Archive of Our Own ^beta

Wind’s island is small.

A single sandy beach spotted with crabs. A few modest but cozy looking homes in the shadows of a cliff. A couple of pigs. A couple of kids. A couple of friendly looking people, their skin sun-gilded, their hands cracked and calloused from weaving nets, moulding pots, tending small gardens, but their smiles as warm and inviting as the golden sand caked to their sandals. 

There is a single watch-tower–old and salt-gnawed and swaying in the sea breeze– that sits on the end of a little dock near the front of the island.

But based on the relaxed nature of the villagers and the shoddy upkeep of the thing, Legend would guess it's more for pretense than precaution. Used more for spotting friends or the postman or the weekly merchant vessel than watching for danger.

When they had arrived on Outset mid-morning two days ago, they were already done touring – read: being dragged around by a very insistent little sailor – by noon. And in that time, Wind had introduced them to every resident, showed them every little secret, brought them around to every old haunt, and still managed to lead them all back to his grandma’s in time for a lunch of some of the best soup Legend had ever had in his life. 

Again, Wind’s island is small. 

So very, very small. 

Legend isn’t sure why he had imagined it to be bigger.

Maybe it was the little sailor’s stories of the place. The kid did have a talent for words, for making mountains out of molehills and heroes out of the ants that climb them. 

He thinks he remembers the kid describing the forest on the top of the cliff as sprawling–full of secrets and spirits and everything in between– when in reality, it was little more than a small grove. A five minute walk, tops.  

Or maybe it was because of the kid himself. Wind had a big personality. He didn't have those little moments of quiet contemplation that Twilight often fell into or the affable, home-cooked personability of Sky. The type of traits that came from growing up in a small, quiet, tight-knit town.

No.

The kid was larger than life and louder than hell. Confrontational and charismatic and bright and a huge pain in the ass. 

Legend could more easily imagine him growing up in cobblestone alleyways, scape kneed and sly grinned and dodging in and out of carriage traffic with a band of followers not far behind. The leader of his own pack of little monsters.  

And yet, regardless of what Legend had imagined, it does nothing to change the truth: Wind’s island is small. 

Almost pathetically so. 

And that’s kinda the problem. 

Because on an island this small, it is impossible for Legend to escape the sound of the sea. 

Every second of their time spent here, Legend could hear it. From the grove at the top of the cliff to the warm interior of Wind’s Grandmother’s cozy house; Legend could always hear it. The repetitive slam of water against land. Wave crashing after wave after wave, an unending roar, grinding stone into pebbles into sand with nothing but water and salt and an endless expanse of time. 

It was… infuriating wasn't the right word. 

The sound didn’t make Legend angry. It didn’t needle at his senses, didn't make heat rise to his face or pound against the barriers of his mind. It didn’t cause his nails to carve half moons in his palms, or make something nasty  boil in his stomach like acid. 

It just…

It was just there. 

The sound of the sea was ever present on the little island. Inescapable. Inevitable. Unending.

And like the waves themselves, like erosion, it wore him down. Chipping away at him in a way he couldn't even fully describe, eating at some part of him slowly, oh so slowly, that Legend hadn't even realized it was bugging him until night fell. 

Because only then, once the others had tucked themselves into their sleeping rolls and silence had fallen over their usually rowdy group, only then did the full weight of the noise land squarely on Legend’s shoulders. 

It was just him and his thoughts and the sound of the sea.

Rolling in…

Rolling out…

Rolling in…

Rolling out…

Rolling in–!

Needless to say, Legend hadn’t gotten any sleep the first night.

…

Or the second night, for that matter.

...

Or the– well. You get the pictograph.

Now, as the sun leers down at him on his fourth day without sleep, even Legend can admit that he's in pretty rare form. Really pulling out all the stops to be crowned “Biggest Asshole in all the Kingdom.” 

Errr. Ocean.

Whatever.  

This morning alone, he's already sent Wild and Warriors reeling with some particularly cutting remarks about knighthood and all that garbage, made digs at Four, Hyrule, and Sky during breakfast to keep their pitying bullshit to themselves, snarled at Time and Twilight to keep their pointy noses out of his fucking business, and still had time to make a complete ass of himself by shouting at Wind that no! He sure as hell doesnt want to take another stupid walk around this dumb little godessforsaken spit of rock! 

…

Yeah.

Like he was saying. Rare form.

Which is how the pink haired hero finds himself dragging his exhausted body up, rung after rung,to the top of the watchtower. Away from prying eyes. Judgemental faces. Words he didn't truly mean.  

After his blow up at the little sailor– the look on the kids face… it was like saltwater in a fresh wound, fuck– he had chosen to flee rather than face the others. Rather than face what he did. What he said.

It truly is a talent, Legend thinks bitterly, ignoring the stinging prick of splinters chewing into his hands as he climbs. Truly a talent indeed . 

With one final heave, the pink haired hero pulls  himself up the final rung and throws himself down on the slightly damp, salty smelling wooden boards, staring up up up at the molding roof above. 

What a talent I have, The wind shifts and the watch-tower creaks,and the song of the sea roars louder than ever before in his ears.  To make others just as miserable as I am. 

Legend isn't sure how long he lays there, staring at nothing.  

It must be a while, he thinks idly. The sun is surely in a different position than when he got here. He’s watched and felt the shadow and light crawl their way across his body, heating and cooling in slow moving swathes. 

He thinks he must have heard a bell at some point too, some small hand rung thing, that signaled the hours to the islanders. But he can't remember how long ago it's been since he heard it’s faint ring nor even how many times it had rung.  

He can't say for certain how long he's been here. Just thinking. Breathing. Listening.

Thinking about somewhere and nowhere, thoughts of seafoam and song turning his brain to mush. Breathing in the smell of salt misted air, feeling it sting in his nose, his throat, in ritual repetition.  Listening to the sound of the sea, a constant, rhythmic percussion.

Rolling in…

Rolling out…

Rolling in…

Rolling out…

Rolling i–

“Oh, hello! Oops! Sorry for interrupting your nap. I didn't think anyone else would be up here!”

The voice, young and cheery and so full of energy , jolts Legend from his trance of thinking breathing listening. 

He blinks dry, itchy eyes once, twice, three times, before slowly, oh so slowly, dragging his aching back up and folding his legs criss-crossed to support himself as he turns, ready with a barb on his lips to chase whoever this is away and…

Is met with the grinning face of a familiar looking, blond haired girl.

Wind’s little sister.

Arin? Maryll?

Aryll. Right. That was it. 

Legend remembers the brief introduction Wind had given them the day they had arrived. The little girl had been practically bouncing around the little sailor as he talked, interjecting his every word with questions and comments and little giggles, eventually prompting Wind to catch her in a light headlock and blow raspberries onto the top of her head, much to her great displeasure. 

After that, however, Legend can't really remember seeing much of the little girl. 

Then again, on further deliberation, that was probably more of an incredibly sleep deprived thing rather than a she wasn't there thing. 

Though, based on the way her smile gets even brighter when Legend looks at her, he can at least assume she wasn't there for his meltdown this morning. If she had been, she probably wouldn't look so cheery as she comes to sit on the wooden beams of the lookout deck with him.

Once seated, she gives him the kind of extremely conspicuous once over that only children can before she settles on another sunny grin. 

“How was your nap?” she asks. 

And then before Legend can even think about answering, she continues right along, eyes bright as she speaks, “My big brother used to take naps out here all the time. He always said the waves helped him sleep.”

She stands suddenly, her sandals clacking against the floor boards as she skips to one of the guard rails and sets her telescope to her face. From his position, Legend can see how her cheeks scrunch up, the eye not looking through the telescope squeezed shut as her tongue pokes out from between her lips as she surveys the ocean.

“I never got what he meant, though,” she continues and Legend sighs, letting himself deflate as he leans back against his hands. 

This is clearly a conversation she's having at him, not with him. The kind kids with too much energy have with literally anyone willing to listen.

Legend doesn't really blame her, nor can he find the energy to muster up any annoyance at his circumstances. With how small the village here is, the veteran would bet his finest rings that everyone here has probably heard this little girl gush about her older brother more than enough times to be gently annoyed, if not sick of it by now.  

So, despite the exhaustion that drags at his bones, the itch in his tired eyes, the guilt that weighs in his stomach from his behavior this morning, and that sound, still rolling, never stopping, Legend lets her continue on, acting to all the world a willing participant. 

“I mean,” Aryll continues after a second, still searching for something in the distance, “Out here the ocean is so loud ! Boom! Crash! Boom! Crash! I never got how Link could sleep with all that noise going on!” 

Aryll turns from her task, directing her round, seafoam eyes to Legend. 

It takes the veteran an embarrassingly long second for his sleep-deprived brain to comprehend the fact that she’s probably looking for some kind of input from him. Some sign that he's paying attention. Or, more likely, a sign that he’s on her side in this metaphorical debate. 

He gives it to her, nodding his head in agreement while humming along in acknowledgement. 

Because, really, if anyone here knows how loud the ocean is and how much it can fuck up a sleep schedule, its probably him. 

She smiles at his response– bright and wide and gap-toothed– and nods her head back with a giggle and a wink, like they're sharing some kind of big secret, before she goes back to her task of searching the seas for… something.

Apparently, it doesn't take her much longer to find it because after only a second more of her scouting, she lets out a small, joy filled gasp, which is quickly followed by an absolutely massive grin. 

With a little giggle of excitement, Aryll pulls the telescope away from her face and stowes it quickly but carefully in the spoils bag she has hooked over her shoulder.

It looks almost like a replica of Wind’s own, but instead of grimacing, the purple bag appears to be locked in endless, jagged toothed laughter.  

From the mouth of the bag, Aryll pulls a handful of what look to be cut and dried pears, their skins browned and leathery looking. She crushes a few in her hand and begins to walk along the guard rail, depositing pear crumbs and dust in her wake. 

After making a complete circuit of the little lookout deck, the blond haired girl inspects her work with narrowed eyes and hands on hips.

She must like what she finds because she gives herself a childlike, full-bodied nod before dropping back to sit next to Legend. She's still for approximately one second before she begins rummaging in her bag again, surfacing with more dried pear slices which she holds out to the pink haired hero. 

He looks at them. Then back at her. Then back at the pears. Then back at her. 

He raises an eyebrow. 

Apparently, she takes some kind of offense from his dubious expression because she pouts, her mouth pursing and her eyebrows furrowing deeply. She holds the fruit slices out more forcefully, jabbing her arm out toward him a couple of times, making the slices in her hands wobble precariously. 

With a sigh, he takes them, cringing slightly as they leave his palm and fingers somewhat sticky, like the warmth of Aryll's bag and then her hand had made them sweat a bit.

Legend gulps and then, with a sigh and only a shade of reservation, raises one to his lips.

And promptly gets a smack in the arm for his efforts to be polite. 

“Hey!” he hisses, throwing a half hearted glare at the little girl. 

Aryll, for her part, seems to find this more funny than intimidating.

“Not for you!” she chastises, though the veteran can see her shoulders struggling to contain her giggles at his affronted look. “Those are for the gulls!”

“Gulls?”

Like some dumb switch puzzle in one of his dungeons had been flipped, the air is suddenly filled with the sound of frantic wing beats and high pitched, excited squawks. A veritable tidal wave of white and grey feathers sweeps into the observation deck, buffeting the veteran hero with stray wings to the head and several nicks to his hands as the birds swoop to grab the fruit from his palm. 

However, soon enough, the storm subsides. The birds settle, many alighting on the guardrail to sweep them for extra crumbs while a handful more take up residence in the molding rafters above, tucking into messy nests of sticks and palm fronds. 

A few land on the deck, craning their necks and turning their heads to eye Legend before apparently coming to the conclusion that he's harmless, hopping closer to see if he has more pears. 

“Sorry,” he says softly, showing the birds his empty hands. Most scuttle away at his movement– frightened– but two smaller ones, juveniles, hop up closer to inspect his palms just to be sure. Once they see nothing there however, they quickly lose interest, hopping instead to go bug Aryll. 

They join two more birds who are already circling the girl, squawking and fluttering their wings as they beg for treats. She giggles at their little production, quickly reaching into her bag and throwing out another handful of fruit. 

Like wolves, they descend on the pear silces, pushing and shoving to get the best morsels. 

Once satisfied with their meal, a few flap up to the rafters. Two, the two who had come to Legend earlier, stay, one settling in to lay at Aryll’s side while the other settles into the girl’s lap. It blinks lazily- like a cat- as she begins to run her fingers through the feathers at the top of its head.

She coos at the thing, a brilliant smile splitting her cheeks.

And in that moment, as Wind’s little sister smiles as bright and warm as the overhead sun, as the soft roar of the waves rolls in rolls out rolls in rolls out , as a hole opens up in his chest somehow leaving him feeling warmer and lighter of all things …  

In that moment, Legend knows he has to leave.   

He has to leave before the other shoe drops. 

Because it always drops. 

And more often than not, he's the reason why it does. 

So Legend shifts his weight back onto his legs, intent on standing up, on striding toward the ladder, on spilling some excuse to Aryll, a sorry excuse me, but in probably much less polite terms because he is still him after all and –

A weight lands squarely on the crown of his head, freezing him in his tracks. 

It is not a heavy weight. More… soft. Warm. Slightly unstable as the thing adjusts itself to Legend’s movements before settling in against the cap on his head with a soft coo.

A gull.

A gull has landed on his head.

And…

Honestly, Legend has no clue how he's supposed to proceed. 

He's been on five (now six) adventures, killed Ganon and his forces multiple times, traveled through time, journeyed to different dimensions, woken sleeping deities and met eight other versions of himself without batting an eyelash. 

But this…

This is what gives him pause. 

He’s at a complete loss at what to do. He’s just… stuck, his whole body tensed but unmoving, careful to not send the little creature stumbling from its chosen perch, his brows raised and eyes flicking back and forth and back and forth, unsure where to look.

Eventually, though, they settle on the little girl beside him, who is trying valiantly, but ultimately, unsuccessfully to keep in her giggles at his predicament.

Her grin widens when they lock eyes. And then, she loses it. 

“Gales! The look–!” she takes a deep but stuttering breath in before bursting out into a peel of giggles. The force of her laughs sends her reeling, flopping back onto the deck as she clutches at her stomach. The gull in her lap fluffs up at the movement before sending what Legend can only guess is the bird equivalent of a glare at having deprived it of its pets.

“Oh Gales, the look on your face!” she manages to wheeze out before that single sentence sends her in for round two of giggles.

And despite the exhaustion, the anxiety, the weight the words he had thrown at Wind still sitting heavy as stones in his guts, the sound of the waves blustering against his ears… 

Despite it all… Despite himself , Legend feels…

Okay. 

Surprisingly okay. 

“You know,” Aryll starts, apparently having recovered from her giggle fit. She isn't looking at him, instead focused entirely on petting the gull that has once again settled in her lap. “My big brother told me about you before you all got here. In his letters.” 

She finally pulls her seafoam eyes from the bird, giving Legend a look that on anyone other than a eight year old child might have been considered a scolding glare. 

“He said you were kinda a meanie.” 

Understandable. Actually, given his general attitude, “meanie” may even be an understatement. 

And yet, the glare runs away from Aryll’s face as fast as it had appeared. In the blink of an eye, her expression smoothes out into another wide, gap toothed grin. 

“But I don't see it.” She nods her head decisively. “Yep! Big Brother is wrong again.The gulls only like nice people.”

“So, Mr. Nice Pink Link,” she continues, hopping up to her feet and placing her own bird on the top of her head like an oversized hat. “Big Brother took the other heroes on another adventure around the island.”

“Sooooo,” she says, drawing out the word, “If they’re the heroes, let's be the pirates! 

She does a spin and then puts her hands on her hips, puffs out her chest, and grins at him with a wink. 

Legend gets the distinct feeling that she’s imitating someone. Though who, he can't say.

It's certainly not Wind.

“Let’s go get lunch from Grandma before them and take all the best bits for ourselves!”

She giggles at her master plan and skitters over to the ladder, beginning her descent quickly, the bird still perched on her head even as she drops.

She pauses just before her face can disappear below deck.

“You coming?”

Legend nods at her a little dazedly. 

He takes a deep breath in. Let’s the sting of ocean salt burn at his throat, his eyes. Let’s it fill his chest, deeper deeper deeper, before he lets it out. Let’s it out, and with it, some of the poison.

The sound of the sea doesn't get quieter in his ear but he finds he doesn't mind it as much. 

Or mind it at all, really. 

The hole in his chest still aches, but like before, it is a warm ache. 

“Yeah,” Legend says eventually. A grin pulls at his face and for the first time in a while, it doesn't feel forced. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

He lets his smile curl up at the edges, faux threatening. 

“So you better hurry up, or i'll get to Grandma’s first and take all the cookies for myself.”

Aryll’s face twists into a look of total surprise before her eyebrows furrow into an expression of anger.

...which would probably be more believable if her lips weren’t quivering, trying to stave off a smile.

“Traitor!” she hisses between not grinning but totally grinning teeth. “Mutineer! Meanie! I’ll have your head for this, Mr. Not Nice Pink Link!!”

She lets a battle cry– a scream, really– that startles the bird on her head and disappears, sliding down the ladder with all the grace of a true pirate queen. 

Legend snorts, following behind at a more sedate pace, careful not to disturb his own avian companion. 

They get their first pick of lunch– boiled crab– and take all of the coconut cookies for themselves.

And if he saves a few cookies for Wind and the others despite Aryll’s wishes…

Well.

He is a meanie afterall.

Even the gulls can't change that.