Chapter Text
He wasn’t sure what to think anymore, not by now, and not with the whole world before him and an impressive amount of pain behind him. What good was a sword with no power behind it? The question rang hollow even in his fully invested and overwhelmed mind. Of course there was good in a sword. Of course there were benefits to power. So what did he want?
Vio really wasn’t certain of the answer.
What he was certain of was that his brothers were coming, and he did not feel like going. Not in the slightest.
“What’re you gonna tell them?” Shadow leaned over his shoulder from his perch on the arm of the oversized throne, and dammit if he didn’t have mixed feelings about all of that too, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to deal with those.
Emotions.
He suppressed a shudder. Also not his problem. Emotions were for someone other than him. Emotions were for his- stop thinking about it- brothers.
He gently ran his thumb across the flat of the Four Sword, watching the firelight reflect refracted fragments of him and all his choices and everything he’d done and- don’t go there- his conflicted and confused soul.
“Eh.” He shrugged. It wasn’t going to put the shade off, but at least it bought him a moment.
“I mean… Do you want to deal with them?” Shadow leaned back, and Vio watched the reflection of his cap swirl gently upward with the fiery air of the volcano.
“I can’t say I don’t want to,” He decided on the comment with the ease of someone who had cherry picked their entire life’s story and distilled it down to a few potent jabs of pain just to make it more palatable to themselves. What he didn’t say was what mattered most, and what he didn’t say was for him. It was unfair to place himself as some kind of savior now. He’d already gone and made himself the martyr of his own sword and blood.
Might as well embrace the choices he made.
“Well, they’ll be here soon, so you’d better make up your mind quickly.” Shadow leaned forward again with folded arms and rested his elbows on Vio’s head. Vio shook him off, grumbling under his breath.
There was no pressure in the words Shadow had said, but he felt the weight bearing down on him more oppressively than the thick, raging heat and the suffocating smoke combined. Choices, choices, choices. There was nothing tying him to one side or the other but his own whims, and those were unfortunately fickle.
He wasn’t sure he even wanted to be here. A part of him sang that he would always be a traitor no matter what side he was on, too wrapped up in himself to put regard for anyone else first. Another piece whispered that he must have been made from the darkness from the beginning. In the back of his mind, his conscience sent prodding reminders that he was a hero, even if he went about it a different way, he would always come back to the light in his soul.
Wasn’t it so ironically fitting that a piece of a fractured hero would be splintering to the point of breaking himself? As though they were doomed to be broken before they had even begun.
Did the goddesses really despise the hero so much? Or was it just him that seemed to be falling apart front the inside out?
“You think too much,” Shadow teased. “What’s going on in that head of yours, Vi?”
“Thinking, perhaps?” Vio shot his partner in crime an unimpressed glance that didn’t earn so much as a twitch in reaction.
“Oooh, a genius.” Shadow’s smile broadened just enough for his fanged incisors to appear. Vio smacked his shoulder and then settled back with a sigh.
“They’ll listen to me,” He announced calmly. “They have to. Victory won’t be assured if they don’t.” Whose victory was that, though? Theirs over Ganon? Darkness over light? Brother over brothers? His over himself?
“You said it yourself, it’s not gonna be that easy.”
“They will,” Vio assured Shadow, and himself by proxy. “I will make them see it if I must. My brothers are loyal to their heroics, yes, but they aren’t ridiculous enough to fight a hopeless battle. If I can change my mind…” He trailed off meaningfully.
In all honesty, the likelihood of any of the other three even remotely considering Shadow’s offer was beyond infinitesimal. He knew his brothers well. They would sooner fight and die than give up their loyalty to the kingdom and the goddesses, even temporarily to further their own interests. He would rather live to see another day, and so fight he would. Even if it took defeating each of them, he would not lose this battle.
Superiority be damned, he was right. This was the best way forward.
“They’re close.” Shadow’s head whipped up to stare out at the walls of the caldera as though he could see through the stone himself. “I feel them coming.”
Shadow grinned, bright and feral, red eyes glittering with anticipation, and Vio couldn’t help but smile. Certainly, having found the company of the shade was a good motivator for the incoming argument. His brothers would never consider such a partnership, and that was wholly their loss. Shadow made for a better friend than any of his brothers ever had.
“Then let them come.” His grin widened to match Shadow’s. “Let them find Vio, faithful ally to the darkness.”