Chapter Text
To the surprise of no one, Legend loved curio shops. He was something of a connoisseur of magic items, and tiny shacks filled with bits and bobs were the best places to find rare and unusual ones.
This curio shop was on the edge of a moderately sized town in an era none of them could call their own. Legend and Hyrule both recognized certain landmarks, though, so it seemed likely that they had landed between their times.
That was totally fine by Legend, though. It meant that he hadn’t been to this shop yet, and it was always thrilling to see a new collection. Nine times out of ten, these places held nothing of value to him, but he could smell the magic radiating from this building on the opposite edge of town.
He was perfectly content to let the others sort out accommodations while he got a jump on exploring what was already a promising collection of curios and items. Half the group wanted to sleep, bathe, and eat in a variety of orders, though Sky and Wind followed along after him as he blazed a trail straight through town.
The streets were busy at this time of the afternoon, but the radius around the curio shop was oddly empty.
A bell chimed when they opened the door, and Legend had to pause to take in the sight. There were orbs of light caught in glass jars hung from the ceiling and placed on shelves and tables, giving the entire space a cozy yellow glow. Somewhere, there was incense burning. Legend recognized the scent of lavender. Most impressive, though, were the shelves upon shelves stuffed to the brim with trinkets and treasures. The shelves formed a winding maze through the deceptively large building, seeming to spread out and out beyond where the walls ought to be. There were stones and silver and fabrics and flowers and books and bowls and more. The air was saturated with magic of all stripes, to the point it was almost headache inducing.
Legend couldn’t be happier.
“Welcome, friends!” The voice had bounced between the shelves from somewhere to their left. Just as they were about to begin the trek into the stacks to follow it, a woman appeared from around the corner. “Welcome to my shop.” The curio lady bowed deeply. Her orange hair tumbled down over her shoulders as she straightened, a few locks catching between the layers of maneuverable lenses grafted to the front of her glasses. She flicked a few of them up and down, adjusting her vision of them. Her long nails, nearly sharpened like claws, made small clicking noises as she tapped on the frames.
She gave each of them an appraising look, though her eyes lingered on Legend the longest. He felt a bit like he was being hunted. “You lot have quite a bit of magic on you,” she said.
Wind looked like he was about to say something damning, so Legend swooped in. “We’ve been around. Just browsing today, though.”
The curio lady’s lips twitched, disappointed, but she smiled anyway. “Well, let me know if you have questions. Everything on display is safe to touch, though I do ask that you be careful.”
Sky smiled back, much more warmly. “Of course.”
She returned back into the shelves from whence she came, disappearing easily and leaving the three of them to wander.
“What was that for?” Wind asked, easily clocking that Legend had cut him off on purpose.
“You don’t want to let these types of people know how interested you are. It makes it harder to haggle if you find something you like because they know they can ask for more if you really want it.”
Wind’s eyes lit up and he nodded seriously.
“Got it.” He then took off in the exact opposite direction of the woman.
Sky sighed and followed after him at a more sedate pace. “Don’t break anything!” he called lamely.
Legend set off ahead, opting to go deeper into the building. He took his time, letting his eyes glide over the shelves. It would take hours just to comb through a single shelving unit, so he didn’t. Places like this were best explored loosely, allowing prizes to come to you instead of trying to dig them out.
He didn’t realize he’d stopped dead in his tracks until Sky bumped into him from behind. He absently apologized, stepped aside a bit, but kept staring at what was possibly the most beautiful stone pendant he’d ever seen. The stone was a perfect pear cut that seemed to practically glow green in the candlelight. When he tilted his head, streaks of yellow and blue appeared and disappeared in flickers. He’d always had an eye for fine jewelry - even Ravio accused him of being part dragon, or magpie, on account of the way he was drawn to proper shinies.
And this one was almost mesmerizing in its beauty.
“What did you find?” Sky asked, his voice a mixture of exasperated and amused.
Legend hadn’t realized he was still there. “Look at that crystal,” he said.
It took Sky an embarrassingly long several seconds to spot it on the crowded shelf. “That’s a nice one,” he agreed. “Is it magic?”
“Hard to say. There’s a lot of ambient magic in here, so it’s hard to isolate. I don’t think you get a color like that naturally, though.”
Sky nodded. “I don’t think I’ve seen a purple quite that dark.” His ears flicked. “I’m going to find Wind before he breaks or steals something,” he said, cutting off Legend's question about the color. In a moment, he was gone, lost among the winding shelves.
Legend sighed. It was probably best to follow. Wind could be quite the handful in a place like this.
He glanced at the gem again and caught himself staring after what might have been a full minute. He shook his head. There were plenty of other things to look at.
He wound through the haphazard rows, poking listlessly at various tools and figures and complicated objects he could only describe as “doohickeys” that caught his eye. The place was a maze, and every few minutes, he found himself inadvertently circling back to that mesmerizing green stone.
After the fourth or fifth pass where he paused, gazing longingly at the gem for longer and longer stretches, the shopkeeper materialized behind him.
“Lovely piece, isn’t it?” she said.
Legend jumped a bit. He hadn’t noticed her approach.
“It’s beautiful,” he agreed. “I've never seen anything like it.”
“What color do you see?” she asked. “It’s different for everyone.”
He couldn’t help but stare at the gem again, just in case it had changed. “It’s green,” he said. “With hints of yellow and blue. Like…like pine. Like courage.” When he tore his eyes away and looked at the curio woman, he had a realization. “Like your eyes.”
Her smile reached all the way to those stunning, piercing green eyes.
“That sounds wonderful,” she said.
“Do the colors mean anything?”
“Not that I’ve been able to identify,” she said breezily. “You’re a hero, yes?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I can tell, that sword on your back and the magic I sense coming off of you are pretty obvious tells. You also have a certain air about you. If you don’t mind me saying, you look tired. Not ‘didn’t get enough sleep’ tired, but…existentially tired. Like you need a vacation, or to retire.”
Legend blinked a few times. At some point during her speech, his eyes had drifted back towards the gem, and her words had mixed together a little bit. “You could say that.”
“Oh, but you’ve found great treasures along the way, I see!” She clapped her hands. Legend felt himself relax a bit. She reminded him of Ravio, always keeping an eye out for a new sale or some curiosity to collect. “There’s so much magic, on and in you. You probably only have eyes for the very best.” She flicked down a purple-tinted lens over her left eye and watched him intently. “Are you interested in the stone?”
He forced his attention to stay on the curio lady. “It is lovely,” he said, “but I’m not looking to buy today.”
“That’s not what I asked.” She leaned over and flicked the side of the pendant, causing it to swing back and forth a few times. The movement made it catch the light in new, interesting ways. The colors shifted, naturally drawing his eye into the center.
She waited a few moments, letting his mind fall back into the gem. “Are you interested in the stone?”
“Yes,” Legend answered this time.
“I love looking at it, too. There’s such depth of color. Take a closer look – it’s like it has layers inside it.”
Legend couldn’t help but lean forward a bit, especially when she placed a hand delicately on the back of his neck and gave the faintest nudge forward. Up close, he could see she was absolutely correct; the colors seemed to go deeper and deeper into the gem than would seem possible. Every time he blinked, it was as if a whole new field was revealed.
“You’re tired, Hero, aren’t you? Tired down to your bones, in your soul.”
“Yes,” he agreed thoughtlessly.
“After so many quests. So many fights. You must be exhausted, Hero.”
”I am.”
“Well, you can rest here, at least for a bit. Relax. Let your shields down.”
Her hand landed feather-light on his shoulder. Immediately, the tension he had been holding there drained.
”That’s it. Just relax. It’s safe here. Let your mind sink down into the stone. Down, down, down. Everything will be fine.”
She brushed her finger along the length of his jaw, and he felt the muscles there loosen.
”Doesn’t that feel better already?” she whispered.
”Yes,” he breathed.
“Good, that’s good, Hero. Just keep breathing like that.”
He did. He felt the air slowly circulate into his lungs, pushing his chest out, then slide back out. It didn’t feel like he was actually breathing - the air was simply moving through him of its own accord. It was nice, actually. He didn’t have to work for it at all.
“You’re doing so well, Hero. Feel your muscles relax. Your neck, your shoulders. Your arms, your fingers. Your legs, your toes. Let all of your stress float away as you go down deeper and deeper.”
With every word, Legend felt tension melt away from another part of him. The outside world seemed to fade into the distance as he let her voice envelope him. She had such a soothing voice.
“That’s it. Down, and down, and down. My voice is the only sound you need to worry about. The stone is the only thing you need to focus on. Just let my words drip into you, and relax.”
He felt so boneless that a distant, quiet part of him marveled that he hadn’t collapsed. That tiny part of him was slowly drowning, and he barely felt it. All he needed to feel was relaxed. All he needed to do was listen.
”Now, Hero, why don’t you tell me about your quests? You’ve been on so many, it must be hard to keep track.”
Legend felt as though his brain had been slowly leaking out his ears, but her question forced him to try to pull some of it back in. It was a struggle to piece his memories together enough to be coherent. “I fought…I fought Ganon,” he managed. Just the one statement had been so tiring to assemble.
”Sounds exhausting,” she said. “It’s a good thing you can finally relax now.”
Like dropping a taut rope, the tension he had been holding slipped away, and he felt his mind sink even deeper into the haze than before.
“Let’s see,” she crooned. “You fight him over and over. And he keeps coming back. That’s not good, Hero. You don’t do a good job keeping him down.”
She sighed, and Legend felt his heart clench and the air leave his lungs without coming back. It was true. He was not a good hero. His insecurities swirled up and around him like a whirlpool, catching on all of his flailing limbs and dragging him further down.
Her voice surrounded him when she spoke again. “All of your experience, all of your pain, it’s all meaningless because you can’t keep people safe for more than a few months at a time.” She leaned into him from behind and cupped his cheek in her hand. Her fingers were cool on his flushed cheeks. “Everyone would despise you if they found out how poorly you’ve done, Hero.”
There was a faint tug on his magic, a tiny sensation like a hair that fell across his arm. One of her rings had an essence of darkness about it, faint but distinct. It was enough to make him turn his head into her hand slightly.
She pushed delicately against his cheek, pointing his eyes back to the center of the gem, and the nagging wonder melted instantly.
“You’re soft,” she whispered directly into his ear. It was a sentencing, a condemnation, a statement of truth as pure as holy water. The gem blurred slightly in his vision as tears filled his eyes. He was soft. He was a terrible hero. The inescapable truth was that he failed over and over to keep the people he cared about safe. He was so tired, and for what? He gave up his time, his body, his life to the goddesses, and it didn’t matter. His heart sank, down down down.
At some point, her fingers ended up in his hair. She slowly, gingerly, ran her nails along his scalp. “Deep down, at your very core, you are soft,” she said. “But soft isn’t bad.”
Legend felt dizzy. His mind was unmoored from his heart was unmoored from his body. Everything she said pushed and pulled him around until he couldn’t figure out which way was up, and all he wanted was to go down, down, down.
“You have failed as a hero,” she murmured, “but there is one thing you’re good at.” She waited a long moment, letting the words sink in, before continuing. “You are good at this. At relaxing. At being soft in my hands. At sinking down, down, down. You can feel the weight of everything pushing you down. You’re so tired, Hero. Let me take the weight from you so you can keep sinking further into the relaxation you deserve.” She leaned forward into him, pushing him closer to that perfect gem. “Let all of your worries, your insecurities, your failures fall away as you fall into the depths of the stone. It will hold all the pain so that you can be soft for me.”
Legend was happy to stare deeper into the layers of color in the gem. His heart continued to sink until it landed on something plush. She started petting his hair again, and he sighed pleasantly.
“That’s it. You are soft down to your soul, and I like soft. A delicate little rabbit that needs to be protected from the world.”
The ring he had noticed earlier and had already forgotten pulsed with magic for a moment, but Legend’s attention was being pulled inexorably under the cuts of the gem. She kept running her fingers along his head, but the sensation was different. One distant spark of awareness in a lonely corner of his mind thought it felt like someone stroking the velvety ears of his Dark World form.
“Does that feel nice, bunny?” she asked quietly. “Relax for me.”
Were it not for the almost aching need to keep staring into the gem, his eyes would certainly have drooped closed by now.
Slowly, she stepped back, leaving him untethered in reality. He didn’t mind so much; he was relaxed. When she returned to his awareness, it was to place down a large standing mirror next to the shelf that held the gem.
“Do you like being calm, little rabbit? Answer me.”
It took several long seconds to process that command, and a few more to scoop a response from the still pool that his mind had become.
“Yes,” he finally managed.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I like being calm.”
“Good. Relax even further. Keep sinking down, bunny. Nice and deep.”
He was only tangentially aware of her reaching behind the gem and unhooking it from whatever was keeping it in place. As she lifted it off the shelf, his eyes followed it without hesitation. He hadn’t noticed the setting until now; he had been too caught off guard by the gem itself. But as she picked it up, he finally registered the thin leather choker it was connected to. Not a choker – a collar.
She slowly carried it towards him. The moment it was too close to his neck for him to be able to see it, she guided his head to face the mirror. There was a split second where he felt a thread of tension, but it faded once he could see it in the reflection.
The gem sat perfectly in the hollow of his neck, and he felt lightheaded. His bones were jelly, and his entire awareness focused down, down, down to that single point where that precious gem touched his skin. His mind was gone, and he felt bliss. Every trauma, every ache, every errant thought about next, next, next, next, next fell away from him.
A stray spark of magic brushed the back of his neck, but he didn’t care. He didn’t have the capacity to care. The gem was part of him now, and the only emotion he could feel was joy.
“Relax, little rabbit,” she whispered. Her voice was perfection. He had no room to disobey. “I’m so glad you came here,” she said. “You have so much magic inside you, bunny, and it’s going to be mine.”
Legend nodded, swaying a bit on his feet from the rush of pure nothing that had overcome him when she closed the collar permanently around his neck.
She wrapped her arms around him from behind, studying his reflection through the mirror. “I lied to you earlier, but I know you don’t mind. The gem appears different colors based on how susceptible you are to its magic.” She tapped the gem with one of her long nails. “And you were absolutely perfect. A perfect specimen altogether, really. I’ll be able to siphon off your magic for the rest of your life.” She pet his head again. “And the ears are a nice bonus. You are quite soft, as discussed.”
He made a noise somewhere between a purr and a soft honk as her nails sent pleasant tingles along his ears and into his scalp.
“Maybe I’ll turn you the rest of the way at some point. We have time.” Tenderly, she turned his face away from the mirror. When she took his hand to lead him deeper into the building, he followed without hesitation.