Chapter Text
“He’s so cute I’m gonna cry,” says Wild, who does, in fact, appear to be on the verge of tears. He clutches Legend—currently a tiny pink rabbit—to his chest, eyes watering. “Oh goddess he’s so fluffy, he’s so small, what the hell, I love him. I love you. Stay like this forever. I want to kiss your head.”
Wild then proceeds to do just that, kissing Legend between his long ears. Legend would likely claw anyone else’s eyes out for the infraction (excepting, perhaps, Hyrule) but for Wild he merely goes limp, resigned to his future as a glorified stuffed animal.
“He has a tiny vest,” Wild breathes, “with tiny pockets.”
Flora leans over him, equally enamored. “I want to hold him.”
“Maybe you can pet him,” Wild offers instead, to Sky’s surprise—he’s never one to deny his princess anything. But of course Wild would realize how uncomfortable Legend would be in the hands of a near-stranger. Their newest brother is remarkably perceptive.
So Flora pets Legend’s head gently instead, cooing at the brush of his soft pink fur.
His patience having worn thin, Legend grunts and kicks a hind leg.
“Here,” Sky says, rescuing his tiny friend from his two overenthusiastic admirers. “He looks like he’s getting antsy, and he has been known to bite.”
Sky releases Legend into the sand. The rabbit makes it a few hops—flicking his feet irritably at them as he goes—before sitting down with his ears back. It’s going to take forever to get all of the sand out of his fur; Twilight fares no better. He lopes a circle around them, woofing impatiently and spraying them with sand as he skids to a stop.
“We’re coming, we’re coming,” Sky says, ruffling the wolf’s ears affectionately.
They had stopped about a kilometer from Gerudo Town—near enough that Sky can see heavy sandstone walls rising from the horizon. Wild had changed clothes, donning a gauzy outfit that exposed a truly tremendous amount of skin. Flora had gushed over him as she adjusted the veil around his antlers. Even Sky had to admit he made quite a pretty vai.
Legend had looked appalled, but not for the reasons one might expect. Rather, he demanded, “What if somebody stabs you?”
“Well,” Wild said, diplomatically, as he slid his shoes on, “it’s good to know I’ll have three dashing Heroes and a Princess to defend me.”
“You put entirely too much faith in us,” Legend said.
“Yeah,” Twilight snorted, hooking a thumb towards Legend. “This one’s not going to be much use in a minute.”
As Wild finished dressing, Twilight and Legend used the Dark Crystal to transform into their respective animal forms. Sky had been half-tempted to try it himself. How much easier things would be in an animal’s form, where no-one expected grand feats or sensible explanations from him. But in the end he had resisted. Who knew what his form would even be? What if he turned into a worm, or a whale, or something otherwise terribly inconvenient? No, it wasn’t worth the risk.
So Sky remains in his Hylian form as they walk the remaining distance towards Gerudo Town. Legend makes it a few meters on his own before it becomes clear he’s far too small to struggle through the drifting sand. Wild scoops him back up, and Legend grumbles but allows himself to be carried.
“You know, I heard a story about rabbits once,” Wild says, perhaps as much to distract Legend as to entertain the rest of them. “Flora, you’ve probably heard this one, too—about El-ahrairah?”
“Oh, yes. Do tell it again, though.”
“Well, rabbits were all made by Lord Frith, and the first of the rabbits was Prince El-ahrairah,” Wild says, slipping into the voice of a storyteller—distant and lofty. “But El-ahrairah’s people quickly overpopulated the earth, and began to eat all of the grass everywhere. So Lord Frith called a great meeting of the animals, and to each he gave special gifts.
“He gave the fox and the weasel cunning hearts and sharp teeth, and to the cat he gave silent feet and eyes to see in the dark. He sent them out to kill El-ahrairah’s people, to stop them from destroying all the earth. But he still needed El-ahrairah around, to sport and jest and play tricks. So to El-ahrairah he gave long and strong back legs, to carry him great distances, and a white tail which flashed like a star.”
Legend twists in Wild’s arms, looking up at him with begrudging interest when he pauses. His ears lift, the fine veins and arteries within highlighted by the piercing sun.
“Then the Lord Frith said to El-ahrairah, ‘Your people cannot rule the world, for I will not have it so. All the world will be your enemy, Prince With A Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you: digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.’
“So here we find him,” Wild finishes, smiling down at Legend. “El-ahrairah’s most cunning son yet, with almost as many tricks as he has tools.”
Legend rolls his eyes but nestles his chin against Wild’s shoulder. Sky can’t help but think he looks a little pleased, and his ears remain standing proud.
“It’s a good story,” Flora says. “Have you heard the one of El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inle?”
So they trade fairytales until they reach the walls of Gerudo Town at last. Sky stands aside while Wild and Flora speak to the guards stationed outside. Twilight sits next to him, leaning against his leg and panting hard in the heat. Sky pours another chilly elixir into his palms and lets the wolf drink from them. He wipes his hands clean on the sand when he’s finished, looking up as Wild returns.
“We’re headed in now,” he says, and offers Sky an apologetic smile. “You’re free to wait here for our return, but they won’t let you inside. I’m sorry. Even the male Sages were only allowed inside for healing. They’ll need to leave soon, and I imagine we’ll leave with them, so it shouldn’t be too long.”
“Take your time,” Sky says, straightening and brushing granules of sand off on his trousers. “I have enough chilly elixirs to last me most of the day.”
Wild waves a hand, and a trio of palm trees sprout from the earth. Hardy shrubs and a vining hydromelon plant twine around their slender trunks. “Now you have shade, too,” Wild says.
“Goddess,” Sky says, staring at the tiny oasis Wild has willed into the world with nothing but a thought. “You know you’re incredible, right?”
Wild beams. “We’ll come bring you dinner before the sun sets.”
Sky waves goodbye to his brothers and Flora before settling beneath one of the palm trees, leaning back against its trunk. He hadn’t really thought this far ahead when he’d volunteered to go with them—he’d simply been looking for a reason to leave, to put space between himself and everyone else. Now that he actually has a bit of space, he’s coming to the rapid realization that being left alone with his thoughts may actually be worse.
He manages to distract himself for a while: he plays a game of Jacks, chats with Fi, doodles in the hot sand, and walks a lap around the Town just to admire the architecture. But eventually he runs out of things to do, and lays on his back to nap. He drapes an arm over his eyes to shield them from the sun; the chilly elixirs help to prevent sunburn, for which he’s grateful, else he’s sure he would be redder than a lobster by now.
Sleep is far too slow to come, and Sky is left to think, which has recently become his least-favorite pastime. He thinks of the Demon Dragon and how gently it held him as it contemplated his worth. He thinks of animal panic and he thinks of his brother’s fangs in his flesh. He thinks of Wild and torn throats and the way it feels to die. He thinks of Time’s terror and once-solid ground tearing beneath his boots like paper.
He thinks please, please, let this work, don’t let them die, I’d do anything, Hylia.
He thinks and he thinks and he thinks and it drives him to madness.
The madness manifests when he hears the guards speaking between themselves in low voices about a molduga in the Palu Wastelands. Sky sits up, shaking the sand out of his hair, and meanders towards the guards. When they glance towards him, he offers his most sheepish smile.
“Sav’aaq,” he says, copying the greeting he’d heard Wild use earlier. “I’m sorry to intrude, but I heard you mention a molduga. We don’t have anything like that where I come from, but I’m fascinated in wildlife of all sorts. Could I listen in?”
He already knows the essentials about the molduga—Flora had briefed them on the monsters of this world shortly after they’d arrived in the Depths. But his feigned ignorance is meant to lower the guards’ suspicions of him; if they feel more intelligent than him, they’ll want to show it off.
“You’ve never seen a molduga?” the youngest, Babi, asks.
“Afraid not,” Sky says, giving an awkward smile, as though embarrassed by his own lack of knowledge. “I’ve seen moblins before, of course. Are they similar at all?”
“Not in the least,” the eldest, Kyra, exclaims. “Molduga are massive—far larger than even a hinox.”
Sky widens his eyes. “Larger than a hinox? Wouldn’t that be extremely dangerous? And you said there was one nearby?”
“Not terribly nearby,” Babi says, shaking her head. “The nearest is the one in the Palu Wastelands, and it never leaves its territory. As long as you take care to avoid the area, you ought to be safe. Besides, you’re traveling with the Hero. If anyone can defend you from a molduga, it would be him.”
“He’s fought a molduga before?” Sky cocks his head—the picture of an inquisitive schoolboy, earnest and open-faced. “How would you even fight something that big?”
“Well, they seek sound,” Kyra explains. “If you throw a rock, or something like, they’ll dive up to examine it. That’s your chance to strike. It’s best to stun it with a bomb arrow before attacking more closely. But it recovers quickly, and you’d better be out of the way when it does.”
“Not,” Babi points out, “that you should consider fighting one.”
Sky waves his hands. “Oh, no, no. I could never. I’ll save the heroics for Link.”
It’s not a lie, technically: he is saving the heroics for Link.
Just not the Link they know, is all.
Three hours later, the Gerudo Desert is home to one less molduga.
Sky lays on a column of red stone jutting from the sandy dunes of the Palu Wastelands, savoring his success. He’s sweaty but, besides a scraped knee and a bruised elbow, uninjured. He dangles his legs over the side of the stone, swinging them idly back and forth. The sun beats brutally against his face and neck, challenging even the effects of the chilly elixir he’d just downed. A brief, warm wind sprays sand across his legs before falling flat once more.
It’s so quiet.
Sky whistles his bird-call.
Crimson, he thinks, homesickness like a heartache in his chest. C’mere, pretty bird. Take me home.
But no-one comes.
Sky licks his lips, chapped from the dry wind, and whistles once more. He wishes Crimson would come and scoop him away from here. They could fly across the vast desert together, and then beyond—over the forests, and the fields, up into the Sky Islands where it feels like home. They could look down on the world together, and Sky could tell the bird all that weighed heavy on him. Crimson was nothing if not a good listener.
But Crimson is not here, and will not be here.
Sky is alone.
It’s a rarity, these days. Ever since he joined up with his brothers, he’s hardly had a moment to himself. He doesn’t mind it as much as he once thought he would. It’s nice—always having someone there for conversation, or collaboration, or back-up in a battle. What’s more, Sky loves his brothers. He loves being around them. He loves listening to their stories and laughing at their jokes and soothing their hurts. So he doesn’t mind that he’s never alone, except—
Except he was alone.
Except, after Wild died, he was completely and utterly alone.
Shortly after the dragons had fallen, Sky had hit the ground running. He’d been some distance away from them, then—the wind had tugged him west, placing him approximately a half-kilometer from Wild and the Demon Dragon. When he’d landed, he’d bolted in Wild’s direction. At that point, he’d bled through all of his clothing, and was beginning to feel the effects of his injuries. As a result, he was too slow—by the time he reached the dragons, Wild had already died.
Sky felt it the moment it happened. Wild’s death was a searing brand against his soul, tearing through every vital part of him. It had forced him to his knees, gasping for breath as the world spun. For a moment he feared he wouldn’t get up again. Light speckled his vision. Heat flashed across the back of his neck.
But he forced himself to his feet, dragging onwards with dogged persistence. Wild couldn’t be dead—not really. Sky had given him all of his red potions, and his fairy. What had it been for, if Wild had died anyway? No, it was impossible. Wild was alive. He had to be alive. This was the mantra Sky repeated to himself as he drug his feet the last few steps to the Dragon of the Wild’s side.
Wild lay still, unmoving. His sides no longer rose and fell. No warm breath pushed from his nostrils to brush over Sky’s palm. His eyes did not crack open to regard Sky with affectionate curiosity, and his whiskers did not twitch when Sky smoothed them. Sky probed at the missing bond—it was like the hole left after a yanked tooth, sore and bleeding and impossible to leave alone.
“Wild?” he said, stroking the soft fur of Wild’s mane. “Wake up, sweetheart. I need you to wake up. Can you open your eyes?”
Sky walked around to the other side of his head, and there he found Time. He dropped to his knees at Time’s side, rolling him onto his back and feeling for a pulse with fingers fumbling and numb. He was relieved to find that Time’s heart still beat, though it was slow and staggered. A great gouge split the back of his head, and through blood-blackened hair Sky could see the white glint of bone.
“Time?” he pleaded, shaking Time’s shoulder. “Time? Please get up. Please. I don’t know what to do.”
Neither of his brothers responded, and the others were so far away as to be gone.
Sky was alone.
Sky was alone—one brother dead, another dying. His own blood slid down his spine, his sides, his stomach. Pain was a distant thing, tugging at the edges of his awareness. Compared to the vast wound left in his soul where Wild once grew, bright and lively, such physical pain was nothing.
“Time?” Sky touches Time’s face, runs a hand over his hair. His palm comes back tacky with blood. “Please. I need your help. Wild’s really hurt.”
When neither Time nor Wild stirred, Sky scrabbled through his bag—hoping, fruitlessly, that he might have overlooked even a single red potion. Finding nothing of use, he cast the bag aside. A rattle of stones drew his attention upwards, and for a moment his heart jumped with hope.
“Wild—?”
But it wasn’t Wild—it was the Demon Dragon, its talons twitching against the earth as it regained consciousness. Anger seethed through Sky. It wasn’t fair. Why should the Demon Dragon be alive when Sky’s brothers were dead, or so close the distinction blurred? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fucking fair.
Dragging himself to his feet, Sky pulled Fi from her sheathe and found that he could no longer hold her steady. She chimed in his hands, frantic. Had she always felt this heavy to him?
“One last thing,” he pled with her, staggering towards the Demon Dragon. “I just need—this one last thing from you, Fi.”
But his legs refused to carry him the distance, and buckled beneath him. He hit the ground hard, his chin clipping the soil. Black sheeted across his vision. He curled up, the pain in his body momentarily unmuffled. Biting down on his tongue, he fought the urge to scream.
Time, he pled, tugging uselessly at Time’s bond. Please. I can’t do this by myself.
But Time was gone—and so, when Sky reached for him, was Wild.
Wild, you can’t go. I only just found you.
Don’t leave me alone, you two—
I don’t want to be alone.
Sky coughed, and blood spattered the back of his hand. A shiver wracked his frame. It was cold—it was so cold, despite the burning black of the Demon Dragon’s eye upon him. An eerie green glow spread across the night sky as Wild’s body dissolved, and Sky pressed his face into the dirt. He didn’t want to see it. He didn’t want to see the last, sure sign that Wild was gone—
The last, sure sign that Sky would die alone a thousand worlds from home.
“Hey, man, are you alive?”
Sky will never admit to the shriek that leaves him, then, as he’s startled from the recollection. He shoves himself backwards, nearly toppling off of the sandstone column he’d been resting on. The sun has begun to set, staining the sand auburn. He reaches for Fi, leveling her at the young, wide-eyed Rito who corners him.
“Woah!” The Rito jumps back into the air, fluttering out of Fi’s reach. “No need for that. I come in peace.”
Sky lowers Fi, a wheezy-sounding breath escaping him. “Sorry,” he manages. “You startled me.”
“Jeez, I’ll say.”
“Who are you? What are you doing out here?” As far as Sky knows, Rito aren’t found in the Gerudo Desert. But maybe things are different, in Wild’s world?
“My name’s Tulin,” the Rito says. “I’m Link’s friend—he sent me to look for you. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s you I’m looking for. I don’t know what other dumb Hylian would be out here baking in a molduga’s territory.”
“I killed the molduga,” Sky says, sheathing Fi.
“Yeah, you’re the guy,” decides Tulin. “Sky, right?”
Sky nods. “Are you one of the Sages?”
“I guess,” Tulin says. “That’s what Princess Zelda says, anyway. I’m still not sure I understand the whole thing, but—hey, you don’t look so good. Are you alright?”
“What?” Sky glances down at himself, half-expecting to see his multitude of wounds split back open and weeping blood once again. He doesn’t, though; he’s a bit sweaty, and a bit sandy, but otherwise no worse for wear. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“If you say so,” Tulin says. “You look kinda pale.”
“I’m just hot,” says Sky.
“Well, I wouldn’t bother with a chilly elixir now. It’s gonna be freezing soon. C’mon—let’s get back before the sun sets or Wild loses his mind. I’m not sure which’ll happen first, honestly. He’s been going crazy looking for you, and the other guys aren’t much better off.”
Sky winces. He hadn’t meant to stay out so long. He’d planned to burn off a little steam slaughtering the molduga, then return to Gerudo Town before his brothers even noticed he was gone. “I didn’t mean to worry them.”
Tulin lands in the sand next to him, keeping pace as they head back towards Gerudo Town. “Link said you guys are his brothers? I didn’t know he had any brothers.”
“It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got a long walk.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’m kind of tired.” Sky rubs the sweat off of the back of his neck. “Can we just—not talk, maybe?”
Tulin shrugs. “I guess.”
The walk back feels excruciatingly long. Twilight waits for them just outside the Town’s walls, his arms folded stiffly across his chest. When he sees Sky, relief flashes across his face—only to be replaced, a moment later, by brewing anger. He pushes off of the wall and stalks towards them, stopping out of the guards’ earshot.
“Are you okay?” he asks, first.
“Fine,” Sky says.
Twilight takes a deep, slow breath. “Did you not feel us calling for you? We’ve been freaking out looking for you all afternoon, Sky.”
“No, I—” Sky falters, realizing that he’s shuttered his own bond so far he can barely feel the others through it. Guilt sinks into his chest like a weight. “I didn’t notice. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to worry everyone.”
Twilight shakes his head, a muscle in his jaw feathering with frustration. “Thank you for finding him, Tulin,” he says, directing his gaze to the Rito.
“No problem,” Tulin says, fluffing his feathers against the growing cold. “Want me to round up the others?”
“If you could fly ahead and let them know we’ll meet them at the Bazaar, that would be wonderful,” Twilight says. “Be sure and take a spicy elixir before you go.”
“You got it.” Tulin knocks back a spicy elixir before spreading his wings and launching himself into the air on a powerful gust of wind. “I’ll see you guys back at the Bazaar. Good luck, new guy!”
“New guy, huh,” Sky says—as though he isn’t the first and worst of them all.
“Let’s go,” Twilight says, once Tulin has gone. Without sparing Sky a glance, he sets off on the road of packed sand that stretches between Gerudo Town and Kara Kara Bazaar. “Come on, Sky.”
Sky exhales and steps after him, feeling uncomfortably like a scolded child—again. The feeling has become more and more familiar to him, these past few days. It seems like he simply can’t do anything right, anymore. The silence stretches painfully between them for several long minutes before it becomes unbearable.
“Did you find all the Sages, or just that one?” Sky asks. “He’s younger than I thought he’d be.”
Rather than acknowledge the question, Twilight asks one of his own: “Where were you this afternoon?”
“The Palu Wastelands,” Sky says, seeing no point in lying about it. Tulin would inevitably tell them all where he was found, anyway.
“What could possibly have been in the Palu Wastelands for you to hare off there?”
Sky lists off his loot: “Molduga guts, molduga fins, molduga jaw—the molduga—a few voltfruit, some hydromelons—”
“A fucking molduga?”
“Don’t overreact,” Sky says, waving him off. “It was big and stupid, and it wasn’t even black-blooded. Honestly, a lizalfos would’ve been harder to kill.”
“What is wrong with you lately, Sky?” Twilight demands, turning on him with blazing eyes.
Sky wonders that, himself. “Look, I’m sorry I left without telling anyone. That was stupid, and I admit it. I just got bored sitting out there all morning. I figured I would go and do something useful in the meantime.”
“We don’t fight alone,” Twilight snaps. “That’s our rule—one that you voted in favor of, if you need the reminder. So why would you think it was a good idea to wander off into the desert, where you knew there could be monsters, without getting one of us first?”
“How was I meant to get you?” Sky argues. “I wasn’t allowed in the Town. I just had to sit out there and stare at sand.”
“You knew that would happen when you decided to come with us,” Twilight says, pinching the bridge of his nose as though Sky is giving him a headache. “Seriously, why are you doing this? You’re not supposed to be like this. You’re supposed to be—”
Twilight waves a hand at him, and Sky interprets what he does not say aloud:
You’re supposed to be selfless, Sky.
You’re supposed to be responsible, Sky.
You’re supposed to be good, Sky.
“I know,” Sky says, wrapping one arm around himself and looking away. Darkness settles like a blanket over the desert, and in the distance a courser cries. “I’m sorry.”
Twilight exhales, his posture relaxing. After a moment, he drapes an arm over Sky’s shoulders and draws him into a tight squeeze. “I know you are,” he says. “And I’m sorry we had to leave you alone all day. It won’t happen again.”
Sky dredges up a smile, and even manages to meet Twilight’s eyes. “Thanks.”
They resume their long walk back to the Bazaar. Neither one of them feels much like hunting down a sand seal, but they make good time anyway. The arrive at the Bazaar shortly before midnight, and the guards usher them inside. Most of Sky’s brothers are already asleep around the oasis, and have been joined by three new figures: Tulin, a Goron he assumes is the Sage of Fire, and a Zora who must be the Sage of Water.
“Sky!” Wild whisper-shouts, trotting across the oasis to his side. He reaches for Sky, then hesitates and lets his hands fall. “Are you okay?”
Sky looks at him, blinking away images of gold blood bubbling from shredded throat. “Yeah,” he says, smiling. “Sorry I worried you so much. I got bored and wandered off just like you and Flora promised not to, huh?”
Wild looks unconvinced, but Sky knows he won’t push. He’s not sure enough of his place in the Chain to do that—not yet. Sky hates that he doesn’t feel like he belongs, and he hates that it gives him an advantage, but it does. As long as Wild feels wrong-footed, he won’t be the one to challenge Sky. He’ll follow Sky around like a newly-imprinted chick, and he’ll cling to Sky when they sleep curled together, and he’ll ask tentative questions like “Did you really give me all of your red potions?” or “Why didn’t you at least keep one if you knew you were hurt?” but he won’t push when Sky brushes him off.
“Well, I guess I can’t be that mad,” Wild says, though he still sounds uncertain about it. “I’ve done the same thing before.”
“I brought you back some hydromelon and voltfruit,” Sky offers, hoping to appease—and distract—his brother with new ingredients. He tactfully doesn’t mention the molduga parts.
Wild’s eyes brighten, his tail flicking happily. “Really? Thanks, Sky. I’ll make something with them for breakfast.”
“That sounds wonderful. If you’re going to be up early, you should try to get some sleep, though. It’s late.” Sky sets a hand on his head, careful to avoid the broken root of his antler. “Go lay down. I’ll be there in a second.”
Wild smiles, but there’s something sad in his eyes. “Not yet.”
Huh. So, that’s not the way Sky planned for this interaction to go. “Why—?”
“We’re going to talk first.” Time approaches from the shadows of the oasis, stopping behind Wild. “Let’s step away so we don’t wake the others.”
Sky tenses, realizing that he’s cornered. Time and Wild stand in front of him, and Twilight blocks his retreat. It makes his skin crawl, and he hates himself for the reaction. These are his brothers. Time might be furious with him, but he’d never actually hurt Sky.
“Not with Wild or Twilight,” Sky says. “This is between us.”
“But I need to talk to you,” Wild pleads. This time, when he reaches out he doesn’t let his hands fall. He touches Sky’s arm—the barest brush of his fingers, but more than enough to anchor Sky in place. “Just let me say what I need to. Then, if you still want me to leave, I’ll go.”
Sky exhales. How is he supposed to tell Wild no when he asks so earnestly? “Alright. Come on.”
The four of them leave the oasis behind, putting space between themselves and their sleeping brothers. They stop where the light of the Bazaar begins to grow dim, squaring off with each other; Sky can’t help but feel like he’s facing down a pack of wolves when Time, Twilight, and Wild all turn to face him. The fear of a flight animal crawls across his skin, urging him to bolt. He wouldn’t be a whale or a worm if he used the Dark Crystal, he realizes—
He’d be a cucco.
“Tulin told us you killed a molduga,” Wild says, first, which isn’t exactly what Sky was expecting. Still, he’s not terribly surprised, either. “Good job. They can be tricky if you’re not prepared.”
“The guards gave me some tips,” Sky says. “I wouldn’t have gone if I wasn’t confident.”
Time’s jaw clenches, but Wild shoots him a pleading look.
“Like I said, I can’t be mad about that when I’ve done the same thing. I just wish you’d grabbed one of us to go with you. What if something had happened and you didn’t have anyone to help?” Wild looks at him with big, worried eyes. Sky feels sort of like he’s been kicked in the chest. “I was really scared when we couldn’t find you. Twilight couldn’t track you through the sand, and I couldn’t feel your bond. If Tulin hadn’t found you, I would have scraped Gerudo Town off of its foundation looking.”
Sky doesn’t think he’s exaggerating.
A chill rushes down his spine.
“So don’t do that again, please,” Wild continues. “But that’s not what we really need to talk about, I think. We need to talk about when I died.”
“When you what?” Twilight demands, his eyes whipping to Wild’s face.
Time turns his own face to the side, shutting his eye.
Sky closes his arms over his chest and ignores the steady ache of his own heart.
“You knew,” Twilight realizes, looking between them. “You both knew.”
“I thought perhaps—but I had hoped—” Time falters, his eye opening once more. The grief pooled within his gaze makes Sky want to drag him into a hug and hold him there forever, probably. “It’s true, then, Wild?”
Wild nods, looking guiltily at them—guiltily, as though his death is something he could have prevented, as though Time and Sky didn’t lead him right to it. Some big brothers they are.
“You died?” Twilight demands. “How—when—?”
“The Demon Dragon tore my throat,” Wild tells him, rubbing his neck as though wiping away the memory of the wound. “I bled out shortly after we hit the ground. But I wasn’t gone for long. Hylia and Rauru brought me back in this form shortly after.”
Twilight swears, turning away from them abruptly. “You felt him die,” he realizes, his voice rough. “You, and Sky, and—goddess, that’s why Hyrule and Legend—fuck!”
It’s a good thing, Sky thinks, that they set up so far from the oasis. Twilight is hardly being quiet.
Time lays a hand on Twilight’s back. “It’s over, now,” he says. “Wild is back, and well. You must take comfort in that.”
“That’s so—goddess, that’s so awful,” Twilight says, voice cracking. “What the hell? I’m so sorry, Wild.”
“It’s okay. I don’t tell you to make you feel bad,” Wild says hastily. “I really am just fine now, and I barely remember it. But I think it’s made everything worse for Sky and Time.”
Sky feels suddenly, horribly selfish. Wild had died, and he’s been making it all about himself. He’s been acting like a child—picking fights, giving Time the cold shoulder, wandering off and worrying the others. Goddess, how foolish of him. “I’m sorry, Wild,” he says. “You’re right. We’ve been behaving like fools.”
“That’s not—” Wild pauses, ears flattening in frustration. “I mean, yes, but I’m not saying this just to make you feel guilty. I just thought it might be—I don’t know—making you both feel worse?”
“You think?” Twilight says, scrubbing his face with a hand.
Wild winces.
“Sorry—I’m sorry, Wild.” Twilight squeezes Wild’s shoulder. “But why wouldn’t you tell us that?”
“I told Hyrule,” Wild offers weakly, “and I figured that Time and Sky already knew, what with the whole—soulbond thing. Beyond that, I didn’t think it mattered. It would just upset people for no reason.”
“For no reason? Wild, you died,” Twilight says, giving their brother’s shoulder a little shake. “You’re bound to need a little extra support after that, and we want to give that to you.”
“I feel very supported,” says Wild. “But I think you guys are under the impression that dying was way more traumatic for me than it actually was. I don’t remember most of it, and I felt a lot better after. Honestly, all things considered, not the worst death I’ve been through.”
Twilight’s eyes twitches.
So does Sky’s. “That seems to imply,” Sky says, with as much patience as he can muster, “that you have had more than one death.”
“Yeeeah,” Wild says, and then stops.
“What?” Time says, his own voice starting to raise in volume.
“You know,” Wild says, setting his hands on his hips, “I think it’s weirder that you guys don’t come back to life when you die. That makes me sort of nervous. Really nervous, actually.”
A vein in Time’s temple bulges. “What?”
“How can that be possible?” Sky asks. Horror rises into his throat like bile, and he swallows thickly around it. The images of Wild, dying—Wild, dead—press against the backs of his eyelids when he blinks. “People don’t just die and come back.”
But Wild had, and Sky had felt it.
“I do,” Wild says, with a helpless sort of shrug. “Or at least, I did. But I think this might’ve been my last lucky break, so I’d like to keep the dying to a minimum from here on out.”
“You’re never dying again,” Twilight hisses, and somehow manages to make it sound like a threat.
Wild holds his hands up in surrender. “I have no plans to. But we’re getting side-tracked. The actual issue is between Sky and Time—”
“Forget that,” Sky says, shaking his head. “Just—forget about it. Compared to what you went through, it’s—it doesn’t even bear talking about.”
“But it does, because it’s making you two—” Wild flails his hands helplessly. “Look, I know I haven’t been with you guys for very long, so I don’t know a whole lot about the dynamics here. I can tell that things aren’t right, though, and I feel like a lot of it has to do with Sky giving me those stupid red potions when I was dying—so we should talk about that. Did you give me your red potions, Sky?”
“Yes,” Sky says. “Of course I did.”
“Okay, good start,” Wild says, relief evident in his voice. “And why did you give me your red potions?”
“Because you were dying—Wild, you were bleeding out,” Sky says.
“So were you,” Wild points out.
“More slowly than you, though,” Sky argues, which is true. Sky had been seeping blood from a multitude of wounds, whereas Wild’s blood had been pumping directly from a severed artery.
“Maybe,” Wild allows. “But you must have known the red potions wouldn’t be enough, even with the fairy. So why waste them?”
“It wasn’t a waste!” Sky snarls, bristling like a beaten thing. Wild looks at him, wide-eyed, and Sky forces his voice back into its usual soft, placid tone. “I’m sorry, but it wasn’t a waste—not to me. If there was any chance that the potions helped you, it was worth it to try.”
“But your chances were better than mine, and you had to know it,” Wild argues, anxious but undeterred. “You should have taken the red potions yourself. If I hadn’t come back to life, or if Hyrule hadn’t found us in time, we would have lost three people that day instead of one.”
“It was my fault,” Time says, breaking into the conversation for the first time in several minutes. All of their eyes sweep to him, expectant. “I demanded his potions from him, Wild. The others listen to me in times of crisis. It was only natural that Sky would do the same.”
“You didn’t demand anything,” Sky says, peeved. “You asked for them, and I gave them to you. You might be our leader, but I am capable of making my own decisions. I could easily have told you no.”
“But you didn’t,” Time says. Sky expects to see anger in his eyes, but there’s only an old, tired grief there. “You didn’t even tell me you were hurt. We could have rationed the potions—some for you, some for Wild. Why didn’t you tell me, Sky?”
Sky’s been asking himself that same question.
He could chose to believe the noblest thing about himself: that he truly believed he could make a difference, and that he was willing to trade his life for Wild’s. Perhaps it’s even true. He had been desperate to see Wild healed and whole again, and it had been a split-second decision made in the midst of a fierce battle. Who could blame him for acting on sheer instinct? Maybe it really is as simple as that.
Then again, he’s never been very noble, as much as he likes to pretend otherwise. In truth, this whole disaster had been his fault. He’s the first Hero—the Chosen Hero, and doesn’t that name just gall him? He oft thinks that Cursed Hero would be a more apt moniker. After all, it was he who killed the Demon King Demise, and he who earned the Heroes their endless curse. If he had been smarter—if he had found some way to stop Demise before he issued that curse, or discovered some way to break the curse itself—then all of his brothers could have led quiet, peaceful lives.
It’s his fault Wild died, in the end.
Or, perhaps, Time is right: Sky has learned to listen to him above all else, leaning heavily on his brother’s strength when the world around him feels terribly unsteady. Time has led him through countless worlds and countless battles without fail. It has become second nature for Sky to trust his decisions—even more so, perhaps, than his own. How much easier it is to believe that someone else—someone older, and calmer, and wiser—knows better than him. What a relief it is. He had been terrified, when he and Wild began their long falls to death, but he had hoped Time knew something he didn’t, and would fix the situation the way he always did.
But how could he have expected Time to fix things, when he didn’t even know all there was to fix? It had been a terribly unfair expectation, and Sky berates himself for it even now. He had forced Time into an impossible situation, and Time hasn’t been the same since. He’s been less confident and more uncertain, even around the others. Sky’s foolish choice has fractured their group’s leadership, and all of them tip-toe around the fragments.
Then again, maybe it was simply Sky’s stupidity gluing his mouth shut as he pressed his life into Time’s hands and willed it to Wild instead. He’s always been this way—more hopeful than the others, more faithful, more naive. He believes in miracles, and he had prayed fiercely for one on the long fall. Sacrifice runs through his blood as it does the blood of any Hero, and he knows this to be true: if he wants something badly enough, he need only risk his life for it.
What a stupid, stupid thing to believe.
Yet—wanting, so fiercely, for Wild to stay—he had believed it again.
(And it had worked.
Sky wishes that his blood is not the price Hylia demands, but—
It had worked.
Martyrdom makes miracles.
He will do it again.)
“I don’t know,” Sky says.
“That’s not an answer,” Time replies, frustration edging each word.
But Sky doesn’t have a nice, clean answer—not this time, and that frightens him. He always knows why he does what he does. It discomforts him to use the word ‘manipulate,’ but he supposes that is how he interacts with the world. He manipulates the people around him—never with ill intent, but with intent nonetheless. He choses words and actions and gestures with a goal in mind. He plays the world like he plays his Goddess Harp, plucking each string to find an expected response.
But this time, he has no easy rationale for his decisions. In truth, it’s probably a little of everything: he is selfish, and irresponsible, and bad. Ever since they learned what happened to the Hero of this era—to Wild—his choices have felt a little less like his own. The harp is ill-tuned, and the chords are not what he wants them to be. It doesn’t help that there’s a new note to learn, either: a discordant new note, who even now watches him with a dragon’s worried eyes.
Sky hates when people worry about him.
It means they have noticed an improperly-tuned chord.
“I’m sorry,” Sky says, flattening his tone; if he doesn’t, they’ll hear the way his voice wants to shake. “I wish I had an answer that would appease you, Time, but I don’t. Tell me what you want me to say and I’ll say it and we can be done with this.”
“That’s not what I want,” Time says. “I want to understand.”
You and me both.
“Then you’d better get used to disappointment,” Sky says, turning away from them.
“Sky, please.”
Sky stops, staring down at the sand around his boots. Time doesn’t beg. Time certainly doesn’t beg him. Sky hates it.
“I don’t want this between us,” Time begs, and Sky hates, hates, hates it. “So please—please, just talk to me. If you can’t say it, then show me. Open the bond.”
So Sky does.
He tears open the bond between himself and Time, and he plies Time with all of his hate and his fury and his grief. He means it as a warning: an injured animal biting the hand that reaches for it. But the hand does not retreat: Time does not recoil from him in hurt and disgust. Instead, he surrounds their bond with a wall of love-safe-comfort.
Sky rails against it.
It’s fake, and it’s not fair. Time is lying. Time is lying to him through the bond, just like he’s been lying to all of them since Wild died, and it makes Sky want to tear him apart. Why should Time waste so much effort on lying just to comfort Sky when Sky is the one who fucked everything up, anyway? He hid his injuries, and he gave away all of their red potions, and it didn’t even matter because Wild died anyway. If it wasn’t for the grace of Hylia, they’d all three be dead! The images of Wild, dead—of Time, dying—press against the backs of his eyes, and he forces them through the bond to Time.
Look! he thinks. Look what I did!
“Sky,” Time says, his voice horribly steady, and Sky—
“Shut up! Goddess above, shut up,” Sky snarls, pressing his hands over his ears to block out the noise. It’s not fair. How can Time act so calm, so collected, so perfect? How can he pretend to be everything Sky needs to be with such ease? How can he stand there with such soft eyes when Wild died?
Time doesn’t speak again, but he doesn’t lash out the way Sky wants him to, either. Sky needs him to react—he needs Time to be as angry and adrift as he is, he needs to know he’s not alone in this feeling. But Time merely stands, as solid as stone, in the storm of Sky’s shattering.
“It’s not fair!” Sky shouts, to the sand and the stars and the endless unyielding man in front of him. “You could have died, Time! Wild did die! I watched you both dying and I couldn’t do a fucking thing. Do you know what that’s like?”
Sky has never been that helpless before, and he swears to Hylia he never will be again. Time gazes back at him, unbreaking, and it makes Sky seethe.
“No,” Sky spits. “You don’t understand. How could you? You don't feel a gods-damned thing.”
He starts to close their bond once again, but before he can—
Time sinks claws into it, and he wrenches it open like a wound.
GRIEF-RAGE-TERROR slams through the bond like a black wave.
Sky recoils from it, stumbling a step back through the sand. Time’s eye is dark and wet with—tears. He’s crying. Sky made him cry. That’s what he wanted, in a sick sort of way, but now that he’s got it—
“Stop,” Sky says.
“You think I don’t understand?” Time demands. GRIEF-MISERY-DESPERATION screams the bond. “I’m the only one who could possibly understand. I watched him die too, Sky, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Don’t tell me I don’t understand just because I deal with it differently.”
Sky shies away from the feelings in the bond—now that Time has stopped masking, he can no longer tell which belong to him and which belong to Time. They’re a horrible blend of frantic fear, of helplessness, and above all of grief. Sky feels the pressure of tears and shoves the heels of his hands against his eyes, willing them away.
“Make it stop,” he pleads.
“I can’t,” Time says, and takes a step towards him. “I can’t do that, little one.”
Sky squeezes his eyes shut as tears clump on his lashes. His throat feels thick and tight, no matter how hard he swallows. He can feel himself shaking apart.
“Come here.”
Time draws Sky into his arms, hugging him so tightly his ribs ache. Sky buries his face against Time’s shoulder, letting his tears soak into the warm fabric there. He tangles his fingers into Time’s tunic, trying desperately to hold himself—and Time—together.
Plaintively, he says, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Why was he Chosen? Why was he cursed? Why does he hurt so much when Wild and Time seem so unaffected? What’s the matter with him, that he can’t just suck it up and move on the way his brothers can?
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Yes there is.” Sky swipes at his face, biting back a sob. “I’m so awful.”
“You’re not awful, Sky. It’s just—it’s been hard. I know it has. That’s not your fault.”
Grief-love-safety, says the bond.
Grief-misery-fear, Sky replies.
There is no fixing this. The grief remains, and the questions lingers. No magic will stitch the wound back together, and no medicine can drive back the infection. There are no secret words to erase the memories of his brothers’ bleeding bodies or the new fractures in his heart.
But it is—nice, when Time sets his chin on Sky’s head and and says, “Shh. We’re here, Sky. We’re together.”
Wild tucks in against Sky’s side, tiny antlers butting the underside of his jaw—alive and breathing and whole. Sky wraps an arm around him and clings.
Twilight sets a hand on his back, rubbing in slow circles. “Breathe, fledgling. Everybody’s okay now, and we’re gonna keep it that way.”
There, in the midst of the Gerudo Desert, Sky’s brothers begin to pick up the pieces of his shattered heart. They don’t fit back together quite the same, and some bits don’t stick just right—but they hold every piece carefully, tenderly. Sky trusts them to keep those pieces safe until he can smooth off their ragged edges and paste them back in a new pattern.
Sky himself cradles the tired pieces of Time’s own heart, and promises to be more gentle with them. As hard as those pieces may seem, he knows they are just as fragile as his own—if not more so. He places the first piece back where it belongs as he tucks his face to Time’s shoulder and says, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was hurt. I wish I would have.”
Perhaps it wouldn’t have made any difference at all, but—
At least the edges of Time’s broken heart would not be so sore.