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The black-blooded Lynel roared a torrent of flame, Legend swiftly dodging it and retaliating with a blast of his Ice Rod. Sky, Master Sword in hand, fired beams of divine radiance from his blade, while Hyrule charged up a spell, lightning crackling at his fingertips. A blast of Thunder would turn the fight in their favor, it had to. Wind, from his position flanking the beast, made his charge, Skull Hammer in hand. He would buy Hyrule the time he needed to finish the incantation.
Wind leapt into the air, preparing to bring the hammer down on the monster’s skull. Yet at the last second, dodging a swing from Twilight’s blade, it turned its head, and Wind was suddenly met with a razor-sharp horn piercing his abdomen. But before the pain could register, he brought down his weapon, and the world set alight with electricity.
When he came to, Hyrule was leaning over him, pouring magic into him, treating him like he needed saving and not like he was as much a hero as the rest of them. He quickly jumped to his feet, wincing a little as the pain sunk in.
“Wind, you got hurt pretty bad in that fight. Please sit back down.”
“I’m fine!”
Legend interjected, “kid, you got fucked up pretty bad. Just let Hyru-”
“ No! I’m not a kid, goddammit, I’m the Hero of Winds ! And you shouldn’t be worrying over me because I shouldn’t be getting hurt! I killed Ganon, same as all of you! And Bellum! A single Lynel shouldn’t be any problem for me!”
Legend looked to Hyrule pleadingly, who, getting the message, went off to join the rest of the group for a moment.
“Look, ki- Wind.” He drew in a deep breath. “They call me the veteran here. And they’re not wrong. I’ve killed more monsters, slain more evils, than most of these heroes can even dream of.”
“Jeez, you don’t have to rub it in-”
“Wind. I’m not finished.”
Wind was silent.
Legend slowly began to roll up his sleeves, revealing arms bruised and covered with scars of slashes, burns, claws, any weapon imaginable.
“I fucked up, Wind. Kind of a lot. I fell and I bled and I made some decisions that I can never take back but I’m here . And I’m still the Hero of Legend.” He gestured to his arms. “The fact that I fucked up doesn’t negate that. If anything, it proves it.”
Wind stared at the ground.
“The same goes for you. One fuckup means nothing. Absolutely nothing. It just means you get back up and keep being a goddamn hero.”
Wind smiled a little at that. “Thanks.”
“Any time. Take care of that wound, okay?”
Wind nodded.
“Good night, hero.”
The group’s travels led them to the Lost Woods. Autumn was slowly fading into winter. A cold breeze and harsh rain seemed to follow the group wherever they went, piercing through their armor and causing mud to seep into their boots. Wind’s wound had healed, but it was still sore. He would bear that scar for quite some time.
To cover more ground, the group broke into pairs, with Wind and Legend travelling together. They silently slogged through the forest mud with rain pelting at their backs, searching for any sign of the dark Lizalfos that served as their quarry. The miserable trek carried on and on, as afternoon bled into evening, which bled into night, and before they knew it, the pair found themselves submerged in inky darkness.
“Let’s head back. The group’s probably made camp by now.”
Legend nodded his agreement, but upon turning around, they found themselves unsure as to exactly which way “back” was. The rain had eliminated their footprints, and true to its name, the twisting nature of the Lost Woods made it difficult to retrace their steps. They tried, but inevitably found themselves back in the same clearing over and over again.
“Y’know what? Fuck this. Fuck absolutely all of this.” Legend said, brandishing his blade and cleanly severing the base of a tree. The trunk splashed into the mud.
Legend sat on his newly created stump. And what was Wind supposed to do? Their footprints were untraceable, the downpour stopped them from setting off a flare, and they had called for the others until their voices were hoarse to no avail.
But then, through the rain, Wind heard something very wrong. He heard Legend begin to sob.
“No,” Wind declared.
Legend looked up.
“ No , we are not going to sit on a fucking stump and cry about our problems.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
“We’re the motherfucking HEROES OF THE WIND AND LEGEND and yeah the situation is total shit and I don’t know how we’re gonna fix it but when has that ever stopped us?” Wind looked Legend dead in the eye. “Someone once told me that one fuckup means nothing. Absolutely nothing. It just means you get back up and keep being a goddamn hero. And he was fucking right. So let’s get back up, and be GODDAMN HEROES!”
Legend stood up. Wind leapt onto the stump with him and embraced him in a hug.
“Now. How are we going to get out of this forest?”
Legend, with a mind that had solved its way through a hundred dungeons, spoke. “We’d need to retrace our steps. Our footprints aren’t visible right now, but there has to be some way of finding out where we walked.”
“Yeah! Like I bet we fucked up the plant seeds we walked on, so if we could make plants grow then maybe we could see where we went?”
“Wind. It’s a freezing night in late autumn.”
“And when has that stopped us? I know a song that can make it daytime.”
“...and I have a cane that can change the seasons, you genius .”
“HELL YEAH!”
Wind whipped the Wind Waker out of his pack, bouncing it in the rhythm of the Song of Passing, as Legend, from his perch atop the stump, channeled his magic through the cane. Within minutes, night turned to morning, autumn turned to winter, morning turned to day, and winter turned to spring, as grasses enriched by the rain and the magic of the heroes began to grow across the forest floor — except for a trail of conspicuous patches of dirt in the shape of footprints. They did it. Holy shit, they did it!
With a bounce of his Wind Waker, the sun set once more, and the two raced off along their newfound path. The rain pelting their faces was nothing to the heroes. The duo beamed at their success. What was being lost to history’s two most experienced heroes? What were any number of failures to those who knew they would always, always come back?
Finally, they came across the open clearing where they had first set out on their search.Most of the group was already asleep. Time was keeping watch by the moonlight, sitting around the pile of waterlogged wood that couldn’t possibly serve as a campfire. They had made it.
The old man glanced at the pair. “Oh, there you kids are.”
Wind and Legend spoke simultaneously. “Heroes.”