Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Brotherhood: Hero Heist notes

• Wars’ family: Grandma (“Gran-gran”) Aryll (the Sailor almost faints when he hears that part); Wars still exclusively calls her “Gran-gran” to her face
  • Wars’ parents died shortly after he was born; raised by Gran-gran 
  • She’s in her late 70s-early 80s; still deeply terrifying when she needs to be
  • Stern and matronly/“Tough love” variety; would (and did) start a street fight to protect Wars when he was younger 
  • She has a tendency to “adopt” slum children for a few weeks at a time whenever one without anywhere else to go crosses her path and help them get on their feet (she would get along with the Fierce Deity)
  • Most of Wars’ neighborhood would kill for her
    • This nearly happens when Wars reaches his neighborhood; they see the castle uniform asking questions about Aryll and assume the worst
• Wars isn’t allowed to visit her bc she still lives in the slums; nobles would not back a “low-born” Hero 
  • He hasn’t seen her in ~ 2 years because of the War of Eras, though part of that was him being too busy to visit 
  • Literally everyone who knows the situation hates it; this is why Zelda “accidentally” told Mask and Sailor bc she knew they would try to figure out a way to reconnect them 
  • Wars mails the majority of his paycheck from the army to Gran-gran, especially after he became the Hero (has like 90% of his expenses covered) 
  • He’s totally fine with the way things are though, and doesn’t worry about something terrible happening to her when he’s basically unable to help (^^BLATANTLY LYING^^) 
• Current events: Festival of the Goddess 
  • (Completely useless Lore™: the “Festival of the Goddess” is actually Sky’s b-day; Sun threw increasingly elaborate parties for him every year, people kept partying around that time of year after they passed, and by the time Wars’ era rolled around, the only thing people really knew about it was “it was made by the Goddess Hylia herself”; Sun finds this tidbit deeply hilarious once they do work it out) 
  • Big weeklong celebration of the founding of Hyrule praising “the great gift of the land given by the Goddess unto us” 
  • Huge carnival in Castle Town, where our bros are at the start of the story 
  • They march past some of the carnival stalls on the way to the castle 
  • Literally everyone is talking about taking some time off to be with their family during the holiday 
    • Wars: 😬 
  • Mask is ogling the stuffed animals so hard but trying to hide the fact he wants one 
  • Wars concludes that if he can’t see his old family, he can at least have the night with his new one 
  • Hard cut to Impa: “nuh-uh” 
  • Mask whines that it’s because they have to be stuck at parties the whole time (dealing with stuffy snobs and seafood again) 
  • This is not correct; any Heroes are expected to spend time with the royal family “offering their deepest devotions to the Golden Goddess, imploring Her for Her greatest blessings and guidance” 
    • Literally no one checks on the praying royals btw; some Queen of Hyrule made a rule about how the royal family was not to be disturbed during their prayers, so Wars and Zelda spent the last Festival hanging out and making war plans together 
• They are confined to the castle for the duration of the festivities though 
  • “Security risk,” Impa responds immediately. “The Festival of the Goddess brings many travelers to the capital, and not all of them are friendly. If three bearers of the Hero’s Spirit were all together outside the keep, we might as well hang a sign on each of you saying ‘End the War right now! Stab here!’” 
  • She does say that they will have free reign over most of the castle, though, so they can explore more freely 
• A few (very boring) days later, Wars’ internal monologue: “I can suffer through being stuck in the castle. I mean, I basically was last time and it was fine. I’ll have to find a way to sneak the kids out so they can have fun.” 
  • He begins making a plan involving clever disguises and secret passages to sneak them out and into the fair 
  • Potentially gets casual clothes for them from “that weird bunny-themed merchant” 
  • Recruits Lt. Arch to be babysitter (“I may be disobeying a direct order from the General, but I’m not irresponsible”) 
  • He sends her to check on them while he irons out the final details of the plan 
• Rewind to earlier in the week where Zelda suddenly calls Mask and the Sailor to one of her chambers “that we may join in joyous supplication of the Goddess” (Wars: “That means she found something cool and wants to show you without telling anyone else”) 
  • Zelda shares Wars’ tragic family situation with them 
    • Wind immediately relates because Grandmas are Cool™; Mask relates because he knows the pain of never being able to see someone you love ever again (Sailor: um what do I even say to that) 
  • She then tells them that they should absolutely not take [extremely specific secret passage out of the castle] sometime this week 
  • And that they must never travel to [specific quarter of the slums] “lest the Captain be recognized by any family figures or what have you” 
    • Zelda’s eyes and tone: (screaming) DO THIS EXACT THING PLEASE I CAN’T STAND SEEING LINK THIS SAD GIVE HIM A QUIET NIGHT WITH HIS FAMILY 
  • The Sailor and Mask immediately begin making plans to steal Wars and send him to his Grandma for a night 
  • Plan involves multiple masks (Stone Mask gets mentioned because “no one will see the Hero mucking it up in the slums if no one can see the Hero”) 
    • They also have an extensive knowledge of the network of secret passages around the castle (Sailor found a map), so they are able to adapt and redirect from another entrance if the path gets blocked 
  • They realize they will need a chaperone because Wars would never trust them alone (“he might be a family man desperate to see his family but he’s not irresponsible”) 
• Just as they plan to find Lt. Arch (responsible but extremely fun adult), she walks in to announce she’s chaperoning the boys tomorrow night for “no reason whatsoever” 
  • Not shown: Arch and the boys immediately figure out that each group is planning to steal the other from the castle and then begin combining elements of the plans to get all of this to work out for everyone
• Night of Operation Hero Heist arrives 
  • All three retreat to their room for the evening under the pretense of night-long prayer 
  • Arch is waiting for them (as Wars (and the boys) planned) 
  • Arch informs Wars that she’ll need his help clearing the way to the secret passage and hands him his own disguise 
  • Wars doesn’t believe this for a second, but decides to play along 
  • They go to the secret passage and run into some castle guards; some fast-talking by Wars (“It’s ‘Bring Your Adopted Children to Work Day!’ Just showing the wife and kids the walls I scrub”) explains their presence in the area 
    • Arch arranged for these guards to show up so Wars would feel like they really did need his help getting out 
  • Make it out to the carnival as Wars planned; he tries to leave but Mask and the Sailor use their patented “Puppy-Dog Eyes Technique” to make him stay 
    • Wars will never admit that this works every single time 
  • The have a great evening at the carnival together; the Heroes fully loosen up for the first time in months (and in Mask’s case, for the first time in years) 
    • Mask dominates a slingshot game and gets a plush horse that’s over half as big as he is (nicknamed Epona)
  • Potential happening: an assassin actually does try to target them, but people call the assassin out because there are like four Hero impersonators just within earshot 
    • “And besides, the tall one’s too old to be the Hero! Doesn’t Hylia only pick out five-year-olds for that anyway?” 
    • Assassin gets arrested by town guard while our heroes escape 
  • The group decides it’s time to “head back to their rooms” using the secret passages from before 
    • “Whoops, we took a wrong turn! Guess we’ll just have to see where this [extremely specific secret passage out of the castle] leads!” 
    • “Uh oh, we fell into the sewers! How could that have happened? We’ll just have to look for a way up so we can get our bearings!” 
    • “Hey, we’re in [specific quarter of the slums]! How could that have happened?” 
      • Becomes increasingly obvious to the reader that this is the centerpiece of the Sailor’s and Mask’s gambit for Operation: Get the Soup 
  • Wars is surprised that they would seemingly willingly give him a chance to see his family 
    • Wind and Mask share their sympathies with him and tell him that after all he’s done for them the past few months, he deserves something like this 
    • Arch: “Plus I want to meet the lady who supposedly intentionally stabbed a mugger with her knitting needles while she was making a sweater for you” 
  • Wars asks around about Aryll (Wind: 🤯) to make sure she hasn’t moved 
    • Nearly gets shanked for being a potential threat to her before someone finally recognizes him 
  • Gran-gran has been doing very well for herself since the Captain last saw her 
    • She did move to a bigger tenement thanks to the money Wars was sending 
    • Has an adopted adult “granddaughter” [name pending] living with her (no husband mentioned)
    • They get to meet Wars’ new nephew, born a few weeks ago but still unnamed (most slum parents wait for the census to name children, especially given that they aren’t guaranteed to survive their first year) 
    • Gran-gran adopts Mask and the Sailor almost immediately, while commenting that “they remind me so much of your mother, my daughter” 
    • She also jokes about when the wedding between Wars and Arch: asks if Arch would like her granddaughter instead after finding out she doesn’t swing that way (“Women like you are once in a lifetime finds. Believe me, I was one of those women once”) 
    • All around great bonding time for all of them 
    • The captain finally drags everyone back to the castle around midnight 
• Next morning: knock on the door by a deeply unamused Impa 
  • She admits she saw the Captain’s ploy coming from a mile away 
    • “Most people aren’t in the business of suddenly buying shoddy clothes and re-routing guard paths if they weren’t interested in stealth” 
  • She was surprised by the kids’ plot before she spoke to Zelda (“you may be terribly unsubtle, but you’re not so irresponsible as to abandon the castle”) 
  • Was of half a mind to make them spend the next week in a holding cell for kidnapping Hylia’s chosen agents of Courage, but decided that “due to extenuating circumstances”, they would just be on house arrest until the army moved out 
    • Impa’s eyes and tone: Link has never looked this happy and I assume this has to do with what happened last night, so I will let this one slide 
• Bonus ending paragraph: “Many years later (or perhaps before, it’s hard to tell when you fight a War Across Eras), in a ranch house on Hyrule Field, in a quiet corner of an attic, sits a stuffed horse. It’s clearly battered from many years of usage, with the original color long faded, one of its original eyes missing. and multiple small tears and worn spots. But each tear has a carefully sewn stitch, each spot worn through has a patch placed delicately on. A beautiful button rests in the spot where its old eye had once been. This was something that was clearly loved to death, then all the way back to life. A gift given by family, and will always remain with family.”