired sighs. Link hadn’t lied; he was exhausted after so much playing and emotional upheaval. “I really hope that worked and they leave us alone now.”

“And if they do not,” said Zelda, “we’re running away to the desert.”

They high-fived.

Chapter Text

Link woke up before dawn and stared up at the dark ceiling for a long time. He’d dreamed vividly all night—not nightmares, thankfully, just dreams formed from bits of his newly-recovered memories. He’d dreamed about introducing his parents to Zelda and Impa and Dorian, and about playing in the waterfall with Rosie.

Some of the memories he was getting back hurt, but… he definitely liked this part of it.

Zelda was still asleep. He smoothed her bangs out of her face before he got up, careful not to let any cool air disturb her, and went downstairs. Impa was already awake, patiently brushing her hair in preparation to tie it up for the day. Link held out a hand and wiggled his fingers silently for the slate.

“Breakfast? Come sit, you can pull out the tools you need.”

The fact that he looked six seemed to be irresistible to his friends who had children of their own. Impa stopped working on her own hair and instead brushed his out, then tamed it up into the Sheikah style. He endured with minimal grumbling as he gathered everything he needed from the slate before handing it back.

The morning air outside was pleasantly cool, and the sky above had just begun to lighten as dawn approached. Cado nodded to him as he passed. He nodded back, lugging all of his supplies over to the communal kitchen. Once he lit the fire, he set about quickly scrambling some eggs. His counterparts weren’t likely to be awake and roaming around in the short time it would take for him to finish making breakfast.

Honestly, he should have known better than to be optimistic.

The inn door opened and shut. Link looked up and spotted killjoy trotting over to him. He made a face and tried to cook his eggs faster, but alas, he could not alter the iron laws of good cooking. Applying more heat would only burn them, and he wasn’t about to ruin good ingredients just to spite killjoy.

“Good morning, Wild,” said killjoy.

Link grunted in acknowledgment, sulkily sprinkling salt, ground pepper, and a little tiny bit of Goron spice into the pot.

“Yeah, I know you don’t like me very much,” killjoy sighed. He sat down cross-leg on the grass, close but not too close. Link side-eyed him and added a bowl of chopped greens into the pot. “I just have one question that’s really important, and then I’ll leave you alone. Okay?”

Link huffed. “What?”

“Can you tell me about whatever impaled you during the Blood Moon?”

The eggs sizzled over the fire, filling the air with the sharp scent of spice. Link stared at killjoy. After a long pause to make sure he hadn’t misheard, he arched a brow. “I… wasn’t impaled?”

Killjoy stared back. His own brows came together. “Wild… I saw the exit wound scar on your back.”

…the what?

Link dropped his wooden spoon into the pot, eyes wide. He scrambled to cram his hands beneath his tight undershirt, searching for the tell-tale roughness of a fresh scar. His fingertips caught on a ridge of scar tissue just to the side of his spine.

Oh. Was that why he’d died so fast? The blight’s weapon had changed form even while it was being swung, from hammer to morningstar to… spear, he supposed, if it had managed to get through the whole span of his chest. Impalement would certainly have sent the malice’s chilling poison deep into his vital organs within seconds.

He hadn’t even noticed.

“Wild?” Killjoy was looking at him with naked concern.

“Uh.” There wasn’t a good way to salvage this situation except for brazen lying. “Well. I didn’t know I had that scar because uh… it’s not actually my scar.”

Killjoy’s expression turned flat immediately. He scrubbed a hand across his face. “What do you mean it’s not your scar?” he asked, longsuffering.

“Well,” said Link, looking around shiftily, “don’t tell anyone I told you this, but gramps and I share scars.” He returned his attention to his eggs just in time to save them from burning.

“…you can’t expect me to believe that.”

Link shrugged. “Believe what you want, I’m not your dad.”

“How could you possibly share scars?”

“Our souls are linked up. I’m pretty sure the aliens did it, but gramps won’t tell me any details. You’ll see if you ever manage to hunt him down. We have the same scars across our faces.”

Killjoy opened his mouth, then shut it. He hesitated like he couldn’t tell if there was something believable in Link’s story or not. Link suppressed a grin. Maybe all his outrageous lies were adding up to something useful, if no one could manage to pick apart what was true and what wasn’t.

“So… if you share scars, then how come it looked like you got the scar down your chest at the exact same time as your ‘gramps’ got hurt?” killjoy asked once he’d managed to scrape together sufficient skepticism.

Link shrugged and started toasting slices of bread. “The Blood Moon resurrected everything everywhere. Gramps must have been caught by surprise at the same time I was. He might even have already been in the middle of a fight when it happened.”

“That’s—“ Killjoy cut himself off with a frown.

“Isn’t that better for you?” Link pointed out. He added cheese to the first slice of golden-brown toast and let it melt. “It means I didn’t get impaled, gramps did. And gramps won’t stay dead anyway. He’s a terrible hero, happens all the time.”

Killjoy frowned deeper. “Do you dislike your great great grandfather?”

“Well…” Link rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe a little bit. He did get us into this mess.”

“But he sealed away Ganon, right?”

“Yeah. A hundred years too late, but… yeah.”

“Do you dislike Flora’s great great grandmother too?”

Link couldn’t stop himself from bristling like he’d been struck. “No! It’s not her fault, she did everything she could!”

Killjoy raised his hands in a gesture of peace. “Okay, okay. I believe you.”

“Good.” Link irritably slapped his scrambled egg mixture onto the slices of cheese toast. He piled four onto the tray he’d borrowed from Impa and thrust the fifth at killjoy. “Here.”

“Oh! Thank you, Wild,” he said. He looked touched. Link grumbled wordlessly at him and began to stomp off. “Wait, wait, even if you weren’t impaled I still want to talk to you about how your chest got sliced up.”

Link only paused because he thought he could end the conversation permanently. He looked over his shoulder. “It’s dead so it doesn’t matter.”

“But what was it?”

“Didn’t Impa tell you about the blights?”

Killjoy’s eyes went wide. “You fought one of those things alone?”

Link looked down his nose at the hero and channeled his inner snobby Zelda. “And I won, too.” Actually, that was the biggest lie he’d told so far. Zelda was the one who won that altercation. But he definitely wasn’t going to put her in danger by saying that. “So next time you see me fighting a Lynel, don’t ruin my fun!”

He stomped off the rest of the way back to Impa’s house (pausing to give Cado some breakfast) and only wondered a tiny bit if he’d just sealed his own fate by appearing too competent.

A messenger arrived midafternoon, carrying a letter from Purah. Link and Zelda paused their sewing when Impa called them to come read it.

“When did you send a messenger to Purah?” Zelda asked, taking the letter.

“The moment Link’s counterparts appeared and told me about two feral six-year-old descendants of my dear friends,” Impa said dryly. “I would have allowed you to tell her yourself, except that something was obviously wrong with the Sheikah slate.”

Link grimaced. Zelda said, “Ah… yes. Thank you for that.” She opened the letter.

‘LINKY!’ It said, and they could practically hear Purah’s shout. ‘ PRINCESS! You tried to upload my research to a data reservoir without me, didn’t you! There are a few dozen ways that could have backfired to shrink you too, but I guess it doesn’t matter so much. Don’t panic! I’ve been putting off my reversal research because other things are more important, but I’ll pick it back up now. I estimate a month, maybe a little more, before I can fix you. Get over here so I can look at the slate and see what you did to it! You’d better have a good reason for not using the shrine to come back.’

She signed off with a ‘ SNAP! Love, Purah.’

Impa grumbled as soon as she’d finished reading the letter. “Of course she could have fixed herself this whole time and simply did not. I don’t know what I expected.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what you expected either,” Link agreed, dodging when the old Sheikah reached out to tug his hair in reprimand.

Zelda sighed. “I suppose we must accept an escort to Hateno, then.”

“We don’t need an escort,” Link groused.

“I would prefer if you accept help for now. Please, my friends,” Impa said. “I don’t wish to hear another report that you died or that Flora was injured.”

Link’s expression went blank at her words. A moment later his eyes closed. Zelda took one of his hands and waited for the memory to finish reasserting itself within his mind. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be too bad this time. He blinked back to awareness just a moment later and didn’t seem distressed.

“Good?” she asked softly.

“Mm.” He looked down. “The Knight-Commander… asked his son to stop being so reckless.” His expression turned a little baffled. “And threatened to tell his mother.”

Zelda chuckled. She’d never met Link’s mother, but she could well imagine that the Knight-Commander’s wife had been a formidable woman. “An effective threat.”

Link nodded. “Yes.” He sighed to himself. “I… guess we’ll let the heroes escort us to Hateno, then. I can’t guarantee your protection in this state.”

“You’re still highly capable,” she said firmly. “But… you are perhaps not at full capability. At least this will give us more time to convince them that you are not someone they want to steal away.”

Impa arched a brow at them. “Who are you trying to convince, exactly?”

“Well,” said Link, “either Hylia or one-eye works for my purposes.”

“Link.”

“I think you mean Wild,” he said, batting his eyelashes. Zelda covered her smile with a hand.

Impa huffed at him. “I certainly cannot stop you, but please, don’t say anything you will regret.”

“I won’t,” Link said confidently.

Impa called the heroes into her home late that evening. This time, Link and Zelda sat on their knees beside her, on the dais, and watched them file in. From the amount of strange looks Link was still getting, especially from banana man, he wondered if maybe his earlier confidence had been slightly misplaced. 

He reached over blindly and took one of Zelda’s hands, studiously avoiding any more eye contact. Maybe they were just really mad at Link for whatever they assumed Wild had been through?

“Thank you for your patience,” Impa told them once they were all seated. “I apologize for the delay. We received a messenger from Hateno village earlier today, and the children have agreed to allow you to escort them safely there.”

“What changed?” asked one-eye.

“We’ve had certain discussions about the aftereffects of the Blood Moon and Flora’s safety, in addition to a request from one of the children’s friends. They have both agreed not to run away from you for the duration of the journey.”

“Is that their only promise?” pinky asked shrewdly.

Link and Zelda chimed in.

“Yes!” “No!”

They glanced at each other.

“Well, that’s my only promise,” Link clarified.

Zelda rolled her eyes at him before addressing the heroes. “I promise—for both of us—that we will not cause you unnecessary trouble, assuming you don’t attempt to make unnecessary decisions on our behalf.”

“And what do you think is unnecessary, Flora?” asked one-eye.

“You,” she said primly, “are to act as our bodyguards, not our parents, and we would like you to remember that fact.”

Most of the heroes looked at Impa to see what she thought about the declaration. “I would be very entertained to see any of you attempt to enforce bedtime,” she said dryly, completely unsympathetic to their plight.

“I understand,” one-eye said evenly. “We will promise not to overstep, but in return can you promise to fully trust us to protect you? Wild?”

He obviously meant that he wanted Link to promise he wouldn’t try to fight everything they came across. Link scowled at him. “...fine,” he said begrudgingly.

“Thank you. I assume you want us to leave tomorrow, Impa?”

She nodded. “Yes, tomorrow morning. The children already have more than enough supplies for your group, in addition to maps and knowledge of the region. They will guide you there.”

One-eye dipped his head. “Alright.”

Link made the mistake of meeting banana man’s eyes. He still looked like a sad wet puppy, and Link cringed. “I’ll make breakfast tomorrow,” he blurted out guiltily. “Be up by sunrise.”

“Thank you, Wild,” said blue-scarf. “We will.”

Impa dismissed them, and Link tried not to squirm too much. It wasn’t his fault his counterparts were in distress over his… what, existence? And it definitely wasn’t his fault that Sky seemed way too sad after witnessing yesterday’s incident. Link didn’t need to apologize or console him.

…he really didn’t.

Link groaned in the back of his throat, defeated by his own conscience, and rose to his feet. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Zelda, and ran after them.

By the time he lost his battle with himself, his counterparts were already down the stairs and heading for the inn. “Sky!” he called, racing down the steps two at a time.

The older man turned around, open surprise on his face. Many of his companions stopped too, but one-eye and blue-scarf shooed them along, correctly assuming that too much attention would backfire. “Wild? What is it?” he asked as he kneeled down.

“Um.” Link awkwardly scratched the back of his head. This kind of thing was only easy when he was talking to Zelda. “Look, you didn’t do anything wrong yesterday. The memory I got back had nothing to do with you. And I’d rather have it back anyway. So don’t be sad.”

Sky looked at him with a strange expression. “...I guess that is part of why I’m sad,” he murmured cryptically. Link was a little bit alarmed by how he only seemed more like a kicked puppy now. “Thanks, Wild. You’re very sweet.” He hesitated for a second. “Can… can I give you a hug?”

“Uh, sure?” said Link, suddenly wrongfooted. He had no idea what he was missing here.

“Thank you.” Tentatively, Sky reached for him and pulled him into a hug. Link allowed it, stepping closer. It was a big hug—expansive and firm and warm and familiar. He didn’t mean to melt into it, but he did. Sky shifted, cradling the back of his head with one hand.

Hundreds of memory fragments returned in a flurry, too much to parse—dad and mom and the knights and the villagers, all free with their affections a hundred years ago when he really had been a little kid.

Once upon a time, he’d been loved so deeply that he didn’t know what to do with it.

Link held his breath against the burning in his eyes until Sky pulled away. He wasn’t going to cry. Sky wouldn’t understand, and Link didn’t want to explain anyway. He wasn’t going to cry.

But he must not have been covering it very well, because Sky went from gentle to alarmed as soon as he saw Link’s face. “I—Wild? Are you okay?”

“Mhm,” Link said in a strangled grunt. He nodded sharply, knight-like, and held his fists clenched rigidly at his side.

Sky held his shoulders like he was afraid Link was about to fall over. “Er, memory?”

“Mmm.” The little bit of relief from having his problem immediately understood tipped the burning in Link’s eyes over the edge. He swore colorfully and tried to scrub the tears away with his arms before they could be seen. Not in front of his role model. He couldn’t humiliate himself like that again.

“Bad memory?” Sky asked, obviously mimicking what he’d heard from Zelda. He was way too smart.

“No,” said Link, and his voice cracked. “Good memory.” Very good memories. So good that he didn’t know how to handle the sheer amount of joy and grief it brought him. “Uh, thanks. For that.” He hiccuped and lost control of himself. A sob threatened to bubble up from his throat. “I’ve gotta go.”

He turned and fled.

Chapter Text

Their group collectively had a lot of theories about what was really going on with the kids and with ‘Link and Zelda.’ Sky didn’t care as much about figuring things out as he did about getting Wild and Flora to let them help. If it turned out there were two Links, or only one, or somehow none at all, that didn’t change the fact that Wild was right there—small, and scarred, and scared of the Master Sword.

Sky stayed kneeling as Wild bolted, clearly unwilling to cry in front of him. He waited until the boy had safely disappeared back into Impa’s care before he sighed, stood up, dusted off his pants, and joined his brothers in arms at the inn.

All eyes were on him the moment he walked into the room they were using to confer in private. “Well?” asked Wind. “What did he want to tell you this time? Was it about his gramps?”

“No,” said Sky, sitting down heavily next to Hyrule. “He thought I was sad because the memory he got back yesterday was distressing. He told me not to be sad because it wasn’t my fault and he wanted his memories back.”

Muted incredulity rippled through the group. “Really? He doesn’t think your puppy eyes have anything to do with him almost being killed by the Master Sword?” said Four.

“We don’t know if that’s true,” Sky halfheartedly defended. It was possible that Link the elder truly was the one who’d almost died, but by Fi’s own assessment Wild was just… too little. Even diminished power from the sacred sword would have been enough to overwhelm his little body, no matter how courageous or heroic he was or would grow to be. 

“Nobody is that terrified just from a story,” said Warriors. “Wild was more scared of the sword than he was when he thought we were about to execute him. He either witnessed his grandfather almost die, or it happened to him directly.”

“Even if he wasn’t there, maybe he felt it,” said Hyrule, unhappy with his own words. “If he was telling the truth this morning about his soul being connected to Link’s, then maybe he felt his great great grandfather almost die when he tried to take it up again.”

“If that’s true and Link knows it,” said Legend, “then this era’s hero is worse than a monster.”

“No, I doubt Wild feels anything of Link’s injuries, assuming their souls are connected,” said Time. He nodded at Hyrule. “You said he was surprised to find out about the scar. The pain from being impaled isn’t something you miss.” He frowned thoughtfully. “And if Wild could tell us that Link was not only a terrible hero but also a person who callously inflicts the pain of mortal injuries on a small child, he would have.”

“That’s… true,” said Hyrule.

Wind huffed. “You know, he said he doesn’t like his gramps, but he’s trying awful hard to make sure he doesn’t leave.”

“If gramps even exists,” said Legend.

“All of the people we’ve talked to so far confirmed that an adult Link does exist,” Four countered.

“It’s not impossible that they’re somehow switching between forms.”

“Within the span of days? And if that’s true, you know they would have done so to get everyone to leave them alone.”

“Maybe the aliens are being uncooperative,” said Twilight dryly.

A fresh squabble about the hypothetical aliens erupted, but Sky wasn’t listening. Instead, he turned over Wild’s mannerisms in his head, thinking deeply about them. Time was right—there was something distinctly too adult about some of them. It contrasted sharply with their normal, childish behaviors.

“Have you noticed,” he said abruptly, cutting off Legend’s impassioned rant about how there were no aliens at all and Wild was just taking them for a ride, “how different Wild is for a few seconds after he gets a memory back? It happened again when he was talking to me just now.”

“What do you mean?” asked Warriors.

“Doesn’t he suddenly seem like a different person? His posture changes, and his eyes change too. I mean, I know it’s a small thing, but… he nodded and stood at attention, and I really thought I was looking at a knight for a moment.”

“It’s obvious he was trained by a professional,” Warriors pointed out. “I think when he talks about the Knight-Commander, he’s talking about the person who trained him.”

“Yes, but… I don’t know.” Sky ran a hand through his hair. “It seems too extreme. I think, maybe… when he gets a memory, it’s not actually his own memory.”

Time frowned but understood. “You think he’s getting Link’s memories.”

“Maybe.”

“Hm,” said Legend. “That would explain some things.”

“He does seem to know a lot about his great great grandfather’s life that would be irresponsible to tell a little kid,” said Twilight.

“I wonder if he got Link’s memories of how to fight,” said Wind. “I mean, how could he have learned to fight big scary monsters when he was even tinier than he is now?”

“He might have gotten traveling knowledge too,” Warriors speculated. “The kids act like they’ve traveled for years, and they acted like they’d been to that stable a lot, but Ember didn’t recognize them at all. Neither did the other stable manager.”

Legend shook his head. “I still don’t think there are two. If he’s getting memories, it must be from the hero who died a hundred years ago. A six-year-old who literally can’t stay dead, armed with that kind of knowledge and some way to change physical form, could have defeated Ganon.”

“It makes more sense if there are two of them,” Four insisted.

Another squabble broke out. Sky sighed and sat back. Whatever the case was, how much did it really matter? He was going to befriend those kids and get them to accept help and comfort, no matter what it took. 

A faint smile crossed his face. Wild had been willing to accept a hug from him, not just tolerate being picked up for a moment. He was totally beating Twilight and Warriors now.

Surprisingly, Zelda was the one who needed to wake Link up the next morning. She herself woke unusually early, perhaps because she sensed how Link’s head was still tucked in beside hers even though dawn was approaching. She spared a moment to trace the bridge of his nose and brush his bangs aside before she shook him awake.

“Link. It’s almost dawn.”

He grumbled and rolled over, pressing his face into her neck. She cooed at him, laughing, and carded her fingers through his hair. “Normally I’m the one who doesn’t want to get up,” she said. She knew he was tired from the weight of all the memories he was getting back, but it was still amusing.

“Buh. Don’t wanna get up and make food for them.”

“What about for us? I’m hungry.”

He grumbled again, but sat up and rubbed the grit from his eyes. “Mmm, fine.”

They combed other’s hair into their customary styles and dressed in their new travel gear, complete with refitted leather armor. It wasn’t the best fit, but it was passable. Impa was already awake downstairs. She handed over the slate with no more than a quelling look and a single request. “No Lynels until you’re back to normal, please.”

“Fine,” Link said cantankerously. Even he could hold off on recreational monster hunting for the month it took Purah to reverse her rune.

They headed outside to make breakfast together as the sun rose. It was quite a feast by the time Link’s counterparts joined them—sweet berry crepes, omelets with sausage, fresh juice and milk, and toast with honey and butter. Zelda sat with a groggy Koko and Cottla and watched as all nine Links ate like they’d never seen food before.

“Boys,” she sighed to Koko, who giggled.

When everyone was done eating, Time and Twilight saddled Noble Pursuit while Link and Zelda hugged their friends goodbye.

“Please be sensible, young Master,” Dorian said to Link. “At least until Purah resolves things.”

“I’m not that bad,” Link said with exasperation, fists on his hips. Cado had said much the same thing earlier.

Dorian gave him a look.

“Alright, alright! I promise I’ll be sensible.”

Link and Zelda were lifted up onto Noble’s back. Twilight held her reins in hand and conspicuously did not pass them to Link, even when his shoulder received a pointed kick. He smiled at them innocently.

“You can just relax this time, cub,” he said as the group started walking out of Kakariko.

“Excuse me,” said Zelda with disapproval, “I believe this falls under making unnecessary decisions for us, Hero of Twilight. Noble Pursuit is not your horse.”

“She’s not yours either,” Twilight said.

“Well, no, but she’s under our care by Malanya’s fiat.”

Time interjected. “What is Malanya, exactly?”

“He’s the horse god,” said Link, who was the only one that had actually seen him. “Patron of all horses. If you give him an offering he can even resurrect a dead horse, but he’ll eat you if you abuse one. Or at least that’s what he said. The stable system works off of his magic.”

“I see,” said Time.

“He’s about as scary as the Great Fairies, just in a really uh… weird way,” Link opined, rubbing his jaw. “Very uh—“ He made claws with his hands and wiggled them threateningly, as if that encompassed everything he meant.

“The Great Fairies?” Hyrule said curiously.

“Yeah, they enchant clothing and armor if you bring offerings. Cotera watches over Kakariko. You’d go right past her fountain if you went up toward Lanayru road.” He gestured over his shoulder at the path they’d just walked past.

It didn’t escape Zelda’s notice that the topic of who should be guiding Noble had been completely forgotten as Warriors smiled at them. “You’ve really been around, huh?”

“I know Hyrule like the back of my hand,” said Link proudly.

“Did your great great grandfather teach you?”

Link immediately cottoned on to the purpose of that question. Before Zelda could even think to stop him, he unblinkingly said, “No, the aliens did.”

“...huh?”

“They’re really good at geography cuz they can see everything from outer space. Good luck finding Link, he’s learned all the real secrets from them.”

Zelda ducked her head into his shoulder and held her breath to keep from laughing.

“Oh, the aliens are teaching you geography now, are they?” asked Legend.

“Shhh, it’s rude to talk politics.”

Zelda bit down hard on her tongue and pinched Link’s side. She couldn’t afford to laugh.

“What? Politics?” echoed Twilight, who had not been present for that original discussion

“Evidently, the geopolitical situation between the Princess and the aliens is contentious and therefore rude to speak about with strangers,” said Time with a straight face.

“You doing alright there, Flora?” asked Warriors. Zelda managed to give him a thumbs up.

“She’s just appalled that we’re being so uncouth,” said Link.

I hate you, she mouthed into his shirt.

“Don’t worry,” he continued shamelessly, “I am a perfect and very couth gentleman and will change the subject for you. Ahem: Wolf-pelt, give me back Noble’s reins!”

“…did you just call me wolf-pelt?”

“Yep. Gimme.”

Zelda finally managed to raise her head and watch the goings-on without worrying about bursting into laughter. Twilight was looking at Link’s demanding finger-wiggle with incredulity. “I know you know my nickname,” he said.

“I sure do.” Link wiggled his fingers even more demandingly.

“Then why are you calling me wolf-pelt?”

“Why not? I do it to all of you, don’t feel special. Except for Wind. We like Wind the most.”

“HA!” said Wind victoriously.

“You have special nicknames for all of us? That’s cute,” said Twilight, casually attempting to salvage the situation. Zelda saw right through him but waited to see if Link would take the bait.

“No it’s not,” said Link, rolling his eyes.

“It kind of is,” said Hyrule. “Hey, what’s mine?”

“Killjoy.”

“Wh— killjoy? What did I do?”

“You didn’t let me finish off that Lynel! Also you’re not fooling me, wolf-pelt, give me the reins.”

Twilight snorted a laugh. “Alright, fine, fine. I’ll give you the reins if you tell me what everyone’s nicknames are.”

“One-eye,” Link said, pointing at Time. “Pinky.” He pointed at Legend. “Blue-scarf, sword-thief.” Warriors and Four. “Banana man.” He pointed at Sky last, who blinked at him in surprise.

“Banana… man?” he repeated, baffled.

“Yeah,” said Link, viciously triumphant as he finally got ahold of Noble’s reins. “Cuz I hit you in the face with Mighty Bananas when I thought you were a Yiga.”

Four looked thoughtful at his own nickname. “I never did give you back that sword, did I,” he said. He did not add any plan to do so. Link made a face at him.

Twilight fell in beside Noble, now that he wasn’t leading her, and looked up at Zelda. “Do you have fun nicknames for us too, kit?” he asked.

Link made a little noise in the back of his throat at the descriptor ‘fun.’ Zelda snickered at him.

“No,” she said. “Wild and I have different ways of expressing our displeasure, Hero of Twilight.”

He looked knowing. “Yeah, you are more formal, huh?”

Wind grinned at her. “And I’m the favorite, so you’ll never call me like that, right?”

“Not unless you do something stupid and annoying,” she agreed. “Wild, what would you call him if he did?”

Link didn’t even hesitate. “Shrimp.”

Wind burst out laughing. Several of his companions chuckled as well.

“That’s rich coming from you, Tiny,” said Legend.

“Who cares about height when you can still kill a Lynel without getting hit? Bet I’ll be taller than you when I’m grown up anyway. Nyeh.” Link stuck his tongue out. Zelda laughed, which she was reasonably sure had been his goal in the first place considering the way his lips tilted in a sly smile.

“You’re such a child,” said Legend, although he seemed closer to amused than truly irritated. Zelda didn’t care for the assessing gleam in his eye, though. It felt like every word they said was being picked apart.

“I’m six! What’s your excuse?”

The conversation continued on roughly in that vein as they traveled. Zelda managed to keep herself and Link out of trouble, mostly thanks to him growing tired of talking and falling silent. She fended off his counterparts on his behalf and hummed quietly for him, once they’d all fallen away into their own conversations.

It was surprisingly peaceful. Zelda had spent plenty of time traveling around Hyrule before its fall, but she’d never been surrounded by such a friendly, lively group. Her guards had always been silent and serious. The closest she’d come to this was traveling with the Champions, and even that didn’t truly compare. It also hadn’t lasted very long.

They ate lunch in the shade of some trees around noon, about halfway to Blatchery Plain. Worry about that particular stretch of the journey lingered in the back of her mind—would Link have a new reaction to passing by, now that he was smaller and had more memories?—but mostly she found that the peaceful atmosphere was… a little too peaceful. She was falling asleep where she sat. So was Link, now that her safety wasn’t his sole responsibility. Six-year-old limitations were hard to overcome, and they dozed against each other in the grass.

“Flora.”

“Hmm?” She rubbed her eyes, trying to wake up. Time was kneeling in front of them.

“If you get on Noble Pursuit like this, I think you’ll fall off.”

“No…” she said slowly. “We’ll… wake up.”

“Why don’t you let us carry you for a little while?”

Link raised his head, awake immediately at the threat of separation. “No.”

“Alright. How about I ride behind you until your nap is over, then? We’ll get to the village faster if we keep moving.”

Noble was more than large enough to carry all three of them, even considering his heavy armor. Still, it wasn’t Zelda’s decision to make. Noble was Link’s horse. She nudged him pointedly.

“Mmmgh. I’d rather sleep past Blatchery anyway,” he mumbled, clearly worried about the same thing she was. “Fine. But only until we wake up.”

Time mounted Noble Pursuit, and Twilight handed Link and Zelda up to him, muttering something about cheating. Noble’s back was so broad that it was easy for them to curl up, one on each of the grown-up hero’s sides, with their legs tangled together over the saddle.

Zelda bunched her oversized hood up under her cheek and allowed herself to fall asleep.

Chapter Text

Dad’s armor wasn’t the most comfortable thing to sleep against, but Link had his hood up and that made it a little better. Besides, it was dad, so what did a little metal armor matter? Dad was just getting busier and busier, and even though Link was his official page now (a whole year early, because he was so good with swords!), they still didn’t get to spend as much time together as he wanted. He liked sleeping against dad in the saddle, because it meant they had more time together as soon as he woke up.

“Mm.” Link stirred, rubbing his eyes. His hood fell. The late afternoon sun was nice and warm across his face. “Dad?”

When Link opened his eyes, though, terror lit through his body like a lightning strike. Crumbling walls rose in front of him. There was no gate. No knights in shining armor and pristine livery, calling greetings from the parapets as dad approached. Everything was overgrown with green, reclaimed by forest and plain.

“Dad,” Link choked out in horror. He trembled, gripping dad’s vambrace. “What happened to the fort?”

Then he glanced over, looking for Knight-Lieutenant Vinn, and found Zelda looking at him with wide green eyes. The dream broke like a mirror shattered across rock. “Oh,” he said faintly. “Nevermind.”

Dad had been dead a hundred years. How could he have forgotten?

“Wild?” asked Time, and his voice rumbled through his chest plate. Link snatched his hand away from the hero’s vambrace and tucked it into his chest. “Are you alright?”

“...I’m awake,” Link said numbly, staring straight ahead. He couldn’t quite blink away the phantom flashes of silver armor and red and blue regalia over the fort’s walls. He breathed very, very evenly as his child-self’s panic threatened to overwhelm him. “Get off my horse.”

“Are you alright?”

Zelda spoke up for him when he said nothing more. “Please dismount, Hero of Time. That was our agreement.”

Some kind of battle of wills went on over his head. He just breathed in and out, back ramrod straight. He could feel worried eyes on him. The panic ebbed with excruciating slowness.

“…alright,” Time said at last. He reined Noble Pursuit to a stop and managed to dismount without knocking either of them out of place. Link took the reins from him because if he couldn’t do something, he was going to scream.

“Cub, what was that? Did you have a nightmare?” Twilight asked.

Link didn’t look at him. Zelda took over any and all speech.

“Please leave him alone.”

“Do you know what happened, kit?”

“No. That’s why you need to leave him be. Just… hush.”

They hushed. Zelda repositioned herself behind him and hugged tight. She put her head against his shoulder and hummed the most soothing song she knew into his ear.

They passed through the remains of Fort Hateno. Link inhaled a deep, shaky breath and finally regained control of himself. He took one of Zelda’s hands and squeezed. “Thanks. Sorry,” he murmured, unable to relax out of his knightly posture.

“Don’t be.”

He glanced at his counterparts out of the corner of his eye. Their attention was entirely on the two of them. When one-eye spoke, though, he was smart enough not to direct it at Link.

“That was a very pretty song, Flora,” he said. “Where did you learn it?”

She stiffened a little, and so did Link, because he knew full well that she’d been humming a royal lullaby. But that was fine, or at least it should have been. They already knew she was descended from royalty. “My… my mother used to sing it to me. I don’t want to talk about her,” Zelda answered, completely truthful.

“I understand. Is there anything we can do to help you or Wild?”

“Just… leave us be,” Zelda said, although she didn’t sound convinced they would.

“Can you tell me if you’re in any pain or danger from what just happened?”

Link adjusted his body language to make sure he didn’t look like he was either of those things. Zelda said, “He is fine. So am I.”

“Flora,” blue-scarf said softly, “he looked like he’d just been pulled off of a battlefield.”

Link blanked his expression completely. And here he thought he’d done a good job of not showing anything at all.

“See? He’s doing it again. Are you sure he’s alright?”

What? His shoulders started to curl up defensively. What was the older hero seeing? Link was unreadable, or he was supposed to be. It had always worked before, even on Zelda, the most observant person he knew.

“Stop talking,” Zelda snapped, bristling on his behalf. “Stop talking right now!”

“I—“

“It is none of your concern, and all you can do is make things worse. Stop talking.”

Link took a deep breath and squeezed Zelda’s hand. He had to be stronger than this. It wasn’t fair to her. “I’m fine,” he managed to force out, much quieter than he wanted.

Zelda’s anger vanished immediately when she turned her attention to him. “You don’t have to force yourself to speak,” she said. “Just let me handle them.”

He shook his head slightly. “I’m fine. Nothing to handle.”

“Then can you tell me what happened?” one-eye asked persistently.

Deep breath. Even Zelda didn’t know what happened, although she likely had an idea. He was the only one who did. “Dream… lasted a little past waking. That’s all.”

“Was it a nightmare?”

“No.” It had been a good dream. It just didn’t match the reality of what he’d… of what happened.

Deep breath. He was better than this. It was just a memory.

Zelda bristled at them again. “Can you not see that he does not wish to speak of it in detail?”

“It’s hard to help if we don’t understand.”

“You are not helping,” Zelda snapped, temper finally fraying past the breaking point. “You are here to steal Link, and you will fail, and you will leave once you realize that! You are not here to help.”

“We don’t want to be here any more than you do,” pinky said bluntly.

“Then go!” she said, upset enough that Link turned in the saddle and let Noble’s reins lay slack to devote his full attention to her. “You do not need him and you cannot have him!”

“Wait,” said one-eye, a strange look on his face. “Flora, what do you think we meant when we said we were looking for Link?”

“You want him for a mission, as dictated by Hylia,” she fumed. Link rubbed her upper arms soothingly. “But you will not find him! Give up!”

“Oh,” blue-scarf said regretfully, “no, kiddo, that’s… not quite it. We need to find him because none of us have a choice. The portals will force him along by opening under his feet, or by making him sick if he refuses to go through. It’s much safer for him if he’s with us when we’re pulled to the next part of the mission. Otherwise he’s not going to know what’s happening.”

A horrified chill crawled across Link’s skin. Bile rose in his throat. He swallowed hard against the sensation. Resignation settled over him a moment later, heavy and numb. His head sagged under the weight. Right. When had either of them ever truly had a choice anyway?

Zelda’s breath hitched. She burst into noisy tears, startling Link out of his resignation. All thoughts of his own fate were pushed to the side as he shifted around to sit backward in the saddle and fully embrace her. She buried her face in her hands and pressed her forehead to his shoulder.

“That’s not fair!” she wailed, barely intelligible even to him.

“It’s okay,” he promised quietly, holding the edge of his cloak over her back to shield her from view. 

“No!”

“It’s okay.” His own breath hitched in a sob as something like grief squeezed his chest. “We’ll handle it. It’s okay.” His voice cracked as he spoke.

Zelda gripped him desperately and raised her head. “Ma-Maybe they're wrong,” she said through sobs. “Maybe because—because of—“

Because of their current physical limitations. “Maybe,” he said halfheartedly, blinking to try and keep his vision clear. Zelda’s expression crumpled. She knew just as well as he did that it wasn’t likely.

“That’s not fair!”

“I know.”

“It hasn’t even been two months!”

Link shut his eyes and pressed his temple against Zelda’s. The burning in his eyes refused to stop. He did his best to keep his breath from stuttering with the sobs he couldn’t suppress. “I know.”

Someone took Noble’s reins, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. It didn’t matter. He pulled Zelda’s hood up, then his own, so they could huddle together and cry in relative privacy. At least his counterparts were wise enough to leave them alone.

It wasn’t fair. She’d endured a hundred years alone, and now they were being separated again.

Even when they were both out of tears, they stayed where they were and held each other. The sun set and the air grew colder. Link raised his head when Noble came to a stop. They were maybe an hour from Robred Dropoff. Someone had chosen a rocky overhang sheltered by a small copse of trees as their campsite for the night. It was a good decision. He was too exhausted to feel anything beyond that.

“Hi, Wild,” Sky said softly, looking up from beside Noble. “Can I get you two down from there?”

Link didn’t think Zelda was going to let go of him, so he gripped her back and slid sideways in the saddle. Sky caught them as they fell and eased them down to the ground. He knelt like he wanted to talk to them, a hand on each of their backs, but Link pulled Zelda away to a comfortable patch of grass. He didn’t want to talk and she wasn’t ready either. They slumped against each other, hardly more than a tangled bundle of two oversized cloaks.

“Wild?”

When he looked up again, dazed, camp had been fully established. Time was kneeling in front of them, his back to the campfire someone had built and lit while Link wasn’t paying attention. Zelda was quietly sniffling into his shirt. His legs had gone numb.

“This is really important, so I need you to tell me the truth. Do you know where Link is?”

Link stared at Time blankly, turning the words over in his mind. It was clever to ask right now. He was dazed and tired—perfect for getting honest answers. The older hero still didn’t know if there were two people with the hero’s spirit or only one. He certainly didn’t know if it was ‘Wild,’ Link, or both who would be getting forcibly dragged along when the time came. Link himself didn’t know the parameters of the ‘portals,’ but it had sounded like the heroes didn’t have much if any control over when and where they appeared.

And…

And. It was still possible that their current forms had compromised whatever magic was going on. It was possible that what he said next still mattered.

“Yes,” Link said to T— to one-eye. A little bit of the defeated haze fell away. “But I don’t know how to get him back.”

One-eye cocked his head slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know how to get him here, and you can’t go find him. It’s not possible.” The only one who could do that was Purah.

“Is this… about the aliens?” one-eye asked slowly.

Considering Link had been using ‘aliens’ as a stand-in for ‘Sheikah tech,’ he very truthfully said, “Yes.” Zelda had stopped sniffling as she listened to him make more questionable decisions. He absently rubbed her back.

One-eye frowned. “Wild… you told Hyrule your soul was connected to Link’s, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” He nodded slightly. “That’s how I know.”

The older man sighed through his nose. “You understand that there’s a very real possibility you’ll also be pulled along with us, don’t you.”

He did. But…

Zelda shifted her head against his shoulder. He caught a glimpse of red-rimmed green eyes peeking out from under her hood.

He knew. But he wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

“Maybe,” he said to one-eye. The blankness of his expression completely fell away, back into his real self. “But I’m not Link, I’m Wild. Who knows what Hylia wants from me? I’m not as skilled as my great great grandpa.”

One-eye’s expression shifted as he caught the return of Wild’s… well, wild spirit. “I thought your ancestor was a ‘terrible hero.’”

“Yeah, really says something about me, huh?”

He caught a very brief flash of white teeth in the firelight as Zelda smiled against his chest.

“Wild.” Blue-scarf spoke up from his position sitting against a tree a few feet away. “This is very serious. If we can’t find Link, he’s going to be in danger. Are you telling the truth?”

“Of course I am. Why would I lie to you?” Link lied. He patted Zelda’s head and turned his attention to her, done with the conversation. “Can I get up and make dinner now?”

“Yes,” she whispered, hoarse from crying. The smile on her face made him feel warm. This time, he was the one not giving up on them staying together. He could do that for her. Even if it was inevitable, he could still hope and pray and fight.

Link’s counterparts seemed vaguely disbelieving about how quickly Link and Zelda rebounded as they sat by the fire, sides pressed together. The two of them hummed a Hateno festival song, Zelda on the melody and Link on the harmony, as they made meat and vegetable skewers for everyone. No one dared to bother them while good food was on the line.

“So, Wild,” banana man said once Link had finished eating. “Can you tell me about those ruins we passed through earlier? When you got upset?”

The older hero was definitely fishing for more information on Link’s dream. “Sure. That was Fort Hateno,” said Link succinctly, licking his fingers clean.

“...and?”

“How should I know? It’s been in ruins since the Calamity. Didn’t you see all the rotting Guardians in the field?” He made direct eye contact as he spoke. “That’s where Link died the first time, protecting Princess Zelda.”

Banana man looked stricken. “Oh,” he said.

“Why’d you ask your dad what had happened to it, then?” asked pinky, who obviously didn’t care for tact.

Link shrugged and rubbed his eyes. They itched a little from all his crying. “It wasn’t like that in my dream. Wouldn’t you be a little freaked out to wake up and find everything in ruins?” He yawned.

“We should sleep,” Zelda said quickly, before they could ask more questions. “Come, Wild.”

They scampered over to a springy patch of grass up against the stone face of the cliff and set up their shared bedroll. Link’s counterparts weren’t nearly as tired and continued to speak in low voices as they stripped off their armor and crawled in under the blankets.

Zelda smiled at him, small and heartbroken and yet so very joyful. “Thank you,” she whispered, brushing their foreheads together.

“Thank you,” he whispered back, tangling his fingers with hers. She squeezed his hand. He squeezed back.

They both understood what the other truly meant.

Chapter Text

When Link cracked his eyes open in the dark before dawn the next morning, he surreptitiously looked around to find who was on the last watch. The itch to go fight just one bokoblin was overwhelming. If it was someone he could sneak past, he would be back before they’d even noticed.

One-eye glanced at him when he shifted the tiniest bit. Link pouted behind the blanket pulled up over his nose. So much for sneaking away.

Still, this presented a different kind of opportunity. Link felt refreshed after a night of sleep, much more charitable and emotionally stable. He squirmed out of the blankets without waking Zelda, tucked her back in, and slunk over to where one-eye was keeping watch.

“Good morning, Wild,” the older hero murmured, arching a brow when Link settled on his haunches a few feet away and stared at him. “You’re quite an early riser.”

Link shrugged, uninterested in that conversation. One-eye seemed content to let him stare without more interruption. Specifically, Link was staring at the face markings. He’d brought the slate along with him and set it on his knees, swiping through his inventory until he found the mask. He brought up the detail screen and looked between it and one-eye. Perfect match.

Huh.

Link tucked the slate back between his stomach and his thighs and stared a little more. Those markings looked… kind of painful on a real face. The story behind them probably wasn’t very nice.

“Did you have to leave your Zelda behind too?” he asked abruptly.

One-eye looked surprised that he was asking a question. “I did,” he said. “Though I’m not as close to my Zelda as your Link is to his. The person I miss the most is my wife, Malon.”

“Oh.” Link suddenly felt like a terrible person for being mad at Time before. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, cub. I’m sorry that we have to bring you such bad news. I know you don’t want your great great grandfather to leave.” Everything else about the situation was left unsaid, although there was a knowing tilt to his voice.

Link crept a little bit closer. “Zelda doesn’t deserve to be left alone,” he said. “She’s already been through too much.”

“What about Link?”

He shrugged.

“Wild—”

The low light of the smoldering fire gleamed off of Time’s armor. A reckless idea came to Link, and it only half had to do with him wanting to change the subject. “Can you do me a favor?” he asked abruptly, cutting him off.

“Ah—” Time frowned slightly. “Maybe. What is it?”

“Can you hug me?”

He blinked at the request, surprise bordering on shock. “Of course I can,” he said slowly, “is there a special reason you’re asking right now?”

“Yeah. I want the rest of a certain memory back. You’re close enough that I think I’ll be able to trigger it again if you hug me.”

“...close enough to what?” Time asked even as he held out his arms in invitation.

“To my dad.”

And Link was right. As soon as he felt the cool plate armor beneath his hands, the memory fluttered in the back of his mind. Time’s adult-sized hand against his arm triggered it in its entirety as—

Dad gripped his arms, careful not to touch the sword, and pressed his face into Link’s shoulder. “Goddess, please,” he said, shuddering. His tears soaked into Link’s tunic and through his light chainmail. “Not this. Not my son. Oh merciful Hylia, anyone but my little boy. He’s not ready.” Link gripped the sacred sword a little tighter and swallowed hard. “Dad? I—did… did I do something wrong? I—I can train harder.” Dad raised his head, startled. It seemed wrong to see tears on his face. Dad was fearless. “Oh, Link,” he said, cradling Link’s cheek with his palm, “no. No, that’s not…” He closed his eyes for a moment. Some of Link’s fear ebbed. “You’ll understand one day, when you have your own children.” Dad opened his eyes. He smiled even though a few more tears streaked down his face. “My boy, my Little Knight, I’m so proud of you. The Goddess could not have chosen a more worthy Hero. You’re going to do wonderfully.”

He’d barely taken a breath, eyelashes fluttering, before another memory returned and—

Mom beamed when she saw Link in his royal livery. He was officially knighted now, catapulted to a rank that had been years off before he drew the sword. “My baby, so handsome and strong! I’m so proud of you,” she cooed, cradling his jaw and peppering kisses all over his face. He flushed crimson. Everyone in the castle courtyard could see, and Link at twelve was already difficult to take seriously as a ranked knight. “Mother,” he complained, “I haven’t even done any feats yet.” She didn’t stop smothering him in affection. “But you will, Link. And I’m proud of who you are, not just what you’ll do.”

Oh.

Link felt stunned as he opened his eyes and found himself bundled up in a blanket, cradled in Time’s arms. The older hero looked down as soon as he stirred, relief on his face, but Link couldn’t pay him much attention. He turned the memories over and over in his head. Zelda had been right: what he’d assumed wasn’t what his parents had meant.

How much else had he misunderstood all this time?

Zelda knew quiet panic when she saw it, especially from Link. The Hero of Time was doing an admirable job of pretending he wasn’t panicking as he held Link’s limp form, but she could still tell. Groggy, she rolled to her feet and shambled over, dragging her blankets along.

“Memory?” she mumbled, plonking down onto the grass next to them. She handed him one of the blankets so he could make his armor less uncomfortable for Link.

“I think so. He asked me to hug him so he could get the rest of a memory.”

“Oh,” she said, pleased that he’d listened to her. “I know which one. Don’t worry too much, it might take him a little bit to wake up.” She tilted her head curiously. “You must really remind him of his dad. I think it’s the armor.”

Time rearranged Link so he was lying more comfortably. “You knew his father?”

“Not well. I don’t remember much. But he was a very skilled, um, warrior and leader.” She couldn’t say he was the Knight-Commander. “Anyway, we should make it to Hateno this evening if everyone wakes up soon.”

The older hero looked at her knowingly. “That’s good to hear. Are you doing alright, Flora?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Really? I would be scared if I didn’t know what was happening to my friend, like what happened yesterday.”

She felt her face heat up. “No, that’s… I know why it’s happening. We are handling it.”

“Do his memory issues often bleed into reality like yesterday? He didn’t know where he was, and Flora… maybe it didn’t scare you, but it scared us.”

It had scared her, but so had many other things. “That was the first time it happened,” she said, “but it only makes sense. You are the first people to bring back his memories so quickly, and the mind is a fragile thing. He snapped out of it as soon as he saw me.”

Link stirred, eyelashes fluttering, only to fall quiet again. Zelda pressed her lips together. A second memory so close to the first? Her stomach flipped nervously. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Was she wrong? Was he deteriorating somehow? Perhaps it was fated to get worse before it got better, like the first surge of water through a flood sluice.

“Ah. A second memory, I think,” she said aloud, clasping her hands so that they wouldn’t tremble. She carefully kept her eyes averted from Time’s.

He looked at her silently for a moment. She thought he wasn’t fooled, but his next question seemed to come out of nowhere. “Flora, do you two avoid Link and Zelda because they trigger memories Wild doesn’t want back?”

That was an incredibly logical deduction. Startlingly so. “What? Oh…” She twisted her fingers around each other. “Well… no. We have other reasons to avoid them.” She thought suddenly of what these men would think of Link once he returned to his proper form and hastened to salvage the situation even a little bit on his behalf. “Oh, please do not misunderstand. Link and Zelda would… they would take wonderful care of their descendants if they could. They may be terrible in their roles, but they are good people.”

“‘If they could?’ What do you mean?”

She laughed nervously. “It is not as though we let anyone care for us.”

Thankfully, Link chose that moment to return to the waking world. Time was visibly relieved as they made eye contact. Link looked stunned, but not in a bad way. After a moment, his attention shifted over to her.

“You were right,” he murmured. “As usual.”

“Oh?” She shuffled over on her knees and braced herself on Time’s arm. “About what?”

“He didn’t mean it like that. Neither did mom.”

Zelda smiled so wide that it hurt her face. “I told you.”

“Yeah.”

Link looked at Time again. He hesitated for a moment before awkwardly patting the hero’s chestplate. “Um, thanks. Very helpful. Good job.”

“You’re welcome,” said Time, amused.

“I’m going to make breakfast now,” he declared, squirming to his feet.

“You don’t have to,” said Time as he helped him stand without tripping over the blanket.

“I know.” Zelda was fascinated to see Link blush as he spoke. “I like cooking. And um… I’m sorry we weren’t nice to you. We thought… nevermind.”

“I know what you thought. It’s alright, Wild.”

“Mm.” He nodded sharply and retreated to the smoldering fire to focus on his cooking.

Zelda looked between them. “What did you say to him before I woke up?” she asked. “It must have been quite something to make him blush like that, he’s usually quite shameless.” Link could still hear them, of course. Zelda watched the tips of his ears turn red.

Time chuckled. “It wasn’t anything much. He asked about my Zelda, and I explained that it’s my wife that I miss the most.”

“Oh.” Zelda put a hand to her cheek, suddenly ashamed of how uncharitable she’d been to them. They were being torn from their friends and spouses too. “I… yes, I suppose I should second his apology. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, Flora.”

A few of the other heroes were starting to stir, either waking up or pretending to after they’d listened in on the conversation. “Excuse me,” she said, eager to join Link in his strategic withdrawal, “I’m going to help with breakfast.”

She hastened to her friend’s side and spent the next half hour pretending to be too absorbed in the cooking process to speak with anyone.

The general atmosphere of the traveling company changed after their talk with Time that morning, but not much else did. There was no more defensiveness or simmering hostility. Instead, Link and Zelda cheerfully maintained their web of lies as they continued on toward Hateno. When they passed by a monster camp set up to ambush travelers, Wind was told to stay back with the two of them while everyone else went to wipe it out.

Link only whined a lot about being unable to fight even a single red bokoblin.

“Hey, cheer up,” said Wind, who didn’t seem all that enthused about being told to babysit instead of bash skulls either, “as soon as we’re gone I’m sure you’ll go right back to fighting those Lynels, right?”

“Yeah,” Link said shamelessly, pouting.

Zelda leaned in to whisper in his ear. “And speaking of,” she said, “what is our plan if we get pulled along before Purah has a chance to fix us?”

He frowned, watching the fight as he considered her words. “What do you mean ‘our plan?’ You’ll stay—” He stopped abruptly and turned to face her. “No.”

She pursed her lips. “Yes.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Um,” said Wind, squinting at them from ground level, “are you two okay up there?”

“Yes.” “No.”

They glared at each other.

“Right… well, don’t do anything dumb.”

Link lowered his voice again. “You are not going to jump into danger with these crazy people.”

“You are one of ‘these crazy people!’”

“Exactly! I can’t have you around eight more of me, we’d get you killed!”

Zelda narrowed her eyes dangerously. “If you’re getting dragged along by the Goddess, I’m going with you.”

“The Kingdom needs you.”

“It’s been a century. What are a few more years without a central government?”

“No. It’s too dangerous. I can and will tell on you.”

Her chin tilted up. “So help me,” she said frostily, “I will make sure Link is named the next Archduke of Hyrule.”

Link gasped. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would!”

They glared at each other for long enough that the heroes came back from destroying the monster camp.

“Hey k—uh. What happened?” asked Twilight as he caught sight of their locked glares.

“I’m destitute and betrayed, carry me,” said Link. He jumped from Noble to Twilight’s shoulders without actually waiting for an answer. Twilight allowed him to sit and held his ankles, baffled yet oddly pleased to have a passenger.

“You are not!” said Zelda, miffed by his dramatics. “But if you don’t listen to me, I will absolutely, er, do the thing!”

“We weren’t even gone that long, what did they do?” said Legend to Wind.

The youth shrugged. “They argued a little bit. I heard something about an archduke?”

“I’m not budging,” said Link, arms crossed over his chest.

“Well neither am I!” said Zelda, crossing her arms as well.

“I could tell on you!”

“I’d like to see you try!”

Time sighed. “You’re not going to tell us what your argument is about, are you?”

“No!” they snapped in unison.

“Right. Let’s keep moving then, and you two can cool down.”

“Wait,” said Link. He flicked through the slate and pulled out a Guardian Sword, tucking the inactive hilt into his belt before he held the slate out to Time. “Give this to her.” She would have access to all the runes if something went wrong. He crossed his arms again and stared her down.

She took the slate and hooked it on her belt, staring back with narrowed eyes. Yes, she mouthed.

No, he mouthed back.

They both went ‘hmph!’ and looked away.

The stalemate continued all the way to Hateno, despite the heroes’ best efforts at roundabout mediation. Sometimes Link would look over to see if she was ready to yield and admit that she needed to stay safe, only to find her looking imperiously down, daring him to even ask. He stuck his tongue out. She gasped in offense and mouthed Archduke!

Thankfully he wasn’t whisked away quite yet, because he wasn’t sure how that would have panned out while they were in the middle of a feud. He tugged on Twilight’s tunic once they were about to reach the village entrance. “Put me back on Noble,” he said sulkily. “We’re almost there.”

“Are you sure, cub?”

Link thought that the question might have had less to do with worrying about the fight escalating and more to do with the fact that Link’s presence on his shoulders was winning him some unspoken competition. He rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

“Alright.” Twilight deposited him back into the saddle.

Zelda immediately hugged him with equal sulkiness. He leaned back into her, relieved despite the ongoing clash of wills. Being apart for so long was uncomfortable. He wondered how in the world he was going to handle being dragged away by the Goddess.

Symin was waiting for them by the village gateway. He waved. “Wild! Flora!”

“Symin!” they called in return, relieved. Impa must have made sure to cover the details of their lie in her letter to Purah.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” he said, approaching. He bowed briefly to Link’s counterparts. “Thank you for escorting them here. I’m going to take them up to Purah’s lab. Rooms have already been arranged for you at the inn. The house is too small for eight people.”

“Thank you, that’s very generous,” said Time.

“We’ll come check on you in the morning,” Zelda promised. If there was one thing worse than Link being whisked away, it would be Link ending up in a different era alone as a six-year-old. They wouldn’t be letting the heroes depart completely. “Thank you for your assistance.”

“Of course, kids,” said Sky.

They walked together to the inn, and then eight pairs of eyes reluctantly watched them disappear up the hill with Symin.

Chapter Text

Symin didn’t say much as he led Noble Pursuit up toward the lab, only briefly explaining when they’d gotten Impa’s letter and how they’d dropped everything to start researching ‘a certain rune.’ He helped Zelda down once they reached the front door and allowed Link to hop down on his own.

“Symin, do you know how to unsaddle a horse?” Link asked, looking up at Noble. The bottom of her chest was quite literally twice his height.

“No,” said Symin.

“Hm. Maybe I can stack some boxes later.”

Zelda rolled her eyes. “If need be we can recruit your counterparts again. Now come, I’m eager to speak with Purah.”

Purah was eager to speak with them, too, because they’d barely walked through the door before she pounced. “PRINCESS!” she shouted at a truly ear-shattering volume. “LINKY!” She circled around them rapidly, taking in everything, before she seized Link’s face. “Oh sweet Goddess, you’re so small! Do you remember how long your exposure to the rune was? We seem to have turned out to be similar ages. Linky, did you get more exposure? You’re teeny-tiny!”

“We passed out,” said Link, a little garbled from the way his cheeks were being rhythmically squished by Purah. “I don’t know how long it was.”

“I hadn’t even set the pedestal to do anything,” Zelda said fretfully, wringing her hands. “I only wanted to transfer data as a test. It activated on its own. Is there some hierarchy of activation that I was not aware of?”

“A hierarchy!” Purah said, whipping around to point at Zelda. “Brilliant! There must be priority markers in the metadata, oh that explains so much! Now if I can just learn how to find and modify them…”

“Purah, how long until you can get us back to normal?” Link asked, rubbing his face. “I’m going to go crazy if I can’t fight a Lynel soon.”

“At least a month, like I said in my letter,” she said, already occupied with looking Zelda over. “But what’s stopping you? Go fight a Lynel and come back.”

“Please do not,” said Symin at the same time Link stomped his foot and said, “No one will let me!”

“What? Why? Oh it’s because you’re so tiny, huh. I don’t see the problem.”

“Miss Purah, please,” said Symin, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Linky is very capable and also naturally short, I’m sure he’d be fine,” said Purah. She whipped out her notebook and started scrawling notes.

“Yeah!” Link agreed hotly. “I am!”

“There is a very big difference between a short adult and a six-year-old,” Symin stressed.

“He’s still Linky,” said Purah, waving her pen. “You don’t see my size stopping me.”

“You are not fighting Lynels!”

Zelda sighed. “Link, please, wait until we are restored to full size to resume your recreational Lynel hunting. Purah, do you need anything from us to work toward reversing the effects?”

“Yes!” said Purah with too much enthusiasm. “Come here, come sit, I need some measurements and samples.” She put the notebook away and dragged them along by their wrists.

“You are not taking my blood,” said Link. “Measurements are fine.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“If you let me go fight a Lynel I’ll let it get one hit in and you can collect my blood that way.”

“NO!” shouted Zelda and Symin in unison.

Even Purah agreed. “You’re too tiny to get hit, Linky. Even I don’t want you to die again just so I can get samples.” She sighed in a very put-upon way. “I’ll make do with measurements.”

With Symin’s help, she examined every inch of them, recorded all manner of data in her notebook, and declared them to be perfectly healthy young Hylian children. Just like her own case, they hadn’t been reverted to how they were at six, only shrunk down with clear evidence of their adult experiences still present in and on their bodies. Beyond the obvious, like scars and hair length, Link was unnaturally strong for a six-year-old. His adult strength had carried over to so sort of ‘max out’ his six-year-old capabilities.

At least, that was how Purah explained it.

By the time she was done with that, Link and Zelda were falling asleep against each other. Still, Zelda managed to explain what was going on with the slate and hand it over. After a brief examination, Purah declared that it would be an easy fix to un-freeze the map and journal.

“Watch this,” she said. “I recently learned the most important ancient Sheikah troubleshooting technique.”

She proceeded to completely power the slate down, then start it back up. When the lights on the back lit up again, she prodded the map. It zoomed in and out like it was supposed to. Link and Zelda goggled at her.

“It was that easy this whole time?” Zelda asked in disbelief.

“Yep! That’s the power of the ancient Sheikah technique of turning it off and back on again. Here you go!”

“I didn’t know it could do that,” said Link.

“Now you do! Okay, off my table, I have work to do and you both look like adorable sleepy babies. Go home!”

Link hopped off and helped Zelda down. “Purah, you’re the same age as us.”

“Wrong! I’m older than you no matter how you slice it! Symin, take a picture of the three of us and then make sure they get back home, alright? Everyone say SNAP!”

Photo taken and problems either solved or set on a trajectory to be solved, Symin escorted them back to Noble Pursuit and lifted them back into the saddle. Link and Zelda yawned enormously, exhaustion setting in as the horse ambled back down the slopes. It was quite late by then and the village was quiet. Not everyone was asleep; as they passed the inn and headed for the home, Link noticed that Time was still awake on the inn balcony.

“Oh,” he said, blinking heavily. “Don’t we need him for something?”

“Nnnn—oble,” Zelda said, yawning halfway through the word. “You’re too short.”

“Ugh.” He waved at the older hero, who seemed maybe a little too eager to get up and find out what was going on with them. He didn’t even go down the stairs, just jumped right over the railing and walked over.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yeah. But we need help with getting Noble unsaddled.” Link rubbed his eyes. “Maybe you and Twilight can help us?”

“Of course, cub. Wait here for a moment and I’ll go get him.”

“Kay, thanks.”

Zelda caught Symin looking at them strangely. “What?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing,” he said, hiding a smile. “I’m only noting some differences between you and Miss Purah.”

Zelda was too sleepy to figure out what he meant by that, so she let it go. “I see.”

He did not elaborate, and Time quickly returned with Twilight beside him. “I’ll leave the children in your care,” Symin said, nodding to them.

“Bye, Symin. Make sure Purah doesn’t get distracted,” said Zelda.

“I will.” He turned back for the lab.

“This…haaaa, way,” said Link to the heroes, words split by a yawn. He nudged Noble into a walk through the sleepy village.

“Do you two live here?” asked Twilight when they turned and headed up the path toward the bridge, past Carson’s house.

“Sometimes.” Link pointed. “That’s our house.”

“Your house?”

“Link’s family home,” Zelda clarified. “He and Zelda live here.”

“Ah,” said Time, suddenly enlightened to something. He didn’t elaborate when Link and Zelda gave him curious looks, and the conversation petered off.

Twilight got both of them down off of Noble once they were in the yard, but he didn’t put them down. “Do you have it, Old Man?”

“Yes. You can put them to bed.”

“We don’t need to be put to bed,” Zelda protested, despite being half asleep. Link had already buried his face in Twilight’s furs and was breathing softly.

“I can’t make you go to bed,” Twilight said. “You can stay up if you want, but will you let me put Wild down somewhere comfortable?”

She sighed, running through the contents of their house in her mind. Nothing in there would give them away. “If you insist.”

“Thank you.”

Despite all her protests, Zelda was also asleep against his furs before he’d even ascended to the second floor.

Twilight smiled when Flora put her head down against his shoulder. Kids always protested so much against bedtime, only to drift off the moment they were still and comfortable. It was sweet that even terrifyingly precocious children like these two were the same.

Also, he was definitely winning now. Both of them were sleeping on him.

The house was small and relatively sparse, except for the fearsome-looking weapons mounted on the walls. It definitely looked like the home of a Link. Twilight’s steps slowed as his eyes caught on the gleaming shields, swords, and bows, but there were more important considerations. He looked away and went up the stairs, trying not to jostle his passengers too much. 

There was only a single bed, which made his eyebrows rise at the implications. He couldn’t see a cot or sleeping mat anywhere, but that didn’t matter for the children. They were small enough to share and always slept curled up like puppies anyway. He laid them down and set about pulling off their boots, belts, and leather armor before tucking them in under the covers. Both were out cold, even with all the jostling, but as soon as he pulled the blankets up to their chins they squirmed around until they were cuddled up to each other.

Cute, he thought. He’d never met any kids as closely bonded as these two. He chose not to think too hard about why and how that had come to be.

As he turned to leave, he spotted a picture on the wall by the bed and he stopped in place. It depicted a Goron, a Rito, a Zora, a Gerudo, and two young Hylians that were unmistakably this era’s Link and Zelda. Link was unscarred; Zelda was dressed in court finery. It must have been a depiction of them a hundred years ago.

“Huh.” Twilight glanced at the sleeping children, then back to the photo. They certainly looked like direct descendants. “I guess you weren’t lying after all.”

He went back downstairs and was unable to resist snooping around a little bit. There was a broad, gleaming Gerudo scimitar mounted between a blunt Goron claymore and a delicate Zora spear. When he looked closer, he realized they had plaques: Daruk’s Boulder Breaker, Urbosa’s Scimitar of the Seven, Mipha’s Lightscale Trident.

When he looked at the bows, each were labeled but only one had a name. A finely-crafted Rito bow identified as Revali’s Great Eagle Bow sat unstrung between a Royal Guard’s Bow and a Savage Lynel Bow. The same went for the shields opposite: Urbosa’s Daybreaker hung to one side of a Hylian Shield, with a Royal Guard’s Shield on the opposite side.

Something about the arrangement made Twilight frown to himself. There was a story here, between the named weapons, the ‘Royal Guard’ equipment, and the Lynel bow. He remembered Wild in midair, firing off explosive arrows from the same kind of Lynel bow. The named weapons obviously had some kind of sentimental value. But why Royal Guard equipment?

Did it have anything to do with the mysterious ‘Knight-Commander?’

He perused for long enough that Time came in. “Is everything alright?” he asked quietly, making sure not to wake the children.

Twilight nodded. “Go up and look at the picture on the wall. You can check on them while you’re there, Old Man.”

He’d correctly identified Time’s desire to see the kids safe and settled, because the old man didn’t say anything else before he turned and ascended the stairs on soft feet. It was a long few minutes before he came down again.

“Beautiful weapons,” Twilight said neutrally, gesturing to the displays on the walls. Time looked the weapons and shields over too, a thoughtful frown on his face. Eventually he nodded at the door, and they left to return to the inn.

“Mipha, Urbosa, Daruk, and Revali,” Time said as they walked. “I wonder… maybe those are the names of the other people in that picture.”

“They must be friends with Link and Zelda.”

“Or were friends.”

They walked along in silence, dirt crunching under their boots.

“I hope Wild isn’t lying,” said Twilight. “I don’t want him to get pulled into this.”

“I don’t either.”

“But… at the same time…”

They glanced at each other.

“Anything seems better than leaving them alone? Even with Flora involved?” Time finished.

“Yeah. A little bit.”

Silence fell again.

“I hope he isn’t lying,” said Time, “but Malon would be a wonderful mother.”

Link and Zelda didn’t get a chance to check on the heroes the next morning, because the heroes came to them before they’d even finished eating breakfast. Both of them startled at the urgent pounding on the door.

“Wild!” Sky called. “Flora! Wake up!”

They exchanged a glance. “Emergency alien abduction?” Link proposed.

Zelda rolled her eyes at him. “Depends on what they want.”

Twilight’s face popped up in the window. “They’re awake!” he said, spotting them sitting on their knees on the dining room chairs in order to be tall enough to eat at the table.

Link sighed and put his food down to go answer the door. “Yeah?” he asked, throwing it open and crossing his arms over his chest. His counterparts were all dressed and ready to depart. He narrowed his eyes at them.

“This is really important, Wild,” said Warriors, kneeling down to put them at eye level. “Do you feel anything weird right now?”

“I feel annoyed. Why?”

“You don’t feel any kind of pull, or maybe a sense that something is about to happen?”

“No…” he said slowly, backing up a step. “You’re being weird.”

“Are you sure you don’t feel anything? ”

“Yes! I don’t feel anything! What are you being so weird about?”

Profound relief rippled through the group. Warrior’s slumped, blowing out a sharp breath. “Oh thank the Goddess.”

“Sorry, Wild,” said Sky, who kind of looked like he was about to fall over from sheer relief. “It’s just that we can feel we’re going to have to leave soon. The fact that you can’t feel it means that you don’t have to come with us.”

Zelda gasped behind him. Link wasn’t ashamed to admit that his knees buckled as soon as he realized exactly what the grown-up hero was saying. Warriors jolted forward fast enough to catch his elbows. He didn’t have to go.

He didn’t have to go.

Zelda burst into tears and threw herself into him, which knocked both of them into Warriors. Link’s breath stuttered through a relieved sob. He scrambled to cling to her in return, harder than he ever had before. His hands were shaking. It felt like every part of him was shaking. It didn’t even matter if the Goddess was sparing him because he was incapacitated or because he just wasn’t good enough. He didn’t have to leave her all alone again.

“Aw, kids.” Warriors seemed unable to resist the urge to hug them when they’d basically fallen on him. Link forgave him for daring to touch Zelda, entirely because he didn’t have to go. “Sorry we scared you.”

“Nuh-no,” Zelda stuttered between sobs, kind-hearted even now. “Sorry you… did ha-ave to go.”

“We’ll be alright,” said Time. It sounded like he was crouching, but Link didn’t care to lift his head from Zelda’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about us. It’s too late to find Link now, but can you think of anything useful we might need to know? Something that might help us find him?”

Zelda sniffled. Link started to calm down too. “Um. He won’t be going with you either. The portals can’t reach where he is.”

“What does that mean?” asked Legend.

“You don’t need to know.”

“Is this about the aliens again?”

Link made a noise that probably sounded like another sob but was actually mostly a laugh. Zelda patted his back and shushed him.

“You’re leaving and I don’t want to explain. It doesn’t matter anyway. Choose to trust my word, or do not.” She sniffled again. “Um. Thank you. For protecting us, and for helping Wild get some of his memories back. I didn’t think he would ever get those back.”

“You’re welcome,” said Sky. “Can I give you two a hug before we go?”

Link raised his head and nodded. Zelda did too. Somehow, letting Sky hug them goodbye turned into letting everyone hug them goodbye. No one seemed to mind the way Link couldn’t quite stop crying. They definitely didn’t think he was Link now, though, so that was probably fine.

“I’m still the favorite, right?” asked Wind, grinning as he ruffled their hair.

“Yeah,” said Link, grinning back through his tears. “You’d let me fight a Lynel, wouldn’t you?”

“Uh.” Wind glanced back at his companions. “No, that’s irresponsible,” he said, and then mouthed an emphatic yes. He seemed gratified when Link giggled.

In the end, the aforementioned ‘portal’ appeared in the middle of the yard. Link shuddered and automatically put himself between it and Zelda. Yeah, he did not feel even a little bit compelled to go through that thing. His counterparts gave them one last round of goodbyes before they headed for it.

“Do you think we got dumped here just to make sure the kids got home safely?” Wind asked before he disappeared into it. Whatever the answer was, Link and Zelda didn’t hear it.

And just like that… it was over. Link hugged Zelda tight and sat down on the grass, barely able to believe it. He breathed shakily, in and out. Zelda was similarly rattled. They didn’t move for a very long time.

“...wanna go visit Riju and do some sand-surfing?” he finally said.

“Goddess, yes!”

Chapter Text

“Riju! Riju!”

The young Gerudo chief’s jaw dropped as Link and Zelda approached. Link would have waved, but he was holding Zelda’s hand on one side and a guard’s on the other.

“Sav’aaq, Riju!” the two of them chorused. 

“Wh— huh?” said Riju. Buliara looked equally stunned.

“There was… an incident,” Zelda said delicately. She blushed a pretty pink, slightly embarrassed.

“Chief, do you know these Hylian vehvi?” the guards escorting them asked, confused. It had taken quite a bit of pestering to even get them to let Link and Zelda through to speak with her.

“Yes,” said Riju, recovering. She hopped down from her throne and hurried over. “I do. You may go, Buliara and I will take care of this.”

“Yes, chief!”

Riju hugged them, and she was really a much more reasonable size for hugging than anyone else so far. Their faces at least came up to her stomach. “Oh Seven,” she whispered, pulling back to look at them. A grin slowly crossed her face. “You are so small!”

“We’re six!” said Link, shameless. “We’ve been through a lot since the incident and now we want to go sand-surfing with you.”

Riju started giggling madly. “You’re so small!” she said again. Link wasn’t even sure she’d heard him.

Buliara had to kneel down to be even remotely short enough for them to look at her. “How long until you can return to normal?” she asked.

“Purah said at least a month,” Zelda told her, patting Riju as her giggles turned to hysterical laughter at their expense. The force of it made her kneel too.

“And I’ve been banned from Lynel hunting until then,” Link grumbled.

“Good,” said Buliara. “You’re banned from Molduga hunting too.”

Link gasped.

“Do not give me that look!” the Gerudo warrior said sternly. “Do you understand how bad it would be for morale if a tiny child died hunting Molduga?”

“It’s not like I would stay dead!” Link protested. “And—what, who would even see it?”

“Do you understand how bad it would be for morale if we let two little vehvi run around the desert unsupervised?!”

“But we’re not Gerudo! Or anyone’s vehvi!”

“Irrelevant!”

Riju was flat on her back, wheezing and crying with laughter by that point. “Um, Buliara,” said Zelda, fanning her friend’s face, “does Riju have time to take a break right now?”

“Lady Riju clearly needs a break after your arrival, regardless of what her schedule says, so yes.”

“Great! Riju, stop laughing and go surfing with us!”

“Ye-yes,” Riju managed to hiccup. “Let’s!”

To no one’s surprise, Buliara invited herself along to supervise. Not even Link’s most annoying protests could dissuade her, but it turned out that riding on her shoulders as she surfed was just as fun as surfing themselves.

And Link only pouted a little bit when she scruffed him and dragged him away from the Molduga.

“Kass! Amali!”

It was cold in the Tabantha region, so Link and Zelda had the pleasure of watching the bard and his wife look up in shock as the two Hylians… well, waddled enthusiastically toward them, bundled up in their own too-large Snowquill clothing.

“Oh my g— Link? Princess Zelda?!” Kass said, stunned.

“Yes! We had an incident. Please don’t write a song about it.”

“I… didn’t think this kind of incident was possible,” said Amali, a wing over her beak.

Zelda smiled awkwardly. “Well, this has actually happened before to a Sheikah researcher. It will be reversed sometime within the next month or two.”

“Goodness, what are you doing running around then? Don’t you have anyone to protect you?” Amali fretted. “You can’t even fly away from danger!”

“Sure we can!” said Link cheerfully. “Let me show y—ack!” He cut off when Zelda elbowed him.

“We are more capable than we seem, even now,” said Zelda diplomatically. “To be perfectly honest, we came here after visiting our Gerudo friends because Link wants to pester Teba into taking him flying again.”

“…you’re not going to Goron City next, are you?” asked Kass slowly.

“No, we do not fit into the protective gear any longer, and constantly drinking elixirs is a pain.”

Kass sighed in relief. “Good.”

“Anyway, do you know where Teba and Tulin are?” Link asked, single-minded as usual.

“They’re at the Flight Range, I believe.”

“Thanks Kass! Zelda, let’s go!” Link took her hand again and they excitedly waddled off.

And it was, as it turned out, a lot more fun to fly around with Teba when a giant bird robot wasn’t trying to shoot death lasers at him… even if Teba also succumbed to his dad instincts once faced with Link and Zelda’s six-year-old selves. At least they slept soundly under Saki’s watchful eye and had plenty of fun with Tulin.

Bazz’s spear clattered to the ground. “Eh? Link?” He gasped, watching the two temporarily-tiny Hylians emerge from the shrine in Zora’s Domain.

“Bazz!” Link said, waving with his free hand. Several Zora stopped in their tracks to stare at them.

“What happened to you?!” cried Bazz. “You haven’t been this small in over a hundred years!” He, like nearly every other adult, automatically knelt to be closer to their height.

“We are temporarily, er, incapacitated by Sheikah technology,” said Zelda. “Do not fret, we will return to normal within a month or so.”

“Good,” the guard captain sighed. “Are you here to see Prince Sidon?”

“Yes!” said Link with a remarkably shark-like grin.

Bazz grinned back. “May I accompany you?”

“You want to see his reaction, don’t you.”

“Oh very much so.”

The stairs up to the throne room were a lot more difficult when they were so tiny, but they managed with some effort.

“Sidon! Sidon!”

Muzu harrumphed. “What is this interrup… tion…?”

Neither Link nor Zelda paid the grumpy old advisor much attention as they sprinted to Sidon, whose eyes had gone huge.

“Sidon! It’s us, Link and Zelda!” said Link, stopping at the Zora prince’s feet. He had to look so far up to see his friend’s face that it almost made him fall over backward.

“There was an incident,” Zelda explained. “This is temporary.”

Sidon knelt, still without saying anything, and continued to stare.

“An incident?” asked King Dorephan, leaning toward them. “Are you alright? Goddess, you are so small now.”

“We’re fine, just small like you said.”

Link patted Sidon’s ginormous hand. “Hey, are you okay? I thought you would be a lot more… enthusiastic.”

Sidon made a sort of faint squeaking noise.

“Um.” Link glanced at Dorephan. “I think we broke him.”

“Give it a moment,” said the king, sitting back once he was reassured all was as well as it could be.

Sidon took a breath. “My friend,” he said quietly. “You are—”

Link squawked as he was scooped up along with Zelda and squeezed within an inch of his life.

“—SO ADORABLE!!!”

Link laughed. It came out a little strangled thanks to how tightly he was being hugged. “There he is!”

“You are so very small!”

“We know.”

“So, so small!”

“I think I’m a little taller than your knee.”

Sidon made a long, high-pitched noise and didn’t seem embarrassed about it at all. “Precious! Adorable! Come, come sit on my shoulders! The whole Domain must behold my friends in their most adorable state!”

He charged off before anyone could stop him. 

Dorephan, having tremendous foresight, excused Sidon from most of his duties for the length of Link and Zelda’s stay. Sidon spent most of that time showing them off to anyone who could look, no matter what they were doing at the time (much to some of the older Zoras’ annoyance). They played in the waterfalls again (it was a lot more fun to ride with Sidon, who could go tremendously fast compared to Link), and Zelda only had to send the Prince after Link once when he tried to sneak away to fight the Ploymus mountain Lynel. 

Sidon at least had the decency to look regretful when his best friend scowled at him.

It actually took closer to two months for Purah to finally finish her re-aging rune. In that time, Link and Zelda had a nice, long vacation together. They visited the Korok Forest again to play with Hestu, they shield-surfed on Hebra, they visited Robbie (briefly), they visited Impa again (not briefly), they went to many hot springs, and they spent two weeks in Lurelin doing nothing much at all.

By the time Purah was ready, though, they both just wanted to be back to full size. Link was about to twitch out of his skin if he couldn’t fight some large and dangerous monster soon. “I can’t do it, Zelda,” he moaned (whined). “I remember almost everything now! I’ve been going on solo monster-control missions since I was twelve and helping dad before then! I need to fight a Lynel.”

“I know, Link,” she said, patting his shoulder. “We’re almost there.”

They pushed the doors to the lab open and were once more pounced on by Purah the moment they stepped inside. This time, though, she was not the same size as them, and easily scooped them up. “There you are!” said the very adult Purah, pleased with herself.

“Purah!” Zelda gasped, reaching out to touch her face. “You look just like you did a hundred years ago!”

“You didn’t say you’d already tried it on yourself,” Link added, frowning.

“I wanted to surprise you.” She set them down on the table. “I was a little worried it would make me an old lady, but I managed to control it well enough to return to my mid-twenties body instead.”

“You can control it?” Link asked.

Purah nodded, grinning. “Of course I can! Everything should go just fine for you, Linky.”

“…can you make me older?”

Zelda elbowed him. “Link.”

“What! Everyone knows a Knight’s prime is twenty-five!”

“Please return us to the correct ages,” Zelda said, rolling her eyes.

Purah chuckled. “Sorry Linky, I don’t know what would happen if we tried to make you an age you never were, and even I’m not willing to test fate like that.”

He sighed. “Alright, fine. Turn me back first, just in case something goes wrong.”

“Of course.” She picked him up again. “Mmmm, you’re both so cute!” she cooed, cuddling him like an oversized plushie. “You’re even cuter now that I’m big again. I don’t know how Impa managed to tell you no about anything.”

“Purah, focus,” said Link, tolerant of her squeezing.

“I can focus and squish your adorable chubby cheeks at the same time.” She fiddled with her terminal briefly and then set him down. “Okay, stand here and keep your hand in the center, Linky.”

He closed his eyes and braced himself. This time it wasn’t a blinding light that knocked him out, but instead warmth that swept through his body, followed by an intense pins-and-needles sensation. When it stopped, he opened his eyes and found himself back to full size.

“Oh thank Hylia,” he breathed in his correct voice, flexing his hands. The Hateno village clothing he was wearing had also resized itself to fit him. He found that strangely ironic as a feature for Sheikah technology, considering how often the monks stripped him down to his underpants.

Zelda also made a relieved noise, and when he looked at her he instantly understood what Purah meant. “Oh my Goddess you are so cute,” he said, awestruck.

“Link!” she cried, blushing a furious crimson.

“Isn’t she!” said Purah, swooping Zelda up and squeezing her too. “Whenever you have kids, let me babysit.”

Zelda blushed even darker. “I—we—Purah! That is not—I—“

“Stop bullying her,” said Link. He was already getting fidgety with the desire to go hunting, but he couldn’t do that until he was sure Zelda was okay.

“Me? Bully the baby Princess? Never,” said Purah with a sly smile.

“You are both incorrigible,” Zelda said, squirming to be put down. She huffed at them and set her hand on the terminal. “Restore me to my rightful age, please.”

“Alright, hold on just a moment.”

Link watched Zelda’s body turn blue the same way it did when they teleported. The ribbons of light roiled and shifted, then reformed into her adult stature. The glow dimmed down to nothing and she opened her eyes, restored. “Oh, much better,” she said, dusting off her skirts.

Link laughed in pure delight, stepping forward to pick her up by the waist and spin in a circle. She yelped and clung to his shoulders. “It feels good to be back!” He set her down and grinned.

“Yes, yes,” she said, smiling back fondly. “Now, take this and go before you implode.” She handed him the slate.

He certainly felt like he was about to vibrate out of his skin from excitement as he took it. He didn’t need a mirror to know his pupils were dilating in predatory anticipation. Purah was rapidly scribbling notes. “I will be right back,” he promised, and teleported away to go kill a Lynel or five.

“Do you think we got dumped here just to make sure the kids got home safe?” Wind mused as he walked through the portal… and out into the exact same place, just facing the opposite direction. “Wait, what the f—uh, flip?” he hastily corrected, just in case the kids were still in earshot.

No one else seemed to know what was going on either. It wasn’t the same time of day and the environment looked subtly different, but not enough for them to draw any firm conclusions. Even the front door, where the kids had been standing, was still open. Wind opened his mouth to comment further but was interrupted by a voice from inside the house.

“Honestly, Link!” said a grown woman with the same inflection as Flora. “Did you rest at all? And—did you get hit? What’s this gash?”

“I got too excited and tripped on a rock in the Coliseum,” said a grown man with a voice equally similar to Wild.

“You didn’t even put on armor!”

“Of course not. I don’t get hit, Zelda!” There was a conspicuous pause, and then he sheepishly added, “well… usually…” Another pause, accompanied by the splashing of water. “Okay, you got me. I was too excited and forgot armor existed.”

The woman made an exasperated noise. “Hold still, your hair is tangled from all the blood you didn’t take care of.”

“I can just go jump in the river, you know. I am a Knight.”

“I do know, silly man. Relax. I’m not a Princess when we’re home, there’s nothing wrong with me washing your hair.”

The man laughed. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I don’t think I need to tell you that cleaning all that blood off the floor will be your job.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

There was a splashing noise and Link yelped. “Ahhh, cold!”

“You were the one who suggested jumping in the river, you big baby!”

“I’d have time to brace myself for that, at least!”

Entirely unable to help themselves, the group crept closer to the house. Wind peered in through the open door. He was almost distracted by the weapons hanging on the walls, but much more striking was the scene in the center of the room. A metal tub sat on a rug, and in it was a young blond man covered in black and red blood. A young blonde woman with a comb was trying to pick apart the mess of his hair. Blood, mud, and grassy debris trailed from the door to the rug, and some filthy garments had been left next to the tub.

The young man twisted around, revealing a familiar scarred face. His eyes were teasing as he opened his mouth, only to spot them peering in through the door. He froze.

“Link?” The young woman followed his gaze. She, too, froze with the same expression of near-comical surprise. Both seemed to recognize them.

“…Wild?” Wind asked, squinting. “How long have we been gone…?”

“Wh… uh…”

Flora—Zelda?—cleared her throat. “I’ll handle this,” she said to Wild… Link? She clasped her hands around the bloody comb and approached the door with a pleasant smile. “Excuse me. GET OUT!”   she bellowed, and then slammed the door in their faces. “Honestly, spying on a man while he’s bathing!”

“Wait, we didn’t mean—I mean, we didn’t know—“ Twilight defended weakly.

Link—no, Wild, that had to be Wild—burst out laughing. He tried to muffle it, but obviously couldn’t.

“Don’t you laugh! What if our roles had been reversed, hmm?” said Flora, voice growing distant as she stepped away from the door.

“If that had happened,” said Wild cheerfully, “I would have killed them!”

“My hero,” Flora said dryly. “And speaking of heroes, IF ANY ARE STILL EAVESDROPPING THEY’D BETTER NOT BE!”

The group collectively flinched and backed away from the door. “Let’s wait over there,” said Time, pointing to an open, grassy area some distance from the house.

“What if the aliens kidnap them again?” said Legend mockingly.

“It’s not like we were able to stop that before,” said Warriors.

Wind threw himself down into the grass. All of his anticipation at a new location was for nothing. “They were such cute kids five minutes ago,” he sighed. “We must have moved through time so that Wild would be grown up, like Impa said.”

“I don’t think that’s Wild,” said Four, which sparked another lengthy squabble about how many Links existed in this era

“If he lies the same way,” Sky finally declared, cutting off the argument. “Then it’s definitely Wild.”

Link side-eyed Zelda as he got dressed and they both prepared to walk out and face his counterparts again. “You’re being very… calm about this,” he said.

“We both knew it was a possibility that they would return once we were, er, ready. I’ve been preparing just as much as you have.”

She was so strong. Ridiculously strong. He hadn’t known how he was going to brave leaving her, but if she was going to be so unshakable then he owed it to her to be the same. He took her hand and squeezed. She squeezed back.

Link’s counterparts stood up from where they’d been lounging in the grass when he and Zelda walked out of the house. “Are you Wild or Link?” asked Wind, squinting at him.

“What if I told you there was a third option?”

“It’s Wild,” said Sky and Twilight together.

“Feel free to think that. Many things are possible with the aliens’ help,” he said, grinning. The longer he could keep them guessing, the longer he could go without being yelled at. He lurched a little bit as something pulled in his gut. “Woah,” he said, startled.

“Aww, we’re going again already?” Wind complained.

“You felt that? I guess you’re coming this time,” said Time to Link, eyeing him like he couldn’t decide what the truth was. “I’m sorry. You should take this time to say goodbye.”

Link looked at Zelda, who didn’t seem upset at all. In fact, she smiled at him. “I have something for you that I prepared for exactly this moment,” she said. From a pouch on her belt, she pulled out two bangles in the ancient Sheikah style. “One for you,” she said, clasping the larger one around his wrist. The smaller one was for herself. “One for me.”

“We match,” he said softly, touching the bangle. It was such a thoughtful gift. Like this, they would always have a link to each other, even when they were apart.

“We do. And it also does… this!”

He lurched again as a glowing blue tether suddenly formed between the bangles, yanking them together. He stared at their newly conjoined arms in shock. Zelda smiled broadly, pleased with herself, and looked at the heroes. They seemed just as slow to comprehend what had happened as Link was.

“Now,” she said grandly, “let us cut to the chase. If you wish to thwart me, whose arm will you be chopping off?”

“Wha…?” “Chopping… off?” “Flora, what—“

Link frowned, finally realizing that she meant to come with them and wasn’t about to let anyone stop her. “No. It’s too dangerous.”

Zelda’s smile did not waver. “Will you be chopping off your arm or mine?”

“Don’t give me that. Purah made these, right? She wouldn’t have made them without an unlocking mechanism.”

“It certainly has one,” said Zelda. Her smile was starting to make him nervous. It was the smile of a woman with an iron will who was seven steps ahead of him. “It will unlock in twenty-four hours.”

“There must be a manual key. Or a rune.”

“There is not. So, I ask again: whose arm will you be taking, my stubborn Knight?”

“Your Highness,” he grit out, sweating as he realized he might really have no way out here.

“Yes, Your Grace?”

Yeah, he was better off admitting his loss before she pinned a peerage title on him out of pure spite. “Alright!” he said, raising his hands (and one of hers) in surrender. “Alright, you won.”

“Wild,” said Time, frowning so deeply it looked carved into his face. “She can’t come. It’s too dangerous. The portal might not even let her through.”

“Then I will lose my limb or my life to the Goddess as payment for my hubris,” said Zelda, still relentlessly cheerful and smiling. “It’s too late to turn back now unless you would like to select one of us for de-limbing!”

“How can you be so calm about this?” asked Sky, bewildered and vaguely horrified. “You might die!”

“Oh that is easy to answer, hero. I would rather die than be separated from him again.”

Legend did not pull his punches in his own assessment of the situation. “You’ll be a liability in combat and get someone killed.”

Without even a split second of hesitation, she stole the slate from Link’s belt, smacked Legend with the stasis rune, and pulled out a bomb. “I could send you all flying off of our property if I wanted,” she said pleasantly, hefting the round bomb. “But I will refrain.”

Legend, still frozen in place, predictably did not reply.

Four’s eyebrows had disappeared behind his headband. “Wow,” he said, “you two really are a matching set.”

“We are,” said Zelda, grasping Link’s chained-up hand and twining their fingers together. “Do not separate!”

Time looked like he had a headache. He met Link’s eyes. “Can you undo those manacles?”

Link glanced at the bangle on his wrist. It glowed ominously. “I can chop my own arm off,” he offered after thinking about it for a moment.

“Nevermind. It seems we have no choice.”

“You do not,” Zelda agreed. Her smile got even wider when the portal reappeared. She broke the stasis rune on Legend. “Don’t worry, I solemnly swear I will only be as much trouble for you as Wild.”

No one looked particularly reassured by her promise, but some of them did at least look amused.

Everyone was already prepared to leave, so there was no reason to delay. Zelda had handily won the battle of wills against nine heroes in the span of just a few minutes. Link squeezed her hand and gave her a small, secretive smile as they headed off.

Attagirl.

Chapter Text

Romance Isn’t Dead, But It Does Include Aliens This Time

“ZELDA!”

Zelda startled as Link burst in through the front door with the force and volume of a thunderclap. She whirled around, hand over her chest.“Oh—!” 

She gasped at the sight of him, practically drenched in monster and Hylian blood and mud, but she didn’t have long to look. He ran forward and unexpectedly swept her up in his arms, spinning in a circle. “Link! You’re covered in—”

“I love you!” he said, grinning up at her. The white of his teeth was a sharp contrast to how filthy and stained his face was.

“Link, what…?” she said, hands fluttering as she tried to find even a tiny clean space on him to brace herself. She could feel the mess start to soak through her skirts.

“I love you!” he repeated, unbothered by the fact that he was dripping on their floor and ruining her clothes. “I realized something while I was fighting. When those ancient heroes came, I was terrified at the thought that I might be separated from you again. You’re the most important thing in my life, Zelda, and I love you. Marry me!”

How very straightforward. For a girl who’d been in love for over a hundred years, that was really all the invitation she needed. She gripped his jaw with both hands. There were no thoughts about the ramifications of her decision as she dove in and kissed him with wild abandon. Let everyone else think what they would about the Princess’s choice—she wanted this one.

Amazingly, he wanted her too.

Zelda thought they did a pretty good job for two people who’d never kissed anyone before. Link let her slide to the ground, and they didn’t bump noses or accidentally hit their teeth together. He tasted like Hyrule herb and monster blood, but she wasn’t about to complain. Not when it had taken so long to get here.

“You need a bath,” she breathed against his mouth, pulling back to catch her breath.

“Is that a yes?”

She laughed. “Yes! Yes, Link, I’ll marry you!”

“Do you think we got dumped here just to make sure the kids got home safe?” Wind mused as he walked through the portal… and out into the exact same place, just facing the opposite direction. “Wait, what the f—uh, flip?” he hastily corrected, just in case the kids were still in earshot.

No one else seemed to know what was going on either. It was evening now and the environment looked subtly different, but not enough for them to draw any firm conclusions. Even the front door, where the kids had been standing, was still open. Light from inside spilled out over the grass. Before anyone could comment, a man inside lifted his voice in song.

“I’ll swim and sail on savage seas,” he sang, accompanied by the soft thud of bare feet on wood planks, “with ne’er a fear of drowning.”

A woman laughed. “Now? Haven’t you had your fill of dancing?”

“And gladly ride the waves of life, if you will marry me.”

“You romantic sap.” The light from the doorway flickered as people passed in front of it. They really were dancing.

“Only for you,” said the man. He picked the song up again. “No scorching sun nor freezing cold, will stop me on my journey, if you would promise me your heart…”

The woman joined in. “And love me for eternity.”

“Er… should we leave?” Wind whispered. That almost sounded like a grown-up Wild and Flora, but that couldn’t be right. Was it Link and Zelda?

“Shh,” said Hyrule. “I want to hear the song!”

The tempo of the song and their feet on the wood floor picked up. “My dearest one, my darling dear,” sang the woman, “your mighty words astound me! But I’ve no need of mighty deeds when I feel your arms around me.”

Smiles were clear in both of the singers’ voices. The man sang again. “But I would bring you rings of gold, I’d even sing you poetry—” the woman laughed ”— and I would keep you from all harm, if you would stay beside me!”

“I have no use for rings of gold, I care not for your poetry—”  

“Hey!” 

“—I only want your hand to hold, I only want you near me.”

The speed of their dancing increased even more as they began to sing together. “To love, to kiss, to sweetly hold, for the dancing and the dreaming, through all life’s sorrows and delights, I’ll keep your laugh inside me.”

“I’ll swim and sail on savage seas, with ne’er a fear of drowning, and gladly ride the waves of life… if you will marry me. If you will marry me!”

The woman yelped, laughed, and then gasped. “Oh! Link, careful, the bows!” Something clattered to the ground.

“I’m sure Revali will forgive me,” said the man.

“Revali would have gladly fought you for much le—mmm!”

That was unmistakably the sound of people kissing, and considering they had no idea the group was there (and no reason to stop at kissing), this was probably an ideal moment to interrupt. Time strode forward until he could reach out and knock on the open door frame. Wind peered around him to see a young blond man and a young blonde woman break off their liplock to stare at their unexpected guests with wide eyes. They looked remarkably like grown-up versions of Wild and Flora, even down to their clothing and hair.

“You!” Flora gasped, which seemed to confirm it.

“Wild? Flora?” Time asked cautiously.

Wild wrapped his arms protectively around Flora’s head and scowled at them. “No. Go away.”

“How long have we been gone?”

“Not long enough!”

Twilight cleared his throat and awkwardly raised a hand. “Erm, maybe this isn’t the right time for this question, but… aren’t you two related?”

Flora’s head popped up. “Related?” she sputtered. “No! Goddess above, no! Not even distantly!”

“Oh thank Hylia,” Twilight breathed, sagging into Legend. He got shoved for his trouble.

“Hey Wild,” Wind asked, squeezing his head in between Time and the doorframe so he could grin at them. “Are you getting married? Does that make you a Prince?”

Wild made a very interesting face. Flora was distracted enough by the question to laugh at him. “Are you? Are you getting married, Your Highness?” she teased.

“You’re my wife, aren’t you supposed to be nice to me?”

“We’re getting off topic. It might have been a long time for you, but we stepped right from our last meeting to this one, which means either you or your ‘grandpa’ are coming this time,” said Legend.

Wild and Flora exchanged a glance. “…aliens?” Wild said, as if it was a proposition.

“Aliens,” she agreed.

“What does—HEY WAIT!” Warriors lunged for them as they started to turn blue and levitate off the floor, exactly like their first meeting, but he couldn’t stop them. Just before they disappeared in ribbons of light, Wind saw Wild stick his tongue out.

“…they used to be such cute kids,” he sighed.

Mipha's Grace

Link landed hard after he fired off as many bomb arrows at the blight as he could. The thing hardly seemed fazed, although some of the black goo that made up its form had been burned away, revealing the dead Guardian parts beneath. Link called the Hylian Shield from the slate. It weighed too heavy on his arm, but covered most of his body.

He should have handed the slate off to Zelda and told her to teleport back to the Plateau. Of course, then he would have died and there would have been a blight on the loose, dangerously close to a stable. Regret was pointless. He just had to win, no matter what it took.

This time, three laser sights centered on his shield, but he had precious little time to consider them. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Urbosa’s Fury struck, arcing between the conductive components of the Guardian debris, but the blight barely faltered. A line of guardian legs pushed out of the blackness like a broken bone. The roiling goo surged down its length, forming into a massive club that the blight raised high.

Link was already moving before it had even struck, but the darkness disadvantaged him and hid the changing shape of the weapon until it was too late. The hammer turned to a morningstar, spikes growing sharply from it even as it fell. One caught Link down the center of his chest, cutting far too deep, and he screamed. Searing, burning pain erupted from the malice-poisoned wound. He felt blind from it, and then was blind as the lasers fired on him. He dodged, battle fury numbing his wound, and called on Daruk’s Protection. The shield was too heavy on his arm. Daruk’s magic shattered beneath the second laser.

The third slammed into his shield and threw him like a ragdoll.

He didn’t pass out. He couldn’t, not when Zelda’s safety was on the line. But he couldn’t move either. The poison burned, burrowing into him, far more intense than he expected. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t feel his arms or legs.

Mipha, he prayed, eyes sliding shut against his will.

Golden light enveloped him, purging the malice. He heard someone screaming his name.

Zelda, he prayed, and found the strength to force them to stay open.

“Cub! No!”

It was not Zelda who reached him first. He watched the stranger’s mouth move. It sounded like the man was underwater. A hand lifted his head, straightening out his airway and making it easier to breathe. Wolf-pelt—Twilight—dripped water onto his face.

Why would a stranger cry for him?

Too late, anyway. Zelda fell to her knees at his side, safe and unharmed. He gladly let his eyes slide shut and cast his soul into Mipha’s capable hands.

Oh Link… it was my pleasure.

Twilight got there just in time to watch Wild get his torso sliced open in a spray of blood and black poison. He pushed to close the remaining distance as the shadow beast fired beams at the kid, three in succession: Wild dodged one, used magic to mostly block the second, but was thrown by the third. 

No!

He was finally in attacking range when Flora screamed for Link. The kid lay still where he’d fallen. Twilight didn’t hesitate to throw himself at the monster, howling in fury and anguish in his wolf form.

Please, not a little kid!

The sacred light of the triforce flooded the forest. He felt rather than saw as the monster burned away beneath it. The very second he was sure the thing wasn’t a threat, he turned and ran for Wild, casting off his wolf form as fast as he could.

“No no no no no! Cub! No!”

Twilight tried to think about what he had on him, but as soon as he got to the kid’s side, he knew. That wasn’t a wound anyone could come back from without magic that Twilight just didn’t have access to—and maybe not even then. Even a dozen fairies couldn’t fix this.

He reached out a shaking hand and tried to help anyway, readjusting Wild’s head so that he could get air a little easier. The kid’s breath was shallow and growing rapidly shallower. His eyes were glassy and half-lidded. Twilight bit back a sob and regretted the way his tears fell onto Wild’s face. “Oh, cub…”

“Please!”

Flora vaulted recklessly from the horse and ran to Wild too. Twilight almost wanted to shield her from the gruesome sight, but he didn’t get to make that decision here. She only had eyes for Wild as she threw herself down by his side, picking up the ‘slate.’ It lit up in her hand.

“Oh, you’re—you’re going to be alright,” she said shakily as Wild deteriorated in Twilight’s hand. “Hold on, you’ll be alright.” 

Twilight’s heart broke for the poor little Princess. How was he supposed to tell her that there was no hope? How was he supposed to comfort her when she saw that for herself? He didn’t think Wild had even minutes left.

A glass bottle materialized in her hand just as Wild exhaled his final breath and went limp. Twilight wasn’t ashamed of the shuddering, painful sob that escaped him, but he only allowed himself one. What a brave little boy Wild had been. If only they’d managed to win more of the children’s trust, he might still be alive.

Flora sobbed too, clutching the bottle to her chest. Twilight started to gently set Wild’s head down, but then… his body lit up in blue flame. A Zora woman appeared, there and gone in a blink. “It was my pleasure,” she sighed, hovering over his limp head. The blue flames faded away.

Impossibly, Wild gasped back to life.

Twilight gaped, but he didn’t have time to be stunned. Wild arched sharply, coughing up all the blood that had pooled in his lungs. He hastily turned the kid onto his side, supporting his neck and jaw so he wouldn’t choke. When Twilight hesitantly touched Wild’s torso, the fatal wound was gone, replaced by a wide, fresh scar.

Flora sobbed harder, but she didn’t seem surprised by what had just happened, only distressed. When Wild stopped choking, he managed to slur “S fine. M’ fine.” He patted her arm and slumped exhaustedly into Twilight’s hands.

“No, you’re not,” Twilight said shakily. Flora un-stoppered the bottle in her hands and he blindly trusted her, sitting Wild upright into his arms so he could drink it. The kid did so without protest, blinking hazily up at Twilight. Flora buried her face in his bloody neck and cried her poor heart out.

“Uhn… you’re…?” Wild said, trying to figure out how Twilight was there.

“Shh. Close your eyes and rest, cub.”

It was almost funny, the way Wild managed to give him a dubious look despite everything that had just happened, despite the blood coating his chin and chest, despite the way he was too exhausted to squirm willfully out of Twilight’s arms. Almost funny.

Flora raised her head and managed to speak as she prodded the slate. “We nuh-need… to move. The Blood Moon reh-resurrected eh-everything.” Blue light flashed around the Hylian shield Wild had been carrying, and suddenly it was gone.

“Yuh,” Wild agreed. He gripped Twilight’s tunic and started pulling himself to his feet.

It was like Twilight wasn’t even there—or like they thought he wouldn’t help. Whatever had just happened was normal to them, he realized. The ‘Blood Moon,’ the monster, the triforce, the fact that Wild had died. It was so normal that they were already pulling together to keep running, even though Flora was still choking on sobs and Wild could barely move his arms.

They were six.

“Come here, kit,” he said to Flora, picking her up in one arm while he kept Wild in the other. He stood, startling a gasp from her. “Just hold on to me.” Their horse was tired, but if things were still dangerous then he was just going to have to push it a little more.

“S-sir Wolf,” Flora stuttered when he put her in the saddle first. “I—we—you d-don’t need to—“

“Shhh.” It was difficult to keep his anger from showing, but he didn’t want her to think it was directed at her. He swung up behind her. Wild barely clung to consciousness in his arm. “You did great, kit, and now you don’t have to fight anymore. I’ve got you. Just look after Wild until we get back.”

“Back? No!” she cried, jolting her friend to awareness. She turned to look at Twilight with wide, terrified green eyes. “We cannot go back the way we came! The Blood Moon might have resurrected the Guardians! Only Wild knows how to kill them on horseback!”

Twilight hesitated. On one hand, he desperately needed to get these kids back to his fellow heroes. On the other, he was sure Time would have sent at least Legend after him once the Blood Moon appeared. If he waited or kept going down the path they were already on, he would have backup at some point. But the entire group couldn’t follow at speed, which made it reasonably likely the rest of them had gone to find ‘Link,’ who Twilight was now sure was six years old and lying heavily in his arm.

What a mess.

“Shh, it’s alright. We’ll keep going forward then,” he decided, readjusting the reins. “Rest, kit. I’ve got you both.”

He spurred the horse into a smooth canter and briefly marveled at its speed. Flora clung to Wild and dissolved into tears again. The little hero murmured another lie that he was fine and managed to grip her hand for a moment before he lapsed into unconsciousness. Twilight made sure both children were secure against him and kept a sharp eye out for any more threats.

It belatedly occurred to him that Flora had addressed him as ‘Sir Wolf.’

When Legend and Four found them, it was in another stable nearly identical to the first. Twilight was sitting at the foot of a bed not far from the entrance. Little Zelda was asleep under the covers, hardly more than a mop of blonde hair and a single pale hand curled up by her mouth. Little Link was asleep in Twilight’s arms, bundled up in a blanket. Twilight himself was humming and running his thumb in slow arcs across the side of the kid’s head. He didn’t look up until the two of them were close, and when he did he was visibly exhausted.

“Thinking of adopting?” Legend said, nodding at little Link. That was a remarkably protective grip Twilight had on him.

“…he died,” Twilight murmured.

Despite himself, Legend lurched forward a step as his stomach dropped. No! Then he saw the clear rise-and-fall of little Link’s chest, only partly hidden by the blanket, and scowled. “Obviously not,” he snapped. “What was that for?”

“He died out by the castle,” Twilight said, expression unchanged. He returned his attention to the kid. “There was some kind of giant infected monster. I didn’t get there in time. I watched him die. And then… he came back. And it was normal for them.”

He peeled back the blanket from the kid, enough for them to step closer and see a fresh, awful scar that trailed down from his collarbone to the bottom of his stomach. Little Link grumbled and shivered after a moment, so Twilight wrapped him back up. He didn’t wake.

“There’s an exit wound scar on his back, too.” Twilight met Legend’s eyes again. Behind the exhaustion was fury so intense that it made him wary. “I watched him die, and it upset me way more than it upset him.”

“Are you sure?” Four asked.

“His chest was torn open and burned by poison. Not even a dozen fairies could have saved him.”

“Then what did?”

Twilight hesitated. “I don’t know. His body was covered in blue flame and I saw… the spirit of a Zora, I think. She brought his soul back to his body and healed the worst of the damage.”

Little Link murmured and shifted. Twilight resumed stroking a thumb across his temple. “He woke up and the first thing he did was tell Flora he was fine and it was alright. Like he was used to it.”

Privately, Legend thought that things suddenly made sense. A six-year-old who couldn’t stay dead was capable of acting in the hero’s role, no matter how ill-equipped he was for it. The kid was definitely stubborn and courageous enough. Of course, Legend didn’t say any of that out loud. Instead, he asked, “Why didn’t you bring them back?”

“Flora said that the ‘Blood Moon’ resurrected everything. She was terrified of something called ‘Guardians’ along the path and said Wild was the only one who knew how to kill them on horseback. I couldn’t risk their safety. Did you encounter anything unusual?”

Four shook his head. “No, just monsters we outran.”

“Everyone else is heading for Kakariko Village to look for this era’s Link,” said Legend. “Guess that’s pointless now.”

“Hmm. We’ll find a safe route to meet up with them tomorrow.” Twilight nodded to little Zelda. “She’s definitely the little Princess, at least.”

“They’re bad at lying,” said Four.

“What do you expect from six-year-olds?”

Legend looked at Twilight and the kid for a long moment before he sighed. “You need to rest. Give me the brat, I’ll make sure he doesn’t get into any more trouble.”

“Nice try,” said Twilight without skipping a beat, “but you’re not about to steal the cuddles.”

Legend sputtered at the accusation. “I—am not!”

“You could have just told me to put him next to Flora. You definitely are.”

Four laughed at both of them.