Chapter Text
Wind didn’t know how he got stuck here.
Well, he kinda knew. He’d come downstairs refusing to look anyone in the eyes only for Warriors to declare that, actually, they still needed to gather more information on any black-blooded beasts, so everyone should stay in town and mingle. So they all reluctantly paired up. Except for a brooding Time and an opportunist Four doing simple weapon repair.
Somehow, that lead to Wind’s current predicament; trailing alongside Warriors as he buys trinkets in exchange for gossip.
He eyes the carved wooden keaton grasped in Warriors’ hand. Sky could’ve made that for no rupees at all. The thought sends his gaze back to the ground.
“So,” Warriors begins. “According to the villagers, there are not any strange monsters around. The regular monster camps and patrols remain in their usual places.”
Wind frowns. “You think The Shadow moved on so quickly?”
“It would be strange, but Hyrule thinks it might have been unsettled by the magic in the air, just like him.” The captain continues, sharing information like nothings happened. “Although, I don’t like the sound of regular monster patrols.”
“Sucks for the village.” Wind said, for lack of anything else to say.
It took two more stalls for him to break. “Okay, why am I here?”
“Whatever do you mean?” Warriors sauntered to another stall, trailing a careful finger over decorative wooden shapes of instruments.
“If I’m in trouble, you outta tell me.” Wind grumbled, he turned away from a decorative harp and up at Warriors.
Warriors tsked, the sound easily audible with less villagers around today. “You are not being punished. I’m giving you something much worse.”
He strode away down the road. Of course Wind followed, what else would he do? They stopped just outside the market, where shops and trades became homes.
“This is what I’m giving you.” Warriors gestured out with his arm. “Space.”
Wind squinted, arms crossed. “That’s worse?”
“No, what is worse is what I expect you to do with it.” The captain looked Wind in the eyes. “Take responsibility.”
Dread built in his bones, weighing him down ten times heavier. “You want me to apologize?”
Warriors snorted. “No. I don’t know what you’re going to do. But I trust you to talk with our Skyloftian, and find what kind of battlefield you are standing on.”
For all his intensity, Warriors didn’t seem angry. In fact, the man seemed almost fond. “We cannot sustain infighting, but of all us Hero types, you and Sky have the most sense for emotionally-charged situations. Unfortunately, I have to bet on that, while I handle everything else.”
Everything else, Wind realized, probably includes the keaton sulking at the inn.
Warriors read the realization from his face and laughed, nostalgic and so exasperated that it made creases beside his eyes and a wrinkled pinch between his brows. When did the captain get so old?
“You know why he calls you Sailor, don’t you?” Warriors asked, eyebrow raised.
Easy enough. “I am a sailor.”
Wars shook his head slowly. “It is because he forgets to call you Wind now. All he has remembered for decades of his life was Tune.”
Wind stumbled back a step. Every upset thought quiets to a rumbling stop. Warriors continues, sympathy sneaking past a soldier’s poker face. “But you are not anymore Tune than he is Mask. You’ve both grown out of the names.”
“That being said,” The captain hardens, sympathy smoothing away. “I must regretly ask you to talk with Sky. Whatever is said, will be said. Whatever isn’t, would’ve been said anyway.”
Wind stared at Warriors, shock and bafflement making his mouth hang open like a fishhooked octorok. “Are you actually quoting me at me?”
“I am.” Warriors smirked. “Because you had a point when Mask didn’t understand the sentimentality of my scarf, and you have a point now. What are you going to do with it?”
With that, Warriors about-faced and walked back into the marketplace.
That clever bastard.
Wind stood there like a fool for a long moment. Above him, thunder boomed heedless of the sunlight. Without anything else to do, Wind picked a direction and walked.
Even if he found Sky, what would he say? Not an apology, but not a threat either. The words still rang through his head, nobody else would’ve survived, Sky had said.
Yet, here Wind is. A bittersweet part of him wonders if Sky would celebrate that survival, as Wind did whenever he heard about one of his too-little brothers facing down a beastly corruption of a man at Aryll’s age. Did Sky even have siblings? Wind doubted it.
A green fruit came rolling at him. Wind jumped back and reached for the shield that wasn't there.
Before too long a woman came walking up, traveling skirt held up in a hand as she plucked the pear from the dirt road. “Sorry there, lad. Didn’t mean to scare ya.”
Wind looked behind her to the cart full of chests and bags. It’s not like Sky is waiting for him. “Oh, it’s no problem. Are you moving?”
She nodded and walked back as she talked. “Of course, everyone is packing up today. It’s the last day to get a move on.”
Wind noticed then that the villagers missing from the marketplace were scurrying around their homes, hauling things to and fro.
“Last day?”
The woman hauled a crate of pears onto her cart. Huffing and soothing a hand over her swollen stomach. “Of course, don’t you hear it? The goddesses are singing our swan song.”
The goddesses are singing.
All at once, Wind saw the Forsaken Fortress in his mind’s eye, taller than he’s ever seen it. It stretched high in the distance, easily visible as it stood at its full height without seawater drowning half of it.
Heart in his throat, Wind closed his eyes, and listened.
Thunder boomed in a distant, striking low G. A melody in minor tones of powerful, grumbling notes.
In the fog, wisps floated in a muted, subtle scattering of high E melody. The high-pitched, soft sound harmonizes with old rainwater dripping down bricks and stone, watering the packed dirt into moldable soil.
Between it all, the wind flowed strong in a steady legato, pushing the fog through town and the lighting-lit stormclouds overhead. It jumped through precise harmony and powerful melody like an arpeggio jumps from note to note down the octave.
Wind opened his eyes. The woman lifted another crate of pears, calm as a clam in deep water.
“Arent you afraid?" Wind couldn’t help but ask. Afraid of not keeping up, afraid of being weaker than your family, afraid of being seen as lesser, afraid of a whole new world and place in it.
The woman scoffed. “Of course, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’ll get over it.”
He eyes her round belly, taut with a fragile burden already. “You’ll have a hard time, with a heavy role like that.”
Wind knows that she goes to a difficult place. Island life is not easy, especially not with such a fragile burden and heavy role.
Lifting another crate, the woman gives him a look that Wind hasn’t gotten since he was a very young, ignorant little boy. “It takes a proud person to take care of others, but it takes an even braver person to let others take care of them. Lucky for my husband, I'm brave enough to weather his worry. We’ll be just fine.”
As soon as her voice fades, little footsteps run to the door from inside the house. A young girl and even younger near-toddler bounce down the stairs. The toddler flails a bit, but her older sister grabs the tot by the hands and guides her down. They ignore Wind completely and begin helping their mother load the crates. Well, the girl does. The little one only waddles in the trail of her older sister, completely at ease with both sister and mother around.
For once in his life, Wind tries to see it from the little one’s eyes. Does she see her smaller legs and thinner arms as weakness? Does it make her weak, to trail after someone else? Did it make Aryll weak to be saved?
Wind recoils from the thought. He looks, really looks, at the little one. She toddles in safety and security and lays her fate so easily in others. Wind wonders what that would be like, then questions if he already does. Hadn’t Wild saved him then, in a split second of instinct? Hadn’t Wind tried to save Aryll the moment talons clutched her tiny body? Spirits, he almost threw himself off a cliff reaching for her. That curse of reaching that follows any older sibling like sand in shoes seems to follow his own siblings, too. It sears. It burns the skin of his heart. Still, terribly, Wind understands.
I’ll get over it, The woman had said.
Maybe Wind should get over something, too. Maybe he should let Tune rest already, and move on. He’ll always be Link, older brother and proud man of the house and hero of the Great Sea. He’s not losing any of it. He’s just …
Letting himself become something else, too.
“You should run back to your family, kid.” Says the pear farmer and mother. She sends him a look of quiet reprimand. “They must be missing you on a day like this.”
Then she turns away, back to her pears and family. He spots pear seeds loaded into a bag. One day, Hyoi Pears are going to help him save his sister.
Wind gives a nod of thanks to the woman’s turned back, and walks away, letting his ancestor fade into the fog behind him.
She’s right, Wind does have family to see. He doesn’t feel the push of forgiveness against his hurt, but he does need to make some things very clear to his skyward brother.
Call it a big brother’s intuition, but he thinks he knows where his skyward sibling is. After all, this whole mess started because Sky has been lingering on their pain. It would only make sense that he is lingering within a place of it, too.
Thunder cracks and booms overhead, undeterred by the sun’s light. Wind walks a bit faster.