Chapter Text
Wild follows the others out of the portal to a warm dusk, the sun just beginning to sink below the horizon. The kind of sunset Twilight would get all sappy and nostalgic over.
It feels like Spring, or perhaps early Summer, the balmy evening alive with the noise of birdsong and insects. He knows this place, he was here not so long ago. Cleared farmland on the edge of forests, in the distance Hyrule Castle stands, small but whole, the town bustling below it. The land healthy and prosperous.
Four's era.
They're back.
The peace is broken by a shout of “NOT MINE!” And Legend’s victorious cackling from the treeline. Guess they're back too.
"Legend!" Hyrule yells and sprints for the older boy as he emerges from the trees into view, he latches on to him in a hug.
"I missed baby Legend!" Hyrule bemoans.
"I know," Legend replies sympathetically, patting his hair.
"I was a fairy for soooo long and I didn't lead a single person into the woods to dance for eight days straight, or steal any Names—"
"You've already got our name."
"—I didn't kidnap the child. I could have, I could have—"
"Navi would have stopped you," Time interjects.
"—and the Lost Woods were so strong, I wanted to lure Wild in to them so bad."
"You what?" This is the first Wild's hearing of that.
"Rulie, you were so strong and so brave," Legend says indulgent and joking.
Wild's not sure they should be indulging this.
Oh well!
The others emerge, mostly looking bemused, and well, that's them back together he supposes. They look none the worse for wear, they're in a good mood if anything, more so than his own group.
He sees Four stop and look out over his homeland. Sees him take the view and a deep breath in, drawing himself up, steeling himself.
And oh, he thinks of that smiling young man sitting at little Time's feet. Dead for centuries, counting down the time until Ganondorf's dark influence, or the man himself, would take the sword holding his soul and break it into corrupted, cursed pieces.
Waiting for him. To warn them away from catastrophe, to save his successors even if it wouldn't save himself.
Wild goes over and wraps him in a hug, "Four, you're so good," he tells him, Four needs to know.
"I. Huh?"
"You are such a good person. You did so much." Light waited so long for them, he risked so much. He doesn't let go, he can't hug Light for it but he can hug Four.
"Okay? Thank you?"
"Ha!" Snorts Legend, extracting himself from Hyrule's grip and poking Twilight in the side, "Wild has a new favourite."
Twilight just rolls his eyes at him.
"Legend," Time approaches him first.
"Ooh, another new favourite?" Legend puts his chin in his hand as if giving it serious, smug consideration. He's definitely in a good mood, which is always a spectator sport.
"I don't have favourites," Time says the same time Warriors says, "Twilight's not his favourite."
And you can bet Legend catches that one.
"Oh, who is then Wars? Hmmmm?"
"Legend," Time sighs it this time.
"Never you," Wars counters.
"I'm fine just being Hyrule's."
"Legend."
"Yes, Time?"
"How'd it go?"
"Fine," Legend answers on instinct.
Time gives him a long silent look. He doesn't even need to say anything anymore.
"There was some drama, it worked out, we're fine," Legend flaps a hand at him, "The kid knows what he needs to do and what he'll most likely be facing."
"How did you trigger the portal?" Time asks.
"…" Legend doesn't answer.
Oh so it's something he'll get in trouble for. Fun. Time turns to Twilight. There's nowhere for him to run, and unlike Legend who has never given a fuck, Twilight is weak to Time's disappointed face.
"Do not snitch on your seniors, Rookie." Wind warns.
He holds out for all of fifteen seconds before snitching on his seniors. As vaguely as he can at least, but he still folds. "We brought down a building."
"A building," Time says flatly.
"A tower," Twilight only marginally clarifies.
"A tower?"
"Wait…" Wars interjects, "Do you mean the Black Tower?"
Warriors knows random weird time stuff sometimes, like about battles and kingdoms and buildings and the others. Not him, Wild is spared that particular agony of finding out there is an inaccurate heroic mosaic of him somewhere.
"I loathe when you know things about my life," Legend grouches.
"You brought down the Black Tower? Ambi's Tower? One of the tallest structures in recorded history?" Wars looks like he doesn't know if he should be impressed or aghast.
"Hey, I helped build it, I'm allowed to bring it down!" Legend argues.
"What? Why were you building it?"
"The position was neither paid nor voluntary."
"Legend. Please," Time cuts back in, "Why?"
"Boss fight," he answers, "Also the dark magic misery of building that thing powers Ganon's resurrection. It was too far along to stop by stopping the construction, but he'll be a little weaker when the kid faces him. If he doesn't manage to take out Twinrova before that."
"How did you even do it?!" Wars is apparently not over it, "That thing was suppossed to be colossal."
Four rummages around in his bag and hands Warriors a pictograph, holding up another for Wild to see to see without having to let go of his hug. A little image of a huge and dark distant tower coming down. A line of explosions down the side of it from top to almost the bottom.
Legend shoots Four a glare, Four shrugs with a half smile.
"You planted bombs?" Wars squints at him as the others gather around to look.
"No, used my medallions."
Time, Wars and Sky gape at him. Rulie seems proud. For his part, Wild thinks Legend did a very good job, he didn't know he had that much destruction in him.
"You did that with your items?" Time asks, not quite in disbelief but comfortably in the neighbourhood next-door.
"Yeah."
"Why don't you do that more?! You've been holding out on us!" Wars flaps the picto at Legend so Sky grabs it off him.
"They'll explode anywhere not right up next to me. I don't use them because I'd kill everyone."
"If you can't direct this how'd you get them running up and down the tower," Sky asks.
"I jumped."
Sky frowns, "I thought you didn't have a glide item?"
"I don't, but I had the local warp item. In and out, no problem."
"You went to a boss fight," Time asks, squinting at him suspiciously, "Then jumped off the tower and brought it down on top of you with an item that targets indiscriminately before warping out? Alone?"
Wild thinks that sounds like an incredibly fun plan.
Legend pauses for a touch too long as he figures out the answer least likely to get him in trouble, "Yep. Just me."
Wars works it out first, "….YOU TOOK THE BOY!?"
"SO I HEAR YOU MET FOUR!"
"Legend!"
"We're all alive! You saw the kid, he's fine. We got Nayru's blessing to do it. It's fine, don't fuss. Let's talk about what your group did and the alter-Four." The man has no regrets.
"Yes, Wild, this is lovely but I am increasingly concerned about how long this hug is going," Four chips in.
"He was in the Temple of Light," Wild says, "He left a message to try to get us to go there to meet him and it worked. He told us what the plan with Lore was."
"Did he say anything else?" Four asks.
"Four, he said so much. I've never seen you talk that much."
"Did he say anything for me?"
I’m sorry, we’re all so, so sorry. I know it will hurt.
"He left something," Wild realises, "Said to give it to you when we saw you, that you'd work it out."
Wild lets him go and reaches into his pouch to pull out the Shadow Crystal and Moon Pearls, one of them loose and the other jammed in one of the curled spines of the crystal. He holds them out to Four who frowns, confused. He looks over the loose Moon Pearl, then picks up the crystal.
"Is it the same as Twi's?" He asks.
Wild nods and Twilight pulls his own Shadow Crystal out from under his shirt to show he still has it. They certainly look the same.
Four turns the crystal in his hands, curious, and then he notices the Moon Pearl caught in it, he frowns deeper, drawing a crease between his brows.
And then his eyes blow wide and violet, violet, Violet.
“Vio?” Wild asks, noticing the shift, noticing how his hands have started shaking, “Are you okay?”
Vio jams a thumb into the crevice with the Moon Pearl, working, forcing it out. Cutting Four's hands bloody on the sharp edges of the thing as he does. It comes loose and he clutches it in one hand, tossing the crystal away like a bomb with the other.
For a moment there is nothing, then a thread of dark magic grows from the thing. At first just a trickle, smoke from embers, then it spills out like ink into water. A blooming cloud of darkness and sputtering power.
A phantom curls into into existence, and then the darkness is a boy. No, a young man, just small the way Four is small. Exactly the way Four is small. The air hums softly with magic, warm and biting.
Blades are drawn.
“Hold!” Legend calls, though he's got one hand on his own sword. Time holds out a hand of his own to cut off Wars and Sky, possibly thinking the same thing as Wild.
Light told him to give it to Four after all, so this must be him figuring it out right? He could have worked that out 'remove the Moon Pearl' himself, but maybe that wasn't the point. The point was 'Give it to Four'.
Legend glances between Four and the ghostly figure from the crystal and lets out a shaky laugh, “The other fucking Four.”
“What?” Several people say at once, but Legend just keeps his eyes on it, one hand out to them in the ‘hold’ position. He doesn't know what about it Legend seems to recognise.
The creature? Being? Monster? Just a… guy? A person? Sits in mid air, his heels touching the ground beside the crystal. Outline somewhat fuzzy and form semi-transparent. A man made of smoke and shadow and magic. He looks like Four, a lot like Four, but not in the same way the Colours do. He's not identical, not just in the hint of purple-black in his hair or deep red in his unfocused eyes, his face is a little sharper, older, and while his features are similar his expressions settle differently.
Wild’s always been good at telling them apart.
And it’s not a match for, not a dark reflection of Four.
He’s a match for Light.
"Huh," he says, staring at one of his smoky, translucent hands, twisting it back and forth, "Not dead."
He looks up and squints at them, eyes unfocused, "Not Ganon…" then back at himself for a moment as all that processes. "Wait…" his head snaps back towards them.
“Shadow,” the boy beside him breathes, tears wet on his cheeks, and Wild can’t tell if it’s Vio or Four now. He falls to his knees.
The stranger's gaze focuses on them for the first time. Locks on to Four.
He gives a full body shudder from his heels to the tips of his ears and his form solidifies. Not an unfocused, transparent spectre anymore but someone as solid and real as the rest of them.
He looks like he's seen a ghost instead of being one himself, he looks like he's watched all the world break to pieces. Too easy to read, too open. He pastes a sardonic smile on top of it, all fond and teasing and vicious.
He floats to his feet, the Shadow Crystal lifting from the earth and vanishing into his form.
“Awww, it’s baby Link,” coos the being, with an expression that reminds Wild very much of the time he showed Four a nest of baby chipmunks, except if Four had maybe also wanted to eat the chipmunks, “You must be Four.”
Four stares at him, eyes whirling a kaleidoscope before he shuts them for a long moment, a pained expression on his face, when he opens them again they’re his own grey.
“Nope!” declares Four. A rejection of the whole situation rather than a denial.
“Nope?” Asks the shadow monster.
Four takes a deep shuddering breath, wincing, clutching his head with one hand and the hilt of the Four Sword with the other, “Everyone else’s turn for the migraine.”
He draws his sword, there’s a flash of light, and the Colours explode into existence and chaos.
○𝅘𝅥𝅮❍
There is darkness.
And there is pain.
Then there is light.
The Triforce blazes gold in the darkness, another mirrored beneath it. He doesn't understand. He puts a hand to his chest. It aches. He's so cold.
Link opens his eyes.
Only the Triforce remains, a bright, bright but fading golden light.
He is little again. Where is Navi? He reaches out towards the Triforce, it does not heed him. The piece he held is gone. Is it there, did Ganondorf take it?
Where are Ganondorf and Princess Zelda?
He hangs suspended in the air, wrapped in power and buffeted by the storm of it.
A Hylian man… or boy? He doesn’t really understand where the Hylians draw all their lines, but he thinks he's big like when Link is big, looks up at him from behind the Triforce. Beside him stands a girl, her long hair loose, wearing a dress a lot like Princess Zelda's.
The two of them stand with a hand outstretched to the Triforce. Link feels like it should burn like fire, but it warms him through like a healing hot spring.
The boy is bloody, injured, dirty, tired, and grinning. The girl's smile is firm and self satisfied, focused and bright.
He wears an embroidered blue tunic, there's a pink streak in his blond hair. Two swords are crossed on his back, one with a deep blue hilt and a hint of gold-orange blade peeking out of the scabbard, the other a silvery-white with a brass coloured hilt and pale pommel stone and oh, Link saw him before. The boy on Wild Link's little screen.
He said he was doing the same, he said he'd be there in the end. He wasn't, and Link hadn't thought of it at the time, but he's here now so maybe that wasn't the end.
Link catches movement from the corner of his eye and turns his head to find another Hylian suspended in the air beside him, small, but he thinks grown up, dressed in a white tunic with shoulder length blond hair. He looks down at the pair as well.
“Link, Lore, Legend,” says the man beside him, with a grin and a sing-song lilt to the phrase.
The Hylian boy laughs, exhausted and wild and victorious, and lifts his eyes to meets theirs, “Welcome back! Link of the Kokiri.
Nice to finally meet you, Link, Hero of Light!”