#skipwrites

The following day finds Kyle hanging around the same shops. Scouting the area, hoping you'll show up again. He forces himself to look casual, wastes time buying a tea he barely drinks and window shops. Treats it just like he would a mission.

He's about to give up and head back home when he sees you. Tailing you is easy. Kyle keeps back, makes sure there's always a few bodies in between. Doesn't even have to worry about turning his face away in case you glance behind you. Clueless little thing, you have no idea you're being followed. The idea doesn't even seem to occur to you.

Kyle follows you for the rest of the afternoon. Down sidewalks, past alleyways, and even on the tube. All the way to your flat, where he watches you enter while quickly memorizing the number on your door.

With an address, finding more information about you is easy. It's child's play to plug it into housing databases and pour over the results until he finds your name. All of its public, after all.

Once he has that, Kyle can pull up each and every one of your socials. Even the old ones that are no longer updated and abandoned. He's up all night going through them. Piecing the overall picture of you together from different posts. A video here. A status update there. He's even able to suss out your place of employment. And when Kyle does a cursory search, he's able to put together travel routes, outline which train stations you're likely to take to and from your flat.

Figuring out your work schedule would be the final cherry on top of this stalking sundae. Kyle's leave is up in three days, has to be back at Stirling Lines by the week's end. If he's lucky, it'll be just enough time to learn the pattern.

But it is.

And so Kyle does.

Kyle passes the time in between missions holed up in his bunk engineering a plan to meet you. He's so focused on it—single minded and driven, just like tracking the terrorist cell before the shit show that was Piccadilly—that he pulls back a little from the rest of the 141. The others quickly take notice. Price even pulling Kyle aside after debrief one night, needing to make sure his Sergeant's head is clear.

It isn't until Soap just so happens to glance at your profile picture pulled up on Kyle's phone that the pieces all come together.

A bird, they realize.

Pretty one, too.

Soap badgers Kyle to introduce his bird to Soap's. Goes on and on about how grand it would be if his mate's girl got along with his. "Could do double dates and all that, aye, Gaz?" He says.

Kyle eventually acquiesces. Clasps Soap on the shoulder and says, "Sure, mate. We can do a double date."

When really, it's because Kyle's figured it out. The perfect meet cute.

The best way to finally make you his.

The way you all but stumble into Kyle's side while exiting the train station couldn't have gone more perfect. It knocks the book out of his grasp. And with subtle twitch of the hand, he uses the momentum to toss it just enough so it lands face up. It's a copy of one of your favorites. One you regularly make posts about to your socials.

It immediately draws your attention, and the two of you are quickly pulled into a delightful conversation. Kyle is charming, witty, knows this dance like the back of his hand. When to pursue and when to pull back, just enough to leave you wanting more. When Kyle asks you out for coffee with a smile he knows is blinding, you eagerly accept.

The coffee date goes well. So much so, that you agree to a second. A third. And then the two of you are chatting regularly. Teasing out bits and pieces of each other's lives through texts and phone calls. It feels perfect. Almost storybook in nature how well Kyle seems to match you beat for beat.

Somehow, it feels like he already knows everything about you.

Funny thing, that.

It progresses fairly quickly after that. Your dates almost always end with a passionate kiss in front of the door to your flat. Your hands on his shoulders, his on your hips and gripping tight. Kyle is so confident you'll invite him to spend the night soon, he starts keeping his go bag stashed in the boot of his car. Ready for the final step whenever you are.

And when you do, Kyle makes sure it's the best you've ever had. At the end of the day, Kyle loves to excel. To please. And this is no different. He takes you apart with his lips and tongue. Makes you beg for his fingers before Kyle even thinks about sliding his cock deep into your perfect, wet heat. He works you over with precision, and when it's finally over, when you're both panting and sated, bodies shining with sweat, Kyle pulls you against his chest. Holds you in his arms until your breathing slows and you start to fall asleep.

The last thoughts you have before finally drifting off, is how safe and secure you feel with him next to you.

How grateful you are for that day at the train station.

Kyle watches you sleep. And while he's content to enjoy your warmth, he also needs to make sure you're out cold. And if Kyle gives himself an extra moment to savor the feeling of a job well done before he slips out of bed, well. No one else has to know other than him. With quiet steps, he pads over to the overnight bag he stashed in the corner before clothes started coming off.

Kyle soaks a rag in enough chloroform to keep you unconscious for a long while. And it's the easiest thing to press it to your sleeping face and hold it there for just under a minute. It's then that Kyle lets his mindset shift into a working one. The sharp focus he uses while on the job.

He re-dresses quickly, and then carefully slips you into some pajamas he finds in your dresser. The zip ties come next, binding your arms and legs together so Kyle can carry you out to his car. He doesn't bother packing any of your clothes. He'll just buy whatever you could want when he has you secure in his flat. When you finally come around and see that you and him are perfect together.

That Kyle is the best you'll ever get.

That Kyle is the only one you'll ever get.

Ghost had once made an off handed comment once hunting wolves. Tried to explain to Kyle what it's like hunting something that doesn't just react in fear, but that is intelligent enough to understand it's being hunted. Said overcoming the challenge that provides is a high like nothing else.

Kyle makes sure you're securely tucked into the backseat before driving away and he thinks he understands a bit of what Ghost was trying to explain that day. But the way his body is humming with the satisfaction that comes from a plan going smoothly for once leads him to disagree on Ghost's final point. To Kyle, the high doesn't come from outsmarting intelligent prey.

“Hopefully they have more than just speedy elixirs,” Four drones, head held in one weary hand while the other barely keeps his crab out of the flames.

Wild’s arm twinges again. He is happy they won, but Legend won’t stop glancing at his arm. Vibrant eyes catch the firelight like twin torches when he glances at him. The Veteran seems convinced that the scars are new, that they weren’t there before the battle today. 

Wild doesn’t know how to tell him where they actually came from, that twinge of guilt still sitting, just heavy enough on his tongue to keep him silent. If he begins, he knows he will struggle to finish any explanation without diving where he has no strength to go. Not after the battle has left them drained and languid as empty water skeins. 

For the first time, Wild feels strange about his scars. He’s never felt ashamed of them before, and those he met commented on them with some degree of pride or interest. He would show them without hesitation. People usually opened up with fascinating stories of scars of their own, as he did so, and it made an easy point of introduction. But tonight, with Legend’s eyes searing two holes into him, he wonders what stories people might be attaching to him. He knows of one. 

He tries to cast aside the Veteran’s looks, and to remember his pride at being willing to die to protect Zelda and the kingdom. And yet, was it not also a mark of his failure? A brand that haunts him? 

—

Her golden locks were blemished with mud. She crawled to him under the fire of their furious glares. She was in danger… she would die if they struck! He tried to reach for her. He tried…she had screamed; first at him, then at the traitorous guardians… and then she was gone in a flash of blinding light.

—

His free arm twitches forward, reaching for a girl who isn’t there. Wild starts, fully alert now, and moves his outfacing palm flat over the fire to catch the gentle warmth. 

The night has grown cooler. Farore’s heroes draw cloaks and blankets closer. Campfire chatter continues, but Wild does not listen. Not until a younger voice chimes in with an impressive buoyancy of enthusiasm despite the long day of fighting.

“I wish I could have kept that one!” Wind says with a wistful grin.

“It crossed your entire face, sailor,” Hyrule counters. “What would your princess say?”

He smiles and sighs dreamily, as tragically in love as the Skylofian, “That it’s badass.” 

Wild expects objections, but Time and Warriors laugh deep belly laughs and heartily agree. He knows they’ve met the pirate princess, and he defers. 

“I wish we could pick which scars we get to keep,” Sky offers in agreement with the young sailor. “I once got nicked by a giant scorpion beast just under my eye. I saw my reflection in a rupee I picked up on the way out, and I looked older with it.”

“Exactly! I know which ones I’d have kept, too!” He quiets with the gravity of his answer. 

And it's too much for his companions. 

“Oh, is that so, Sailor?” Warrior’s tone is smug. “Tetra told us a few things. How about the—”

“HEY! NO! WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THAT ONE!” Wind makes a show of reaching for his boomerang, and the two older men slowly quiet their laughter to let the boy speak. 

—

Wind soared through the air, shot out of a cannon from Tetra’s ship. He screamed, and cut the edge of the fortress walls with desperate, clawing fingers.

 —

“A canon?” Twilight lights up. HIs half smile shows a canine, and Wild hopes that Wolfie might decide to make an appearance tonight. Anything to fight this strange foreboding.  

“Twi!” Hyrule hisses. His eyes are round with interest. He is everyone’s favorite audience, enamored with their strange, lush lands.  

“Some things never change,” Twi gripes lightly, and Sky gives him a nod and a wink. Wild sees. He must ask them both about that later.

“Anyways…” the sailor continues his tale.

—

Wind ran through dark corridors, sure he could find his little sister this time. 

He entered the room completely unprepared to face the mountain of a man who stood before him. He was a silent volcano at rest as he stood beside the window, the disaster yet hidden from the eyes of the world but when it exploded it would prove the doom of all living things. 

The hand that grabbed him was strong enough to snap his spine. It snapped his wrist and bore hard nails into his skin. 

Wind screamed. The shattered glass of the window sliced as sharp as any dagger as the raging force of nature hurled him out into the dark night.

—

“I wish I had kept them.” Wind offers no reason why, only glares into the fire light as the others digest his tale silently. 

Wild skewers another crab and sets it aside for him; the boy’s first one had long since burnt to a crisp and fallen from his skewer. 

Finally, Wind holds up his arm and stares at the blank canvas of his skin. “I wish there were still some warning of him. But he’s completely erased, like he never existed.” Wind chews on that thought a moment. “It may be for the best, but… it happened . But when I took a potion, the marks were all gone.” He let his blue sleeve fall over bare skin.

Sky shifts a little in his bedroll. Four too. Wild knows they have scars from their darkest hours. At last, Legend looks away, eyes down.

His eyes brighten. “I kept this one though!” He holds up his right hand and shows a humble little scar on the back of it. “Aryll scratched me once with a stick when we were playing tag. I like this one a lot. Grandma’s poultice didn’t fix it that time.”

Wild looks at his own hand again. Trails of red run parallel to his veins underneath. They shine pale in the light. Zelda had looked at his scars the way that Legend did. Yet Robbie—eccentric old Robbie—recognized him immediately by the shape and pattern of them. Distinct. Badges of experience no one else had of an effort that had meant everything to the old man. Robbie had explained that stopping the guardians had saved hundreds and thousands of lives, including the eccentric inventor. 

Wild looks at his hands. 

“I wanted to say,” the veteran mumbles, “I mean, your arm…” The veteran is many things, but easy to broach difficult subjects is not one of them. He shifts, and tries again, but Wild beats him to the finish. 

“It’s not the break, veteran. I'm just thinking about the old ones.” He holds up his arm. “What they say about me.”

The veteran smiles, wry and pleased, a quip on his tongue, when Time beats him to it.

“It means you’re a survivor.” 

Warrior raises his skewer like it’s the finest wine. “It means you’re more than worth your salt.”

“A badass,” Wind chimes.

“Tougher than your own weapons,” Four mumbles into his little wooden drinking cup. Sky fights back a laugh.  

Wild wants to feel pride in the marks. He wants to see it as he always has, but melancholy seeps all around as if growing from the darkening woods. The others quiet down, gently watching with the side of their eyes. They can sense the heaviness now. They must. Only the fire crackling interrupts his quiet plea. “And even if… everyone in sight of the castle… I couldn't...”

“Stop.” Twilight’s voice is bold. “You done enough, Champ." Wild looks at him, and he sees iron in those eyes. Hears iron in his voice. "All you can do is hold the line." He grabs his shoulder, his left shoulder. "Ain’t none of us immortal.”

Wild remembers the story. He'd lost the whole appendage, once. Only by the grace of the Light Spirit was he with them at all. 

“Except Sky’s girlfriend,” Hyrule teases. His own pillow is snatched and thrown at him by the Skyloftian in answer. The others laugh, and the sound is like the breaking of a spell. Gone are the claws of shadows. Gone is the heaviness over his heart. Wild sees the burns and remembers. Legend watches him now with a lightness in his expression. There is no worry, no weight. 

 —

Zelda approached cautiously, but desire moved like a wave before her. She had to know. He could see the hope in her eyes. Every word was soft and yet sharp as a scalpel. Her eyes examined him. May I ask? Do you really remember me?”

—

He closes his fist, stretching the scars taught. 

His prize safely stowed away, the veteran lit up the now-faceless dummy to mark his path, but didn’t ignite the rest of the room: they might need to come back this way, and after the inferno he created earlier, he should probably reserve at least enough oxygen for the journey out. 

He moved on, and found the last hall in this wing. Peering around the corner, Legend came face-to-face with a stark white mask. 

The footsoldier raised a hand to whistle an alarm. Legend swung his blade faster. 

He wiped his sword clean, checked the map, then followed the switchbacking halls. These led to mirrored rows of tiny rooms on the bottom edge of the map. A prison, most likely. Not an ideal place to find Hyrule, but a likely one. 

Ahead in the next hall, two burly guards paced. 

Memories of his first adventure bubbled to the surface. If only Hyrule had Zelda’s telepathy.

Legend’s boots made no sound, and then no guards remained. He ran, and the floor sloped ever downward. His steps, quiet as they were, still echoed. This felt more like a dungeon than anything he’d seen so far.

Passing through one last stone archway, he found the hall lined with cave-like cells. He checked through the bars of each one. All gaped back at him, empty, until the fourth. From the dark, red eyes glared back at him. Legend lit up his firerod and peered closer. A Yiga soldier glared back at him, still in uniform but unmasked, his face heavily scarred by what looked like bear claws. He was bound, and the ropes were tagged with the inverse design of the many papers stuck around the caves. Sheikah magic, musty as moss, but mingled with something wrong, something heavy as tar. It must be some spell to prevent teleporting, he guessed.  

 The brawny Yiga man stared at him, incredulous, then bellowed, “Guards!” Apparently he was still loyal to his clan, despite whatever crimes he’d committed. Legend knew they would not answer.

Legend moved on to the next cell, knowing the guards would not be coming. In the next cell, a slight figure stepped forward into the dim glow of the torchlights. Gold eyes looked back at him surrounded by a faint shimmer of fairy-magic.

Rulie!  

No, too small. 

A little girl approached the bars, folding her arms as she scrutinized him, her nose held high. It was as long as the Old Man’s. Bold red hair, pulled in a high ponytail, curled at the end like a piglet’s tail. 

A Gerudo child? 

Bright, ornate flower patterns covered her thin slippers and silk clothes. Stranger still, they glimmered with hints of fairy magic, identical to Wild’s tunic, but dimmer. He’d encountered magic clothing before, but the fluid, nectar-sweet fairy magic was distinct from the sharp, clean bite of Hytopian magic, or the chilling, weightlessness and mystic glow of Lorulean weaves. He resolved to finally buckle down and ask Wild about his tunic as soon as he got the chance. Fairy blessed clothing was exceptionally rare in his own era, but here apparently even little kids wore it.  

 The girl watched him closely, her stare intense as a beamos, while he quickly checked the last two cells. 

Empty. 

Legend tamped down his disappointment, and with a voice hoarse with ash and smoke, asked, “Either of you see a brown-haired boy with gold eyes? Wears a green tunic?”

The little girl shook her head, earrings tinkling, but her eyes widened in surprise. “You’re a voe !” 

“A what?” Legend asked, but she only scowled. He shrugged, too tired to puzzle out what that meant. 

The maskless Yiga soldier gaped at Legend. “What?” He hissed, “Then… you don’t have him either?” He gave a dark, mirthless laugh, shaking his head as his smirk dissolved into a snarl. “Oh, I knew it was that demon! Sooga warned us! That monster won’t be controlled, no matter what it promises! It can’t be trusted!” He lunged at the bars, shoved his face as far as he could between them, and bellowed toward the very-dead guards, “It was the sword! It wasn’t my fault!” 

Legend’s knees threatened to give out, and  he leaned against the bars of an empty cell. This all made less and less sense. Hyrule hadn’t escaped… he’d never arrived in the first place? He was never here ! The veteran shook his head, his vision swimming from exhaustion, both magical and physical.  

Another red potion. He dropped the empty glass in his bag, then wiped sweat and ash from his face with a shaky hand.   

“Right.” He turned to the child, collecting himself, plastering a friendly mask over his frustrations. “Want out?” He regretted the disappointment still heavy in his voice.   

“Of course,” The girl sniped, still eyeing him suspiciously. Whatever “voes” were, she didn’t seem to trust them. 

The scapegoated Yiga soldier yelled for the guards again, loud and desperately as he glared at both of them. Legend wanted to scream back at him, to throw fire into the cell. He’d already spent so much time in this cursed place and his brother wasn’t even here ! 

Din’s teeth. Hyrule! Where are you?

 But he also felt a spark of pity for the idiot who took the fall for something he didn’t actually do. 

Instead, Legend braced himself for one last fight, one last rescue to complete, before leaving this whole place behind. There were no other leads to chase here.

This girl looked strong for her age, but she was still small, barely up to his elbow, and too young to help much in the escape. He’d need to do this on his own. 

“Alright. Stand back!” Legend shouted to her. He aimed his fire rod, about to torch the wood beams that served as bars, and the talismans, and use his shield to barrel through when they were weak enough, but the girl scoffed and pointed behind him. 

A rope and pulley system. One designed to open cell doors. 

Legend grumbled. If she wasn’t a young kid in need, he might have stuck with the fire rod plan. 

He needed to slow down, to think. Legend put the weapon away and yanked the fifth lever. Arms crossed, she came out and stared him up and down again . She had gold eyes like ‘Rulie’s, but red hair as bright as hibiscus, just like—

“Can you actually get us out of here?” she demanded. “How old are you, voe? You don’t look like a grown up, and voe like you aren't even…well…”  

Oh, this was going to be a nuisance. “Aren’t what?” Legend stared her down. 

“Tough?” she said, throwing out a hand, eyebrows raised, as if this was common knowledge and he was an idiot. 

Oh Sweet Nayru’s blessings... “First, I don’t know what a voe is. Second, whoever said it is probably wrong about them, generalizations are never good. Third, we need to go. Now.”

She scowled. “How did you get in here? How do I know you’re not one of them ? They looked just like my aunts when they took me. You could be a Yiga in disguise.”

Okay, fair . But every second here was a second wasted. “Would they bother pretending to be someone else inside their own base?”

She chewed her lip and seemed to mull it over. 

“You’re staying here, then?” Come on, kid!  

“I… no,” she admitted, uncrossing her arms, “but they said they’d kill me if I tried to escape again. I can’t get caught.” 

“They always say stuff like that. They’re idiots. Can you ride on my back? We’ll move faster if you let me carry you.” He held out a winged pegasus boot. Maybe she was familiar with other magic clothes. She only nodded and climbed quickly onto his back. 

The girl muffled her squeal of surprise into Legend’s shoulder as he dashed back the way he’d come, breezing through passages and skidding around corners, until they entered a new hall. 

“Do you even know where you’re going?” the girl hissed when he slowed down and silently checked the passage ahead. It was clear. Oddly clear. 

“Yes!” he shot back.

“I’m just asking! How do you know?” She demanded. 

Legend checked his tone this time and took a centering breath. “Because I checked the map.”

“How come you’re dressed like a vai?”

Zelda, Hilda, and even Ravio were never this annoying when sneaking through dungeons. “What is a… listen, kid, just… hush.” 

Legend stopped at the end of the hall. A sense of danger opened like a pit in his stomach. He fidgeted, shifted the girl more securely, and crept slowly up to the next turn to listen. Something felt off. 

At first, he heard nothing but the girl breathing too loudly over his shoulder. But no… it wasn’t just her. He could hear the soft brush of feet on sand, the creaking dry of leather, and small sniffs and grunts beyond. 

Soldiers ahead. They were waiting. Another ambush. 

Legend slid the girl off and signaled her for silence. Slipping on his red cape once more, he poured his magic into it and peered around the corner.

It was a cavernous room he’d passed earlier, scorched remains of a storage tower bearing witness. The cave was tall, long, and rather narrow and winding. Short walls, fences, and steps divided it into three parts. 

Scattered wall to wall, dozens of foot soldiers crouched in readiness to attack anything that entered from the lowest room. It was the path he’d taken to the skulltulas. Legend suppressed a grin. Perhaps the Teacher hadn’t told anyone he’d reentered another way? 

That chilly canyon door would take them north into freezing mesas, away from the desert this girl surely came from. And that shrine was useless without Wild’s slate. They had to risk the desert exit to get her home, no matter what men or monsters stood in their path.

His current hiding spot—a narrow hall deep in the shadows—led to the middle portion of the room and the burnt remains, the stink of charred wood and burnt bananas still thick in the air. 

He looked left, and found exactly what he needed: at that end, the entrance to stone stairs, cut from the caves, like every other structure in the hideout. They led around and up to a bridge that spanned over the stairs’s entrance and to an open doorway that led to their final destination, according to the map: a round room, one with many doors tucked inside narrow alcoves. One of them led outside, to freedom. Legend could even see the faintest yellow glow of sunlight overpowering dim torchlight, peeking through the distant arch.

“I know you are there, Hero of Legend.” A deep, hypnotic voice echoed through the cavern like a spell. 

Legend jerked back behind the corner, yanked the girl up, and wrapped the cape over them both. The girl moved stiff as a log, and he hardly blamed her when her nails dug into his skin. This man’s voice was unsettling, crawling over his skin like insects, blurring the line between sounds in the room and sounds in his own head.

Was this the mage, at last? The one with the stench of rot, who hopefully didn’t know about Legend’s pilfering? He couldn’t see through the cloak’s magic, could he? 

The intoxicating voice spoke again. “Don’t you wish to find him?” 

Legend ignored him as he stepped out of the hall, watching for a reaction from the masked soldiers. None of them turned his way. Good . They had to risk it, while the old man yapped. Their sound would cover their footsteps if they were lucky. 

The voice surrounded them again, masking its origin. “You and I know he is fated to die. But what comes after? I can show you how to bring him back from death. That's all any of us want, for the dead to return to us,” echoed the voice in the stone ceiling above.  

Legend knew fate was, in fact, rather flexible. Going back in time and meeting his own ancestor, Sir Raven, had changed many things in his Hyrule. The sorceress Veran had nearly erased Legend when she tried to execute Sir Raven, and wreak havoc in an ancient time that should have been secure and unchangeable in the warp and weft of fate, if such a thing existed. Clearly, it did not.  

With these memories, Legend steeled his mind against the words. He was rather picky about which disembodied voices to trust anyway. 

As he fully entered the room, he searched for the source, stepping softly forward but not activating the pegasus boots. He needed every drop of magic for the cape to keep them both hidden, and his magic was draining fast. 

Legend padded forward on his toes, balancing the girl and himself in careful silence with every step, weaving breathlessly between dozens of footsoldiers toward the stairs. One soldier spun a spear, bored and restless, and the veteran carefully timed his run past it. 

He ducked under a Blademaster’s sword, held in fidgeting hands. Ignoring the pit of anxiety building in his gut, Legend continued to maneuver between soldiers and their whispered grumbles of where is that stupid kid , and let’s just storm the hall already . He squeezed between them at a lull in their conversation when they turned to other neighbors to quietly continue to grouse. 

They all still faced the lowest level, clearly expecting him to come from that way. Let them waste their efforts, the idiots . 

He danced between two more blademasters, both of which stood a head taller than Time, nearly Teacher’s height. It was harder to notice short interlopers like him from their vantage point, and at last Legend’s chest relaxed at the knowledge that they were close, at last, to the stairs, and to escape. 

But the girl began to tremble. She tried to hide it, flexing and relaxing her fingers, but still he felt her whole body shivering. 

Not far ahead now, just beyond a group of yawning scythe-wielders, the stairs waited. The first steps were blocked by three assassins.

“ Walk faster ,” the girl whispered. 

Legend dared not answer, or move faster. 

“ Hurry !” she begged in an ever louder whisper, digging her fingers tighter into the shoulder of his tunic.

Legend shook his head, watching the guards around them for any clue that they’d heard the girl’s plea. 

She barely breathed, but kept shifting, the swish of fabric far too loud, as she looked back and forth at the soldiers surrounding them.  

She’s panicking!

Legend moved closer to the left wall and slid along it where the rows of soldiers ended, leaving just enough room for the toteming pair to turn at the corner and slip behind them, parallel to the bridge. They just had to reach the stairs, only a few feet away. 

The voice filled the cavern and his mind again. “He will die, hero. Fate and the gods have willed it so.” Fear wrapped him with every word, wrapping like coils around him.  

Fuck fate , he scoffed in his head, and the fear loosened, but still followed him. 

“I can teach you a spell that will weave him back together.”

Legend stopped and swallowed hard, heart thundering in his chest as the fear caught up to him. 

It’s a lie. And yet, he struggled to take another step. Why do they keep saying that? A spark of anxious hope flared at the words. Is it possible? If Hyrule were to die, somehow, or any of them, is there a way to bring them back? Stop! They don’t have Hyrule , and it’s probably dark magic, he reminded himself. They don’t even know where the demon is . 

Legend scanned the way forward, and found the voice’s source. Above him on the bridge stood a man in purple robes. Four soldiers guarded him, two on either side. For a brief moment, Legend’s heart raced at the folds of purple fabric. But no, these robes were dull, dark, and the draped hood bore no silly, familiar ears. Instead, a withered face stared across the room, amber eyes nearly glowing from the hood. 

“Believe it or not, we want the same thing.” The mage droned on, the buzzing on Legend’s skin growing stronger as he spoke. He longed to itch everywhere, but resisted. The girl did not.  

Legend grimaced at the words, the false familiarity it established between them, and the paralyzing spell of fear. Din, this same shit again? It sounded no different from the weird old Teacher, and the demon’s nonsense about the red thread of fate. Whale it stung to turn his mind away from Hyrule– not abandoning him! Not giving up! —he thought about the girl trembling on his back. Right now, she needed him. That’s all that mattered. 

“Hero…think about your friend. He will need your help.”

Hyrule’s blood. Hyrule’s death . That’s what these people wanted. 

He would not offer himself as a pawn in their plot.  

Regardless, the stairs were too crowded to continue.

Legend was stuck. 

“Reveal yourself, and we will talk. I promise no harm will come to you. But you will help, either way. For I have seen it. Fate will not be thwarted.”

He crouched and quietly bent enough to set the girl on her feet, and dug in his pouch.

“ Don’t you dare leave me here! ” she hissed, clinging to him. 

He shook his head slightly, and she slowly let go of his shoulder but held tight to his belt. Hands free, he downed another potion, tart and dry on his tongue but washing his body wholeness . He’d need it all for what he was about to do.

The girl slipped off his back. He tried not to panic, but she left one arm on him and climbed back up a moment later.

Her arm snaked down his, her fist over his hand, and something spilling out. He opened his palm. She dropped sand and pebbles into it.

What? 

“ A distraction. ”

Oh.

Dirt could work, but he could do better. Legend drew out a boomerang, an old one with no magic. He hated to lose it, but it had a purpose now. From the shadow of the bridge, he threw it. It was easy to mistake for a keese in the dim light, but the clatter it made on the far side of the cavern sent a shockwave among the soldiers. Dozens of them rushed to the sound.

The Yiga on the stairs disappeared to investigate. 

Legend hauled the girl up the stairs, his foot slipping a little on the sand as he climbed. 

At the top was another cell, oddly separated from the dungeon. He checked inside.

Empty.

But there, midway across the bridge, stood the mage, framed in the faint hint of daylight beyond, blocking it. 

The bridge was too narrow to sneak across, not with four blademasters and a dark-magic wielding mage between them and the way out.

“He’s here,” the old mage whispered to the guard on his right. “I feel the old magic. Have them move about. He may be hiding.”

One step ahead of you . But now Legend needed more than a simple distraction, especially if the mage could sense his magic. He dared not lead them to the Gerudo girl, but how to get her past them? 

Legend’s eyes lit up with an idea. He fished in his pouch, and grabbed a ring–a magic ring–and slipped it onto her thumb. In the quietest whisper he could manage, he spoke over his shoulder. “Wait until I clear the way, then run through there and follow the sunlight.” 

He slid her down, and crouched as he turned to face her, careful to keep the cloak over them both. He swept his sweaty bangs aside to watch her response. She searched his face for more answers. He had none to give. Before she could object, the veteran ducked out of the cape.  

He took the first blademaster by surprise, striking his back so hard the man plummeted off the high bridge.  

The mage backed away between the far pair of guards as the second blademaster approached. Legend unleashed a spin attack, four strikes, and he dropped the clansman with a lethal strike to his collar.  

The mage seethed. “Enough! You have something that does not belong to you! Not unless you stay and learn the way.” He raised a finger, eyes glittering red in the torchlight, cold and hard. “The book is missing half the spell! Only I can teach it.”

Legend lunged with his fire rod and sword. The mage dissipated the flames, while one guard swung his blade, and a sharp wind knocked Legend to the edge of the bridge, and over the bridge. The Mage gasped and rounded on the guard with a furious shout “STOP!”

Empty air gaped below him, but Legend was not called the veteran lightly. He fetched two items at once, kept together for just such an occasion: a feather, and a bulky hookshot. Holding the roc’s feather, he leapt high on the open air as if leaping from flat, solid ground. He jumped again, arcing high once more, his stomach in his ribs, soaring far out of easy reach, and as he dropped he aimed the hookshot at the fourth guard. It burst forward and latched on to the stunned guard’s bicep, and with a sickening jolt they swapped places. The blademaster shouted as he lurched and plummeted, and Legend stood face to face with the mage on the bridge once more. 

To his surprise, the last guard toppled over the edge, a sickle appearing, already buried in his side. 

The mage spun aside and raised his hands toward the place the weapon had appeared, dark magic gathering around him, acidic and rank with rot. Legend rushed forward and bodily yanked the Mage’s arm, away from what must be the Gerudo girl. With all the force he could muster from his exhausted body, he spun the mage and shoved him off the bridge. 

The mage fell, but coils of dark power slowed his descent. Red flashed in his eyes as he glared up at Legend. 

Smoke choked the air around him, but Legend reached into the fog to where the girl must have been. Shaking, invisible fingers grasped his. The unseen girl climbed onto his back. Both her and the cape settled over the veteran as he rushed in the direction of the narrow hall as the smoke cleared, bowling over soldiers as they appeared, chasing the faint glow of sunlight. 

They streaked into a round room like he’d seen, but instead of doors he saw statues, except one bright alcove. He passed through it in a blur. 

Sunlight! Legend chased it outside into the hot desert air, heavy with grit. The sky blinded him, but ran forwards all the same. Soon, shapes appeared through the white haze: reddish canyon cliffs, sparkling sand sloping downward, and a ribbon of pale blue sky. 

And those damned puffs of spoke. They appeared atop the cliffs and scattered on the path ahead. Dozens of bows aimed their way, their bodies invisible but their footprints in the sand were not . 

The girl screamed as she clawed his shoulders, “Your shield! Surf!” 

Oh! Wild had shown them shield surfing before. He’d thought it a waste, seeing how much it damaged Wild’s already flimsy shields, but right now he saw the appeal. The cape gave them cover, powered by the ring, as Legend fumbled in his pouch, rifling through rings and canes and empty glass bottles until at last he felt the smooth, long curve of uncle’s soldier's shield. But their footprints must have given them away, as arrows rained down. He tossed the shield ahead, and with a leap hooked one foot into the strap. The other foot he planted on the back edge, and with the momentum of his run they sped off, rushing down the hot sand, gaining momentum, exhilarating and fresh.

The girl on his back laughed. 

 They surfed for half a minute before the ring’s magic petered out. Legend stuffed the cape away. He’d have to rely on himself now, on his ability to dodge and weave.

A skill he excelled at. 

He quickly found how to move his feet just so to aim his descent, and he charted a breakneck, unpredictable course downward, sometimes lurching left or right, or kicking on the back of the shield to leap over boulders instead of swerving around them, arrows chasing them. The girl clung on and tried to shrink against him, and he mentally apologized for the seasickness she must be feeling. 

Red bodysuits and white smoke littered with paper still appeared all around, though Legend dodged them with ease. A squeeze and shout from the child made him worry she’d lost her grip as he took a particularly sharp right curve, but she clawed him tighter than ever and held firmly, and they sped onward. 

A dozen pops of white flashed in a cluster less than a hundred yards ahead. Barreling at  such a speed, Legend could barely hear the girl’s shout of alarm, but he’d already seen them and  angled for one gap before quickly shifting to pass through another while the Yiga scrambled toward the first. 

Lithe soldiers appeared once again, much further ahead than the first group and forming a tighter line. Their sickles flashed in the sun.  Perhaps they wanted to give him time to slow to a stop, to surrender. Legend smirked and eyed a sloped ridge nearby. It was perfect. He swerved sharply left. It was difficult balancing two people on the shield as he steered, but he’d seen it done once before in a small, snowy canyon. Thanks again, Wild, he thought as he aimed for the stone ramp, grated over the edge, and soared high above the heads of the Yiga. The white masks tracked him as he soared overhead. 

Legend’s stomach twisted as he dropped, but he clutched the roc’s feather and gave a shout of triumph as they bounced once in the air halfway down, then again closer to the ground, and finally hit the sand in a spray, mercifully staying upright at the impact and hurtling forwards. They left a cloud of dust in their wake big enough to obscure the assassins. The girl shrieked, and Legend couldn’t tell if it was fear or the thrill. 

At last, at long last, The canyon ahead stayed clear. They rode it in tense silence, Legend no longer dodging and weaving, simply feeling the rush of air cool the sweat completely coating him. His rabbit-quick heart finally began to slow down. 

They soared onward, riding the solid wave of glittering sand as the canyon curved left and opened onto the vast, sea-like desert.

Legend slowed as it spilled over the flat expanse and leveled out. He stopped just before reaching a path through ruins. A town shimmered into sight through the desert haze, only a few miles away.

Legend jumped off the shield and bent to let the girl down. She slid slowly, and he felt her wobble but seemed to catch her feet. He stared at the distant town and drank. The relatively cool stamina potion felt like heaven in his throat, the heat sapping his strength even as he stood still. 

“Is that your home?” he asked between gulps, searching the ruins for signs of monsters or places to rest safely all the while. 

“Ye-yes,” the girl whispered. Legend turned as the girl dropped to one knee, her face pale as paper. 

Legend cursed. Two arrow fletches peeked over her shoulder, rising and falling with her labored breaths: one in the back of her upper arm and one in her shoulder. Droplets fell and shone like rubies in the sand behind her, swiftly swallowed by the earth. 

Din dammit! He should have stopped to give her an extra shield for her back! Or anything to protect herself! He was used to treating wounds on himself, but removing arrowheads on a child? One that already barely trusted him? This was Warrior's area of expertise. He needed help.

“Hey, kid, I’m going to get you some help. You’re going to be okay. Just… just stay awake, okay? You need to tell me if I’m going the right way. Got it?” Goddesses what am I doing? What am I supposed to say?

Legend stowed his shield, downed another magic potion, chiding himself to conserve them better, and carefully lifted her onto his back again. 

She cried out, and her arms lay limp now, but he tied the cape around her back, kicked his heels, and ran. 

The last few red drops of potion in the glass glittered, mesmerizing in the dim torchlight. He put the empty bottle away. How the mage came to possess so many red potions from his own era, instead of just the elixirs common to Wild’s time, struck him again as odd. Still, Legend wasn’t complaining. They’d not been to his era for weeks, and his stock ran out days ago. Wild made fantastic elixirs for a range of uses, but magic wasn’t one of them. 

The fake wall thudded as heavy weights slammed against it. Skulltulas . Legend winced at the thought of facing them again. Not yet . Tapping and scraping on the metal sang a gruesome tune of anger and hunger that reverberated into his spine.  

Time and Sky had mentioned defeating the pests before. Apparently Wild had them too. He had to get back outside and face them. It’s Champion's era. What would he use? He huffed a weak laugh at a dozen memories of the champ exploding trees and fish, to Time’s horror. Bombs . And a rrows. Bomb arrows . Legend did not want to bring the whole canyon down just yet, and so searched his pouch. No Tempered blade in its usual place, that had been left in the mud at the ambush, along with his mirror shield. 

Legend brushed over a familiar hilt in his bag, his fingers tracing over worn, braided leather. He gripped it tight and pulled the blade free, remembering that night, years ago, when he’d lifted it from uncle’s mantle to chase the girl’s pleading voice, Zelda’s voice, in his mind. His hands were so small back then. That night, hope from the princess and priests gave him courage to press on despite the rest of the kingdom turning against him. And he’d done it. Just a child. A man now. He looked at the simple blade, and repeated the promise he’d made that night.

I thought I ended him. I’m sorry I failed your world. But I will bring you back so we can heal it together, break your curse, and keep Gannon in his grave .

He’d traveled across time and between worlds, conquered shadows and broken the dreams of gods, and he could do it again, goddesses willing or not. 

If he were truly blessed, Ravio might be ready for another adventure with him. 

Breathe .

Yanking his power gloves on, Legend turned and shoved the metal wall open. 

Pale sunlight bloomed through the gap to reveal biting cold air, drifting snow, and red sand.

Beyond the sandstone overhang casting its shadow over him, daylight shattered and speared between ropes of silk that criss-crossed the natural arena of the canyon. They almost masked the deep pit gaping in the center of it all in shadow. 

Spiders twice his size with skull-like bodies and golden legs scurried to reach him, clawing forward on the webs and the ground as if starving. More emerged from the deep pit. They chittered and clacked as they crawled closer, spitting crude nets of webbing toward him. 

He sidestepped the first net, then leveled his fire rod at the skulltula who’d sent it. The monster hissed as another one overtook it, both scrambling to reach the veteran first. Legend appreciated the wave of heat he released, a relief in the frigid air, and he left two charred bodies smoking where they fell before they burst into purple fog. The shimmering webs all around him crumpled and twisted away from the blaze, creating a small gap in the skulltulas’ dense weave. 

Fresh air blew in, clearing the smoke and ash and Legend breathed. 

“Rulie!” he bellowed, just in case. But only more spiders stirred in answer. Another massive black and gold body dropped in front of him. He stabbed it on instinct. With a crack and a crunch, it fell, legs twitching around his sword arm. He jerked the blade free and cleared more webs with fire. The sticky webs shriveled and spiders dropped. 

Legend spun around the pit: slicing, burning, stabbing, again, again, again. Webs fell and revealed a vibrant blue glow coming from the far side of the arena. He’d seen a few like it before: in the rainforest where they’d first landed in Wild’s Faron region, and again just before Ghirahim’s ambush. It had to be another shrine, or similar sheikah magic. Wild used them to teleport, and it might get him and Hyrule back too, faster than slogging uphill into snowy mesas with Yiga on their tails. 

Fire and sword steadily cleared a path to the shrine, skull-faced bodies leaving clouds of sulfuric smoke. Veils of webbing drifted almost lazily away under the golden sunlight now filling the arena, uncovering facades of windows and doors built against the cliffs.

Sooner than he’d expected, the last skulltula shriveled under his flames. 

Legend panted as he turned all around, searching the walls and the pit for stragglers. Fire rod swapped for his traveler’s shield, the veteran braced himself for what might come next. The pit would be an ideal place for a moldorm, or gleeok. He watched, and waited.  

Nothing moved. 

The veteran adventurer wiped sweat from his face. 

Wind blew sand across the gap, but not a whisper or sound came from inside. Anxious to get this over with, he peered down over the edge. Little yellow lights glowed around the edge, but no monsters emerged. 

Hesitant, he scoured the arena, now painted in ash and scorch marks. “RULIE!” he shouted, and listened. But there was no sound, nor sign of any life in the arena beside himself. “RULIE!” The word echoed and faded, unanswered. 

He turned to Wild’s shrine again, unsteady and jittery as the rush of battle left a swell of discomfort in its wake. Lightheaded and cold, but moving forward anyway, Legend approached the structure cautiously.  

This shrine, radiating a piercing blue light, towered higher than the two others he’d seen: it jutted from the sand like a spike, the top half of smooth crystalline rectangles, but still with the gaudy, worm-like swirls around the base and archway like the other shrines. 

Legend  jumped atop its bulky platform. 

A pedestal with a slanted top glowed, a rectangular hollow in the center. The light faintly pulsed. 

But, how to make it work? How to activate it? Legend wiped sweat and ash from his cooling face and studied the pedestal beside the archway. The tilted face shone so brightly it was hard to look at for long. He explored the entire surface with his fingertips, the slate smooth and cold as ice, colder even than the drifting snowflakes melting on his hair and hands.  

He pushed at the lights, prodded them in different orders, copied the pattern of constellations marked on the shrine. 

Nothing .

He tried a mystery seed. He tried spells memorized from books Ravio brought up from Lorule about magic and potions. 

Nothing. 

He sent flames over the pedestal, across the entrance, and inside the little cave-like room within, hoping to activate something . Not a scratch or scorch mark remained for his efforts. Legend kept at it: he prodded every reachable surface, inside and out, for signs of a switch or a puzzle, but found only that perplexing dip in the center of the pedestal. 

Nothing.

The light continued to pulse steadily, like an ancient mechanical heartbeat. He felt the gap, imagining the size and shape of what might fit inside. 

Wild’s slate. This dip was just the right size for it. 

Then it all made sense. That was the key. So only Wild could use it. 

Determination turned to sour disappointment. In the blue glow of the shrine’s cave, Legend eased himself down to sit on the inner glowing platform. Too late, he realized it might have been a mistake: once teased with rest, his body collapsed. Sleepless nights and too many long fights made his limbs sluggish. The sun outside shone too bright. His joints grated at the slightest movement. He closed his eyes, half-wanting to sink into dreams, even knowing how dangerous as those could be, whether by a new deity needing his help to wake, or simply from a stray monster finding him an easy meal. 

Legend groaned and forced his eyes open. He could not sleep yet. He needed to bring Hyrule back. If he could find his successor and get out, hold on long enough to get them to safety…away from that horrid demon and the mage the Yiga mentioned. Mages…Aghanim. Veran. Twinrova…the potions, stolen from the mage’s room…

His eyes closed, head dipping. 

…the book.

The book! 

Legend shook himself harder and sat up. He needed a plan if he wanted to prevent the terrible fate the book showed, and the hell that would bring: a new incarnation of Ganon, Hyrule dead. The Yiga knew about the curse. They would kill him. Gannon would be back. 

Or the Calamity. 

There was no time to waste. Legend unfurled the map. Blue light shone through the paper as he traced with shaking hands over dry red and black ink. None of the words looked familiar. Legend traced his wandering path backwards, pausing only to note that the mage’s chamber and the war room with the long table didn’t appear on the map. 

Only two wings of the sprawling complex remained unexplored. Hope sparked warm in his chest when he realized one of them led to this arena. Examining the cliff walls again, he cleared out blistered webs and loose boulders, revealing a decorative gate. With a small, red-tiled roof and simple wooden frame, it was far humbler than the ornate gate framing the hidden passage he’d left earlier. It blended perfectly with the stone. 

Hyrule, hold on. I’m almost there.

Legend tried pulling, pushing, and testing for hidden levers, but found none. It was like that tall shrine all over again. Which, as before, meant Wild probably had the answer. If Wars was around, he’d put money on the “key” to it. With a laugh and a hope, Legend lit the fuse, aimed, and tossed.   

The explosion rocked the canyon. Sand and rocks poured down like waterfalls from the cliffs above. Dust cleared from the entrance. The veteran could almost hear Wild saying “See? Bombs!” with that wide, tilted grin of his. 

Legend entered the mangled cave door. He leapt over debris and mangled spike boobytraps, and rushed deeper inside, throwing stones ahead to spring any more traps before he reached them. 

Sweat dripped down his neck. He threw stones ahead as he rushed through the corridors, and sure enough spikes shot from the floor several yards ahead. Amateurs , he thought as they retracted, and he rushed across easily on winged boots. 

Legend left a slew of mangled floor and wall spike-traps in his wake.

A large hallway opened ahead. His footsteps echoed, disturbing the quiet, yet no Yiga appeared. Strange . Nor had they appeared outside. Too empty, too quiet . Legend didn’t like it. After killing the monsters, and certainly after bombing the door, the place should be swarming with Yiga. 

Had they retreated? Or if Hyrule had escaped, was he giving them such a tough fight elsewhere that they’d forgotten him? Or were they planning some attack or trap ahead? He’d rather take them on than continue with this eerie silence. But perhaps there were more monsters here than just the spiders, and they’d left defending the entrance to them? His gut twisted as he tried to push away another haunting thought: maybe they’ve started the ritual. Maybe they don’t need the book.

Blade and shield ready, he ran into the next hall, only to find more empty halls and sparsely scattered torches.

Cleanse . The word had been repeating in his mind since he arrived. A drum beat pushing him forwards while he’d searched. He would burn them all out on sight to free the world from this threat. For Wild. For Malon and Time. For Rulie, and for this era that had endured horrors enough. 

But where were they? He knew he’d not killed all of them, the slippery bastards. Legend followed the switchbacking hall to the doorway of the next room, and stepped inside. 

Inside, he found a spacious room bathed in the same red torchlight as the rest of the complex. The floor had been carved four steps deep and covered in sand: a training arena. Walkways converged at a large, padded stage in the center. Wide towers halfway to the corners of the room held lamps and long banners, the painted red eyes watching from all directions.

On the stage sat an old man: cross-legged, hands resting across a thick wooden cane in his lap. The coiled, blue haze of the man’s magic aura felt ancient . Legend had not felt such a stark reminder of his own youth since meeting Time, and this stranger felt much older still. He sat motionless, completely at ease.

And no wonder, the veteran thought: the old man was huge, and unlike any other Yiga he’d seen—bullish like the blademasters, but much taller. Even Time would have to look up to face him. Four and Wind could weave between his legs without bothering to duck. 

The man wore no red bodysuit, but unadorned black robes. Painted on his black mask, the signature upside-down eye of the Yiga shimmered gold in the room's red glow. Snowy hair fanned in two halves from his top knot, hanging nearly to his shoulders.

Legend had seen this too many times before: the smug, relaxed arrogance of a dungeon’s final guardian. Usually a good sign that I’m going the right way, that I’m close. Perhaps this was the mage he’d stolen the book and potions from. On the far side of the room stood the way ahead. To his surprise, it was not a locked door, but an open hallway.  He didn’t need a dungeon key—he just needed to get past this man.

Legend readied his sword and shield. 

The stranger rose to his feet with the gravity of a talus. Legend resisted the urge to take a step back. Matching his shocking height, his voice rumbled deeply: “Come in, hero. I will not hurt you. I only wish to speak with you.” He planted the cane before him, resting his huge arms on it.  

That was… unexpected. 

Legend held his weapons tighter, eyeing the wooden cane of his opponent warily. Magic radiated around it. “Thanks, but I’m only passing through.”

“You seek your friend.” 

Irritation flared in the veteran; not only at the man, but at his own confusion. What the hell was going on? Why was the enemy offering to talk ?

“Obviously,” Legend seethed. “You assholes and your demon lord were the ones who took him.” Though he’d hoped to match the even temper of the old man, he could not keep a snarl from leaking into his voice. 

“No, hero. That demon is not my master. Not yet. My master is gone. I merely serve the clan in his honor, training them in our ways, but the mage leads our tribe now.”

So, not the mage. There went that theory. “Then who are you?” 

“I am… I am no one. Perhaps one day I may reclaim my name, my revenge, and my honor. Until then, I am simply a teacher.”

Legend waited for him to elaborate, but he remained on the stage, watching. Maybe. Hard to tell under the mask. But the teacher remained silent. Legend rolled his eyes. Cryptic much? “Fine. Teacher, then. The Mage is in charge. Got it.”

A deep chuckle resounded from the Teacher. “The mage serves the demon lord. Yet he believes Lord Ghirahim serves him .” 

Then he had the audacity to laugh again . “I sincerely apologize, young hero. No doubt yours was. not a warm welcome. We knew you’d not be easy to convince. But Fate has foretold of the role you will fulfill. The mage wishes to show you how to save your friend’s life. We will ensure your safety, for Destiny has willed it so.”

“Yeah, you were right,” Legend deadpanned, “I’m not convinced. I happen to know your mage wants my friend dead. So let's get this over with.” 

The old man lifted the cane like a sword.

Legend sent magic into his boots, and the room streaked into blurs of color on either side as he charged the stage. When he reached it, the huge man disappeared in a cloud of red. 

Legend took the chance. He rushed across the stage and onward to the open hallway on the far side. No slammed door, no lock, like he was used to. Just another hall. He only needed to stay ahead of this man and keep a strong lead as he searched. At worst they’d battle in the hall where Legend’s smaller form would have the advantage. With luck, the stubborn old brute would be bound to the room like most dungeon guardians, but Wild’s era proved unpredictable in that regard already. They’d all heard about the roaming lynels.   

Legend jumped up the opposite steps in time to watch the tree-sized wooden bars slam over the doors, locking him in. He barely stopped in time. 

“NO!” Legend struck the bars with his blade, but he knew it was pointless. In the center, he found a slot for a key. Legend scoured the room for the man who’d done it.

He did not see him anywhere. Time to draw him out. Win the fight. Get the key. 

He walked cautiously back to the stage. The veteran turned slowly, listening. The silence pressed like a weight. 

A brush of displaced air whispered behind him, and Legend spun and blocked the old man’s staff with his shield. The dense pole forced his shield down until he was nearly on his knees in a crouch. Legend swung his sword below his shield across Teacher’s leg. Metal clashed as his knight’s sword bounced off a hidden shin guard, its silver metal peeking through the sliced black fabric. 

Legend tried to get out from under the man’s downward pressure, shoving with the help of his boots and jumping over a low swipe at his legs. But when he jumped, Teacher shoved him back. Skidding, Legend dug in and stopped the enemy’s goron-like momentum just enough to risk stabbing at Teacher’s knee, careful to keep his head covered. 

The old man dodged it easily with a sidestep, but Legend turned his wrist and hacked from the side, digging into his soft inner thigh. A hiss told him he'd drawn blood, at least. But the pressure grew unbearable against his shield, threatening to topple him backward and crush him. Both arms burned as he tried again to shove Teacher off, but this time the boost from his pegasus boots was not enough to force him back. 

“Fate cannot be thwarted. Yield, and save your friend.” The man spoke without strain, as if the shoving match between them took no effort. Legend ground his teeth and trickled more and more magic into his boots to push forward, yet the force against him mounted higher. Goddesses, he’s strong. He wants to test me.

Legend preferred to keep some surprises up his sleeve. He straightened with just a little boost from his bracelet, then danced aside in a spin—cap and tunic flaring—and let Teacher lurch forward in the empty place he’d left. Legend swung his sword around to hack into the old man’s unarmored spine as he passed. 

Only Teacher hadn’t lurched at all, but dashed forwards quickly— too quickly—and spun as Legend had, nimble as a yearling buck. He faced Legend with that eerie black mask and flung his wrist. Two kunai blades, disturbingly like Ghirahim’s, slammed into Legend’s hastily-raised shield. The huge man charged again, cane ready to strike. But the veteran leapt high, flipping backwards in a soaring arc, and aimed his blade for the man’s head as he passed below. His opponent’s momentum would be his undoing.

But Teacher was gone . Legend’s blade cut empty air instead of splitting a skull. 

Dammit! The teleporting coward!

Legend’s momentum sent a bruising shock through his knees, joints nearly buckling, as he landed. 

Where did he–

The old man’s voice resonated from the door Legend needed to reach. “Hero of Legend, your name is well remembered by my tribe. In your time, we were allies.”   

Legend straightened, panting. “Your tribe is just traitors and murderers now.” 

“Young mage, hear me.”

“I’m not a—” Legend started, but Teacher interrupted, raising a placating hand.

“Upon the memory of Master Khoga, I vow that we only wish to teach you the spell to keep your companion alive.” 

Legend had to fight back a laugh. Wild loved telling that story around the campfire of the Yiga clan leader accidentally killing himself with his own weapon and falling to his death. Yet the raw earnestness in Teacher’s voice gave him enough sense to not mock the still-grieving man. “Oh, well, now I’m convinced.” Legend scoffed. “Unless you're actually going to help me get Hyrule out of here, let’s get this over with.”

Teacher heaved a deep sigh, and rested his pole between his feet. “Let fate prove my words, as the knights of old, since you wish to fight. If you disarm me, I swear to stand aside. But if I disarm you, then you will stay and listen to the mage.”

“I’m not a knight. If you really know who I am, then you already know I’d never agree with anyone trying to bring back Gannon.”

“Do not let pride blind you to the good you may achieve with our help.” He lowered the cane to his side. “Let the mage teach you the spell that will save the Hero of Hyrule.” 

Heat filled Legend’s vision, crawling up his neck, just like the rage he’d felt when he first arrived. It swelled to a boil as the pieces fell into place.

Legend knew what it showed in the pages of the book, knew what the mage truly had in store for Hyrule. “I don’t need him to teach me a damn thing. I know what you actually plan to do with ’Rule, so honestly? Fuck off.” 

“You do not understand your role—”

“Enough!” Legend didn’t bother letting him finish. “I’m getting the key and getting out.”

“Hmm. It is a shame you chose to fight against Fate. But in the end, there will be no choice.” Teacher lifted his cane overhead, and the spell of concealment over it shattered. The Teacher lowered twin, single-edge blades, like the blademasters but larger and with hooked cross guards the size of dinner plates. His robes took on the fit of the blademasters too, but remained dark as night. “The mage will find other ways to convince you.”

Legend’s scowled, readied his weapons, and watched for the old man to make the next move. 

Teacher disappeared again. A sudden grasp on his arms startled him. Legend shoved backwards to knock the old man down and break his grip. They tumbled off the walkway into the sand. 

Legend scrambled up to face his enemy, spitting out the dry grains and shaking more out of his hair. “Can’t win without disappearing?” he shouted.

“As you fight with magic—” Teacher was behind him again. Legend whipped around and used his bracelet to slam his sword hard against the man. His opponent raised one arm and took the blow on his spiked vambrace, the blade inched from his masked head. “So do I.”

He had a point. Legend despised him all the more for it. 

Teacher scissored his blades across Legend’s legs. But the hero leapt high, backflipping over the arcing blades, his sword arm coiling with tension to drive into the enemy’s head. Spiked arm guards blocked the midair attack, and before Legend landed, Teacher snatched his sword arm and flung him bodily onto the stage like a sack of grain.

Legend rolled to his feet from the toss and spun to face his opponent. Teacher did not pause his assault. Jumping onto the stage, he barreled forward, then tucked and rolled to the left when Legend struck, but it was a feint and too swiftly he leapt up from the roll and swerved right, crossed his arms to hold the blades high, and if not for Legend’s own flip back at the last moment, they would have taken his head as they scissored again. Instead, they swished just below his boots. 

Blades lunged for him again, tips sparking with sharp magic. Legend barely rolled under their reach in time. 

Teacher fought like a hurricane. Lightning fast, he hacked both blades at Legend’s right, striking the shield with the force of a lynel, in blurred succession. Reverberating pain shot up his arm. Legend swung into the storm with his own sword, but the man jumped high, and as Legend’s swipe passed through the abandoned spot, Teacher dropped down with his blades poised downward to skewer Legend from above. Legend blocked overhead, but marveled at how the huge man continued to hover above the ground. He’d seen the archers do it, but not blademasters, and this man seemed to be their teacher. Both blades swung down at his left side this time, Legend’s sword arm barely fast enough to block and parry. He could hardly track the motion. Metal flashed from the right and above, brutally shoving his shield and nearly dislocating his shoulder. Legend could only defend. 

Still unbound by gravity, Teacher twisted in the air, spinning like a children’s toy as his blades became a whirl of red, like fire. Legend backed away, but the whirlwind slammed his shield, forcing him down to one knee. 

It stopped when a fist cracked against his cheek.

The world tilted sideways, and his nerves kicked in late, dulled by whatever blow had landed on his head. Gravity caught him, clawing him down to the floor, though it seemed a tenuous situation, as if  up and down could change direction again at any moment. Legend blinked hard several times, trying to get up, but shooting pain in his ribs kept him still. Curling his head up, he found a black shoe pressing him down.  

Searing pain at the back of his knee brought the world back into sharp focus, and he gasped as a terrible sting throbbed, pulsing with heat and shock up and down his entire leg. The man’s dripping blade pulled free of the wound, and Legend realized he’d cut his tendon.

Bastard!

“Yield,” Teacher ordered. 

Cleanse.

  Legend let his hand answer, using the force of his power bracelet to strike Teacher’s unarmored hamstring with a gift from Sky clenched in his fist: a woodcarving knife.

The brute grunted, and his leg lifted enough for the veteran to push free. 

Legend rolled under the man as the dual blades swung down where his legs had been a moment before. He’s still not fighting to kill. But I am! The veteran continued his roll behind Teacher and lunged to his feet, jumping high enough to swing at the back of his neck. But the old man turned with the agility of a snake and parried, shoving Legend back. 

Legend landed clumsily in the sand on one leg, careful not to put weight down on his leg, but he could feel his magic ring already knitting the wound closed. 

Teacher paused, breathing harder now. “Fate is unrelenting in its tapestry. Not even you can undo the weaving. Stop this pointless game.”

Cleanse.  

“Funny, because I’ve killed the destined King of Evil even as a goddess-damned child , every time he showed his ugly face. Don’t waste my time.”

Legend did not wait for the old man to make the next move. His leg had nearly recovered enough to walk on. Okay. Time to dance . 

Shield away, the veteran pulled free a cane, the top curled like a fern. A cane from the Dark World. The smooth blue surface shone purple in the red light as Legend lifted the cane of Byrna high. 

When Teacher’s blow struck, his strength turned against him, bouncing off the shield and sending him flying backward with the force. 

The hole left in Legend’s chest by the consumed magic ached bone-deep, but he was ready for the next attack. Fire rod again in hand, he gave the man no chance to recover his balance before hurling flame after flame against him. 

The ground erupted at his feet, but Legend was ready. Nothing he hadn’t already seen today.  

Legend sidestepped the blaze and lunged for the man with all his strength, natural and otherwise. 

Then a curious thing happened.

The teacher moved like someone trapped in dense mud, like time itself had slowed down. The flames behind him crawled in its attempt to chase him. The teacher hardly moved at all, blades slowly cutting the air. Legend’s shield was already poised to block it. He’d seen this before… where had he seen it? The veteran could not recall just then, not in the heat of battle. Not daring to question the sudden surplus of time to attack, Legend landed his blow, heard the force of his hit, and yet the man hardly moved! Legend struck again, and again, and again, finishing with a spin attack.

The man flew backward into a pillar so hard that his mask cracked in half, landing beside his limp form on the sand. 

Legend hurried down, and rifled around the man’s robes, searching for a bag or a...

There!

Legend darted across the walkway and up the stairs, and he shoved the key he’d taken into the lock. The gate slowly began to rise.

A brush of displaced air warned him. Legend swiveled and drew up his sword in one fluid motion. 

Legend and the Teacher both held blades to each other’s throats. 

“I will yield, as a sign of my sincerity. But consider this warning, hero,” the teacher growled, lowering his blade. “Fate is inescapable.”

And in a cloud of red, he was gone. 

The doors opened.

Legend didn’t wait around to see if his concession was just a trick.

--------------

@estelian-01!!!! This chapter is dedicated to you! Thanks for being so excited about this fic, it has significantly led to it's forward progress!

A TRILLION Thanks to @hotcheetohatredwastaken for beta reading and giving fantastic suggestions, and finding all my silly little errors.

She closed her eyes, seeking that horrible sense of Darkness again. Only a few steps ahead, it grew thicker, tense in the air, and she paused and held perfectly still. The air chilled. For every monster before, she’d noticed only a slight wisp of wind, a small cooling in the air if anything, before they appeared. 

This was frigid. It stole warmth from the air. Her magic pulsed, threatened. 

Sun held up her good arm, signaling the others to ready their weapons. She could not help, so she reached inward for Hylia.

Light rose to her call. It filled her with gold warmth. A shield formed around her good arm, spiked in front and at the edges, thin and brittle compared to true steel but enough to stop any of the monsters they’d seen so far. 

The water gave no sign of what ichorous monster might rise from it. A towering moblin? An armored dinalfos? Surely it must be far worse than a simple gaggle of keese. 

Ripples danced, brushing at her feet. Sun stepped back, gripping her shield, pulling it closer and higher despite the bite it caused in her injured arm. She readied her feet in a defensive stance. 

The other women followed her lead, the shrink and cling of metal being readied. 

The water stilled. 

Sun exhaled. 

An explosion of spray soared upward.

The first wave slapped her backwards, knocking her into the others. By a miracle, or perhaps Athena’s height, they all stayed on their feet. 

A tower of water shot high into the air, the source of the wave. The spray peaked, arced outward, and rained down on them.

From amid the spray, the head of a dragon emerged, shimmering in the water:  ink-black and lightning-quick, the beast thrashed and clawed to free itself from the water’s surface. 

Sun’s ears drooped as her gaze rose to follow the massive creature. Time itself seemed disorganized, slow and heavy, as it filled her entire field of view. From its head spiraled a crown of horns. Red fissures of lava shimmered across its body, glowing bright under coal-black scales. Water turned to steam as it landed on the beast. Low came the rumble from its gullet, thundering once again in the pressurized confines of her skull. Storm-dark wings unfurled, smoke fanning outward in their wake, the wings monstrously spiked and clawed at every joint. 

Like Demise. 

This was his. 

The scent of brimstone and sulphur. The flame and smoke. 

It clambered upright and whipped its long neck around to glare at them with three pairs of fiery red eyes, and her courage faltered again. 

Her shielded arm dropped to her side. 

Had this beast made that roar she’d heard when she’d first arrived in this realm? It sounded even deeper, fiercer. What other monstrosities lurked in this realm? How could they hope to fight them all? Despair crept into her heart as, slowly, the beast scrambled to find footing; massive claws finally catching on something, turning its bulky body right-ways. 

The arrow-sharp snout stretched open wider than Indigo’s wingspan, and Sun covered her ears as it roared. Her bones shook from the shadow-dragon’s keening. 

But before the shadow-dragon fully cleared the water, time snapped back to its usual flow when six ear-splitting explosions from behind her back made her and the others flinch. 

Tetra’s pistol.

With every shot tearing through its wings, the monster shrieked and faltered.

It hung in the air for a moment—barely halfway free of the water—then it plummeted. It soaked them in another wave of water spray. 

Sun and the other braced for the next wave, holding on to each other. Tetra probably hoped to kill it before it could fully emerge, and Sun laughed in nervous relief when the several smaller waves passed by harmlessly, leaving them standing. Tetra knew what to do in the face of a horror like this. Sun readied her shield again, taking courage.  

Athena and Dusk had wasted no time either, pressing the advantage Tetra gave them: silver and gold flashed past her. They leapt over another wave with a practiced, easy grace. Closer to the beast, they leapt higher, their arcs graceful. They landed in tandem on either side of the dragon’s shoulders and plunged flashing blades over and over into the beast’s tattered wings. It jerked, tearing its wings even worse. With a furious flail it flung the women off. Like remlits, the pair landed on their feet with hardly a stumble. 

Knight Commander Eagus would have recruited them on the spot, Sun thought, a little giddy with shock. Metal clicked as Tetra reloaded her pistols while the dragon thrashed under renewed twin assaults by the relentless warriors. 

Tetra did not fire, but shoved the remaining girls behind the boxes Echo had conjured. Sun gripped the edge of the wood. The box was heavy and real. Sun felt a flash of envy at the skill Hylia had never told her about. Though she did have some memories of creating many things, they jumbled together in a blur without specifics. Perhaps Hylia could teach her.  

But now, she could help in her own way. 

The beast clawed at the women now attacking the back of its neck. Those claws mustn’t touch any of their company. 

Sun studied the beast’s forelegs—sharp claws as long as sabers—aimed, and locked her magic around them. Focusing, she let go of the burning gash in her arm, the sting of shadow-plagued air and the ashes that lingered on her tongue and in her nostrils. Instead, she poured all her thoughts into the sway of once-holy water at her feet, into the heat of magic rising through her limbs like a tide, and into the musical rhythm of her heart. 

She let it free.

Gold light surrounded the limbs. It left her like a heavy weight dropped to another as the light hardened. Amber crystals solidified and crawled further and further up the dragon’s legs even as it hardened.

The monster growled, thrashed, and pit angrily at it to no avail. 

It lowered it’s head and red eyes bored into he with seething rage, heat rippling above it’s head

Sun’s heart skipped a beat. The crystal stopped growing. Her breath caught at a dark thought: sealing herself was one thing, and with a goddess’s guidance, but to ensnare an entire malice-crystalized dragon…

Captain Tetra fired. The sound cleared her head of every thought besides stopping it. The crystals grew again, clinging to scaly knees. 

The dragon roared another bone-chilling shriek, and Sun could see why. Tetra’s aim had been perfect. All three eyes were gone, leaving the beast thrashing and blinded with pain. Distracted. She pressed the crystals upward. Its forelegs locked entirely to the ground, encased.

The beast strained against her seal, resisting. She knew it was inevitable, eventually. She could feel its might against her seal: hers was brittle, hollow. Crystal cracked, threatening to shatter.  So Sun clawed her fingers inward, grasping it in. Amber shattered into a thousand spears that pierced deep into the oily scales. The dragon shrieked. If it could not be trapped, it would stay immobilized.

From the corner of her eye came movement. A flash of pink. The blur of a staff. Echo summoned a metal table with black fabric stretched over the top, like a strange drum. She jumped on it. 

The fabric bent low, and then launched her upwards. 

Goddesses, we could use that at home! Sun marveled. If I show Groose the design, maybe—

Echo plunged her blade into the beasts neck, braced her feet, and pulled it down. The monster bucked but Echo held on, a faint blue glow encircling her.

The seal! Sun refocused, and the crystal spread higher, clawing at the dragon’s shoulders. 

Echo pulled the blade free and sprinted higher up the monster’s long neck and plunged again, even deeper, though it did not dive straight, the beasts turning it’s neck to deflect all it could..

The cut wasn’t long, but enough to send blackened ooze and bursts of flame pouring out of it. The creature bucked, and this time Echo could not hold on. She soared like a graceless ragdoll, pinwheeling away from them. Uncontrolled. Her bones would surely break at that speed! 

The crystal slowed as Sun held her breath. 

Another circle appeared on the ground, placed perfectly to break her fall. Echo landed on her back, and lauched herself upright and back down again at a more reasonable speed, landing in a crouch, unhurt. 

Sun breathed again, and the crystal crept against the creature’s neck. 

Echo ran to them and dispersed the bouncing circles with the wave of her short staff. A bird appeared, not unlike the shadows in color but lacking malevolence. The little enchantress mounted it and soared back to the group. 

The beast opened it’s mouth. Fire welled within, preparing to burst toward the girl, clearly craving vengeance in the direction of all its assailants. 

Light arrows arched over Echo and her bird, headed for the three remaining eyes. The arrows struck, and the beast roared and choked on it’s own fire. The shrieks resonated with agony and fury. 

Six eyes gone. Trapped. 

Sun realized they could end this quickly. 

She breathed a sigh of relief. 

A massive eye in the center opened. 

“Wha–”

“No voe allowed!” snarled a veiled guard. If the blademasters were “strong” then these women were the equivalent of bipedal chain-chomps. Muscled arms flexed, and their boulder-firm stances left no question as to their capabilities. The guard on the left glared, and her drawn brows twitched as if she itched for him to give her any reason to run him through. 

He glared back at her, and resisted the urge to leap over the gate. Fresh off multiple fights for his life, what was one more, if it came to it… but what then? Jostle the girl further in a mad dash with no destination? Delay getting her aid? He could not solve this with a fight. 

‘Smile, and assume incompetence over malice,’ Zelda would remind him in moments like this, on those rare occasions she’d tasked him to guard her throughout tense diplomatic meetings. 

He could do this. This was simply a puzzle, not a fight.   

Legend took a slow step back and turned to reveal the child’s face and her injuries, her breath shallow and labored on his ear. 

Their horrified gasps would have been satisfying if not for the girl’s groan at the sudden motion. 

“Wait here until I call the healers.” The guard lowered her spear by mere inches and blew a tiny whistle with three long calls.  

At last, she lowered her weapon and the guards helped him ease the child atop a blanket one of them produced. Legend stepped back and let his legs collapse. He knelt in the sand a moment, watching them carefully ease the girl to rest on her side. The arrow wounds looked more shallow than he’d first feared, at least—none of them shot at close range thanks to their wild descent—but it was little consolation when he could see her bleeding and shivering. 

“Here. Healing potion,” Legend staggered to his feet and poured some on his blistered hand for them to see. He knew his era’s potions looked different than Wild’s. The healer snatched it as soon as the wound faded. 

Legend watched, unable to help further but unwilling to look away as each arrow came free. Instead, the veteran fisted the dense weave of his tunic as she bit down her pain. He could have done more. 

She took it all with a courage he admired. And, she was right. Gerudo were tough .  

At last, the red-tipped arrows lay discarded on the ground beside the empty bottle of healing potion. Legend rested again in the sand just outside the gate, watching the little girl breathe  deeply in her sleep, safe in the shade.  

One of the guards turned to him with a softened expression. Not a smile, but not aggressive. “Thank you, young voe, for rescuing her. Buliara has been frantic over her disappearance,” she said with a sad shake of her head, “She’s very close to her nieces. I’m sorry we can’t allow you inside, or I’d buy you a drink myself.” She leaned closer. “Although,” she whispered, “You could do what another voe warrior does and buy a convincing vai set. Not many voe can pull it off, but I suspect you could do better than most, especially with that pink in your hair.”

Voe. That word again. 

Oh .

A man. 

He had found an entire civilization that hated him, helping the little girl notwithstanding. Legend regretted not grilling Wild about his era as soon as they’d come. He couldn’t even restock here, couldn't rest, might as well move on. Legend looked back at the wavering ocean of sand waiting for him to search. But where? Not back to the Yiga base. To Hyrule castle, perhaps, to find Wild’s Zelda? To Wild’s house in Hateno, the only place they’d spend time in their short visit before? Legend had no map, and such a lush village as Hateno must be hundreds of miles away. 

The guards looked relieved when he asked for directions to both the castle and Hateno. 

The guard who answered, one with short hair who wore it loose, pointed towards the far side of town. “There’s an oasis a few hours ahead where you can resupply, then a Hylian-run stable at the mouth of the canyon. Follow the canyon for a few days, cross Digdogg Bridge, on your first left is another stable. Return to the road going east, then beyond the coliseum ruins–”

Colosseum ruins… Legend’s heart sank at the words. 

“Take the road north. You will see the castle. For Hateno, stay on the path instead of going north. You will find stables to rest in  along the way. It’s a two week journey, at least, for most travelers. Best of luck.” 

Legend saw a pair of green eyes staring at him. The girl rested, perfectly still, as her caregivers whispered above her. He waved a small goodbye. She lifted two fingers in answer. 

“Yari!” A booming voice called from within the walls, and Legend stared as a massive Gerudo warrior collapsed at the girl’s side, her spear clattering on the packed earth. She wrapped the girl in a bear hug that might have killed the poor child if she hadn’t been healed first.

She would be just fine. A smile tugged at Legend’s mouth, though accompanied by a pang of jealousy. He missed his own brothers, and especially Hyrule, and the certainty of knowing they were all okay. 

“I’m glad I got to see that, at least,” Legend told the guard as he took his leave. 

She smiled as she waved. 

Hot wind blew sand across the barren path ahead. He took one uncertain step. Two steps into the arid desert, the first steps of his next journey, and paused. 

It felt more than lonely, without the girl on his back or brothers at his side or even his fairy companion from years ago. It felt more than daunting, with his skin already pink from the burning sun. It simply felt… empty. 

“Buliara, that voe is the one who brought Yari back.” Called the guard he’d just said goodbye to.

“You!” the newcomer, Buliara, barked at him from the entrance. “Young voe! Explain.” 

Legend slowly pivoted, hoping he would see someone who could help rather than hinder his quest. He took in her stern expression, and her rosy floral silks clasped in place with golden plates of armor, royaly jeweled. Legend wondered, if he faced her in the fighting colosseum, if he could even win.  

Buliara eyed him skeptically in return. “What were you doing inside the Yiga base? How did you find her?” 

To his own surprise, he rather liked this woman’s simmering rage; it was refreshing, somehow, and it matched his own. And, despite her people’s appalling sexism, she knew Wild’s world far better than he did. Honesty, it is , he decided.

“The Yiga ambushed my brothers and I, along with some demon, those bastards–” He was surprised at the slight wince the guards gave. Then again, with that much jewelry, Buliara could actually be royalty. Court voice , he decided. He explained, much more formally this time, the basics of the ambush that morning. “We reappeared deep within a cave complex in the canyon in that direction. Unfortunately, the demon did not appear there, the one who took my brother. I thought he was in the caves too, but I searched the whole complex, and even the Yiga did not know where they’d gone. I found Yari in the dungeon, and we made our escape together.” He paused to sip from his waterskin, at long last. It gave the guards a chance to whisper back and forth as he washed hot grit from his throat. “Now,” he added, “I still need to find my brother, wherever the demon took him, and return to our companions.”

“You say the Yiga are in league with a… demon?” Buliara scowled, and for the life of him Legend could not discern what it meant. But every guard and nosy civilian gathering near the gates to watch the commotion had also flinched at the word as she said it.

“Yes. Tall, thin, white hair and clothes. Do you know anything about demons, or where to find them?”

“We are no demon tribe!” One of the guards glared at Legend. “Have you come here to brazenly insult us with old prejudices?” 

“No!” Buliara cut her off, stepping between them. “I believe they are earnest, and clearly a stranger to our history and our culture,” She eyed his clothes with something akin to amusement. Legend stood a bit taller. She nodded with something like approval, some decision reached. “The increasing brazenness of the Yiga clan may be explained by what he has seen; if there is such a monster among them, we must know. I will take you to our Chief. She should hear of this.” Buliara beckoned him to follow, and in one graceful motion she hoisted her sleeping niece into her arms like she weighed no more than a rabbit. Yari settled back to sleep almost instantly.

Legend hesitated, eyeing the guards. “As much as I’d like to brag that I got invited to your super-exclusive city, I really need to get back to my brothers. Do you know a man named Link?”

“Ah! The one with the vai clothes!” the guard whispered to her companion, much too loudly. 

So, that’s what those silks were for? Wild wore them to get in? Legend suppressed a laugh. “I need to tell Link where I am. Do you have a way to contact that slate device he uses?”

“You know him, and the Sheikah slate?” Buliara considered him anew. “Lady Riju might know a way to contact him. You get to enter our exclusive city after all.” Buliara rolled her eyes, “Now put on decent clothes, for Nabooru’s sake. That dress is too thick for our sun, and we can’t let our citizens see a voe within the gates. Here. change quickly.” And she handed him a handful of soft fabric from her pouch. Like his own pouch, it was small but carried far more than its size implied. 

“Uh, am I supposed to change here?”

She pointed to a gap behind some crates just inside the gates, and joined the other guards in shooing away the chittering crowd and telling them he was, in fact, a vai in disguise. Yari remained fast asleep on her shoulder. 

Legend palmed the soft clothing she offered and walked behind the crates, and carefully examined each piece. 

He took out his rok cape, briefly entertaining the idea of climbing a wall and soaring with the magical item to the palace without the grumpy soldiers hovering, but he did not particularly want to get on her bad side. He changed quickly, missing his skirt until he slipped into the silk pants, shimmying into the top and instantly feeling cool relief from the heat. 

They felt… nice , he admitted in the privacy of his mind. I’m keeping these . 

Buliara pointed to the gate, now cleared of spectators. “This way.” 

Legend was never one to commit halfway. He swayed a little as he walked, trying to copy the sea-like gait of the vai filling the narrow street. If he was going to do this, he’d do it right , Hylia damn him. 

Passing through alleys, all tiled in colorful mosaic designs, they soon entered a large plaza.

Canvas-covered shops lined the adobe town square, and shopkeepers reclined on rich carpets in the shade behind unfamiliar wares. They didn’t bother shouting, there were customers aplenty, Gerudo and Hylian and bird-like creatures and gorons all milling around curiously. The sun had a smothering effect, even in the cooling silks. This market would be a tough place for a thief to steal, so spread out were the stalls, and with so many eyes on one another’s customers. 

Behind the shops, soft susurrations promised more waterways running somewhere behind the low walls, and cool air drifted into the plaza from above. Or he thought, until they passed water streaming from atop the wall itself into a mosaic-lined pool, the water diverted underground, but so close below he could still hear it as they entered the main plaza. 

The central walkway to the palace was flanked by palm trees, and the water was exposed again between the walkways, joined by two wide waterfalls flowing down blue-tiled steps, all leading up to the adobe palace and its towering crown of stone pillars, bulbous at the top. A shimmering cascade flowed down like a divine gift from the sun goddess itself. Perhaps it was. Hylia was a strange goddess.

Sellers and Gerudo customers called familiar greetings to Buliara as they aimed for the palace steps. Curious eyes turned to him with open curiosity. Legend reflexively covered the scars of the trident on his chest and stared at the shimmering pools of water to keep himself from glaring back at their shameless gawking. 

Stepping into the shade at the top of the palace steps, Legend finally sighed in relief, free of the sun and stares and the exhausting performance of walking in the awkward, foot-tilting shoes he’d only seen women of the court don for galas and balls. He missed his boots. 

The little girl stirred in Buliara’s arms, and she whispered quiet greetings and comforts to the girl and held her closer. The girl settled, and watched Legend through heavily lidded eyes as they entered the Palace. Her gaze moved to his hair. She seemed uncertain. Legend resisted the urge to look around the opulent palace and waved at her instead. She smiled back at him, and closed her eyes.

“You found her!” Came a young woman’s voice, older than Yari’s but far higher than any of the guards. Legend begged his eyes to adjust faster. 

Buliara dropped to one knee—spear braced in one hand and little Yari snuggled in the other—and bowed with only her knees. “Chief Riju, my niece is safely returned, and I present to you her rescuer.”

The tall throne, carved in ancient script like a monument, was fitted with a sort of wooden booster seat and small steps to accommodate the girl sitting in it. She lifted her gaze from some papers in one hand, her radiant gold headpiece–that looked much too large for her head—wobbling as she looked up. 

“Praise all the sacred mothers!” The bejeweled girl looked relieved to see the child resting in Buliara’s arms. She faced Legend. “And who is our brave heroine?”

“Forgive me, Chief Riju, but I will personally vouch for this particular voe.”

“Oh!” The Chief gasped, and she laughed, light and airy, like the way Zeldas sometimes did when her courtly mask slipped. Several nagging worries evaporated with the sound. Riju straightened her headpiece from where it had fallen forward a little. “Well, she’s—I mean he’s not the only one, is he?” 

Chief Riju slid off the throne and examined his eyes as she approached, as if trying to see the clues to some mystery. Her smile was open and unguarded, and refreshing. She reached for his hands and he readily offered them. She smiled even wider at his compliance, and held his hands earnestly as she spoke. “Thank you, young voe! Buliara has been inconsolable. She had all the troops gathered when the news of your arrival came. Please accept this in thanks.” 

She pressed into his hand something heavy and warm. He knew better than to refuse a gift, so he bowed in thanks and peeked at it before stowing it subtly away: it was the warmest, heaviest ruby he’d ever seen, a gem that would have Ravio begging to buy it for crafting some new magic item… if he ever found out about it. 

When he looked up again, Chief Riju was still staring. The chief blushed as she seemed to realize it herself. “Please forgive me, but you look so much like a very dear friend.”

“You mean Link, right? Hero of the Wilds?”

Riju’s open smile snapped into a frown. “You know him?”

“We were traveling together. He’s probably looking for me, and our brother.”

“I would like to know how you came to know Link, and of the Sheikah slate he carries.” Buliara asked, failing at keeping her tone neutral. 

Their guards were up again. With enemies like the Yiga and that pale demon, Legend didn’t blame their suspicions. He knew the risks of shapeshifters and possessing spirits all too well. 

Buliara did not wait for an explanation. “Chief Riju, I brought him here to his tale of encountering the Yiga, and his rescue of Yari, and his journey with our mutual friend. But he also claims to have seen–” Buliara paused and whispered it in Riju’s ear.

“What? What sort of… As in the ancient… does Link know?”

“We should listen to his report.”

They both turned to him.

“Please, share your tale.”

“It’s… it’s a bit hard to believe, but…” Hylia, where to start? “Are you very familiar with portals that can move you, not to different places, but to different times ?” 

An uncomfortable silence fell as Riju blanched. “Yes.”

Legend began alowl, awkwardly, as awkward as the day he first stumbled through a portal and his confusing meeting with Hyrule and the black eye the traveler gave him. But as he spoke the story wove itself more easily: meeting the others, the sha-shifting creatures of dark magic and the monsters it infected, the ambush, the teacher and the mage, finding Yari, their escape, and finall to the moment he arrived at their gate.

The only interruption was when he shared their nickname for Wild.

Buliara laughed, “That’s quite fitting. He smells like a wet dog and muddy leaves most days, especially when he’s been around his wolf.”

Legend stored that intriguing comment to ask Wild and Twilight about later.  

A long silence followed the end of his tale. 

“Wait here,” Riju ordered, and she marched past her throne, and disappeared behind it. From behind the monument of a seat came a cacophony of thumps and bumps and clacks, of some jumble of items being pulled around.

“Chief Riju, please be careful!” Buliara hissed, trying not to wake her stirring niece.“Purah has yet to repair it.” 

Riju ignored her. 

Legend waited with growing dread, fingers itching to reach for his pack in case things went… well, as they often did: sideways. Had he said something to make them think he was secretly an enemy? Why was the Chief so upset about time-travel? He ran through all his words, but exhaustion had long since taken the edge off his mind. He sat, and drew slow, calming breaths. Nothing was wrong, not yet . Wild trusted them, and though their auras were not overwhelming like the mage, he could still feel them, fresh but strong like rainstorms. 

Riju emerged at last. Her arms overflowed with a tangle of wires and cords, small stones and crystals and metal coils. Screws dropped from the mass as Riju moved. “She said it could still connect to the Princess’s, so I’ll risk it.” Riju answered her guard, dropping the bundle on her booster-throne. “We don’t have the technology or spells for time-travel,” And she mumbled, “Not in this version of our history.” And she stopped, sighed deeply, and continued louder, “However, we can travel and contact each other across great distances, thanks to the Sheikah technology the princess and Link have rediscovered.” The young chief pulled out what looked like a slimmer version of Wild’s fromslate amid the nest of cords. She studied it, her nose wrinkled in deep concentration, scanning the slate with uncertainty, and finally she pressed something on it. 

“Your majesty, wait!” Buliara yelled, momentarily distracted by setting down her niece, but too late. A jolt of blue light pulsed from the crystals and stones, along the wires and cords, and promptly faded before reaching the slate itself. 

Riju frowned, and Buliara sighed in relief. Whatever it was, it hadn’t worked. 

“Oh, by all the mothers!” Riju grumbled, and held up the slate in one hand. With the other hand raised in an elegant pinch, she snapped . 

OceanThunderHyruleWhere!? Legend’s mind scrambled for understanding as light consumed his vision.  

When color at last bled into view again, Riju stood with the slate glowing softly in her hands, the wires and stones dangling from it pulsing steadily with a now-familiar blue glow. 

“R… ch… Rij—” A crackled voice spoke from the stone. “Chief Riju, is that–worki—gain?”

“Princess!” the girl shouted. “Princess, I have found someone you should meet! He says he knows Link!”

“l—be there as soo—ake care of—oon–here me? –e on our way there,” a barely intelligible chorus of voices crackled in reply from the various stones.  

“I do hope that means they’re coming,” Riju furrowed her brow, but the optimistic smile at the corner of her mouth never dissipated. 

Hylia, why does she remind me so much of Hyrule? And the princess was coming? Legend could have cried in relief. She’d have answers. They always did.

Zelda felt a heat in her core, a warm mountain of delight bubbling out of her mouth in raucous cackles that were not her own. Hylia had laughed!? Sun slammed a hand over her mouth, but grinned under it. It was hysterical, but she struggled to understand why. 

SHE IS RIGHT,  MY LITTLE SUNBEAM 

Hylia settled, the mountainous of joy receding gently, flowing into Hylia’s happy contemplation.

SHE WAS NOT PART OF MY FIRST WEAVING, 

BUT SHE IS MINE

“Granny Tetra!” Objected a girl who could have been Tetra’s twin if the captain wore finer clothes. Her exasperated mingled with excitement. 

Tetra shoved another girl aside, the poor girl’s staff sent flying, to reach the younger speaker. ”Oh! Look at you! You got grown!” Tetra’s eyes grew soft. “Oh, my Babybutt number two!” 

“It’s still Phantom, granny salt-face,” she objected, but wrapped the older woman in a hug. 

It was strange to see how many of them had already met. Zelda looked around for someone familiar, but already knew she’d not find Peatrice, or Karane or Orielle here. But perhaps… It had been years since she’d seen mother’s evening-blue eyes, or her rose-gold hair, her long but delicate nose, but she was only echoed here and there in the sea of similar faces.

  As the pair reconnected with each other and Queen Athena, Aurora and Dawn provided several more names: “Aegis” approved her moniker with a wave of her double-helix bladed prosthetic arm. “Wake” bore a tall, narrow shield that looked lighter than any metal Zelda had ever seen, and she laughed in that wild, untamed way Tetra did when Dawn named her.  Weaver, Diamond, Maestro, Soap, Crysta… Sun lost track of several before the woman in purple introduced herself. 

“Queen Dusk.” She gave a little smile as though it brimmed with some private meaning, like an intimate joke only she knew. Zelda envied the way she spoke her name.

One of the pink-and-white clad women introduced herself next, clinging to the hand of a dark-haired woman who matched her dress in style but in purple rather than pink, nearly twins in all ways but for their coloring. “I am Lore. And this is Queen Hilda,” 

“Simply Hilda will suffice, I think.” Queen Hilda shifted nervously as she looked at the massive crowd. “I’m not entirely certain I’m supposed to be here.” She addressed Lore., “After all, they’re your kin, not…” She broke off her thought, clearly uncomfortable. 

“I doubt very much you’re not meant to be here, your Highness. Why would you think so?” Dusk queried, that knowing smile still couched in the lifted corner of her lips. 

“We were invited to tea with the Oracles, and they asked … Lore…” She said the name experimentally, “ if she’d play a song on the harp. But the moment she disappeared, I feared… I feared the worst, and so I took it up where it had fallen, finished the tune and followed before the Oracles could object, so…” she hesitated when Lore beamed at her as if she’d slain a dragon. “Regardless, it is an honor to be here. My apologies for the intrusion.”

“I’m sure it’s a relief to see your friend is safe, and that you are both in good company,” Dusk offered, her voice low and resonant.  

Hylia reached out to the woman, like she had with Tetra but Zelda could feel it more clearly. The goddess’s spirit returned calm impressions with a contented hum, like a dozing remlit: Hilda was a slow-growing oak casting shade in summer, and clouds and cool breezes and ice water. She was the oasis in the desert. She was of the mirroring pool at their feet. 

“And what do we call you?” Dusk asked Zelda, startling the girl awake from her reverie.  

Hylia spoke for her. 

“SUN–” Zelda clamped her mouth shut over Hylia’s booming shout and bit off the “–BEAM” Hylia had intended as she wrestled back control. 

“Ha! Knew it! Self-important much?” Tetra scoffed, but she winked conspiratorially. 

“I… yes, that will do.” She didn’t love it the same way Dusk seemed to wear her name like an elegant dress, or with pride like Queen Athena, nor as natural part of herself as Tetra did, but it was… fitting . In Skyloft, comparing anything to the sun gave it honor, gave it a blessing. And she could certainly use it right now, as tempest-tossed as she felt in this bizarre turn of events. And seeing as Hylia was here inside her, perhaps they could look past its apparent arrogance.