Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The world seemed deathly still, not a sound could be heard in...whatever black abyss you were floating in. It felt so real, and yet so fake at the same time. Your eyes slowly opened and you stared upwards at an inky black nothingness, lost in a feeling akin to drowning. Then a light pierced the emptiness and shown directly into your eyes, causing an involuntary squint. A faint ringing noise accompanied the light, filling your ears.

Dazed, you reached out with one hand towards the light, its radiance enchanting you. But then the golden light changed to shadow once again and everything around you turned a dark shade of blue and you flinched away from whatever had tried to lull you into its trap. All the while the faint ringing noise grew louder and louder reaching an ear splitting frequency.

And as you turned away and tried to curl in on yourself, the sound stopped. You weren’t sinking into a fuzzy blue void, you were just laying on the grass on your campus’s Quad. The ringing was replaced with the soft chirping of birds and wind flowing through the trees...and also your phone alarm but it wan’t as pleasant to the ears as the other sounds.

You sat up from the grass, dazed and confused, sparing a glance at your phone to see that you’d woken up just in time to make it to your last class of the day if you hurried. Hesitantly, you turned off the alarm before taking in the surrounding scenery; it was just the same old college campus you’d been attending for the past seven months, nothing out of the ordinary. Another moment went by, and under your breath you spoke a few words that were only meant for you at that moment.

“What the hell…?”

><><><><><

“So, let me get this straight, you were sinking in a void when a light suddenly appeared and when you reached out for it the light turned into a shadow and everything around you turned blue?”

The hour between waking up and leaving class had gone by surprisingly fast to you, especially since that particular class made it feel like the seconds went by like molasses. The truth was you just couldn’t shake the dream you had out of your head, it nestled in the back of your mind, clawing out every now and then for scraps of attention. This wasn’t the first time you’d taken a nap before one of your classes and it also wasn’t the first time you’d had a nightmare during that time, but it was the first time a nightmare of yours felt so abstract and vivid. Usually your night terrors included some variety of failing an important test or forever being stuck with student loans, not an inky abyss.

After class ended, you immediately texted your close friend Tess to see if she could have lunch with you, you couldn’t just keep it to yourself anymore, which brings us back to the present and the conversation you were having right now.

“And the ringing noise, don’t forget the loud ringing noise,” you said before taking a bite of your sandwich.

Tess rolled her eyes at you and took a sip of her drink. “Well, anyways, I think you’re overreacting. I mean, sure that sounds like a real creepy dream, but its not like it means anything.” She set the cup down and pointed a finger at you. “Now, come back to me if you a start hearing a voice calling your name, that’s something.”

You took a moment to think about her analysis and soon began to feel a bit silly. Dreams just happen sometimes and you doubt that this one was the scariest nightmare you’d ever had. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” you replied while poking at your food, before looking back up at her with a playful smile.“But if I have that same dream again then you’re gonna feel real dumb for being a non believer and be shunted to the side as I begin my great quest!”

The brunette snorted at your goofiness. “Maybe you’re right, but only time will tell.”

><><><><><

By the time you’d made it back to your dorm, dusk had settled over your campus and everything was awash in a golden light. Even after all this time you still hadn’t gotten over how pretty everything looked at this time of day.

Entering your dorm, you quickly dropped your bag at the side of the door and kicked off your shoes haphazardly, a bad habit your roommate has told you many times that you had to shake. But your roommate was going to be gone for few days to visit their family and you always remember to clean up the short hallway leading to the door in the mornings so it really didn’t matter to you at the moment.

After closing the blinds and taking off any unnecessary outer layers, you made direct eye contact with your mattress before reuniting with your true love. Even with the nap you had before you were still worn out enough to warrant an early dinner and pre-dinner nap, which is why you ordered some take out in the elevator.

Now with no homework to do and your dinner being taken care of already, there was nothing standing between you and an actually relaxing nap. Memories of the nightmare you had before tickled your thoughts, but you quickly pushed those to the side. Sleepiness took hold of your tired mind and all semblance of consciousness slipped through willing fingers.

It was just a stupid dream, you thought. There is no way that it will happen a second time.

><><><><><

It happened a second time.

In fact, this dream felt exactly like a continuation of the dream you had before, this time with more details.

Once again you found yourself floating in a dark blue void, starring at the pitch black shadow you’d left behind. However, unlike last time you retained consciousness instead of only being semi aware of what was happening. You were so shocked that this was happening a second time that you almost missed the shadow taking on a new shape.

It shifted and morphed, as if something was inside of it, pushing and pulling like it was made of elastic, before it finally resembled something like a mirror image of yourself. It was all there, the way your hair framed your face, the clothes you were wearing when you fell asleep, heck even the scar on your wrist you got when you were just a kid. The main difference was that this “twin” of yours was pitch black and had glowing red eyes instead of your (e/c) ones.

You and your mirror image stared at each other for moment, neither willing to break eye contact, it made you feel really tense. What was even weirder to you was that this shadow the hedgehog recolor of you wasn’t moving in the slightest, its chest didn’ move and neither did its eyes.

“For the love of God, please blink,” you whispered in a strained voice. That probably wasn’t what you were supposed to say in a situation like this, but it was the only thing that came to your mind, okay?

The thing standing before you seemingly took this as a sign to actually do something instead of just stand there like some kind of creepy mannequin. Without a word, it held its had open for you to see that it was holding something. In its open palm you saw a little, dark purple triangle small enough to be a marble.

When you looked back up, confusion evident in your eyes, your twin turned to face behind them. The triangle it was holding suddenly flew out of its hand and began to grow, it grew and grew until it was touching the bottom of the “floor” you and your twin were standing on.

It looked almost like a...gateway of some sorts, if that makes any sense, and weirdly enough you could sense a sort of pressure coming from it that made you feel like a character in an anime sensing an enemy's power level.

For a moment, you and your color swapped twin just stared at each other, the latter seemingly trying to get you to go through the gateway it created. And for a moment, you were actually willing to go through, to see what this whole crazy dream was about and end your curiosity, but then logic came back and smacked you so hard in your brain space.

That is definitely not a good idea, it scolded and you listened. I need to wake up as soon as possible.

Slowly, you began to take small steps backwards away from both the portal and the thing taking on your image. Once it was clear that the thing wasn’t going to chase after you or anything like, you did the only thing you could think of to wake up...slap yourself in the face, hard.

The moment your palm made contact with your face, you were in your room again, starring up at the ceiling. For whatever reason you were covered in a cold sweat and your breathing was uneven, as if you’d been running or having a panic attack. But the weirdest thing was that, when you went into the bathroom to splash some water in your face, there was a pink imprint in the shape of a palm on the side of your face, the side you’d slapped. It even stung a little when you touched it with the tips of your fingers.

That’s when you really started to sweat.

><><><><><

A few hours went by since you had that dream, your food was eaten, all your friends were probably fast asleep in their beds, and here you were sitting in your dormitory kitchen holding a cup of coffee.

You:
Hey

You:
are you up?

You:
If you r, please respond

A weak sigh left your lips, you knew it was pointless to try and contact anyone, they were all asleep by now. You also knew that you should probably also be asleep right now, it was a school night and yet you were still awake after three in the morning; you put back on your clothes to try and make yourself a little less sleepy, it wasn’t working.

Staying up on a school definitely wasn’t the best thing to do because of a creepy nightmare, but you basically just found out it was real and now you don’t know what to do.

Common sense urged you to throw the coffee away and go back to your dorm, but something else told you to stay awake and don’t fall back asleep no matter the cost. Now that you knew for a damn fact that those dreams aren’t just weird nightmares, paranoia began to takeover. It just- it felt like the thing you saw back there, the thing that had your face, was waiting for you to fall back asleep; and it terrified you.

No articles you found on Google answered your questions, although you couldn’t blame them since “I had a dream where a shadow shapeshifted to look like me and opened a giant purple, triangle portal and also I think it was kinda real” doesn’t really make for a good Google search.

You groaned and rubbed your eyes, this coffee just wasn’t helping you stay awake and you’re half sure you accidentally made decaf. Your eyelids felt like they were being weighed down by lead and every small movement was slow and sluggish.
But still you tried to stay calm and awake and alert, you couldn’t fall asleep until you understood what was happening.

….You just...had to...stay..awake…..until……….sunrise….

Your brain didn’t even register the feeling of your head making contact with the table.

(e/c) eyes opened and suddenly you were once again starring at the portal and the mirror image, it was dressed in the same clothes you were wearing when you feel asleep, except this time it seemed a bit more impatient. Instead remaining in place and not really moving, the moment you registered what was going on it was right in front of you.

You stumbled backwards, trying to get some distance, and it followed you. “Get away from me you edgy recolor!” you yelled before turning to try and run. It immediately put a stop to your escape by grabbing your arm and yanking you back towards the portal, a yelp left you mouth at the same time, its grip was hard.

You struggled to try and get free, but its hand didn’t budge from your arm and before you could fully understand what was happening you were basically making eye contact with the portal. “What do you want from me?!” The thing didn’t give you an answer as it finally let go of arm but soon after gave you a firm push into the portal. A scream left your mouth as it dragged you in but before you could reach the other side of wherever this thing led to, you heard the thing speak.

“Let’s see how they deal with this…”

><><><><><

The sound of the wind blowing through the trees and birds chirping softly were the first things you heard when you came to. There was the feeling of warm sunlight on your skin and soft green grass under you and when you hesitantly opened your eyes, the you saw the sky that shade of blue you can only really see in the early morning.

Your breathing began to escalate, you don’t remember falling asleep here. Swiftly, you sat up to take a look at the world around you, it certainly was not your college campus. Before you knew it you were on your feet, trying to remember what the hell was going on, but then it hit you: the dream, the portal, the shadow, this must be what happened after that thing shoved you through the portal it created. Panic began to set in.

Questions raced through your head a mile a minute, where were you, what was going on, what was that shadow, how were you going to get home, it all just felt too intense and you could really use some kind of distraction at the moment.

But you’ve gotta be careful what you wish for.

A shrill cry echoed throughout the forest, something akin to a pig squeal but distorted and uglier. You swiveled your head around to try and find the source and when your eyes landed on a red pig demon looking monster, you knew you’d found the cause.

Oh fuck me.

You didn’t even take the time to look at the creature any longer, you just turned around and began to high tail it away from there, if you were paying attention you would’ve heard it blow a horn of some kind. It, along with one other you believed, chased out of the forest and across a green hill. Terror seeped into your bones, you ran faster than you’d ever had in your life despite the pain and exhaustion, you felt bile rise up but you bit it back down while thoughts raged inside of your head screaming these things are going to kill me these things are going to kill these things are going to kill me these things are going to kill-

Your foot caught on a large branch and you face planted into the dirt and finally began to breath, even when the two pig monsters closed in with clubs in hand. A shaky breath left your lips, you really didn’t want to die, not like this. Your chest rose and fell with uneven breathes as one of them came closer, you were too tired and panicked to even try to run away and the only thing you could hear was the blood rushing through your ears.

It raised the club high above its head and you tried to accept your fate. This was it, you were going to get beaten to death without even understanding why, you just hope your family doesn’t mourn you too much.

The creature brought the club down and you flinched away with eyes screwed shut, expecting pain. But a few seconds went by without any sort of contact. You hesitantly opened one eye and fully turned your head in surprise to see the monster lying dead on the ground with an arrow sticking out of its head, the other was lying a few feet beside him with a matching arrow.

It had been killed, but who…?

You snapped your head around behind you to see not one, not two, not three, but nine fucking people each carrying multiple weapons. Huh, guess you really couldn’t hear anything but your own racing heartbeat.

One of them, a young man with scruffy brown hair and freckles on his face, offered a hand which you slowly accepted, at this point you were sort of in a daze after all that just happened. Once you were standing, it was a little awkward since they were kinda just starring at you and you were kinda just starring at them. Nervously, you decided to be the first to say something.

“Uh, hi..thanks for saving me!” They didn’t seem to know what to say either and kinda just looked around at each other, you just stood there and rubbed your arm nervously, another habit of yours. It was at this time that you noticed how oddly they were dressed: tunics, chainmail, golden armor? These guys looked decked out to go to Comic Con or something like that. You pointed to their clothes. “Hey, why are y’all wearing that?”

This got their attention as they all looked at you with confused expressions. Another on, this time a man with no pants on, spoke up. “We could ask you the same question,” he said while crossing his arms. His answer sparked confusion in you.

Your eyebrows furrowed a little bit with confusion and you used the hand that was pointing to simply gesture to him. “Whaddya mean by tha-....” Your eyes widened as they landed on something in the distance.

A huge, intimidating castle loomed in the distance, a castle you had never seen before and you were pretty sure doesn’t exist in your world. A realization dawned upon you, your world, the monsters that attacked you, the clothes these people wore, the castle, none of it was possible in your world.

You weren’t in your world anymore.

And, for like the nine millionth frickin’ time, you blacked out.

Chapter Text

When you finally came to it wasn’t the sight of your dorm room’s ceiling you were hoping for that you first saw, nor was it the unfamiliar world’s sky that you were begrudgingly expecting, instead you were greeted with the view of a ceiling made out of cloth and wooden logs. Turning your head to the side, you saw that the walls were made of wooden logs as well. You were in a cabin, you were not home.

Your lip quivered slightly, the urge to cry coming up, but you shoved it down, brought a hand up to your face to cover your eyes, and took a deep, long breath. But then a voice, young and boyish, from your left startled you and you realised that you weren’t the only one in the room. There was a slight ringing in your ears so you couldn’t entirely make out what they were saying.

Sluggishly, you uncovered your eyes and turned to find the source of the voice, who you found just as close as you were expecting them to be. Sitting right by your side was a young boy around thirteen to fourteen years old with bright blonde hair and big, round eyes, he was wearing orange pants and a blue tunic and you could also tell that he was carrying a sword of some kind, pretty odd all things considered.

Wonder where he got that, you thought. You began to sit up but a hand on your shoulder stopped you and it was at this point that you noticed that there was another person in the room, someone who you think you might recognize, thankfully this was also around the time that your hearing started to return to you.

“Slow down there,” he said in a comforting voice. “You took a pretty nasty fall back there and we’re not sure if you have a concussion or not yet.” You took a second to think and process his appearance, brown hair, freckles, tunic…

“You’re the guy that helped me up back there,” you said sleepily, your mind still a bit slow from being unconscious for an unknown amount of time. The young man smiled.

“Yeah, glad to see you remember me.” His expression changed slightly from lighthearted to just a tad bit serious. “Listen, I’m going to need you to answer a few questions before I can let you get up on your own so just lay back down and try to focus.”

You did as he was told and looked at him in a kind of “you can start now” kind of way. “Okay, let’s start out simple, how are you feeling?”

“Um, sleepy, and...a little slow,” you answered.

He nodded and brought a hand above your face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three.”

“Alright, very good.” The young man turned to the boy from before who handed him something while you were starting to feel like a patient at the doctor’s office. “Miss, I’m going to shine this light in your eyes so just bear with it for a second.” You relaxed and used two fingers to keep your left eye open and brought up a lantern, after a second he did the same for the second one. Once he was done he put the lantern away and gave you a satisfied smile. “Okay, by all accounts you don’t have a concussion so I’m going to let you sit up now.”

You sat up and leaned against the wall, noticing that you were previously laying on a bed roll. You scanned your eyes over your surroundings and saw a table pushed out of the way and a few other people outside of the cabin, there was no door. Taking a deep breath you focused your eyes on the two people in front of you and decided to ask a few questions of your own.

“So…” you started. “How long have I been out?”

“About two hours,” answered the blonde boy.

Your eyes widened considerably at this notion as you raked a hand through your hair. “Two hours! Jeez, I’m so sorry that you guys have had to take care of me for so long.”

“It’s alright, trust me when I saw that we’ve had to deal with worse than an unconscious girl,” the brunette said.

You thought for a moment on what you should say next, before realizing that they didn’t even know your name. You chuckled a little at the silliness of a group of people lugging around an unconscious girl for two hours when they don’t even know her name. “Um, so my name’s (y/n), thanks for taking care of me!”

Once you said this they both seemed to realize the same thing you did. The blonde beside you spoke up first. “Right! I guess it's time to introduce you to everyone else. Let's go outside they’re probably itching to meet you!”

“Why though?” you asked confused, they didn’t seem to understand your question. “I mean, why would anyone be excited to meet me? I’m not the one carrying a sword on her person.”

This apparently made more sense to them, they looked at each other before looking back at you. “Well,” the brunette started. “It’s a bit complicated but suffice to say we’re going to need you to answer some more questions.” You groaned inwardly at the prospect of more questions, but kept it in, you had a feeling that there were going to be more questions in the near future. The brunette seemed to notice your displeasure though and gave a comforting smile. “Why don’t we just go get introductions aside before any of that.”

You nodded and stood up along with them. Now that your brain wasn’t slow you noticed that you were only a little bit taller than the young blonde boy. The three of you walked outside into the bright sunlight where the rest of their group was. Just like before there were, with the inclusion of the blonde and brunette, nine people in total, all of which male. They noticed you three walking out of the cabin and suddenly all eyes were on you. You gulped.

A young man with a white cape came up to you. “Hello, how are you feeling, Miss?” he said with a smile.

“Well, the young man over there told me I don’t have a concussion, so about as good as I’ll ever be!” you joked with a giggle, trying to lighten the mood a bit. He gave a light chuckle.

“That's good, why don’t you come sit down over here and we can all introduce ourselves.” He gestured to a log as the others started to come together in a messy circle, some sitting some standing. You followed suit and sat down facing everyone, the blonde on your left and the brunette on your right.

With all of them looking at you expectantly you realised that now was the time to tell everyone your name. “Hi, my name’s (y/n), its nice to meet you all,” you said with as much confidence as you could muster, meeting so many people at once was already stressful enough, but in a situation like this you just couldn’t shake the butterflies in your stomach.

The oldest looking one, a man with markings on his face and a scar over one eye, spoke up. “Its a pleasure to meet you, Miss (y/n).” He turned to the rest for a moment. “Why don’t we each introduce ourselves before we get to the matter at hand. My name is Link, we’re all actually named Link so we go by nicknames. I’m the Hero of Time, you can call me Old Man or just Time, the others came up with it not me.”

You giggled a bit and smiled, feeling your nerves start to relax. “I can tell.” You wondered what he meant by “Hero of Time” but that was probably something they’ll get to later.

Another man, this one looking a bit younger than the last with a wolf skin on his back, started. “I’m the Hero of Twilight, so you can call me Twilight, but I usually go by Rancher.” Rancher, simple, you could remember that.

“I’m the Hero of Warriors, you can call me by either of my titles: Warriors and Captain,” a man with blond hair and a long blue scarf said.

“Neat name, Captain, are you a soldier or something?” you asked, eyebrows raised just a tad. He nodded with a proud smile before someone with a blue tunic and a lot of scars piped up and changed the subject.

“I’m called the Hero of the Wild and you can either call me Wild, Champion, or Cook, I’m fine with all of them,” he said. You nodded in acknowledgement and turned your head in the direction of the pantless man from before.

“I’m the Hero of Legend, just call me Veteran,” he said. Something told you that he was the sarcastic one out of all of them, but still you smiled and took note of his nickname.

“I’m the Chosen Hero, also known as the Hero of the Skies, you can just call me Sky,” said the nice young man from before and somehow you knew that he and Legend were complete opposites. You gave him a smile and a small wave, which he returned, before turning your attention to the shortest one in the group who wore a very colorful tunic(which kinda looked like a sleeveless hoodie but shh).

“I’m the Hero of the Minish, but I’m also a blacksmith so you can either call me Blacksmith or just Smith for short. Sometimes I’m also called Four if that's what you prefer,” he said with a smile.

From beside you the young boy with blonde hair spoke up and you turned to face him. “I’m the Hero of the Wind, you can call me Wind or Sailor!”

Babey, you thought as you smiled at him.

And finally the young man who helped you back in the cabin spoke up from behind you. “My title is the Hero of Hyrule, but I go by Traveller or just Hyrule.”

“Oh, thank you for taking care of me, Traveller, it felt like I was being treated by a real doctor,” you praised with a bright smile, he rubbed the back of his neck bashfully. Taking a deep breath, you looked around to see unfamiliar rock walls and ruins just up ahead. “Uh, excuse me but where are we? I don’t recognize this place.”

Wild spoke up. “Oh, we’re by an old cabin near Hateno Village. We found you in the middle of Hyrule Field but we had to keep travelling, sorry if that freaks you out.”

“It’s okay, but I don’t really understand why you guys decided to take me with you,” you said and this caused them to stir a little. “I mean, couldn’t you have dropped me off somewhere? Don’t take it the wrong way I’m very grateful for the help, but why go through all the trouble of dragging around an unconscious girl?

“Well, I’d be lying if I said we did it out of the goodness in our hearts,” Four replied. The vagueness made you give them all a nervous look.

“Don’t make it sound like we’re going to hurt her or something!” Wind piped in with an upset tone.

“Right, I suppose with introductions out the way we should get down to business,” Time stated, turning to you and making direct eye contact. “Miss (y/n), there are some questions we need to ask you so I hope that you’ll answer them honestly.”

This guys definitely the leader here, you thought as you stared up at him. I don’t even think he’s mad at me and yet he’s still got a stern look on his face. “Yeah, sure, I’ll do my best to answer all your questions.”

He nodded. “Good, first things first, we want to know if you’re-”

“Woah are you sure we should be asking that right away! I mean it's kind of a weird question,” Sky yelped with a surprised look.

“Of course, there’s no sense in beating around the bush,” Time replied sternly before continuing. “Miss (y/n), we want to know if you’re from another time.”

...What? They really figured you weren’t from here that easily? You were taken aback by his question, eyebrows raised. These guys were really perceptive. Although, his wording was a little weird, “another time,” what the heck does that mean?

“We understand that it's an odd question, but please do your best to answer it,” Rancher said. It was at this point that you realised how silent you were being and pondered on how you could answer that question.

“Uh, yes- I mean, no- well, kinda..?” Real fuckin’ smooth, (y/n). This resulted in the young man with slightly pink hair giving you an annoyed look.

“It’s a yes or no question, just pick one,” he said impatiently, arms crossed over his chest.

“You’re right, it's just that I don’t get what you guys mean by ‘from another time.’” You gave him a semi-pointed look and used air quotes for emphasis. “Can someone please elaborate on what that means? I’m pretty sure I didn’t come here with a time machine if that's what you mean.”

“What we mean is, are you from another time period in Hyrule’s history? If you say yes then we’ll believe you,” Four explained calmly.

Hyrule? As in that place from the Legend of Zelda series!? you thought exasperatedly. Wait why am I surprised Traveler just said he was the Hero of Hyrule and they said they found me near Hyrule Field. You shook your head a little, there would be time to ponder all of that later, and tried not to look at anyone when you gave your answer. “No, I’m not from a another point in Hyrule’s history.”

“Oh, then where are you from? I’ve been all around and I’ve never seen anyone with clothes like your’s,” Wild inquired, his eyes shining with curiosity as he pulled out an ipad looking device with an eye on the back.

Your lips stretched into a thin line before you let out a small sigh, if they weren’t going to beat around the bush then you weren’ either. “Well, actually,” you started, eyes drifting down to stare at your lap. “I’m not actually from Hyrule...at all.” You didn’t see their faces, but you could tell that at least a few of them were surprised.

“Then where are you from? Labrynna? Holodrum?” asked Legend.

“No, I’m not from any of those places either.” You looked back up at them, trying to find the best way you could put this without them thinking you’re crazy.

“Look, I’m going to be honest with you guys, I’m not from this world at all...I’m from somewhere completely different.”

Silence filled the space as everyone had to take a moment to process what you said, some looked more believing than others. You felt yourself shrink, they weren’t saying anything and you were like a hundred percent sure you were screwed...but then Wind grabbed your shoulder and looked up at you with wide eyes.

“Are you serious?” the blonde asked excitedly. Hesitantly, you nodded, a tiny smile decorating your lips; you could practically see stars glittering in his eyes, it was the first time you noticed how blue they were. The sailor bombarded you with questions, where were you from, what was it like, how did you get here, is everyone from there dressed like you, he was spitting them out at such a rapid speed that you were getting a little overwhelmed even if your smile grew and giggles came out of your mouth.

The eldest put his hand on the youngest’s shoulder. “Calm yourself, sailor,” he said cooly. “I understand your curiosity, but they’ll have to wait. For now, I think we have a few things of our own to explain.”

“Right, for starters, why don’t we explain the whole ‘Hero’ thing? I’m sure our new friend would like to know what we mean by ‘Hero of Time’ and ‘Hero of Wind’,” Warriors prompted, looking around to see if the other’s agreed, you certainly did.

“And if it isn’t too much trouble, can you guys explain why you all have the same name?’ you asked, leaning forward from your seat. On the inside you wished that you’d played a Zelda game before all this happened. They stayed silent for a second, unsure of where to start, but to your surprise Sky was the one to speak first.

“Well...it’s a bit of a long story, but...” He processed to tell a story of light and darkness, of good and evil. Princesses, demons, magic, this story had it all.

“Long story short, everyone here has been on their own adventures to save Hyrule and thus, we’re known as heroes. It’s just a coincidence that we’re all name Link.” Sky gestured to the group, you stayed silent, processing the situation. It took a second, they watched in anticipation, awaiting your reaction, but you eventually…

“...So wait, if you’re born with the Hero’s Spirit you’re just suddenly responsible for the lives of every citizen in the kingdom and everyone in it expects you to fix all their problems, but you can’t even say no because of a hero’s instinct that gives you a moral compass made of diamond that forces you to put your own well being aside so that they can be saved?”

To say they were taken aback was an understatement, but most of them nodded nonetheless.

“That sucks, I’m so sorry!” you said with genuine sympathy coming through in both your voice and expression.

“It’s not your fault,” replied Time, his tone lighter than you’d heard before. In fact, everyone seemed to be a little lighter in mood; some of the heroes who had previously been neutral, like Twilight and Time, had started smiling and others, like Wild and Wind, even let out a few chuckles. The only exception to this was Legend, but even he seemed to be a little more relaxed than before with his arms uncrossed and eyebrows less furrowed.

The Hero of Warriors, who was sitting next to Sky, gave the soft spoken man a firm pat on the back and let out a hearty laugh. “Well I’ll be! I’ve never heard anyone be so blunt about our story before!” he grinned humorously.

“Yes, that reaction was...not expected,” Sky said, a little embarrassed. Perhaps he thought that such a grand story would inflict a little more awe in you, you saw how he would get a little into it when getting to the more dramatic bits of his tale.

“Your kingdom’s history certainly is interesting, but there’s another thing I want to ask.” The group ceased their laughter and turned their attention to you. “How did you guys figure out I wasn’t from here? I mean, sure my clothes probably aren’t like anything you’ve seen before, but just going off of that isn’t really enough for someone to assume that I’m from a completely different time period.”

“You’ve got a point, it is a bit much, but haven’t you wondered why nine heroes from completely different time periods are in the same place at the same time?” Wild prompted, a cheeky little grin on his face.

Huh, guess I never really thought about that, you thought. You continued to look at them expectantly and the brunette sitting by your side continued what Wild had said.

“I had long finished my quests before meeting any of the people sitting here right now and was enjoying a relatively peaceful life of traveling.” The others gave a nod of agreement or a smile at his statement. “However, one day while I was travelling I stumbled upon this huge portal, I could feel it practically pulsing with magical energy.”

Now that sounds familiar.

“Because of my ‘hero’s instinct’ I couldn’t just leave something like this out here in the open where anyone could just stumble into it and get hurt, so I decided to enter myself. When I reached the other side of the portal, I stumbled into Hyrule, but not my Hyrule. One thing led to another and I met these guys and learned that there were others out here just like me!” He did a grand sweeping gesture to all the heroes sitting there in the forest. “All of our stories are kinda like that, we found portals and met each other forming this little group we have here.”

With this newfound knowledge, you went in with another question. “But do you know what made the portals?”

“We don’t...exactly know, but we have a solid idea,” the traveller answered vaguely, looking off to the side.

“A shadow,” Four said suddenly, capturing your attention. “It was a shadow.” No way.

“A shadow? What did it look like?” There was absolutely no way that this was a coincidence.

“Gah! It's just one question after the next with you!” the agitated voice of Legend groaned. “It's not that hard to imagine what a shadow monster might look like. It was pitch black and sludge like, heck, the only unique feature on it was-”

“Its bright red eyes?!” you said loudly. Legend sat stock still for a moment.

“...Yes...How did you know that?” he asked, looking at you suspiciously.

Without a moment’s hesitation you answered: “That’s the thing that brought me here!” The heroes were left in a state of shock.

“Wait it brought you here? You didn’t just stumble upon a portal and end up here?” the rancher asked, brows furrowed in confusion.

You shook your head. “No! I forced me through a portal it created.” You proceeded to explain the circumstances that led you to being dimensionally displaced like these other heroes. You tried to keep it short while also keeping the important details. The dreams, the light, the shadow that took your face, the portal it created in an instant, you explained it all.

“The next thing I know I’m waking up here and running for my life from a duo of pig demons, then you guys saved me and now”-you gestured to the setting around you-”I’m here.”

The group was silent, most likely pondering all this new information you just dropped on them, the first one to break the silence was unsurprisingly Wind. “Wow, so the shadow brought you here deliberately to mess with use.”

“I wonder why it specifically chose you though, no offense,” Sky wondered aloud.

You shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, also none taken.”

“Alright, I think that's enough questions for now,” Time stated sternly, drawing the attention of everyone else over to him. “With all this new information we have some things to digest, but for now let's head to Hateno Village and finally have some lunch. Wild, would you like to lead the way?”

Wild stood up, allowing you to see just how frickin’ long his black cloak was. “Of course, we’re super close so it should only be a ten to fifteen minute walk.”

The others began to stand up as well, however you remained sitting, unsure if Time’s “we” also referred to you. The captain noticed this and turned to you with a smile.

“Well, Miss (y/n), aren’t you coming?” he said with a grin.

“Yeah! I’m coming!” you yelped, immediately standing up and power walking to join the rest. Warriors waited for you to catch up and together you walked in a comfortable silence...that is until you saw something in the lake.

You squint your eyes and leaned forward a bit to see whether or not you were imagining things. Finally, you spoke up about it. “Hey, what's that octopus thing in the water?”

Wild turned his head slightly to look at you from the front of the group. “Octopus, what are you?- Oh! Look out!”

Turns out the “octopus thing” was another one of this world’s monsters, and it can shoot rocks, and Wild was only able to shield part of your body by the time he got to you.

Whoops!

Chapter Text

So far you had only spent about three hours in Hyrule and only one of those hours you spent consciously. In that time, there were two things you’d come to associate with it: confusion and pain. Confusion was the most prominent one, it was how you felt towards everything from the moment you opened your eyes to this new world, it was the questions about everything and everyone you had met so far, and the desire for the answer as to why you were here in the first place.

The second, pain, was less prominent but still very much there; it was the stinging exhaustion from running for your life, the dull throb in your head from blacking out, and, most recently, the pain from having a large chunk of rock slam into your arm. Thankfully, when that happened, the stranger you knew as Wild was there to shield you from the majority of the attack, but he didn’t quite make it there in time. When the rock made contact with his shield, a part of it broke off and hit your right arm leaving a large purple bruise that covered the side of the appendage.

It was the second time that day Hyrule had to check up on you and somehow both you and Wild were apologizing profusely. Thankfully, Warriors fired an arrow and hit the monster known as an Octorock before it could deal out any more damage and after a short break to make sure your arm wasn’t broken, you and the group continued on your way to Hateno Village.

When you finally arrived, you found that Hateno was the complete opposite of everything you’d come to expect from this world.

There were no monsters waiting for their chance to attack, just people walking around going about their business. It felt so lively and warm and cozy, the only thing you wanted to do at that moment was explore this little town to see what it had to offer.

“What do you think? Of Hateno Village I mean,” a masculine voice came from behind you. You turned to see the Wild coming up to stand beside you.

“It’s really nice, actually, and a lot different than what I was expecting.” He smiled at your reply before continuing.

“Yeah, compared to the monsters you have to get through to get here you wouldn’t expect it to be so...warm, not that I’m complaining.”

“Neither am I!”

…

Oh god, awkward silence.

“Whelp! We should catch up with the others!” You said to try and end this conversation.

“You’re right, we should definitely do that!”
The two of you caught up with the group in silence, and it seemed both of you weren’t all that good at small talk. Though the thought of a great and powerful hero being awkward was a little amusing to you.

You were pulled from your thoughts by the sound of...Legend, you’re pretty sure is his name…? Anyways, you lifted your head up from the ground to look at the snarky young man as he was saying something to Wild.

“You know, I don’t think I’ll ever quite forget how odd looking these houses are,” he teased with a grin.

“Yeah, yeah I know.” Wild rolled his eyes as Legend snickered to himself. It was then that you realised that the path you all had taken, the one that bridged off from the main road, went through a group of houses. However these homes were far more colorful and cube shaped than you ever imagined a fantasy world to have, they brought to mind the modern architecture you would see back home.

“I think they’re kinda neat,” you spoke up, grabbing the attention of the two men in front of you. The long haired male spoke up.

“Really?” he asked.

A small snort escaped your lips as you looked from the houses to him. “Yup, they remind me of home.”

Wild smiled at you before giving Legend a smug look, who just scoffed and kept walking. You snickered at the sight but kept walking. Soon, the ten of you were in front of a short bridge built across a small ravine; you were near the back of the group, that combined with your short height made it so that whatever was on the other side of the bridge was a mystery. But you kept on following and all made itself clear to you when you looked up and saw a house. This house wasn’t like the colorful ones from before, instead it was a pale off white-color and was rectangular rather than cube shaped.

All in all it definitely looks more like what you imagined a fantasy world house would look like.

As the group walked inside the house, you approached the closest Link which just so happened to be the young man nicknamed Four.

“Hey, whose house is this?” you asked, pointing to the building behind you.

“Oh, it’s Wild’s,” Four answered, gesturing to the young man who was currently making conversation with an older looking man sitting by a tree. “He said that Bolson - the guy he’s talking to right now - was going to demolish it before he offered to buy it. After that he got it fixed up real nice, and now it’s his home.”

You nodded in understanding before following the main group inside the house, not forgetting to wipe the dirt off your converse before stepping inside. The inside is just like what Four said, all fixed up and suitably looking like a home. There was a table in the center of the house big enough for a few people covered in some plates and the like, the flower in the vase really tied it all together. To the right of the front door were stairs that led up to a second floor that had beds and a desk overlooking the house; if you squinted you could see a photo of a group framed and hung on the wall, you wondered who those people were. The light hanging from the ceiling gave the entire house a warm, cozy feeling.

Overall the entire house was comfy as hell.

With nothing to do like others, who were putting their bags and weapons down, you opted to just sit down on the bottom step of the stairs, hoping that you wouldn’t get in the way of anyone who wanted to go up to the second floor. Soon everyone was inside the house and gathered around the table to discuss...something, you were still very much out of the loop on how things work around here. Wild raised his head from the tablet he was looking at and spoke first.

“Alright, well I have enough to make lunch for all of us, but I’m going to need someone to go run a few errands while I’m cooking,” he stated. Immediately you stood up and walked closer to the group, your mind focused on offering to help. However, a trio of heroes beat you to the punch.

“We can go!” Wind said with his usual upbeat smile.

“I don’t mind,” Hyrule added.

“I’ll also go, I've been wanting to look around Hateno for a while,” Sky finished calmly.

Time nodded and Wild pulled out a small bag that made a small clinking noise every time it was moved, presumably filled with coins to pay for the groceries.

“Okay, so I’ll need three bottles of milk, some eggs, and get some bomb arrows while you’re out there.” He handed the bag over to Sky. “This should be enough to pay for everything.”

...Bomb...Arrows..?

Do they just casually sell explosives in this world?!

The trio began to walk out of the house while you just stood there awkwardly, wanting to tag along but being too afraid to speak up. You probably wouldn’t have gone if it weren’t for the youngest hero noticing you looking down at the floor before he walked out; it didn’t take any longer than a second - plus one quick glance from your nervous eyes - to figure out what was going through your mind.

“You can come with us, if you want,” he said, the teasing smile on his sun kissed face saying I-know-you-want-to-come. (e/c) eyes looked up from the floor, slightly wide, you thought about his offer for a second.

“...Really?” you asked semi-quietly. Wind put his hands on his hips and gave a firm nod with a smile, your eyes lit up.

Quickly, you followed the young blonde as he left the house and the two of you joined up with the two brunettes. They looked a little surprised by you being there as well, but thankfully not bothered. Together, the four of you made it back to the main part of village on your Ultra Legendary Grocery Shopping Quest.™

><><><><><

Legend wouldn’t say he disliked (y/n), that simply wasn’t the correct word. Dislike is a word he’d use to describe how he felt about Ravio charging high interest fees, about his plethora of items vs the limited space he has to store them, and about Warriors smug face the first time the captain saved the veteran from a monster attack.

Overall dislike was a word Legend reserved for the unpleasantries in life, including people; the young woman they saved from a bokoblin attack simply wasn’t unpleasant. Sure she asked a lot of questions and she gave the cook all the ammo he needed to give Legend a smug look of his own when the latter was teasing the former, but neither of these things were inherently bad.

No, Legend definitely wouldn’t say he disliked (y/n), he was just...suspicious of her. But he truly didn’t think anyone could blame him.

The fact is she stumbled across them in a position where she’d obviously need saving, passed out right after in a place where no person in their right mind would leave a young woman unconscious, and was “apparently” from a completely different world all together? It just seemed a little too perfect in his eyes.

Granted, her clothes were definitely strange and unique and the way she acted was more natural than any disguised Yiga Footsoldier they’d run into before, but that wasn’t enough for Legend to conclude that she wasn’t another spy or assassin.

But what surprised Legend the most was how accepting the others were of her story, especially Time and Wild. He naturally assumed the old man would know better than to instantly trust a stranger and he definitely thought the Champion who has dealt with assassins more so than any of them would be at least a little wary of this girl.

So, that’s why Legend was currently approaching the duo as they chatted away by the cooking pot.

“Afternoon, you two,” he greeted casually. Time looked up to make eye contact, Wild kept his eyes focused on the pot but spared a quick wave.

“Good afternoon to you too, Legend,” the oldest replied.

“Do you mind if I ask a few questions? Mainly pertaining to our ‘new friend.’” This caused a surprised look to grace both their faces and made Wild look up from his work. They gave each other a quick glance.

“Uh, sure, what is it you want to talk about?” Wild asked, putting down his utensils and turning to face Legend completely.

“Well, not to sound paranoid, but why did you two believe her story so quickly?” Legend never saw a point in beating around the bush. “I mean, didn’t it ever cross your mind that she could very easily be a spy from our favorite group of murderous ex-sheikah monkeys?”

The eldest gave Legend a look of understanding and patted the ground beside him, motioning for him to come and sit down. Legend, seeing no other option, sat down, giving them each an expecting look. To his surprise, Wild smiled at him and reached into his bag for something.

“Here, take a look at this,” he said, pulling a small object out of the magic leather bag. Legend’s eyes widened as he looked down at what the cook pulled out. The object was small, only about the size of the veteran’s hand, and was shaped like a rectangle. One side of the rectangle was black and showed a reflection of the world around them, while the other side was a light purple color with small black circles in the corner and a silver apple design in the center. The thing that looked closest to it, that Legend could recall, would be Wild’s very own Sheikah Slate, but even that was a stretch.

“Where did you find this?” Legend asked, combing his eyes over the strange object.

“In (y/n)’s pocket,” Wild replied, slightly excited to show off what he discovered. “It fell out when she blacked out a few hours ago. But check this out.”

The young man tapped a finger to the center of the reflective side and it suddenly came alive. There were symbols on the top and bottom corners of the screen, both in a script that the veteran in all his knowledgeable glory couldn’t read, but what was most interesting was the image in the background. It was (y/n), wearing different yet equally strange clothes. Behind her were two other people wearing strange fashion of their own, one presumably male with light brown hair and the other female with dark brown hair. They were sitting in some sort of park or field and in the distance Legend could make out some very large rectangular buildings that had architecture he’d never seen before.

“Is this why you believed her so soon?” he asked, eyes still on the photo.

“Yes, we don’t know any of the details but we assume that this is her home,” Time answered, gesturing to the image.

“It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen before that the idea that she was from another world altogether just came up naturally,” Wild added. “We were actually planning on asking you if you’ve seen anything like this before, but I guess we just forgot.”

The snarky young man deadpanned at Wild’s bashful looking face before holding out his hand. Wild placed the object in Legend’s hand and the latter looked at the screen for a moment before trying something. He mimicked the way he saw the Champion swipe across his Sheikah Slate and was surprised to see that it actually moved the screen and changed it. Now the photo was blurry and the focus was on a weird pattern of nine circles each with a different symbol inside of it, six dots were above the nine circle pattern.

“Alright, something changed.” Legend turned the slate around so that the other two could see what he’d done. Judging by their bewildered expressions, it seemed this was the first time they’d seen this too. Hesitantly, Wild pressed a finger to one of the circles, but immediately drew it back after it made a clicking sound.

“What was that?” he asked, confused. Legend turned the object around to see what that had done and saw that one of the circles at the top of the...screen? That’s what Wild called the part of his slate that resembled this side of the object. Anyways, one of the circles at the top of the screen was filled instead of empty.

Anyways, out of curiosity, Legend tapped another one of the circles and saw that it did the same thing as before. He pressed a lot of them before all six of the circles were filled, but it did nothing as the image on the screen vibrated a little before all six of them went back to being empty. Time, who was watching over Legend’s shoulder, spoke up.

“I think I know what this is,” he said, taking the object into his hands. “We need a six number combination to unlock this...slate.”

With nine numbers and thirty six possible combinations, this was going to take a while.

Chapter Text

The East Wind General Store matched the overall cozy vibe you’d gotten from Hateno Village all day, the lights from the ceiling and walls creating a warm feeling as soon as you crossed the threshold.  The three heroes spread out, Wind and Hyrule taking a look at the items on display to the left of the counter while Sky observed the items to the right and front of the counter. 

You gingerly walked to stand beside Sky, curiously looking at what he was holding. Sky didn’t seem to mind as he just gave you a little smile and continued to inspect what he was holding. Looking down at his hands, you saw that he was holding what looked to be an arrow, but the place where the arrowhead should’ve gone was replaced by a small red sack with an orange circle on it.

...As well as what looks to be a fuse sticking out of the bottom…

…

“Are these the bomb arrows Wild was talking about?” you asked. The brunette looked up, surprised that you had remembered that.

“Yes, yes they are.” He turned slightly so that you both had a good look at the arrow. “They’re quite the weapon, I myself was more than a little surprised when I saw Wild pull one of these out and take down a bokoblin with one hit.” He chuckled slightly, but stopped when he noticed your expression, brows furrowed slightly in confusion. “...And you don’t know what a bokoblin is…” 

Sky looked off to the side, a bashful expression evident on his face. “No-no-no, keep going! I’m really curious, what exactly is a bokoblin?” you inquired. He looked back at you and smiled.

“Well, a bokonlin is a kind of monster that can be found in Hyrule including Wind’s, Twilight’s, the Captain’s, the one we’re in right now, and my own.” Sky reached over and picked up a few more bomb arrows, before walking towards the counter where the shop owner was waiting, you followed right behind. 

“Eras...I remember you guys explaining that before,” you pondered aloud as the other two heroes came and placed their own items on the counter. Thinking back to this morning, a vague connection was made in your mind. “Were...Were the monsters that attacked me bokoblins?”

Your question caused all three heroes to look up at you, eyes ever so slightly wide. “Uh, yeah, they were actually. How did you know?” Hyrule asked.

“I just distinctly remember how they look and for some reason the name ‘bokoblin’ sounded like it would fit them, the word kind of reminds me of pigs and those monsters from before were very pig-like, I dunno.” Not the most eloquent train of thought for sure, but hey it was just how your mind worked. However, your answer seemed to make sense to them as you noticed a look of understanding across all three of their faces; the youngest’s smile in particular caught your eye.

“Yeah, they really do look like pigs!” he said through small giggles. The corners of your mouth turned upwards, it felt good to make someone laugh. 

Returning to the task at hand, Sky pulled out the small bag Wild gave him, the one you assumed to be filled with coins. However, when the brunette reached into the pouch, instead of pulling out a handful of brass and silver coins like you expected, he pulled out ten whole gemstones. They were small, but there wasn’t a doubt in your mind that they were actual gems. What boggled you however, was how casual the following transaction was:

“Thanks for all the business, you lot are always some of my favorite customers. I’ll be sure to restock by the time you come around again,” said the shop owner, a middle aged man with a small mustache.

“No problem, have a nice day sir!” Sky replied with a smile. 

He turned around and went to leave, the others followed right after, but you were left standing there dumbfounded that they used actual gemstones in this world as a form of currency and nobody batted an eye at it. Were gems just really common in this world? You stood there for another second before the shop owner’s scrutinising gaze shocked you at your stupor.

Embarrassed, cause you realized that you were just standing there like an idiot, you hurried after the others. Turns out they were waiting just outside the shop for you to follow, which made you feel even more embarrassed.

“S-Sorry,” you muttered while blushing. None of them seemed to mind, though.

“It's no problem, but let's get going now. There’s someone we have to talk to who lives up the hill so it’ll be a bit of a climb,” Sky said. They turned to start walking down the road, this time you were right with them.

A comfortable silence fell over your little group as the sounds of the lively village filled the air. You walked up to the youngest of the group and gave him a light tap on the shoulder, he hummed and turned to face her. 

“Hey, I hope it's not too much to ask, but I was just wondering if you could answer a question or two.” Wind gave a firm nod in response. “Alright, well, back there in the shop Sky used gems to pay for the groceries and I was wondering what that was all about.” A look of realization crossed the youngest’s face.

“Oh yeah! You probably don’t have rupees in your world do you!” 

You squint your eyes. “‘Rubies?’ But those gems weren’t all red, pretty sure some of them were blue and that technically makes them sapphires if I’m correct.”

Wind shook his head of blonde hair. “No no, not ‘rubies,’ ‘ rupees .’”

Your head tilted to the side a bit. “Ru.. pees ..?”

He gave a firm nod in response. “Rupees.”

Okay, so they weren’t any kind of gem from back home, at least not one you’d ever heard before. And you should know since you loved to research the hell out of gemstone terminology in middle school. Before you could ask any questions about rupees, Wind continued.

“Rupees come in lots of colors and each color has a different value.” The blonde reached into a purple bag attached to his hip and pulled out two of the gems you saw back at the store. “For example, green rupees always equal one rupee and are the most common kind of rupee you can find while blue rupees equal five.” You took the green rupee from his hand, eyes widening at the coolness of holding a genuine gemstone in your hand. 

You held up the green rupee to the light of the afternoon sun, fascinated by how it glittered in the light before attempting to give it back to the teenager. To your surprise, he put the blue rupee in your hand and pushed them both back to you. 

“Keep them, I’ve saved up a lot of rupees so I’ll be fine without them,” he said, giving you a warm smile. Your eyes lit up and a bright smile graced your face as you graciously thanked him. 

After you pocketed the rupees, Wind gave you a curious look of his own. “So, if you guys don’t use rupees in your world, what do you use?” His eyes began to sparkle with greed and the corners of his mouth pulled upwards into an ambitious smile. “I bet it's gold coins , right?”

...Oh, oh no. Mouth pulled into a straight line, you desperately tried to think of a way to gently break it to him that the rupee “equivalent” in your world was not solid gold coins. Gah, but he’s looking at you so expectantly! Well, better letting him down than lying to him.

“Uh, well, there are gold coins in my home, but I’m sorry to say that they aren’t our regular form of currency.” It hurt a bit to see him slouch a little and look at the dirt in disappointment, but you liked to believe that it was better than the alternative. To your surprise, however, Wind looked back up at you with a similar expectant expression, silently urging you to continue. “Um, it’s a bit complicated but to put it in simple terms, my world has countries and each country has its own form of currency. However, most of them involve the transaction of coins, usually made from a combination of zinc, copper, and nickel, and….paper.”

Wind had to do a double take. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that last part to me.”

A feeling akin to embarrassment crawled up your neck. “...Pa-per.” 

It took Wind to process the information you, begrudgingly, shared with him, but soon a grin that belonged on a gremlin grew on his face and giggles started to erupt from his throat and you were beginning to reconsider every decision that led up to this moment. 

You ducked your head down as the young boy’s laughter grew in volume, a blush growing on your cheeks from embarrassment. Admittedly, however, you didn’t really blame him for his reaction since paper is a lot less cool than gemstones. 

“Yeah yeah, have your laugh,” you said as he continued giggling. “Look, it’s not like I decided that the major world currency would be pieces of paper.” A realization came to mind as the blonde almed down from his laughing fit. You turned and gave him a bright smile. “You know what? I brought my phone with me, so I can actually show you the currency we use!”

You reached down into the pocket of your jeans, expecting your phone to be there since that was the last place you put it. However when you found absolutely nothing there, a more dread filled realization was thrust upon you. 

“Did I lose my phone!?”

><><><><><

So it turns out that you had a limited amount of chances to guess the right code, a piece of information that would’ve been helpful to know about ten minutes ago. 

Legend huffed and layed back on the ground, feeling utterly done with this entire situation, while Wild and Time chatted quietly over the cooking pot. They’d tried a few different codes, but then the damn machine figured out that they weren’t the owners of it and decided to shut itself down.

Granted, in an entirely different context, Legend could admit to appreciating that as a clever bit of design. However, much like when the veteran was stuck completing a dungeon now simply wasn’t the time for all that. 

Legend exhaled through his nose and glanced at the slate that was right by his head. Now, he knew better than to believe that (y/n) was very special in terms of her world’s overarching history(not an insult, just a fact), but that still didn’t take away from the fact that she was from an entirely different world. The blonde closed his eyes as questions and curiosities bounced around his skull.

A whole other world; not a kingdom far from Hyrule or a parallel universe, a different world all together. What was it like? Did they use swords and shields or have they advanced further? Legend has seen Wild do some pretty crazy things with his slate, so what might this one be capable of? Did they have magic? Monsters? Kingdoms? There were so many questions that could be answered if they just had the code to the slate and it was killing him.

“Boys, I think there's something I should tell you.” Time’s voice cut through Legend’s haze of thoughts. The vetern sat up and looked at the eldest who had a contemplative look on his face; the old man continued.

“I’ve been thinking and I’m going to let (y/n) come along with us,” he said, surprising both Legend and Wild. “Of course, I won’t force her to join us, but I feel the offer should be made nonetheless.” 

“Wait, hold on Time, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, not to be that guy, but it hasn’t exactly been an easy journey and having someone who can’t defend themselves isn’t going to make things any easier.” Legend’s standing on not disliking the young woman they saved still held up strong, even more so now that they had concrete evidence to back up what she had claimed hours before, but even still the veteran was pragmatic and didn’t see any possible advantages that came with having an untrained civilian accompany them on this very dangerous quest.

“Yes, I am aware. However, despite the changes we would have to make to accommodate one extra person, I believe that it would be her best option for returning home.” The blonde stood up and brushed himself off. “Now, I am going to discuss this with the others, hopefully they will share my view of things.”

As the eldest walked away, Legend groaned and flopped on his back. Wild chuckled at the young man’s reaction. “Oh come on, Legend! This won’t be so bad! Besides, it’s not like all of us were expertally trained in the ways of combat at the beginning of our journeys, so who knows! (y/n) could end up picking up a thing or two along the way if she does decide to come with us.”

Legend thought about the Champion’s words for a moment, before begrudgingly accepting them as a possible truth; she could learn how to defend herself, under the circumstances surrounding their current journey it’d be more surprising if she didn’t pick up a thing or two from them. 

The strawberry blonde rolled over onto his side, resigning himself to taking a nap until lunch was ready. “Yeah, well, let’s hope she’s a fast learner.”

><><><><><

It wasn’t too long before you were walking across the bridge that led back to the house. You had to admit that the telescope building on the top of the hill was very interesting and part of you wanted to meet the person who built it, however Sky had politely asked you to stay outside while they talked to the lady inside. Fortunately, you got to look through that giant telescope on the roof of the house and the view from on the very top of the house was incredible in it’s own right, so everything was fine.

On the way back, you chatted with the youngest as he asked what exactly a phone was. Needless to say it was a weird conversation, especially since he equated it to Wild’s “Sheikah Slate.” Though, a part of you felt a little bad that you basically only talked to Wind the entire time, it felt like you could’ve also gotten to know Sky and Hyrule along the way. Oh well, what can you do? But hey! At least you all completed the Ultra Legendary Grocery Shopping Quest without any problems, still wondering where that phone went, though.

As your group approached the house, the smell of what you assumed to be lunch reached your nose. You had absolutely no idea what was being served, but it smelt good. A warm smile graced your face, it had been a while since you’d had a home cooked meal since, in true college student fashion, your diet had consisted of microwavable meals, take out, the occasional vegetable, and ungodly amounts of coffee. 

Mom would have a stroke if she knew about that, you thought fondly.

Crossing the threshold, the group split off in a few different directions with Sky going to Wild(who was setting the table) to give him the groceries and Hyrule and Wind going to sit down and talk with the others who were on the second floor. You were originally going to return to your place on the stair, but soon decided on another course of action. Heading over to the scared male, you gave him a smile which he returned.

“Hey, I was wondering if you wanted any help setting the table,” you offered politely. At first, there was a small look of surprise in his eyes, but quick as it came it was brushed off and replaced with a grateful look.

“Sure!” he replied before gesturing over to a small table near the door. “The plates are over there, thanks for the help.” 

After getting the plates, you headed back over to the tables and helped Wild. While doing so, you noticed that there was an extra chair placed awkwardly at the corner, it was obvious that it was not originally supposed to be there; a bitter feeling settled in your chest upon the realisation that this was going to be your chair. You set down the last plate.

“Uh, you know I could always have lunch outside.” Your comment drew blue eyes to your form, and following your gaze they saw the chair you were making eye contact with. “It wouldn’t be a problem, I’m used to eating outside anyways.”

“Well, you can sit outside if you want to, but I- we don’t have any trouble with you sitting at the table. It would also be a good opportunity to talk about...things.” Wild’s reply comforted you and the corners of your mouth turned upwards.

“That sounds nice,” you replied, turning away from the chair and facing him fully. Your hands came together, palm against palm in front of your chest. “So! What are we having for lunch? Whatever was cooking smelled good and I’m getting hungry.”

Wild rubbed the back of his neck bashfully and smiled at your indirect praise. “It’s a dish called ‘Seafood Curry’ I learned in Lurelin Village. It has some Mighty Porgy, Hearty Blueshell Snail, Hylian Rice, Goron Spice- wait, you’re not allergic to any of these things are you?!”

You snickered at his panicked tone. “Nope!” you replied happily. “Was born lucky enough to not have any allergies.” But just for good measure your knuckles quietly tapped the bottom of the table.

Wild breathed a sigh of relief and straightened his posture, placing the last few utensils down. “That’s fortunate. Anyways, the tables set and lunch is ready so just have a seat while I get the food. I’ll bring the pot around so everyone will get an equal amount of food.” 

You did as Wild said and sat down as he left the house to get the cooking pot. At the sight of you sitting at the table, the others took it as a sign to have a seat as well. Hyrule took a seat on the left while the one with the blue scarf known as Warriors sat down on your right; you gave a small hello to both of them. Wild came back inside with the pot in hand and began filling everyone’s plate. Once everyone had enough, he put the pot over on the table where the plates were previously sitting and took a seat himself.

You looked down at your plate, utensil in hand. The scent wafting from the plate smelt downright heavenly and excitement began to bubble within you as you took your first bite; and let me tell you, there was not a clue in your mind what or where “Lurelin Village'' is, but if you ever went there you would praise them to heaven and back for being such culinary geniuses. The curry tasted absolutely amazing, you were by no means a poet but it wasn’t just your lack of poetry skills talking when you thought that this dish had left you speechless.

Gordon Ramsay would be shaking in his boots.

The thought came to you that it was also the skill of the chef who made this dish that you had to thank. You lifted your head up to look at Wild, and were surprised to see him already looking in your direction, anxiously awaiting your reaction. A warm smile spread across your face as you gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up; he smiled back.

A comfortable silence rested over the table, some heroes chatting amongst themselves and others just quietly enjoying their meal. You were among those who were just enjoying the meal, vibing with the curry, absolutely lost in the sauce, getting jiggy with the- 

“Miss (y/n), may I ask you a question?”

Time’s voice shook you from your thoughts as you looked up to make eye contact with the eldest. It was then that you realized that nearly everyone was looking at you.

“Uh, y-yea sir, what is it?” you said nervously, bringing your cup to your lips. You silently chastised yourself for stuttering but you couldn’t help it! The Old Man reminded you of some of your toughest professors from back home, serious and in charge, you couldn’t help but feel obligated to show some respect.

“I was wondering if you would like to join us on our journey?”

You blinked, stunned by his question. What in the world could he mean by that?

Chapter Text

Time’s question left you dumbfounded. “Join them on their journey,” it sounded like he wanted you to join their team. But that was silly! There’s no way you had the skills to stand alongside these guys!

Finally, after what seemed like a good five seconds, you snapped out of your stupor and set down your cup.

“Come again?” you asked smoothly. 

“Ah, my apologies, I shouldn’t have started off so strongly.” Time looked away from you for a moment, silently chastising himself for his inability to beat around the bush. He turned back to you. “Perhaps I should explain what I mean more clearly. What I mean is, by all accounts there is a higher likelihood of you being able to return to your home if you accompanied us on our journey. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the chances of you returning drop to zero if you stayed here, but even still the option is there.”

“But if you wanted to just stay here you could stay here in my house while we’re gone!” Wild interjected and Time nodded as if to confirm that was also an option. 

You let their words sink in for a moment, the reality of your situation once again slapping you in the face, though you didn’t let it show. However, before you could speak up, another voice piped in.

“Hold up, before you make a decision, you should know exactly what our journey is like the majority of the time because rarely is it as easy going as days like these.” The voice in question turned out to be Legend, the pantless hero who made the sarcastic comments. This time, however, he seemed a little more serious with his arms crossed over his chest and eyes pointed firmly in your direction.

“That is a good point,” the eldest said, giving Legend a glance before looking back at you. “(y/n), you should know that our journey often takes us to dangerous parts of Hyrule where monsters and other such beasts thrive. Oftentimes we spend our days travelling and our nights sleeping under the little shelter a forest canopy can provide. It is not a pleasant experience, nor a painless one. I’m not trying to discourage you from joining us,” --you just barely noticed him give the veteran a sharp glare-- “however it is important that you know all the facts before making a definitive decision.”

You unconsciously brought a hand up to rub the back of your neck, thinking about the options laid out in front of you. On one hand, you could stay here in this cozy little village without having to worry about being killed or hurt or anything like that, but your chances of getting home become much more slim. On the other hand, you could go with them on this journey of theirs and see even more of this fantasy world and all it had to offer and the chances of you going home would increase significantly. 

But when you really thought about it, from that small experience you had just this morning, did you really have what it takes to survive in this world? I mean, sure you would be with people who could most definitely protect you if it got to that point, but did you really want to burden them with that kind of dead weight?

“I, uh, I don’t know if I can answer that right now,” you replied honestly. 

The older man seemed to understand that this was obviously kind of a big decision and gave you a nod as a show of understanding. “That is alright, however, we will be leaving first thing in the morning so please try to have an answer by then at the latest.”

Now it was your turn to nod as you looked back down at your half eaten lunch, suddenly not all that focussed on the food anymore. It soon dawned upon you that this was probably what Wild was talking about before when he said that you sitting at the table would allow everyone to talk about these so called “things,” you wondered what he thought about you joining them.

Soon, everyone had eaten their food and were starting to get up and walk around, but not before setting their plates in the sink; you grabbed your utensils and went over to do the same. When you got there you saw that Wild was already there, cleaning the dishes with a wet rag while humming peacefully. Part of you wanted to just set down your dishes and leave him to clean them in peace, you knew how nice it was to have a moment of peace alone, but the polite part of you that your mother always taught to be courteous when at someone else’s house told you to offer some help, so that's what you did.

“Hey,” you started politely, Wild stopped humming and turned away from the sink to look at you. “Do you want any help with the dishes? I’ve got nothing else to do so it wouldn’t be any trouble, unless you want to do them on your own, of course.”

“Yes, some help would be nice.” The blonde smiled and moved over to give you some room. You quickly moved into the spot he created for you and set down your dirty dishes to begin working on. Grabbing another rag that was laying near the sink, you rolled up your sleeves and turned on the faucet to wet the rag. After that you grabbed the first plate and began working on it, letting a comfortable silence wash over you and the young man beside you. As you scrubbed the plate clean you noticed that there wasn’t any food you had to scrape off into the sink or garbage can, just some spare bits of rice and curry sauce. In fact, most of the dishes only had little pieces of food still left on them.

“Wow, it looks like everyone made a clean plate, that really goes to show the quality of the chef,” you noted aloud, before a few quiet giggles fell from your mouth. “You know, back home whenever someone would make a clean plate like these, my dad used to call it ‘making a happy plate.’”

“Really?” Wild responded with a chuckle.

“I know, right!” The two of you laughed a little before going back to cleaning the dishes. It wasn’t long before the task was finished; you set down your items and turned to leave, but Wild spoke up before you could begin walking.

“Oh wait!” he called out, setting his own things down. You looked over your shoulder to look at him as a sign to continue. “Do you mind if we talk outside? There’s something I need to show you.”

With a simple nod of your head, the two of you headed out the front door. The blonde took the lead shortly after that as you followed him; he led you to the left side of the house near a pond under an apple tree. It was honestly a very pretty place with the light of the afternoon sun reflecting off of the water, and you had to admit that the grass here seemed greener than the grass back home and you can’t recall ever seeing a genuine apple tree before.

If you had your phone you would’ve definitely taken a picture.

Wild sat down on the grass beneath the tree and patted the space next to him good naturedly, you complied and took a seat beside him.

“So, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?” you asked.

“Well,” he said, reaching into a small bag attached to his belt. “I believe you dropped something this morning and I wanted to return it to you.” Low and behold when he pulled his hand out of the bag, in his palm was your phone! Still in its case with all the stickers attached to it.

“Oh my gosh, you found it!” You took the object from his grasp and looked it over, only stopping once you were sure it wasn’t broken or damaged in any way. “Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!”

“No problem!” Wild replied with a grin. “Although, I would actually like to know what this is, it looks a lot like my Sheikah Slate but I’m not sure if they’re actually the same or not.”

If I had a nickel for everytime someone has compared my phone to a “Sheikah Slate” I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it's weird that it happened twice, you thought as you quickly told him that your phone isn’t a Sheikah Slate. In fact, you didn’t even know what that was! 

You held up your phone for the two of you to see before lightly tapping the dark screen, activating your phone. With the muscle memory you’d gotten from using the same passcode for every phone you’ve had over the past four years, you punched in the code and unlocked your phone. You glanced at Wild and the corners of your mouth twitched upward as you saw him look at the home screen with wide, curious eyes.

But before you could get a word out, Wild beat you to it with a blunt “Do you have runes on your phone?”

“Uh…” What in tarnation is a rune?! “..No...but I do have Uno!”

The blonde quirked a brow at you as your free hand went up to nervously rubbed your arm. “Actually, now that you mention it, what is a Sheikah Slate? Wind mentioned it before and I’m really starting to get curious!” you asked. 

“This is a Sheikah Slate,” Wild replied, pulling a large phone-like object from his hip. Okay, now you could see why both he and Wind made that connection, your phone and his slate did resemble each other; although, your phone was much smaller and thinner than his slate. The scarred male tapped the middle of the screen, a blue eye symbol popped up on the screen before disappearing, leaving the image of a map on the screen. 

“This is my map, it depicts the entirety of my era’s Hyrule. Right now it’s zoomed in on Hateno Village because that's where we are right now.” In a few swipes, Wild zoomed out, giving you a good feeling of just how massive his kingdom was. While you were busy staring in awe at how big the map was, a small detail caught your eye.

“What are those little blue icons?” you asked curiously. 

“Those are shrines, when I tap the icon on the screen I’ll teleport to whatever shrine it represents!” he explained as you gaped at him. Teleportation was possible here, that’s so cool! You supposed you shouldn’t be so surprised since Hyrule had healed you with magic just a few hours ago, but still!

You shook your head a little to bring yourself back from your stupor. “One last question,” you stated with a firmness to your voice. “What is a rune? I’ve heard the term before in my world, but I’m like ninety percent sure we don’t have the same definition.

Wild swiped again and his screen changed from the map to a dark background with six boxes, each box had its own little icon in the middle. “These are my Sheikah Slate’s runes, they each have their own special function.” He pointed to the pink magnet icon. “For example, this is my Magnesis Rune, it allows me to create a magnetic force to lift and carry metal objects.”

It took everything in your power not to let your jaw drop to the ground at his very casual statement.

You sat there in stunned silence for a good thirty seconds, eyes wide as the moon herself. The silence was broken when the blonde in front of you let out a hearty laugh. Confusion filled your features as you watched the man chuckle before he looked back up at you with a bit of bashfulness in his features.

“Sorry, sorry! It’s just..I’ve never gotten that reaction to my slate before,” he explained as he straightened up, the last few giggles leaving his throat.

“Ah geez, well, maybe this is normal for you, but it is definitely anything but where I’m from.” You put a hand to the back of your neck, trying to figure out some way to explain to him how unnatural you found this to be. “I mean, how does it even do that? Magic?”

Wild had to think about it for a moment. “Kind of.”

You groaned and went to rest your head in your hands as Wild chuckled some more and gave you a friendly pat on the shoulder; if everything in Hyrule followed this kind of logic then your science loving brain would implode on itself from trying to understand it.

“Anyways, now that I’ve shown you my slate, I’m eager to learn about your’s.” The man hooked his slate back onto his belt, an expectant look on his face. That was basically all you needed to recover from your mini crisis.

“Okay then, but don’t get your hopes too high because mine isn’t nearly as advanced as yours. Also it’s called a phone.” Plugging in the passcode once again, you let your screen rest on the homepage where all your apps were. “So, first of all my phone has what are called ‘apps,’ they allow me to do lots of different things.”

“Like a rune,” Wild said calmly with a nod of his head.

“No,” you replied firmly. “From what I can tell right now, your runes allow your slate to affect the physical world, my apps can’t do anything like that; you’re not going to find any apps that can..” -you waved your hand a little as your brows furrowed a bit while you tried to come up with something off the top of your head- ”make..fire appear from nowhere.”

You saw the man deflate a tiny bit, but decided to keep going for now. “Instead, my apps allow me to do things like make calls, draw things, or take photos.” 

Wild straightened up at those last words. “Photos? You have a Camera Rune on your phone?” he asked with a subtle tone of eagerness to his voice.

You blinked in surprise, he knew what a camera was? “Uh, yes, but it's actually called a camera app in my world.”

The blonde grinned widely. “Can I see some of your photos?” he asked excitedly before realizing how personal they might be. He has a camera album of his own y’know and he doesn’t exactly show it off to people he just met. His expression soon turned embarrassed and apologetic. “Wait, I’m sorry that was a rude thing to ask.”

Instead of getting angered or apprehensive or anything like that, you simply smiled and shrugged at him. “No worries, I don’t mind,” you assured nonchalantly, you had nothing to hide anyways so why not?

Wild smiled back at you, moving over a little bit so you could sit down comfortably beside him in the shade. You once again took a seat beside him and opened up the photos app, making sure your phone was in a position where you could both see it while also not encroaching on his personal space.

For the next few minutes, you scrolled through the pictures you had taken on your phone, giving a brief explanation of what was going on in each one. You showed him photos of when you moved into your dorm room, of graffiti in alleyways and behind businesses, of yourself trying on a new outfit, of that chunky slug you and your roommate found outside your dorm room that the two of you named Jerry. 

And as you continued to scroll through, browsing through this album of memories and reflecting on what you were feeling when this happened, a feeling of nostalgia washed over you...as well as sadness; these photos reminded you of where you were sitting at the moment. You weren’t in your dorm room sitting on your bed, you were in a completely different world. There was an unfathomable distance between you and your friends, and your family, and your life, and your home.

Home, you wanted to go home.

You stilled for a second, turning your phone off and pulling it close. Looking up at Wild, you saw him giving you a confused expression, wondering why you suddenly stopped. You took a deep breath, hoping that this wouldn’t be too awkward. 

“Hey, um, would you personally be okay with me coming with you guys?” you asked quietly, holding back any signs of the sadness you were feeling.

Wild’s eyes widened in surprise, he wasn’t expecting you to ask him this question. You sat in a stiff silence, expecting the worst. The blonde thought for a moment before he replied with an honest and truthful: “No, I wouldn’t mind at all.”

It took you a few seconds to fully process his answer before you let out a breath you didn’t you were holding in. “Good, that's good,” you said, smiling slightly. “I just hope that your other friends will feel the same way.”

Pocketing your phone, you stood up with your hands on your hips. “Whelp, there’s no sense in putting off telling Mr. Time that I’ve made my decision,” you stated as Wild moved to stand up as well.

“Mr. Time? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call him that before,” he commented through subdued snickers while the two of you headed inside.

“Oh, really?” you replied, a very faint blush of embarrassment coating your cheeks. “He just seems so serious to me, it feels like I have to address him with respect, y’know?”

“You shouldn’t worry too much about things like that, don’t you know that we call him stuff like Old Man?” A few giggles left your mouth at his answer, but you soon quieted down as you crossed the threshold and the eyes of the heroes landed on you, each watching you from their scattered positions about the house.

Butterflies danced in your stomach as you took a few steadying breaths, the situation reminded you of those times in middle school when you had to speak in front of the class; even to this day you’d still feel your hands shake a bit as a funny feeling filled your gut. Though, it helped that Wild was standing beside you, it would be naive to say that the two of you were bffs, but considering today’s interactions it wouldn’t be far off to say that in the coming weeks you and the Champion could become friends; yeah, friends, that sounds nice.

“So, uh, I’ve thought about it and..I’ve decided that I want to come with you guys. I hope that’s okay with everyone.” you stated, trying your hardest not to just stare at the floor like you usually do. 

To your surprise, and thankfulness, the men in front of you didn’t seem upset in the slightest, some even smiled a bit. “No need to be anxious, I wouldn’t have offered this to you if I wasn’t sure that everyone would be okay with it,” Time said from his spot at the table

Once again you sighed in relief as you felt the blonde beside you pat your shoulder.

“I’m glad you’ve decided to join us,” said Sky in his usual kind manner as he stood up from his seat and calmly approached you. “However, I do believe that in this turn of events, you are going to need a change of clothes.”

You tilted your head in confusion. New clothes? What was wrong with what you were wearing now?

Noticing your confusion, Sky decided to continue. “You see, we try to keep our interactions with any locals we come across as swift and smooth as possible. And I believe your current attire will only make that more difficult.” Despite the brunette’s attempts to explain, you were still left a little confused, so Hyrule decided to just cut to the chase.

“Your clothes make you stick out like a sore thumb,” he said bluntly, coming up to lean on Sky’s shoulder.

“Oh!” you gasped in realization. You glanced down at your modern clothes which, yeah, of course would stick out in a medieval setting. Your lips pressed into a thin line as a short “hm” left your throat.

At your reaction, the two men standing in front of you smiled. “Are you just now realizing this?” Sky asked as he tried to hold back a few giggles; your half-hearted shrug was all the answer he needed.

“You were getting stared at all day, how did you not notice?” Hyrule laughed, removing himself from Sky’s shoulder.

The youngest and you made silent eye contact for a second, before giving each other a subtle, knowing nod.

Time walked over. “He’s got a point, your clothes are very abnormal considering the circumstances.” You tried not to feel offended by that comment. “We should purchase something new for you to wear before we leave tomorrow.”

“Oh! I know!” Wild yelped suddenly, an expression of realization taking over his features. “There's a clothing shop right around the corner from here, we could head over there now and find something for her to wear.”

“That would be ideal,” Time agreed before heading out the door, motioning for everyone else to follow. As the others stood up from their places, Wild said something to you. 

“I’m sure we’ll find something good for you to wear,” he said with a friendly smile.

“I hope so,” you replied, walking beside him as you walked out the door. “I’ve never liked the feeling of being stared at.”

Wild gave you a sympathetic look. “Trust me, I know how you feel.”

The walk to the clothing shop wasn’t long at all, considering it was just a little ways from Wild’s house, but it felt just a smidge longer than it should have been. That was probably because it was only now that you realized that Sky and Hyrule were completely right, people were staring at you. However, you understood that this was to be expected, but it still felt uncomfortable!

The fact that the Ventest Clothing Boutique turned out to be largely unpopulated aside from the owner was greatly appreciated.

While inside, Wild and the other mostly paid attention to the person running the store, a young woman with short hair that grazed her shoulders. You, on the other hand, were preoccupied with browsing through the clothing items which were all displayed on mannequins.

(e/c) eyes swept across each article of clothing, observing the details in the stitching and taking a few moments to touch each, getting a feel for how the material felt on your skin. In doing so, you found that some of the outfits, not the sets of armour you didn’t bother with, would be more comfortable than others.

Few minutes had passed from the moment you walked in through the front door to where you were right now, and right now you were looking at a tunic that felt like it was perfect for you.

It consisted of two layers, a high collared, long sleeved shirt on the inside and a short sleeved shirt on the outside, neither being too thick for you to wear comfortably. There was a clothlike material that wrapped around the waist. Of course you’d pair it with the beige pants and knee high boots that were displayed right next to the tunic and to tie it all together was a headscarf.

The tunic was even your favorite color, it was your favorite outfit in the entire store.

“Ooh, this one looks nice.” A voice startled you out of your thoughts and it was only then that you realized that the one called Warriors was standing beside you.

“Holy crap you scared me!” you yelped while staring at the blonde with wide eyes.

“My apologies, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you there,” Warriors replied apologetically before turning his gaze back to the tunic. “But it really is a fine piece of clothing, is this the one you want?”

“Yeah, I’d also like to get a pair of pants and boots to go along with it, if that’s alright,” you replied.

“Naturally,” he said with a nod. The blonde thought for a moment before he turned around and headed towards the woman the other were talking with. “Ma’am, I would like to purchase a pair of Hylian Trousers along with that tunic over there.”

A gasp left your mouth as the man handed over the correct amount of rupees to the woman, your lips curled up into a smile at his kindness.

“You didn’t have to do that, Captain, I was planning on taking care of it myself,” Wild said as he watched Sophie hand over the purchased items to the blonde.

“It’s alright, I just thought that it would be a nice thing to do, that's all,” Warriors stated as he handed the clothes over to you. 

You looked up at him with a large smile. “Thank you so much!” you said happily as Sophie directed you towards the dressing room, which was just a repurposed closet

Stepping inside the small room and shutting the door behind you, you took notice of the full sized mirror on the wall. Not wanting to keep the others waiting, you set down your new clothes and began to peel off your old ones, save for your underwear and socks for obvious reasons.

After that, you begin to put on your new ones, making sure that you put them on in the correct order. Once you pulled on your new pair of boots and tucked your pants into them, nimble hands took hold of the scarf resting on your lap as you tied it in such a way that it complimented your hair.

You stood up and observed yourself in the mirror, turning around to see what it looked like from other angles and admiring the details in the embroidery. I look so freaking cool! you thought as you beamed, you felt like a cosplayer and, honestly, it was great!  

Once you were satisfied with it, you folded up your modern clothes and walked back outside and joined back up with the others.

“So? How do I look?” you asked with a cheeky grin, doing a tiny spin so they could see the back.

“You look great!” Wind replied with a large, toothy grin and a thumbs up. The others gave similar responses, though not as enthusiastic as the young blonde’s. 

“Well now that that's settled, we should head back to the house,” Time said before turning to you. “We’ll be heading out first thing in the morning so expect to be woken up early and to be walking for a large period of time.”

For the first time since you graduated high school, you actually thanked your college for its strict and unyielding schedule. All those long days of getting up at the butt crack of dawn and walking all over campus has prepared you for this.

The group began to exit the building and you were quick to follow. Sky approached you and gestured to the pile of clothes in your arms.

“Since you won’t be wearing these for a while, why don’t I put them in my bag,” he proposed politely. You asked him if he would really be alright with carrying your clothes and he replied that there was plenty of space in his bag. 

“Well, if you insist,” you said as you handed him your clothes. He nodded at you before walking ahead with the rest of the group while you trailed behind near the back. Looking around, you saw how nobody stared at you the way they did just a few minutes ago and felt kinda happy that the clothes did their job, people staring had always made you feel nervous.

(e/c) eyes glanced up to see the sky begin to fade from blue into a gradient of orange and yellow. Thoughts filled your head about what tomorrow would bring and a kiddish smile rested on your lips.

A new world, you wondered what it would be like.

Chapter Text

The rest of the day came and went with little complications; Wild made a delicious dinner, you all enjoyed it, then everyone went to bed. However, since there was only one bed in the house the sleeping situation was a bit complicated. You hesitated from asking since you didn’t want to come across as a complainer before your first real day as a part of this group, but thankfully Twilight ended up explaining it to you once he saw your confusion.

“It’s a bit of a cozy predicament, but we try and make do by sleeping on our bed rolls,” he explained kindly, taking out his own and setting it on the floor. You nodded in understanding, but soon found yourself wondering where you would sleep since you didn’t have a bed roll. It would be impolite to ask Wild to give up his bed, and far, far too awkward to sleep in someone else’s bed roll since you’d just met everyone.

But to your surprise, the team leader, Time, approached you with a spare sleeping matt. “While everyone was having dinner, I decided to go out and purchase you a bed roll for you to use,” Time said as he placed the sleeping mat in your hands. 

“Thanks, you're a lifesaver!” you thanked with a grateful smile. He gave a small nod in return before going off to do his own thing while you looked for a place to put your mat. Eventually you found an empty place in the corner with the nearest person there being the shortest hero of the bunch. Not that you judged him for it since you were only a little bit taller than the youngest...and he looks like he’s fourteen years old while you were nineteen.

“Hey,” you greeted politely, squatting down near the spot you planned to put your mat. “Is it okay to sleep here?”

“Sure, go ahead,” he replied, getting comfortable in his bed roll.

With that out of the way, you rolled out your bed mat, placed the small pillow in the spot where your head would be, and placed the blanket over top of it. Smiling in the slight satisfaction of your work, you looked around and noticed that the others were still wearing their clothes from the day minus most of the unnecessary additions such as shoes, armour, and outer layers.

A tiny grimace settled upon your face at the idea of no pajamas, you remembered the countless times you’d slept in your clothes in college.

Nobody said this would be a vacation, (y/n), just be thankful that they’re letting you come with them in the first place, you thought to yourself as you followed the other’s leads and began to take off your own boots and outer layers.

After you set your clothes in a neat little pile beside your mat, you got comfortable under your blanket, by now someone had turned off the lights(which also begged the question of the existence of electricity in this world but you were too tired to start asking questions).

As you began to get cozy, the sound of subtle whispers graced your ears, quiet “goodnight”-s and “see you in morning”-s that would be expected from a group of friends. Unsurprisingly, you didn’t hear your name once in their whispers, but no offense was taken.

It wasn’t long before things started to quiet down and with that you actually decided to pull out your phone. Plugging in the passcode, you were brought to your camera roll. You scrolled through your photos till you landed on one of you and your two closest friends, your roommate Nicolai and your best friend Tess during a festival your college held.

Tess, being the tallest of you three, had you and Nic in a playful headlock under each arm, a big toothy grin on her face. Nic was more than a bit ruffled as he struggled under her grip while you were in the middle of laughing without a care in the world.

It sunk in that you weren’t going to see them for a while, and a feeling of sadness settled in your chest.

You lightly touched the screen, grazing delicately over their faces. “Don’t worry, guys,” you whispered to yourself as quietly as possible so as to not disturb the others around you. “I’m going to find a way back to you, I promise.” With that quiet oath secured in your heart, you put away your phone and allowed the gentle call of slumber lead you away...

><><><><><

The feeling of people walking was the first thing your mind registered that next morning, of vibrations travelling through the floor and subtly shaking your body. Next it was the sound of people chattering amongst themselves, you couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying but you knew that they were talking. And lastly it was the smell of something cooking, something that smelt good, like bacon and eggs.

There was a slight grumble in your stomach…

Motivated by the promise of a good breakfast, you sat up on your bed mat as you brought a hand up to rub the sleepiness from your eyes. A short moment went by as you attempted to wake a bit, a quiet yawn! escaping your mouth, before you looked around the room. The door to the house was wide open, it was only now that you were sitting up that you felt the chill draft coming in.

Looking at the distant view of the sky peaking just above the houses you noted that it was quite early in the morning, only about an hour or so after when you would regularly wake up for class. If you squint your eyes you could see Wild(who by now you just assumed to be the one to have taken on the role as the group’s chef) kneeling down at something which you determined to be the source of the smell wafting through the air.

You blinked once, then twice, before finally turning to find the source of the chatter. Over by the table was Time, Twilight, and Four. They were making quiet conversation at the table as Wild came back in with a few plates. A quick glance around you indicated that everyone else was either still asleep or resting in their bed mats, you had to admit that you wanted to as well.

However, the gluttony in you was too strong and soon you were forcing yourself to stand up from your spot on the floor. Then, as quietly as you possibly could, you headed over to the table and decided to take a seat in the chair you’d sat in yesterday.

“Good morning…” you yawned out as you slumped back in the chair. The others repeated your polite gesture with small smiles on their faces.

“Good morning to you as well, Miss (y/n),” Time said, looking way too professional for someone who had been awake longer than you. “I’m surprised you managed to get up so early on your own, we’d believed that someone would have to wake you up later.”

“Nah, you don’t need to worry about that,” you said with a tired wave of your hand. “I’m already used to waking up early so this is pretty much standard for me.” 

“That’s good, that’ll make adjusting to our usual routine much easier for you.” The man looked down from you to an object he was holding in his hands, which you quickly recognized as Wild’s Sheikah Slate. Though your eyes remained lidded from being so tired, you watched curiously as he swiped the screen so that he was viewing the map.

From there he and the others as the table began discussing...something, you were still out of the loop. Time said something about monsters, Twilight mentioned something about roads and paths through the woods, Four brought up something about supplies, and Wild was quick to mention the word “Akkala.”

It took you a moment for your half-asleep mind to process the information, but you were able to put the pieces together soon enough. “Are you guys”- yawn! -”making plans, or something like that..?” you asked, putting your elbow on the table and resting your head against your palm.

The four looked at you in subtle surprise, not expecting you to comment on what they were doing.

“Uh, yes actually,” Twilight answered first. The brunette leaned forward a bit, his elbows resting against the hardwood piece of furniture. “We’re planning on where we should go and what route we should take to get there. There are multiple factors that determine this so usually we try and discuss it with everyone. Once the others decide to get up we’ll go over it with them as well.”

With a sluggish nod of your head, you let your eyes become unfocused as the others began to talk around you though you didn’t pay attention to what they were saying this time. After what felt like a minute or two, you felt a hand on your shoulder which shocked you back to reality. Looking up with slightly wide eyes, you saw Twilight standing behind you with a smile.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt you dozing off,” he said with a subtle yet smooth country accent woven into his voice. “But I was wondering if you’d like to come with me while I go get my horse from the stable.”

You blinked once as your tired mind processed his words, but once they’d sunk in it felt like every ounce of sleepiness in you had dried up. “Sure, I’d love to!” you replied as you stood up from your seat and went back over to your sleeping mat where you’d left the rest of your clothes.

Apparently while you had been dozing off most of the others who were still resting had gotten up and were getting ready for the day. Twilight waited at the door with a large saddle on his shoulder as you quickly put back on all your clothes which, thankfully, you still remembered which order they went in.

As the group of men behind you began to discuss their plans, you instead followed Twilight as he walked outside. The brunette walked over the bridge and towards the main part of town where a few people had already woken up and were beginning their daily routine.

However, Twilight didn’t head for any of the shops, instead he headed for a stable where a beautiful, brown horse was resting. You observed quietly as the ranch hand gently woke the beast up and whispered quiet good mornings to her as she stood up. A tiny smile had settled upon your face as you watched the adorable display. 

Twilight glanced at you and then back to his steed, before motioning you to come closer. You blinked in surprise before shyly walking closer. The brunette’s smile broadened a tiny bit as he watched you approach the mare slowly as to try not to spook you.

“(y/n), meet Epona,” he said calmly as you made eye contact with her. “She’s been with me since the beginning of my journey, she’s a treasured friend of mine.”

Your smile widened a bit as you got closer to her. “Hi Epona, it’s nice to meet you!” To your delight, she nodded at you as if to say hello back; it took everything in you not to giggle like a little girl. 

Twilight put the saddle onto Epona and gently took the reins into his hands as you took a step back and watched from the appropriate distance. Soon, you were once again following him as he gently began to lead Epona back to the house. The walk back to the house was just like the one from the house, comfortable and quiet. However, there was an awkward silence in the air as neither you nor Twilight knew what to say.

Without any real plan, you jogged till you were side by side with the brunette and blurted out: “So, what’s Hyrule like?” Internally you felt like facepalming at such a redundant question, so when the rancher looked at you with a slightly confused expression you knew that you had to elaborate. “Uh, I mean, the first real experience I had here was getting chased by some pig monsters. It wasn’t exactly what I’d call a good first impression, y’know?” you quickly explained with a few vague hand gestures. 

Twilight winced slightly at the memory, apparently understanding your feelings. “Right, you’ve got a point. I suppose it would be expected that you wouldn’t exactly enjoy being randomly attacked.”

“Nope,” you said, popping the p. “Not at all.”

The man nodded as he thought of an answer to your original question before continuing.

“Well, it's a very spiritual kingdom, the people are eccentric and dutiful. Each race has a rich culture that I’m sure you’ll be fascinated by. Wild’s era is much less restrictive than any of ours, and nature is free to flourish in blossom in ways that ours aren’t. It’s also much more overrun with monsters, it is unfortunate that your first good look at this world was its dangers.” 

Twilight turned to look at you in the eyes and smiled politely. “However, I’m sure that once you have the opportunity you’ll see that Hyrule’s wonders outweigh its horrors. Hopefully you’ll grow fond of it for however long you’ll be here.”

You returned his smile with a cheeky grin of your own. “I’ll be the one to decide that”--you gently jabbed at his arm with your fist--”but I trust you wouldn’t lead a stranded young girl astray.” The man chuckled at your words and a few small giggles left your lips as well.

After the two of you returned to the others, Wild had already finished breakfast which you were eager to enjoy. Breakfast went over pretty quickly as it was pretty light, all things considered, just some eggs and a few pieces of bacon for the whole table. Afterwards, once everything had been cleaned up and everyone’s sleeping rolls had been packed away onto Epona, it was time to leave!

It seemed like a pretty normal and casual event for the heroes as they headed outside and across the bridge, just like yesterday Time was in the front leading and you ended up in the back by virtue of being the last person out of the house. As the group passed the gate that signaled the entrance to Hateno Village, you heard the boys began to talk amongst themselves while you started to space out, thoughts of things back home filling your head.

You don’t entirely know how much time has passed since the group had left Hateno Village, but you had spaced out the entire time until a hand clapped down on your shoulder and brought you out of your head. Looking up, you saw that Hyrule had slowed down and was walking side by side with you. He gave you a small smile that was tinged with the tiniest hint of worry.

“Are you alright? You’ve been silent this whole time,” he asked.

You blinked. “Wait, how long have we been walking?” you asked, surprise and confusion lacing your tone. You swiveled your head around to get a look at the surroundings and saw that you and the others had to be pretty far from the village.

“Uh, about twenty or thirty minutes,” Hyrule answered.

You slapped a hand to your forehead, that was the second time today you’d spaced out for a considerable amount of time and it made you feel even more of an airhead than you already were; for a college student your dissociation game should not be this strong. As you groaned to yourself, the brunette beside you chuckled a bit and patted your shoulder in an attempt to comfort you.

“There’s not much to fret over, you didn’t miss much while you were spacing out.” Hyrule removed his hand from your shoulder and pointed to something above the two of you. “But, I’m glad I caught you now.”

Removing your hand from your face, you quirked a brow at him as he gave you a grin, before following his finger up to see…

What in the world!

“..That...is so cool..!” you said in awe as Hyrule’s grin grew wider.

High up, perched upon a rock cliff was the most magitech looking thing you have ever seen in your life. It was a tower, standing tall atop the cliff, you could just faintly see what looked like vines wrapping around it with them concentrating near the bottom. But what made this tower so interesting was how it had a ladder-like scaffolding with balconies attached to it in multiple places. The scaffolding wrapped around a central tower that glowed a striking electric blue even during broad daylight.

There were practically stars in your eyes as you gazed up at it in wonder.

While you were busy being awestruck, Wild walked up to Hyrule and quietly asked him a question while you quickly pulled out your phone to take a picture.

“What are you doing?” Wild asked with a confused look on his face, Hyrule glanced at him but soon returned his eyes to your form. He shrugged.

“I don’t quite know myself, but I have a feeling that Miss (y/n) is going to be quite dazzled at what our world has to offer,” he stated with a small grin. Hazel eyes soon caught onto the phone in your hands, he quirked a brow and pointed to it.

“Is that the Sheikah Slate you and Time told us about?” Wild looked at where he was pointing and a look of recognition crossed his face.

“Yes actually, though her people call it a ‘phone,’ not a Sheikah Slate,” he answered as Hyrule absorbed the information. It wasn’t long before you continued down the path and the two traveling heroes were quick to follow her. You kept on either looking down at the photo on your phone and looking back at the actual tower, but soon your attention was caught by a large fort that looked fairly old; you gazed up at it in slight wonder.

Was this an old military base or something? you thought, eyeing the scaffolding and cracked stone. 

However, all thoughts about the structure were quickly pushed to the side once you saw what was on the other side of it. A gasp left your lips as you stared out at what lay just beyond the stone wall.

“They’re called Guardians,” Wild stated suddenly, surprising you as he came up to stand near you. You repeated that word in a mutter, before turning back to look at the field that was covered in these spider-like robots that looked like something out of a fantasy book, though they seemed far older than you realized.

The early afternoon sun washed down onto the field, making the rusted and old metal of the...Guardians, as Wild called them, gleam in a dull way. They littered the field like flowers dotting a hillside. Sitting alongside the hunks of rusted metal were the broken bits and pieces of buildings long since destroyed. There was something so strange and peaceful about the field with the broken remains of the robots and old ruins being covered in overgrown vines and moss, the sea of grass they all sat on being a healthy green; despite whatever those Guardians had once done, nature had continued on its natural course.

You stood there for a moment, gaping at the foreign sight, before you moved closer to get a better look with equal parts curiosity and caution leading the way. In the process, you had strayed from the path more than a bit, but Hyrule and Wild followed a few paces behind you. The two watched as you got close enough to touch one of them, but you seemed hesitant to actually make contact; Hyrule looked calm while in contrast Wild looked just a bit...somber

“You can touch it, y’know,” Hyrule spoke up, making you look back at him. He smiled at you, though not with the exact energy he had prior with the Sheikah Tower. “Don’t worry, these things have been deactivated for a very long time, it can’t hurt you. Right, Cook?”

At the mention of his nickname, the blonde looked up and looked between the two of you for a moment. He immediately shook off the somber look and a smile rested upon his face. “That’s right, besides, if it was dangerous we wouldn’t have let you go near it in the first place.”

You smiled at his confirmation, a quick reply of “Right,” leaving your lips, as you turned back to the Guardian with eager eyes. With only a fraction of the hesitation you had before you pressed your palm to the rusted metal, taking in how it felt on your skin. Being this close to it, you raked your eyes over its entire structure, mouth ever so slightly agape as you slowly circled around it. You practically drunk in every detail, from the odd design of the “head” to the unique swirling patterns carved into the main torso. 

It was safe to say that you were positively fascinated by it, even though that was just fancy talk for “you were nerding out about how cool it is.”

“Wow, you look quite enamored with that one!” The Traveler’s voice brought you back to reality as you looked over to see him and Wild smiling with what seemed to be a mix of pride and amusement in their eye. 

Honestly though, you couldn’t care, this was one of the coolest things you’ve seen in a while and you already had about a dozen questions on it ranging from “What were these built for and who built them in the first place?” to “What material is the body made out of because it can’t just be a pure metal right? It’s gotta be some sort of alloy for it to be flexible enough to carve into while also being strong enough to be resilient to damage or maybe they have a special kind of metal here that naturally allows for this sort of behavior”-

“Okay settle down ma’am, I am afraid you are asking the wrong person, but I admire your curiosity,” Wild said suddenly, looking just the tiniest bit overwhelmed, beside him Hyrule was snickering though he covered it with his hand.

“Huh, I didn’t say anything,” you replied with a confused expression.

“You were saying everything aloud,” Hyrule stated through subdued chuckles.

“Oh, sorry.” Immediately you felt your previous enthusiasm become obscured by embarrassment as your cheeks became more than a little flushed. You awkwardly stepped away from the decayed Guardian with a hand coming across your stomach to hold your other arm. Wild came up and gave you a reassuring smile.

“It’s fine, I’m actually kind of glad you’re so fascinated by it.” He turned and faced the hunk of metal, his expression taking on a grim look as he placed his own hand onto the metal. “These Guardians were once used for terrible things, but in the beginning they were made to protect people.Though the damage they’ve caused can never be forgotten, it's nice when those like you can look at what remains of them and still see something worth more than destruction.”

Destruction? That sounds...ominous, you thought as you watched the blonde man with curious yet sympathetic eyes, he seemed a bit torn up about this subject. You turned your head to look back at the field once again. I wonder what exactly happened here. I’ve got so many questions that I’d really like to ask ask him, but…

Wild quickly looked up and made eye contact with you, your elbow playfully nudging him in the side. You smiled at him.

“Hey, whatever happened here it clearly happened a long time ago, and besides it won’t help anyone to agonize over it now, right?” you proposed with a bounce of your shoulders.

Wild took a moment to process your words before the tension eased out of his soldiers, a small smile appeared on his face. “You’re right, there really isn’t any benefit to be gained from that way of thinking.”

Both you and Hyrule smiled at the man as he turned away from the decayed Guardian, you nodded firmly. “Good.”

“ARE YOU THREE COMING OR WHAT!”

The sudden shout that called out shocked the three of you, the three of you snapped your heads over the direction of the voice. Over near where the trail was close to the rock wall of the mountain, the rest of the group had stopped once they noticed that they were missing a few members; the one who yelled was the youngest, his hands on his hips as he looked over at the three of you. For the second time that day, you flushed slightly in embarrassment since it was technically you who stepped off the path first.

Seriously (y/n), it’s your first day and you’re already getting distracted!  you internally scolded as you rubbed your arm. Beside you, Wild was chuckling nervously and Hyrule had a hand on the back of his neck. None of you needed or wanted to be told twice to hurry up so you quickly got back on the path heading towards the group. There was a slightly uncomfortable silence around you as the three of you started to catch up with them, a silence that you wanted to break; but before you could say anything, Wild beat you to it.

“So, he started. “What do you like to do? From the way you were talking back there it sounded like you were a scholar. A small snicker left your mouth at the thought.

“No no, I’m just a student. But, I suppose I’m just curious about a lot of things. I like coming up with theories and writing down observations,” you answered with a grin before you began to speed up a bit. “Anyways, I think we should start jogging now to catch up with the others.”

The duo quickly nodded and you took that as a sign to speed up and out of earshot of them; Hyrule and Wild also began to speed up but not as much as you did. While they jogged alongside each other, Hyrule looked at Wild with a teasing smile.

“She really is quite like your Zelda, isn’t she, even if she is much more open and friendly,” he commented as Wild glanced at him.

“Yup, I’ve got a feeling those two are going to be best friends once they get to know each other,” Wild replied, looking forward. “That is, if she sticks around long enough to meet Zelda that is.”

Hyrule deflated a tiny bit at his friend’s words. “Oh, that’s right. Well, I suppose it would be for the best that she is returned to her home before we arrive back in your era again. I’m sure we’ll be able to make sure that happens, right?”

“Quite.”

The two heroes caught up with the group soon after that and Warriors and Time ended up giving them a light scolding as everyone kept on walking. Meanwhile Twilight had slowed down enough that you and him were walking side by side, Epona’s reigns still in his hands. The ranch hand gave you a smile.

“See, I promised you would come to like Hyrule,” he whispered with the slightest hint of teasing to his words. You giggled slightly, the giddiness from before still lingering.

“Yeah, I’m glad you were right.”

The next few minutes passed fairly peacefully as you and the others headed across an old stone bridge. The path started to head uphill into the mountains, you were reminded of the couple of times you, your family, and your friends would go on hikes to get away from the city; originally the hikes were a family tradition, but after you started going to college and made close friends your parents had insisted on inviting them. Fortunately, they did the same for your sister who went to a different college. That hiking trip was something you would always remember fondly, you couldn’t wait till you were able to go on another.

As you followed close behind the group, you stopped momentarily to look carefully at the view below, at the stone cliffs and and rolling green hills and crystal clear waters. You felt a small gasp leave your mouth at the sight, a light breeze went by as you wondered if all of Hyrule was this beautiful.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the shortest hero, Four, commented as he came up beside you.

“Yeah, it really is,” you answered without taking your eyes off the view. You took a deep breath, enjoying the clean air of this world, it was much more crisp than the air back home in the city.

“I’m glad you find it as beautiful as we do, but I think you should try and keep up with the group from now on, we wouldn’t you getting left behind.” The man lightly nudge you with his hand as you tensed up a bit as his words.

“O-Oh right!” you exclaimed, giving him a nervous smile as he looked up at you with a calm one. You suddenly let out a breath of air as you deflated a bit, you gave the man an apologetic look. “I’m sorry about that, I get distracted easily and it's something I’ll be working on.”

The blonde chuckled as he gave you a pat on the back, the two of you walked away from the cliff. “That’s quite alright, I understand that being in a completely different world would leave one more than a bit curious about it. But there is a time and a place for everything, I promise that you will have the chance to ask as many questions as you like once we have the time.”

You smiled and thanked him for his words before the two of you let a comfortable silence cover you.

The group continued down the narrow path as you quietly eyed every interesting thing your eyes came across such as how the cliffs became taller, but this time you were sure to keep up with the group this time. 

At one point, your eyes even landed on some kind of block structure that was attached to the rock wall, or more accurately, two block structures. What was interesting was how they mirrored each other. Pulling out your phone, you snapped a quick photo to show your friends when you got home. While you were “ooh-ing” and “aw-ing” at basically everything, you didn’t notice the heroes looking back at you with amused smiles on their faces.

However, your attention was soon caught by what the group was heading towards which you immediately realized was your destination: large, makeshift gates made out of two large poles sticking out of the ground, between the poles hung a rope where wooden decorations hung. You looked curiously at the gate with big eyes, both hands coming up in front of your chest, before your eyes drifted forward to what was beyond them. 

You gasped a little at what you saw as Wild came up beside you, allowing the others to continue down the path while the two of you walked forward to the edge of a railing that overlooked the village. The blonde smiled a bit at your awed expression, a feeling of pride swelling in his chest for his era. He clapped a hand onto your shoulder as he made a grand sweeping gesture with his other hand.

“Miss (y/n), allow me to welcome you to Kakariko Village!”

><><><><><

Paya swept at the bottom of the wooden stairs monotonously, her eyes lidded as she stared boredly at her work. It had been a pretty slow day and honestly she just wanted to head back inside and read while snuggling up in her blankets, but her grandmother wanted her to complete her chores and who was she to argue with her wise caretaker? So, the teenager simply continued on with sweeping, her grandmother’s guards looking on studiously in stoic silence. 

As Paya was sweeping she thought out what the rest of the day would be like with her needing to pray and prepare dinner later, a sigh left her lips at how dull her day was going to be...until she was brought out of her thoughts at whispers of awe coming from seemingly out of nowhere. Confused, Paya looked up to see what the commotion was, only for her eyes to widen at the sight of the nine Heroes of Courage coming down the main road.

The girl immediately straightened up as butterflies fluttered around in her stomach. She’d always been a little skittish around Master Link when she first met him, Wild as he goes by nowadays, and the same goes for most of the other heroes of courage; why, the poor girl nearly fainted when she first met all of them!

Paya shook the memory out of her head as she tried to act natural. The heroes approached the guards, greeting them as the two sheikah men bowed in respect, Paya did the same.

“Uh, w-welcome heroes!” she greeted them with as much confidence as she could. The heroes politely greeted her in return before they began to scatter with some heading to the shops and some heading to the cooking pot nearby. Paya looked around at those that were left and noticed that her Link was not among them, she shyly looked over to the one called Sky who was looking over at the pond. “If..If I may ask, where is Master Wild?”

At her words, the Skyloftian looked over until he seemingly spotted him and pointed, Paya followed where his finger pointed and felt her eyes widen a fraction at what she saw. 

Over by the pumpkin garden was Link standing right next to a girl with (h/c) hair and a (f/c) tunic. The girl was crouched down near ground smiling widely and talking enthusiastically with Olkin as he tended to his pumpkins, the older man seemed pretty endeared by whatever the girl was so enthusiastic about as he let out a hearty laugh. Link was standing up straight, watching the two with a wide smile on his face, an amused yet proud look in his cerulean eyes.

Paya knew that the look he was giving the girl was nothing more than a friendly gaze, but still she felt just the tiniest hint of jealousy prick her heart at the sight, just like how when she would see him follow and guard the Princess with the utmost diligence. 

The young woman immediately turned her attention back to sweeping as the girl seemingly finished her conversation with Olkin and the two started heading towards the house. Though her gaze was fixated on the ground, she heard little snippets of Link and the mystery girl’s conversation as they got closer.

“Are you sure about this? I mean, what if she just tells me that I’m toast?” the girl asked, hesitation clear in her voice.

“Yes I’m sure, trust me when I see that you’re better off talking to her than not at all,” Link answered back matter-of-factly. 

I wonder what they’re talking about, Paya thought as she acted as natural as she could. The Sheikah woman’s questions would soon be answered as the pair walked up to her. Paya looked up at them shyly and was met with two smiling faces.

“Good afternoon, Paya, I want you to meet someone,” Link greeted, gesturing to the girl beside him who was giving Paya a friendly smile. “This is Miss (y/n), I brought her here to meet Impa.”

“Hi, it's nice to meet you!” (y/n) said, her movements filled with energy as she reached her hand out for Paya to shake. Paya returned the greeting, although not with as much enthusiasm, and politely took the young woman’s hand.

“I-It’s good to see you again, Master Link. If I may be so bold, is there any particular reason why Miss (y/n) needs to see my grandmother?” Impa asked, blushing ever so slightly under Link’s gaze. The blonde and the (h/c) haired girl glanced at each other before Link proceeded to explain how the girl was taken far, far from her homeland and needed a way back as soon as possible. Paya felt sympathy for the girl and immediately agreed to let her meet Lady Impa.

 Paya set down her broom and the three young adults headed up the stairs, (y/n) being a step or so behind her two companions. She glanced at them before deciding that now would be a good time to ask them something.

“So, is Mrs. Impa nice?” she asked innocently, it was always a toss up for her whether or not an elderly woman was going to be really sweet or really cranky.

“For as long as I’ve known Impa she’s been very wise and polite, don’t worry she’s not going to bite your head off or anything,” Wild answered with a smile. The girl nodded at him before leaning forward a bit and looking at the girl on Wild’s other side. Paya tensed a bit when she saw (y/n) looking at her expectantly, but understood that since she spent the most time with her grandmother she would know the most about her. Paya let out a small breath.

“Master Li,- I mean, Wild is correct, my grandmother is the wisest one in the village. If anybody can tell you about why you’re here, it would be her,” she answered shyly. (y/n) smiled and thanked her and Paya felt herself smile back.

By that point, the three had made it to the top of the stairs. (y/n) felt herself tense slightly in nervousness, but both Wild and Paya were completely calm as the trio walked inside. The young college student took in the sight as she crossed the threshold. The room carried a feeling of importance and history. The dim lighting that was only broken by the golden light of the lamps gave the elderly woman in the back center of the room an aura of wisdom and knowledge.

The elderly woman looked up and (y/n) felt her nerves starting to act up. Thankfully, Wild decided to do the introduction for her.

“Impa, this is (y/n), she is far from her home and is in need of your wisdom. The other heroes and I plan to do everything we can to help her find her way home, but it wouldn’t hurt to hear if you have any ideas,” he started. Impa was silent as she processed his words and (y/n) took this as her cue to speak up.

“Hello ma’am, everything he said is true, I am in a pretty desperate situation and any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.” (y/n) then mimicked what she had seen a Sheikah citizen do when they saw Wild just a few minutes prior, and bowed slightly with an open palm pressed to her chest. The elderly woman looked at the college student for a moment before she spoke.

“Very well, you two may leave while I talk with her, I’d like this to be a private conversation,” she stated, gesturing to the two standing by the door. Wordlessly, Paya and Wild obeyed Impa’s command and exited the building. Wild gave (y/n) a single glance over his shoulder before he shut the door behind him, leaving (y/n) and Impa alone in the room.

A moment of awkward silence passed as (y/n) wondered what she should say or where she should start. She figured that it would be better to just be honest from the beginning.

“So, about what he said, all if it was true, but he left out a few bitsy details.” The (e/c) eyed girl took a deep breath and brought her hands up in front of her chest before continuing. “Ma’am, I’m from-”

“Another world? I could tell that the moment you walked in through the door.”

Impa’s words shocked (y/n). “Uh...yes. How did you know?”

“When you get older some things just become obvious to you that were invisible before, and you child are clearly not of this world,” Impa stated casually with a flick of her wrist.

“Oh,” (y/n) said, her arms going slack at how her thunder was just stolen from her. “Well, in that case, do you have any idea why I’m here?”

“I’m afraid I cannot see any divine presence guiding you like I do the heroes, I do not know why you’re here,” Impa spoke calmly and sympathetically. Though (y/n) knew that this was going to be the answer she received, it still hurt her pride a bit to hear that she didn’t have any divine given destiny or purpose here. But, even though being told that she wasn’t like any of those anime protagonists who get isekai’d into fantasy worlds stung a little, the young woman let the feeling roll off her back as she accepted it wholeheartedly; she knew she’d be a bad chosen one anyways.

“You don’t need to apologize, I can’t blame you for not seeing something that isn’t there” (y/n) stated casually. “But now that you’ve confirmed that I’m not really here for any greater purpose, I think it’s more important now to see if there is any way back to my world. Do you have any idea of how I can get home?”

Impa thought deeply once more. “It takes an immense amount of power to create a gateway between the eras of Hyrule, more power than even the finest sorcerers or mages can conjure on their own. So for this shadow to create a gateway to an entirely different realm it would take a kind of power that I fear only the divine hold. I’m afraid your best bet for returning to your realm would be to hold out for the hope that you can get the shadow to create another.”

(y/n) felt her heart become gripped with sadness and anxiety, the prospect of being too far from home to ever return making a nervous sweat appear on her forehead. As the (h/c) haired girl focussed on trying to remain calm, after all she had no idea what this world was really like and there was always the possibility that Impa was simply wrong, the elderly woman in question held a serious look on her face as she gave her last warning:

“Child, I am aware that the Heroes of Courage have offered you a spot alongside them in this journey in the hopes that it may lead you back to your home. Personally I have no complaints over this decision as it is your best chance for making it back to your world.” (y/n) looked back up at Impa, a confusion evident on her features, before she visibly flinched at the cutthroat look on the woman’s face. The woman continued

“However, you must always remember that the heroes have a duty to Hyrule, the Royal Family, and Hylia herself over your own needs, you must be careful not to distract or burden them on this journey. Do you understand?”

(y/n) gulped. “Y-Yes ma’am!”

Chapter Text

The large wooden doors of the house shut behind you with a loud thud! leaving you alone at the top of the stairs, left to contemplate everything you were told. For a moment, you simply stood there thinking about everything the elderly woman told you, from her comments on how you can get home to her...warning; actually that last part was what stuck with you the most. There was something about her warning that clung to you closely. 

A palpable sense of dread built up within you as you recalled the cutthroat look in Impa’s eyes, as if she wouldn't hesitate to cut you down herself should you ever get in the hero’s way.

Of course, the woman you just talked to was a stout elder and every logical part of your mind told you that you could absolutely drop kick her like a football should the day ever come. And yet, a smaller part of you advised not to underestimate her, or more accurately, those who share her ideals. Perhaps the old woman in the abode behind you couldn’t fight, but someone else certainly could.

Why oh why couldn’t I have been thrown into a nice fantasy world instead? Somewhere I could live that cottage core lifestyle, is that too much to ask? you thought, taking a few deep breaths as you attempted to calm yourself down, it didn’t help that Impa also affirmed that your chances of getting back home were slim at best. With all this new information in mind, you began to contemplate simply heading back to Hateno and hoping that a portal would take you back home there.

Maybe..maybe it’s not too late to just bail out and head back to Wild’s house, after all if my chances are slim then what’s the point of putting my neck on the line?

The idea bounced around your head, sounding more and more appealing as you thought about it. Glancing back at the doors, you wondered if this is the reaction Impa wanted to instill in you, if she wanted to intimidate you into leaving so as to ensure that you weren’t a bother to the heroes.

As if you begged to come with them, as if you asked to be here in the first place. It made that defiant part of your heart burn with frustration and determination.

“Well if that’s the case, then screw that,” you muttered under your breath, eyes narrowing at the door, before you turned and started to walk down the stairs. A resolve hardened in you, a resolve to not quit and not be a burden to this team that had so graciously offered you a place with them; and that was that. “Unfortunately for you , Miss Midget, my mama didn’t raise a quitter.”

With your final decision set in stone, you headed down the stairs until you had passed the two guards at the front; they gave you no more than a subtle, curious glance, you were thankful for their silence. You looked around and realized that the others had all scattered about the village and you didn’t really know where to go. Out of the corner of your eye you spotted Wild on a small wooden patio, working on something in the cooking pot. Sitting at one of the tables was Time, fiddling with a wooden instrument of sorts.

I guess I should go over there and talk to him about what Impa told me, you thought with a small shrug, he was where the good smelling food was. 

You began to head over to where the blonde male was, but a sudden and almost comical cry of shock immediately had you turning to see where it came from. Upon laying eyes on the duo responsible, your confused expression faded to make way for an amused smile.

On second thought, whatever they’re doing seems far more interesting.

><><><><><

“He’s insane, an absolute madman I tell you.”

“Oh, don’t be like that, Veteran!”

“You wouldn’t understand, Sky.”

Legend and Sky stood by the fence to Cado’s cucco pen, the former looking at the animals in disgust while the latter watched them fondly. The two men could never seem to agree on anything regarding these farm animals, in fact at some points it seemed like they had the complete opposite views. Which is why the fact that a man lived in what basically amounted to a cucco pen made Legend utterly dumbfounded while Sky thought nothing of it.

“Hey, what are you guys doing?” 

The two perked up at the sound of a feminine voice. They glanced over at the source of the voice and say their new member approaching them, a friendly smile on her face as she looked at them curiously. Sky returned her smile while Legend leaned back onto the fence, giving a half-hearted wave as greeting.

“Not much, we’re just talking and observing this man's cuccos,” Sky told her as she walked up to stand beside Legend.

“Cuccos’?” (y/n) repeated with a confused tilt of her head. She looked down over the fence to check out what they were talking about, her eyes widened slightly in recognition. “Oh, you’re talking about chickens!” Now it was the heroes’ turn to look at her in confusion.

“Chickens? No, like what Sky said; these are cuccos,” Legend said, leaning up and off the fence as he gestured to the birds wandering around their pen.

“Really? They look just like chickens to me.” (y/n) thought for a moment as she looked at them. “Is there anything that sets them apart? Anything particularly special about them?” The veteran was quick to reply:

“Bloodlust.” There was an almost comedic sense of seriousness in his voice and a look of grim recollection in his gaze. Sky rolled his eyes at the man in front of him until he noticed that (y/n) seemed to be taking the man seriously as she turned to squint suspiciously at the animals.

“Quit scaring her, Veteran!” The brunette lightly smacked Legend on the shoulder before he gestured up to the young woman in front of them with a smile. “He’s overreacting I swear, these tiny birds are practically harmless, so long as you know how to handle them.”

“Isn’t that how, like, all animals work?” (y/n) stated with a slightly confused expression, Sky nodded with a hand to the back of his neck while in contrast Legend sternly shook his head. 

Whelp, that answers exactly zero of my questions! the girl thought with her lips drawn into a thin line.

(y/n) shook her head and decided that this was going to have to be a conversation for another day, preferably when they weren’t both around to answer questions. Thankfully the two men in front of her also decided that they were not getting anywhere and dropped the subject. The three stood there watching the cuccos go about their day in amicable silence, until the Skylian spoke up.

“So! We heard that you and, uh, Lady Impa had a talk. So how did it go?” Sky asked as he turned his eyes away from the animals.

At the very mention of the woman’s name, (y/n) tensed up and put on her best casual smile which came out looking just a tad bit more awkward than she intended. 

“Oh, it went okay!..” she blurted out as she looked out the corner of her eye. The two men looked at her in obvious confusion.

“Uh, do you mind elaborating on that?” Legend asked, an eyebrow raised and hand held out.

(y/n) let out a tiny sigh as she took a quick moment to gather her thoughts. “Basically she told me that the thing that brought me here used a very large amount of power that even the most skilled sorcerers couldn’t come close to reaching. As you can already tell, that doesn’t exactly bode well for me, but I’m trying to keep my head up.” She very deliberately decided not to mention the old woman’s threat, (y/n) wasn’t going to be a bother and the heroes didn’t need to know.

Or maybe she was just worried that if she told them then they’d agree with the stout woman, either way she decided it would just be better if she withheld that particular bit of information.

The two men had slightly differing reactions to her words as Sky looked more worried about what that meant for the young woman in front of him; his expression matched this, the Knight’s eyes holding sympathy.

Meanwhile the Veteran’s eyes were serious and speculative, focusing on her indirect statement about the creature’s power. Legend had faced many great and terrible beings of magic, many of which being sorcerers. So if this thing was drawing on power even greater than them, where was he getting it from?

Upon recognizing their reactions, (y/n) straightened up and smiled with genuine hope.

“But I’m serious when I say you don’t have to worry about me, I’m thankful for you all allowing me to come along, so don’t worry about me!!” she reassured, shrugging casually.

Legend looked up, seemingly being snapped out of his thoughts, and gave her a quick but sincere nod of understanding. Sky still looked a tad bit worried, but ultimately let it go.

“Alright, if you say so,” he said.

“Thanks, anyways, I think I’m gonna go head over to where the cook is…cooking- heh, whatever’s he’s making smells delicious!” (y/n) stated with a smile. She quickly waved them goodbye and they returned the gesture. Once she had walked out of hearing range, the two men turned to each other.

“So then, Vet, any thoughts on what she said about Impa’s warning about the Shadow? You’re the most experienced out of us so surely you’ve come across something like this,” Sky inquired.

“Unfortunately, no,” Legend admitted. “I mean, sure, I’ve tussled with my fair share of sorcerers and powerful monsters but I don’t think I’ve ever seen something that could cross through worlds.”

Sky blinked, blue eyes widening in surprise. “Really? But I’m almost certain that you’ve talked about visiting the Dark World.”

“I have, but this feels…different. Even though our world and those akin to the Dark World aren’t exactly easy to cross between, the barrier between them is still thin enough to be crossed with the use of a single enchanted mirror.” The blonde crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the fence, his expression serious and focused. “No, wherever (y/n) comes from feels less like a parallel world and more like a different reality altogether, the “wall” between our world and hers is much thicker and requires far more magical energy to penetrate.”

“…You don’t really think that the Shadow is really powerful enough to create such a thing, right?” Sky asked, a thin layer of nervousness to his usually placid voice.

Legend looked back up at the Knight. “I don’t know yet, but hopefully if we don’t see it for a while then we’ll know that dragging our new friend from her home took more than a little bit out of it. Still, we’ve got nine experienced heroes working together, I doubt we’ll need all of our strength to stop it, even if we do have to protect (y/n) all the while.” 

><><><><><

“So, is that all the old woman told you?”

Warriors originally wanted to enjoy a relaxing lunch, however when the newest member of their little party came back to tell them what Impa told her his plans immediately changed.

“Yeah, it wasn’t exactly the most hopeful thing, I guess, but I’m okay,” (y/n) replied with a loose shrug. 

That wasn’t the whole truth, Warriors dutifully noted. The moment he asked it, her eyes darted to the side for just a moment and there was a stiffness to her frame.

Well, she can share whatever it was when she was ready, he decided. After all it’s not like that conversation was supposed to be about the group as a whole, this was about her and her current issue.

“There’s no need to put on a brave face, even the strongest of soldiers would shiver under such a sentence,” Time said calmly, he sympathetically clapped a hand onto her shoulder.

“Don’t talk like that, Old Man, there’s still much we don’t know about the shadow and its powers. Besides, it’s not like Impa’s word is absolute.” Wild handed the girl two white rice balls, wrapped in brown seaweed.

“I agree with the cook, I’ve seen quite a bit of time jumping and I’ve faced odds worse than what that old woman described. I’m confident we can get you back to where you belong,” Warriors stated, sitting up straight with a confident-bordering on arrogant smirk.

When the man looked up, that smirk immediately broke into a huge grin as he bit his tongue to keep from laughing.

“Uh, Miss (y/n), be sure to…to breathe.” Even the old man had to hold back chuckles.

Currently, the newest member of their group had her cheeks absolutely stuffed with rice, large bites taken out of one of the rice balls she held. There were little specks of rice decorating the corners of her mouth.

“What?” she mumbled as best she could with her mouth full before swallowing. “Sorry, I just really like onigiri, haven’t had it in ages.”

“‘Onigiri?’ Is that what they call rice balls in your world?” Wild asked curiously.

“Yes, but we also call them rice balls, my mom has just always called them by the technical term since I was a kid so I do too.” The girl took another bite of her portion as Time and Warriors were handed theirs, this time getting some of the seaweed wrapping in the bite as well. (y/n) hummed in delight at the taste and crunch made by the crips seaweed when she bit into it. “Not to mention the fact that theres meat in these! Oh, and its nice and savory too! That paired with the seaweed is like a match made in heaven, you’re a great chef y’know!”

The scarred man couldn’t help but blush a bit at the unexpected and enthusiastic comment, not to mention the fact that the one giving it was kinda cute. “Thank you, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind for the future! I-I could make some more for you if wa!- Ack!”

He was cut off by a sudden jab to the ribs from Warriors who wore a teasing grin on his face. “Now, now, don’t go spoiling her just because shes new and complimented your cooking. I mean, the others haven’t even gotten their food yet!”

Wild suddenly became embarrassed, rubbing the back of his neck, before clearing his throat and calming down the pink in his cheeks. He and the captain started to call over the others while Time drew over the attention of the young lady sitting next to him. The older man smiled calmly at her before gesturing up to his cheeks. (y/n) curiously gazed at him, head tilted to the side just a tad, until it suddenly hit her as to what she meant. She vigorously rubbed at her cheeks with the sleeve of her tunic, hands busy holding the rice balls. 

“My bad, sorry,” she muttered after scrubbing away at her face, she was too embarrassed to look him in the eye.

The man chuckled softly at her. “Its alright, just thought I’d give you a chance to clean up a bit before the others come over.”

And come over they did, all eager to enjoy whatever their chef had to offer.

A comfortable wave of idle chatter passed over the whole group as everyone conversed amongst themselves, some talked about plans or ideas and others just talked about what they did just before this; apparently Four was enamored with a Sheikah style blade he found.

Not long after the others had sat down somewhere on the patio, (y/n) finished both her rice balls. Though still hungry- the girl had a surprisingly ferocious appetite -she didn’t say anything and politely sat in silence.

However, there is little that goes over the head of the group’s numero uno chef.

Swiftly, Wild prepared one more rice ball and passed it over to her with a smile.

“I knew you were spoiling her!” Warriors whipped his head around the moment he saw Wild approaching her with another portion of food.

“Oh shut up! It’s not a big deal!” Wild yelled back defensively as others around them giggled at their exchange. He turned his attention back down to the (h/c) haired girl who smiled back up at him.

“Thank you, but you really don’t have to!” she said politely, not wanting to be a burden on him or the others.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s your first official day as a part of this group after all!” He handed the rice ball to her and she, though slightly hesitant, took it from him. The blonde then leaned down to quickly whisper something to her so no one else heard. “I put some extra meat in that one, don’t tell anyone.”

The wide grin that preceded her stuffing her face was well worth the teasing looks Wild got from the others, and the semi-joking, disapproving shake of the head from Warriors.

><><><><><

When you and everyone else finally finished lunch, it was a little ways past three in the afternoon, and the leader of the group made it clear that it was time to hit the road.

Currently, you were near the end of the group, just close enough to not be trailing, as everyone exited the village. It was a different route than the one taken to get here, instead of going back out the way you all came, Wild directed everyone to a different path along the road past the General Goods shop.

Your mind was currently occupied with staring at anything that caught your attention, still amazed by this world, until you were brought out of your thoughts when a hand came up and pushed some of your hair behind your ear. Your eyes widened at the contact and you looked over to see who it was, one eyebrow quirked up in confusion; to your surprise, the youngest of the group had slowed down enough so that he was walking right beside you. 

His eyes were curious and there was a friendly smile on his face, though he flinched away when you noticed him and you assumed it was put of shame from being caught.

“Uh, sorry, it’s just…I don’t think I’ve anyone with rounded ears,” he admitted, looking away from you.

“Really?” Your eyes locked onto his distinctly pointy ears, and surprise turns into a calm smile. “It’s alright, I don’t mind. I think your ears are pretty  cute too!”

“Really? Nobodys ever called them ‘cute’ before, thanks!” Wind’s sudden outburst caused the corners of your eyes to crinkle and a few giggles to erupt from your mouth.

“Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone back home with years as pointed as yours.” For emphasis, you playfully pinched the end of his ear causing him to laugh in turn.

The next few minutes were spent hiking down a grassy hill till you all finally reached what Wild called the “Lanayru Wetlands.” It was an average bog from what you could tell, little islands dotting the shallow waters, plenty of green plant life, and a humid air that made you pull at the collar of your undershirt.

The only thing that stood out to you would be the…bones, both the large, protruding rib bones poking up from the ground and the large, hollowed out fish bones where monsters had made a home.

“So, what are those creatures called again?” you whispered to Sky who was crouching beside you, both of you were currently hiding just out of sight of the scaled creatures.

“Lizalfos,” he whispered back amicably, blue eyes not turning away from them. 

“Hmm.” You brought a hand to your chin and squinted at the creatures as a few of the others distracted them. “Do you think they shed? Or maybe their tail can grow back if you cut it off?”

A snort left his mouth. 

“I’ll take that as a no.”

The brunette snickered at your blunt question. “And how do you suppose we figure that sort of thing out?” he inquired back, a joking smile on his face. You silently made eye contact, your expression was neutral, but there was a glimmer in your eyes.

“I can figure something out.”

The smile slid off his face when he realized that you were being serious. “Miss (y/n) I was joking!”   

><><><><><

Night had long since begun to fall and with it the group of heroes had started to settle in for the night. You noticed how most had taken off some of their more heavy outer layers, which was understandable considering how uncomfortable chainmail and armor would be to wear when you’re simply relaxing. However, unlike last night, this time you decided to keep on your layers.

Since they were acting under a routine that you were unfamiliar with, you decided to merely sit down and rest upon one of the logs and enjoy the warmth of the campfire. As you did so, you watched as the others gathered around the fire.

As they did, Wild once again started cooking; “stew,” he said, apparently it was a meal they had often. You sat there twiddling your thumbs for a while till Twilight took a seat on your left side and Four took a seat on your right. It was only a few moments later when dinner began.

“So, Miss (y/n), how was your day? Did you learn anything new that interested you?” Twilight asked, a friendly smile resting on his placid face.

“Well…” You wracked your head for something to say, when a little lightbulb went off and your eyes immediately snapped to Sky and Legend. “Mr. Veteran and Sky taught me some interesting things about an animal we saw at the village. Uh, I think it was called a ‘cucco?’” 

The impact of the animal’s name was instantaneous, you could almost pinpoint the moment their expressions changed; their faces pinched inward to varying degrees and a few of them even let out a tired groan. 

You blinked in surprise before making eye contact with Sky, raising an eyebrow as a silent question. In return he just shrugged his shoulders with an amused smile; you couldn’t help the large grin that spread across your face or the way your shoulders shook with barely concealed laughter.

“So I guess you all know a lot about this animal, right?” you snickered. 

“Yes, I guess you could say that,” Time answered, removing his hand from his forehead.

“Well, I’d love to hear about it.” There was a genuine curiosity to your tone, and it made the members who were more “experienced” with the infamous bird sigh in defeat as they realized that this was happening whether they liked it or not.

From there, every hero took turns sharing anecdotes of their experiences while the cook of the group made and passed out dinner. Most of them were different in their own unique way which contributed to the attitude you witnessed before, but there was one common through line that you noticed:

“Of course they would attack you! What did you expect after terrorizing them like that!?” you exclaimed, laughing through the exasperation. An empty wooden bowl sat just to your left on the log you were sitting on.

“Look, I was a kid, how was I supposed to know they would be so vicious?!” Legend yelled back defensively, apparently he wasn’t used to being called out like this.

All around you two, the other heroes were either grinning, giggling, or trying to hold back their laughter.

“All I’m saying is that if I were in those poor chicke- I mean cucco’s positions I would’ve done the same thing.” You sat up and crossed your arms over your chest as you made your conclusion. The blonde across from you looked like he wanted to say something more, but the eldest of the group cut him off.

“Alright, alright, I think that’s a good place to put a pin in this discussion for now,” he stated, taking hold of his own bowl and standing up. “We can continue this another time, for now it’s time to get some rest. Traveler, would you be okay with taking the first watch?”

The brunette nodded as everyone began to sit up, some taking their bowls back to Wild for cleaning while others began to lay out the bed rolls. You stood up and decided to see if you could help the scarred man out with the dishes, but you and Legend made half joking gestures to each other in silent challenge.

Let it be known, this cucco discussion is not over…

Sitting down by Wild near the now empty cooking pot, you offered some help with cleaning and he politely accepted. The blonde handed you a rag and then you started with your own bowl before moving onto a few others. 

“Be honest, do you just bring that cooking pot with you everywhere? It seems a little too big to fit into your traveling bag,” you said with a teasing grin. Wild chuckled a little at your joke, the corners of his mouth quirking upwards. 

“Trust me when I tell you, it fits,” he answered back, a slight tone of exasperation to his voice. You both focused on your work for a few minutes, till you broke the silence with a question.

“So, what did Mr. Time mean when he said that Hyrule will be taking ‘first watch’?” you asked, looking over to where the brunette was sitting on a log all alone.

“Hm? Oh, well out here in the wilderness you can never be too safe, so whenever we camp out we take turns keeping watch in case of a monster attack,” Wild answered.

“Oh!” You contemplated what that meant with you in the group. “Uh, so should I do that too?”

“No need, you just joined so I don’t think you’ll have to take a watch for a while,” Wild answered, looking up from the bowl in his hands. “Anyways, now that we’re done you should head to bed, I think Twilight already set out your bed roll.”

You nodded and stood up, but before you could walk away, Wild spoke up one last time:

“And by the way, Miss (y/n), thanks for the help yesterday and today!” he said through a smile.

You turned back around and gave him an equally friendly smile. “No problem, and don’t be afraid to just ask if you need any help with cleaning dishes or even cooking! I may not be a master chef like you, but I can follow instructions pretty well.”

His smile widened a bit as he accepted your offer, before wishing you goodnight and sending you off. When you found your sleeping mat, you were more than a little anxious to find that it was placed right next to the woods; but on the bright side, Wind was on your other side, though he was already fast asleep.

As quietly as you could, you took of your boots and the belt around your waist before climbing under the blanket. You sighed through your nose, shutting your eyes and just trying to relax.

But then you heard a twig snap, and your eyes too snapped open slightly at the sound.

Against your better judgment, you fell for the “don’t look down” trick and turned to gaze into the woods. The trees framed the shadows almost perfectly, and the quiet darkness of the night painted a perfect ominous picture. It reminded you of those scary backgrounds in old animated Disney movies, like the woods just after Snow White meets the Hunter; it didn’t that knew that there were creatures out there that wanted to hurt you, why else would they have at least one hero on watch at all times?

A shiver went down your spine.

Turning your head away from the woods, you decided that there was no point in worrying over something you couldn’t control, it was probably just an animal or something. With nowhere else to look, your eyes drifted upwards at the foliage, where you were lucky enough to be laying right under a hole in the forest roof.

A soft gasp left your lips, despite the strange circumstances surrounding you and your situation, you’d never seen such a beautiful sky. 

Back home, you could only see a handful of stars up in the night sky, an unfortunate side effect of living in a predominantly urban area. But out here, where there weren’t even any villages producing any significant amounts of light, the sky resembled a sea of stars. Never in your life had you ever wanted a high definition camera then right now, because you knew that your phone’s camera wouldn’t be able to match the wonders you saw.

From about a foot beside you, the youngest of the group snored softly and turned in his sleep. You smiled at him, there was something endearing about how quickly he fell asleep. Tomorrow, you hoped that you’d be able to get a little closer with the group, it would be nice if you could make some friends while you were stuck here.

Returning your gaze to the sky, you took a deep breath and started to allow yourself to drift off, eyelids starting to feel heavier than before.

Until you found your way home, you were thankful for the good company you’d found yourself with.