Chapter Text
As Legend’s feet hit the dock of Outset Island, he sighs. The wood planks beneath his feet are sturdy and sun-warmed, and though his swirling head still insists he’s rocking with the rhythm of the open seas, some hidden tension within him is released when he finds his footing without having to compensate for each wave.
Legend turns back to the boat, helping a still-unsteady Hyrule over the side. He gives Legend a shaky grin. Wild’s face appears at the side of the boat, grinning, and then disappears. A moment later, he reappears, leaping over the side of the boat. Right away, Legend can see that he has overshot the dock, and with a great splash, Legend's entire backside is drenched.
Legend turns to see Wild come up, shaking out his hair and spitting out water with a lopsided grin.
“Whoops,” he says with a nervous laugh.
Legend sighs, bending down and holding out his hands. Wild grasps them, and as Legend begins to pull him out of the water, Wild gives him a sharp tug, and Legend topples off the deck, splashing into the water, the salt stinging his eyes.
Legend doesn't dare try to kick for the surface, not with his still-throbbing leg, instead grabbing onto one of the legs of the dock and pulling himself above the surface. Wild grins down at him from atop the dock, dripping all over the wood. Legend sends him a scathing glare, pulling himself onto the sandy, sun-warmed wood.
“You look like a drowned rat." Hyrule chuckles and Legend redirects his glare.
“If you weren't still recovering, you'd be in the water right now," Legend says.
There’s a shaky sigh from behind them, and the three heroes turn around to see Aryll standing on the dock, looking up at the island. Legend follows her gaze and takes in Wind’s home town.
It’s a quaint little place, nothing more than a few houses set between the shoreline and the towering cliffs that tower above the sea, and yet there’s an undeniable feeling of warmth. Maybe it’s the hordes of children running around, maybe it’s how the villagers pause on the thin-worn paths to talk…
Maybe it’s the sun on my skin , Legend thinks.
The door to one of the houses flies open, slamming against the wall with a bang , and Legend looks over to see Wind standing in the doorway, staring at the group on the dock.
“LINK!" Aryll screams, and she nearly knocks Legend back into the water as she barrels past the three heroes, sprinting up the beach towards her brother. Wind leaps off the house’s front deck, vaulting over the fence and sprinting down to the shoreline, his boots spraying sand into the air.
They collide on the shore, Wind sweeping Aryll off her feet in a giant hug. Legend smiles.
“Shall we?” Wild holds out his arms, and Legend leans on one, Hyrule reluctantly latching onto his other side.
“You’re wet,” he mutters, and Wild laughs.
“Your loss.”
They’re halfway up the beach when Legend looks up to see Wind booking it towards them, skidding through the sand. He barely has enough time to brace himself before Wind lands face-first in the middle of their chain of three, and Legend loses all sense of balance, thudding to the ground.
He's afforded a great view from his place atop the sand, although the sun is rather bright. There's something disgustingly sweet happening to his right, which he ignores best he can, instead pushing himself to a seated position.
He finally finds his balance on the sand only to get a faceful of Wind. He goes down again. Wind is shouting “You're okay!" or some other such nonsense, and as Legend's back hits the sand and Wind wraps him in a suffocating hug, Legend isn't grinning, and he isn't grinning as he sits up again, shoving Wind off him.
“Oh my goddesses!" Wind shouts. “We all thought you were dead!"
“What gave you that idea?" Legend scoffs.
“‘Oh my goddesses' is right." Wind turns to see a glowering Tetra standing behind him on the sand. “You had better have a good fucking explanation for why the hell you left without a note!"
Wind cringes. “Sorry?" he says. “I didn't think I'd be away for so long..."
“You didn't even tell anyone you were leaving!" Tetra shouts. “We've been scouring the seas for you! Do you have any idea how worried we've been? The other day, I got Linebeck to admit that he was scared. Linebeck ."
“I know, I know," Wind says, hanging his head. “I know he was scared. He was the one who picked us up; he’s already yelled at me. I'm sorry."
Tetra laughs breathily, sinking to the ground to wrap him in a hug.
“I know," she says. “You’d better be. Just don't do it again, you moron."
“Wind? Is everything okay- holy fuck!" Four stands in the house's doorway, leaning against the doorframe and running his hand through his hair. His grin is infectious. “Guys, you've got to come see this!" he shouts into the house, then runs down the ramp towards them.
Wind laughs. “Maybe now that you guys are back, Time can finally get some fucking sleep!"
“Time hasn't slept?" Hyrule asks, eyes wide.
“Nope!" Wind grins.
“I'm so dead," Wild breathes.
“Yeah..." Wind smirks in every silbing's signature sucks-to-be-you sort of way. “You really are."
Four skids to the ground in front of them as Wild groans, burying his face in his hands.
“Twilight is going to kill me …”
“Actually, Twilight’s in bed with a pretty serious abdominal wound,” Four says. “But you’re back! Hylia knows that’ll be good for him to hear.”
“Wait, what?” Wild looks up sharply. “How did he get hurt?”
“It was a group of shapeshifters,” Wind explains. “Three of them snuck up on us, pretending to be you guys.”
“Ugh!” Hyrule runs his hand through his floofy bangs. “We had to deal with some of those guys, too.”
“We all probably came through the same portal, then,” Legend concludes. “How didn’t we run into you?”
“We came to look for you the morning after you left,” Four says, “and found the portal at the bottom of the cliff around midafternoon. The next morning was when we had the run-in with those fox-creatures, and we left that battle in pretty rough shape. Linebeck found us on the beach later that day, and we knew that if you were still on the island, we’d have to come back for you after getting patched up.”
“We already would have been on the boat at that point,” Hyrule realizes.
Warriors sticks his head out the doorway, grinning broadly when his eyes land on the group on the beach.
“Time!” he calls back into the house. “Sky! Come see!”
Sky appears beside him in the doorway, and he lets out a laugh. “Thank Hylia,” he breathes, jogging down the path. Warriors follows him.
“Oi, Legend!” Warriors calls as he skids to a stop in the sand. “Joined these two’s group, eh? I never thought you’d be the type to run off like that.”
Something inside Legend sparks, and he scrambles for a retort, opening his mouth. No words come out. Then, Time walks out onto the porch, rubbing his good eye, and Legend’s mouth shuts.
The moment Time lays eyes on the group at the beach, something in him shifts. His shoulders drop, and he grins. Stomach sinking, Legend notes the darkened bags that sit under the old man’s eyes.
Time jogs down to the beach, slowing to a stop in front of the missing trio. Legend finds himself rising to meet him, and he looks to his right to see that Wild and Hyrule have done the same.
“You’re okay,” Time says under his breath. “You-”
“I’m so sorry, Time!” Wild interjects, loud and rambling. “I wasn’t thinking, and I just-”
“I know,” he says, bending down to wrap the Champion in a hug. Wild is stiff for a moment, before he leans into the embrace, awkwardly patting Time on the back with his still-drippy hand. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”
After a moment, Time pulls out of the embrace, his shirt bearing a large Wild-shaped wet spot. “All of you.” He hugs Hyrule, then, and Hyrule looks over towards Legend with wide eyes as if to ask what to do. Legend inclines his head with a grin, and Hyrule hesitantly wraps his arms around Time.
“You guys need to stop worrying us like that,” Sky interjects.
“I’m too old,” Time groans, laughing under his breath.
Finally, Time turns to Legend, holding his arms open with a grin. Legend eyes him, raising an eyebrow and shifting his stance backwards.
“Seriosuly, Old Man?” he says, curling his lip. “You expect me to-”
Time lunges forward, wrapping his arms around Legend’s midsection, and Legend finds his face slammed into the fabric of his shirt.
“What the fuck are you-”
“I was worried about you,” Time whispers. “Just- just allow me this, please.”
“What, am I your son?” Legend scoffs, but he wraps his arms back around Time.
He was that worried? Legend thinks. About me?
Then, a second pair of arms wraps around his waist, and Legend looks down to see Wind burying his face in Legend’s tunic.
Maybe… he thinks, maybe that’s okay.
He ignores the teasing calls of Warriors somewhere to his left. His ears latch onto the sound of the ocean’s breath as he leans into the warmth seeping off Time, his ocean chilled bones slowly thawing.
In...
Out...
In...
Out...
----
“Yeah, no, this really isn’t that bad,” Four says. “I can have a new buckle on by this evening, now that I have all my tools.”
“So he's good to go, then?" Wild asks, practically bouncing where he stands.
Four laughs. “Yes, Wild. He can go."
“Sweet, thanks!"
Legend groans as Wild grabs him by the forearm and drags him out of Four's forge and into the field, where Hyrule waits.
It’s been a week since their arrival at Outset Island. This morning, a portal appeared outside Wind’s house, and the heroes walked through to find themselves in Four’s Hyrule Field, right in the middle of a pack of infected wolfos. After the week of rest, Legend can limp around mostly without trouble, Twilight is healing well, and they all should be enjoying a lazy afternoon at Four’s place after their hectic morning. Hyrule and Wild have other plans.
“What took you guys so long?” Hyrule greets.
“Four’s fixing Legend’s bag,” Wild says.
“I won’t be losing any more ocarinas.” Legend chuckles under his breath. “Where are you dragging me off to this time?"
“Well, we thought, since we haven't been to Four's world yet, and we just got here..." Wild trails off.
“It'd be fun to have a little look around!" Hyrule finishes.
“No look around is ‘little' with you two,” Legend grumbles.
“So you'll come?" Wild asks.
“No." Legend turns to leave. “I need a nap."
Wild grabs him by the wrist. “What you need is a little excitement!" He pouts when Legend rips his arm out of his grasp. “Come on! We need you to make sure we don't end up dead in a ditch somewhere."
“Wild scares me sometimes," Hyrule adds in helpfully.
“You know you want to!"
“It's so boring, just lying around all day!"
“I thought you said you'd go out exploring with us more!"
“Seriously, we'll die without you!"
“Do you want dinner tonight?" Wild says finally. “That's not a threat, I just mean if I die you won't get dinner. Definitely not a threat."
That does it. Legend turns back with a sigh. “Lead the way, idiots."
He lets himself be towed across the field at breakneck speed, past trees and houses and paths.
“I saw this really cool looking forest on our way here," Hyrule is saying, “that's in this direction.”
“The one Four said was-" Wild gasps for breath - “called Minish Woods, I think?"
“Yeah, that one." Hyrule says.
“It did look like fun," Wild says. “With that big archway at the entry?"
“Yeah!" Hyrule says.
“Did-" Legend gasps for breath. “Didn't Four also say we probably shouldn't go in there? Something about-” gasp “-getting lost?”
“Did he?" Hyrule asks. “I didn't hear."
“I don’t remember," Wild says in between breaths. “You know my memory is terrible." He winks back at Legend, who sighs.
When they reach the forest, however, Legend has to admit it does look quite interesting. The giant marble archway at the entry speaks to secrets, and something ancient and dusty inside him is singing as he lets himself be led through, into the shady blue eaves of the pine trees.
They run through the forest for a while before Wild stops in a cool clearing near a stream, sitting on the ground and beginning to dig through his bag.
“I brought lunch," he says by way of explanation.
Legend and Hyrule sit down. The cool grass prickles at Legend’s exposed legs, a sensation that is simultaneously nostalgic and uncomfortable. Wild pulls out loaves of bread, hunks of cheese, handfuls of wildberries, apples, hard boiled eggs- Legend hadn't realized he was hungry, but his stomach is growling.
“Dig in,” Wild says, and he’s more than happy to oblige.
As Legend’s mouth is filled with the tangy, creamy flavor of goat cheese, as Wild not-so-discreetly shows off his newfound skill by snapping an apple clean in half, and as Hyrule starts talking animatedly amidst the sound of birds calling and chirruping through the afternoon air, something warm and bright bubbles up inside him. Legend finds himself smiling, and he can’t stop. Part of him doesn’t want to.
I’ve grown attached , he realizes a bit belatedly, and the cheese suddenly tastes sour in his mouth. He sets the piece of bread he’d just picked up back down and runs his hand through his hair. This can’t last.
Legend knows there will be a day when the heroes complete their quest, that there will be a day when he has to say goodbye. He knows there will be a day when all of the heroes must return to their own times, when they’ll take their place as nothing more than a wisp of a memory in his mind, when they’ll be so far out of his reach they may as well have been a dream. He’s known that day will come since the beginning, since he realized what was going on, and he’s known that he has no control, that it will come no matter what he does. That was when he promised himself he wouldn’t get attached. Promised himself that when it came time to part ways, he would be able to move on. That he would be okay with leaving. That he wouldn’t be left in free fall if he didn’t get to say goodbye. Not again.
I said I wouldn’t- dammit! How could I have been so stupid-
“Hey, Legend?” Hyrule’s face is in front of his own. He grabs Legend’s hands, drawing him out of the curled-up ball he’d been shrinking into. “You alright?”
Legend stares into Hyrule’s eyes and sighs shakily. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright.”
“If you’re done eating, Legend,” Wild says, wrangling his hair tie out of his hair, “maybe you could fix up my hair for me? It’s been kind of a mess recently.”
“But Wild, you hate -”
Hyrule is cut off as Wild sits down in front of Legend with a thump, yanking his hair out of its hair tie. “Here. If you could just get some of the tangles out?”
“Sure,” Legend says, breathing deeply. “You know you could always get Warriors to do it, right? He’d probably do a much better job than me.”
“Nah. He’d pull half of it out trying to make it look nice,” Wild says. “Plus, he’d probably pin me down until I let him wash it after he got a good look at it. No way am I going to him.”
Legend laughs under his breath, examining the mess that is Wild’s hair. “Fair.”
“Oh, Legend!” Hyrule exclaims. “Let me do yours!”
“Is there really that much to ‘do’?”
“Sure there is!” he says. “Well… maybe not, but it’s kind of all knotted up right now. It can’t feel very nice.”
Legend grunts his consent and Hyrule settles in behind him, beginning to run his hands through Legend’s hair, carefully working out the knots. Legend himself begins working through the tangled mess that Wild calls his hair. Wild starts snapping more apples, one by one, all the while singing a senseless song at the top of his lungs. Legend isn’t sure whether to sigh or laugh. Hyrule is giggling behind him.
“So, Wild,” Hryule says when Wild finishes a verse. “What song is that?”
“No idea!” Wild says, turning to grin at him.
“Eh- oi!” Legend grabs Wild’s head, forcibly facing him forwards. “Don’t do that! Do you want me to help you get the tangles out or not?”
“Sorry.” He snickers.
Hyrule scooches around to Legend’s left.
“Can I braid the pink part?”
Legend glares down at him. “Why?”
“Because.” he smiles, and his eyes go all big and hopeful, and Legend sighs.
“Fine.”
“ Yes! ”
As Hyrule begins to braid Legend’s hair, Legend finds his fingers weaving a plait into Wild’s.
I really have grown attached , he thinks as Hyrule finishes off his braid and lays his head into Legends lap with a mischievous grin. You want me to move? that grin says. Then make me.
“I really am sorry about your ocarina, by the way,” Wild says out of nowhere. “I thought cutting through the woods would be faster, and it was so hot in the sun… I didn’t realize it’d be such a mess.”
“It…” Legend’s fingers pause in their rhythmic weaving as he recalls the smooth, red gloss of an ocarina like no other, cool porcelain against his lips; an island he wishes to forget; the instrument tumbling from his bramble-ravaged bag. “It’s okay. It’s about time I got rid of that old thing, anyway.” He blinks hard, trying to ignore the prickling in his eyes. His face suddenly feels warm.
“Your hair tie, please?” Legend says, and if either of the others notice the warble in his voice, they don’t say anything. Instead, Wild holds out the requested elastic over his shoulder. Legend loops it around the tail of the braid until it’s tight, then drops it against Wild’s back. “There.”
Wild reaches back, feeling at his hair.
“Ooh, what type of braid is this?”
“Dutch.” Legend stretches his back, his spine popping. “I could teach you if you want. All it really is is a French braid where you pull strands to the back instead.”
“Sounds simple enough.” Wild grins. “I’ll have to try it sometime.”
“Oh, wow.” Hyrule cranes his neck to see. “That’s fancy. I just did a simple three-strand…”
“It’s wonderful,” Legend assures him, grabbing the tail as an afterthought to keep in the little plait. “Wild? You got any extra hair ties?”
“Do I ever?” Wild digs a fistful of stray ties out of his bag. “I lose them so often I usually keep as many on me as I can.”
Legend laughs nervously. “Just one, please.”
Wild picks one out and drops it into Legend’s palm. Legend loops it around the end of the little braid until it stays, and Hyrule smiles.
“Hyrule, you know you’ve got to let me do yours now, right?” Wild says. “You can’t be the only one without a braid.”
“Okay, okay…” Hyrule sits up. “What part do you want?”
“Hmm…” Wild examines Hyrule’s aggressively floofy hair. “The front, please.”
Hyrule turns so that he’s facing Wild, and Wild gets to work, sectioning out pieces of his hair.
“I used to do someone’s hair all the time,” Wild comments. “Before, you know? I don’t remember who. She loved when I would braid it, I know that much.”
“What made you remember that?” Hyrule murmurs.
Wild hums, his hands moving deftly to braid Hyrule’s hair. He doesn’t really seem to be paying attention to what he’s doing.
“I think…” he says finally. “I think it was being around Aryll.”
“Did you have a sister?” Legend asks.
Wild blinks, his hands pausing.
“...I don’t know. Maybe.”
Wild finishes off the braid with a hair tie from his stash. An intricate French braid wraps from the center of Hyrule’s hairline to back behind his right ear. Hyrule reaches up to feel it.
“Wow,” he says. “I had no idea you could do this!”
“Me neither!” Wild winks. “That’s the power of muscle memory, my friends.”
Legend nods. “That’s beautiful, Wild.”
“Now.” Wild stands and brushes himself off, throwing the leftover apples back into his bag, hesitating, and then putting the split ones in too. “Let’s go explore the rest of this forest, shall we?”
“Yes, we shall!” Hyrule giggles, pushing himself to his feet. “You coming, Legend? Or should we leave you here to rot?”
“Please don’t.” Legend stands, brushing off his tunic. “You leave me here to rot and you’ll just as soon end up rotting yourself.”
“What do you mean?” Wild says. “Is that a threat?”
“No.” Legend gives him a defiant grin. “I’m referencing what you said earlier. Didn’t you say that without me, you two would end up ‘dead in a ditch somewhere’?”
Wild shrugs. “I probably did say that…”
“Then let’s go!” Hyrule leads the way, strolling off into the depths of the forest. Wild follows, and Legend smiles once more before walking after them.
I guess, Legend thinks as the three make their way through the trees, it’s worth it to have to say goodbye.
Wild shouts, motioning them over to see what he’s found. There’s a house in the distance, nestled between pine trees.
Besides, I’m already tied to these guys, whether I like it or not. I suppose there’s nothing I can do . There’s no regret in the statement. Sometimes, it’s nice to be able to love.
“Shall we investigate?” Wild asks as soon as Legend and Hyrule join him atop the hill. “All in favor, say ‘aye!’”
“Aye!” All three chorus at once- well, for Legend it is more of a grunt than a chorus, but it’s the thought that counts, and as Wild and Hyrule sprint down the hill, grinning and laughing, eyes glinting like nothing in the world can stop them, Legend smiles and follows them.
I might as well stay along for the ride.