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Chapter Text

The first thing Abyss saw when he exited the portal was the open sky, vast and pale and bright.

Faint ozone and the smell of dew hit his nose as the wind whistled in his ears, gently tugging at his hair and clothes. Before him, the wooden ground abruptly ended, dropping off into an ocean of fluffy white clouds far below that sprawled out all the way to the impossibly distant horizon. Up above, the sun shone bright, lighting the world in white-gold and warming the thin air around him.

“It worked! Gloam did it!” Sky laughed from behind him. “We’re home!”

Abyss turned to see a town, bright and colorful and inexplicably old, as if it had all been built centuries ago. A massive tent sat in the center of the town, and as the portal closed, two small figures in the distance seemed to notice them. Sky waved them over, and the people approached them.

Very quickly.

Oh, they were running. That made sense.

“Link!” the shorter one cried, golden hair flying out behind her as she collided with Sky, throwing her arms around his neck. Another Zelda. “You’re back!”

Sky laughed and held her back, spinning around. Her feet lifted off the ground, and her laughter turned into squeals, and Abyss stood there blankly, focused on restraining himself from pulling out a blade in instinctual defense.

“Is everything over?” the other one asked, a towering man with impressive red hair and golden eyes that almost reminded Abyss of Secret. Secret’s eyes were shinier, though, brighter and more reminiscent of metal. “Your friends aren’t here… except for uh… hey, we haven’t met.”

Oh, great. Now the big, strange man with the hair was talking to him. Abyss wished he could slip into the void like Shadow and Secret could, but that particular skill was not part of his arsenal.

“Oh, right. Abyss, this is my girlfriend Zelda and my friend Groose,” Sky said, still grinning warmly.

Abyss had decided long ago that each hero had a certain charm about them, something that endeared them to those who gave them a chance, and Sky was certainly no outlier. His kindness was warm, and so were his smiles.

“Zelda, Groose, is this Abyss, my, uh…. my dark,” Sky said, realizing near the end of the sentence that his friends should have no idea what a dark was.

“A dark?” Groose asked with a frown. “Like… a shadow? But a person?”

“No, Shadow is his own person,” Abyss said. He decided that Groose’s utter confusion was highly amusing. “And so is Dark, but he goes by Link now.”

“You’re a being made of dark magic,” Zelda said thoughtfully, a strange look in her eyes as she observed him. “Dark, but not malicious, not like Demise and his monsters.”

Abyss met her deceptively piercing gaze, and for the first time, he could see the light in her, golden and vast and ancient, and he almost recoiled from it on pure instinct. How he hadn’t noticed such power before, he had no idea. It was so incredibly strong, so pure and bright, a light like the sun that could burn him to ash with a mere blink.

Perhaps this is what people meant when they spoke of gods. Perhaps grand enough power equaled divinity… or was it something more?

Shoving those thoughts away for later, Abyss swallowed and nodded.

“I am,” he said. “The others understood it more, but I am, in simple terms, a manifestation of my light’s… personality traits he once denied. All darks are created that way, but we are also our own people. I am still developing an identity, but I know that much.”

Sky’s smile was proud.

“Well,” Zelda hummed, a lighthearted smile tugging at her mouth, “I think you two need to tell us everything that’s happened. Come on, I was just about to make some lunch.”

“Welcome to Skyloft, little guy” Groose said, smacking Abyss on the back so hard he might have fallen over had he not had enhanced strength.

Little guy? Abyss, of all people?

The audacity was almost charming.

“Why am I here?” Abyss said more than asked, unamused that he had to sit with children for the day.

“Because everyone does this,” Sky answered easily, completely unphased by the glare leveled at him. “It can’t hurt.”

Abyss would glare harder, but despite their noise, he didn’t want to scare the children away. Skyloft had been surprisingly welcoming to him despite his origins. Though, the man named Batraeux felt darker in an old sort of way, like darkness had once blanketed him but was no longer present. He didn’t have a loftwing, either. Sky claimed the man had been a demon once, but he certainly didn’t act like it. Maybe that was a part of it.

“Just go along with it,” Sky said, nudging Abyss gently in the shoulder. “If nothing happens, then nothing happens. If you get a loftwing, then all the better, right? Another friend.”

Sky turned and left, abandoning Abyss in the center of the plaza with the children. The paragon of friendship, really.

The Loftwing Ceremony, Abyss had been told, was a biannual celebration where children of age would wait for their loftwings to arrive. Loftwings were more than just great birds that could carry their chosen hylian through the skies—they were bound in spirit, like soulmates of a sort. Sky had had the brilliant idea of making Abyss participate in it, being birdless as he was.

“You’re awfully fond of Crimson,” Sky had said, “so why not at least give fate a chance to give you a loftwing, too?”

The problem was not the ceremony nor the loftwings themselves. Abyss was actually rather fond of the birds. The problem was that it was for children, and Abyss, despite his short time existing, was a full grown adult, and standing in the plaza (the island with the goddess statue had fallen at some point, apparently, so they had to move the ceremony location, and Sky had looked suspiciously guilty about it) surrounded by children was not his idea of a fun time.

Well, technically, it was only two children, but his point still stood.

“What color loftwing do you want, Mr. Abyss?” the little girl asked.

Abyss was pretty sure she was utterly fearless, to an almost stupid extent. He had seen her try to climb the plaza tower by herself, much to the dismay of her father, and she had apparently been the first to befriend Batraeux.

You know, the former demon.

Normal things that children do.

Then again, considering where Abyss had come from, he wasn’t really one to talk.

“I don’t know,” Abyss said, because he’d never thought about it before. While he usually kept them hidden, he had retained his wings from the final battle with Dark, so he’d never had to worry about falling or flying. To have a loftwing at all was a novel idea.

“I want a crimson loftwing, like Link!” Gully proclaimed. “It’s so cool, and they’re really rare.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Kukiel huffed, sticking her tongue out at the boy. “Crimson is the only crimson loftwing! Link is just special.”

“That is Sir Link to you two,” Abyss reminded them. The title of sir was a new development but a notable one, nevertheless. Headmaster Gaebora had insisted on Sky’s title ever since efforts had been made to begin a settlement on the surface. Something about a knight knowing the area.

“Yes, Mr. Abyss,” the children chorused with dead voices. The petulance of children was amusing.

One of the professors—Owlan, Abyss was pretty sure—gave a formal speech of some sort, probably a rehearsed set of lines spoken at every ceremony, and then they began to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

… It was boring.

Most of the rest of Skyloft milled around, minding their business and hanging out and picking at the food from the communal potluck. At least they were allowed to entertain themselves. All Abyss had was the boredom-induced antics of the children, and that mostly consisted of them rolling around on the floor, trying to catch bugs, and trying to force each other to eat said bugs.

Abyss wished he had his sketchbook.

The first bird to make itself known was a scrappy little thing, all blue and brown but with undeniable intelligence in its eyes, and it stumbled over to bury Kukiel in feathers. The little girl squealed in delight, and Skyloft celebrated.

Two hours later, Gully’s bird practically stole him off the plaza floor. Abyss had to tamp down on his instinct to strike down the bird, because no, this was not an attack, just a reckless young creature finding its soulmate. Abyss did, however, have to catch Gully when the bird dropped him, apparently too ambitious in its goal of stealing the child. The bird spent the rest of the afternoon cooing over its new partner apologetically. Gully, on the other hand, seemed entirely unaffected by the fall.

Three hours later, Sky joined Abyss on the edge of the wooden platform at the end of the plaza. The sun painted the sky in shades of red and violet and gold from where it sat at the horizon.

“I’m sorry,” Sky said.

“I’m not a child of Hylia. I was created with magic, and I certainly was not created by divinity,” Abyss answered. “I did not expect to gain a loftwing, and I can already fly on my own. I have lost nothing here, just like you said.”

“Still,” Sky sighed. “I guess I had my hopes up. I wanted you to feel like you’re part of the community as much as possible.”

Abyss stared at him, and when he could see nothing but genuine apologeticness in his light’s eyes, Abyss scoffed, unable to stop himself.

“Stupid,” he huffed. “I don’t need a bird to feel welcome. I just need friends, and I have that.”

Sky blinked, then broke out into a grin and pulled Abyss into a hug, a chuckle rumbling through his chest. Before Abyss could fight back, Sky spoke into his shoulder.

“You’re my friend, too.”

Slowly, Abyss relaxed, and he held Sky in return, too-sharp fingernails pressing gently into the soft green tunic.

“Welcome to the Settlement!”

Groose’s voice boomed through Abyss’s bones as he landed close behind Crimson. He folded his wings back into whatever magical pocket they came from and let Groose smack his back. The boisterous man went to go give Sky the same treatment, and unfortunately, Sky was not an absurdly sturdy being of magic, so he almost faceplanted from the force of the otherwise friendly gesture.

If Abyss had been subjected to this treatment shortly after he was created, he would have stabbed Groose out of sheer irritation. Now, however, he had learned how to manage his anger, and he had seen far more annoying things.

Camping with a dozen other people was not a peaceful experience, to say the least.

Groose and Sky showed Abyss around the area. Faron Woods was a rolling land full of life, with lush, verdant flora blooming all around, and the Settlement was charming, even if it was merely a small collection of wooden houses that definitely needed an actual architect to fix them. There was an innocent earnestness in the air in Faron, and it reminded Abyss of the other heroes, each of them bearing a relentless will to do what was right.

It reminded him of when he tried to choke Shadow within days of knowing him only for Shadow to speak a truth even he wasn’t aware of at the time.

In Abyss’s defense, he had disappeared that day in order to retreat from the hostile chaos of the fortress, and the serenity of untouched nature called out to him, tugging him away from the cloying atmosphere of the darks with sweet lullabies and gentle promises to wash the anger away. And in a way, those calls had been right. It took Shadow far enough away from the others to admit a small part of himself, to speak a small part of his true beliefs, and that had been the beginning. Those words pulled apart the stormy clouds that had blocked out his skies, and slowly, he began to see.

See calmness, tolerance, kindness… happiness. Maybe even contentment.

“That way is the temple,” Sky said, breaking Abyss from his thoughts. Abyss had seen a large statue on the way down, so a temple certainly explained its presence. “We can go visit later, if you want. It’s getting late. I think there’s going to be a communal soup, if you want to join us.”

“Alright,” Abyss agreed with a nod, and he turned to follow Sky and Groose back to the Settlement.

However, Abyss had plans of his own. Once dinner was over and everyone had returned to their houses for the night, Abyss slipped away with laughable ease and ventured down the path Sky had pointed out.

The stone door opened easily under his hands despite its weight and size, and almost immediately, his eyes found the sword of iridescent indigo, hilt wrapped in ribbons of green. The moonlight filtered in through the partially collapsed ceiling of the temple, hitting the sword just so, and Abyss was certain that, even if he hadn’t known the blade’s significance, the sight alone would have garnered his curiosity.

As it was, he simply inclined his head in respect. The spirit within the sword deserved his respect for her role in protecting those he had come to consider family. Faithfulness was, in the grand scheme of things, a bit foolish, but Abyss would be a hypocrite to not respect it.

Without a word, Abyss walked away from the sword and made his way to the large doors in the back. With a shove, the doors creaked open, and he stepped out into the courtyard. The night air greeted him with a gentle tug at his hair and clothes, so much heavier and richer than the air up in Skyloft, and the moon shone gently down, full and round and very much not blood red.

The white moon was a small relief, a reminder that Hatred posed no threat. Not anymore. Not yet.

Loftwing statues lined the courtyard, and trees reached up toward the sky, corralled in this lowered pit by the wooden slats that Groose called tracks. Looming over it all stood Her, the statue, huge and awe-inspiring yet still nothing but cold, hard, lifeless stone.

Abyss’s steps echoed softly through the courtyard, leather soles against stone, and he came to a stop before the statue.

“I hold no reverence for you, for what have you ever done for me?” Abyss said. In the empty night, his voice was deafeningly loud and yet far too quiet all at once. “Everything I have was given to me by someone or earned by my own actions. There is Zelda, but she is not you, not really. That much is obvious.”

His voice did not waver, and yet he couldn’t help but feel small under her.

He didn’t even know why he was speaking, but once he began, he couldn’t stop.

“So why do they love you? Skyloft, even to the era of the Hero of Wild—they love you and worship you, and for what? You’re dead. You can’t do anything when you’re dead, and you’ve been dead for a long time… or is that beyond a god? Are you actually still here? …. Why? Do… Do you spend a powerless existence watching over Hyrule? And if you do, then why? Is it simply your duty, or is it something else?”

For a hero, it was something else, and that something else was a heart too large for their chest, threatening to burst through and pierce itself on broken ribs and bleed everywhere, silently weeping for every unjust misfortune it happened across. For Shadow, it was his love for those he considered his own, pushing through every problem he ran into and brazenly daring the world to find a way to hold him down. For Dark, it was… complicated. He had wanted everyone to live, exactly the same as Shadow, but he had been hurt a few too many times, so he went about it with anger in his heart.

And in the end, it was because of all those traits that they took so long to find peace.

Then again, Abyss wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for them.

Perhaps Hylia stuck around in gratitude for her people’s faith, if she was here at all.

“Evidently, it is not worship that makes you a deity, else you wouldn’t be dead,” Abyss said, “so what makes something divine?”

The statue did not answer.

Abyss enjoyed working with his hands. He tried to fix the holes in the houses and ended up replacing entire unsturdy beams. His lightning might lay dormant under his skin, but his power was still used well in the form of his strength, his manpower easily worth two or more residents of the Settlement. It was helpful, and he enjoyed being helpful.

Frankly, the only one who could compete was Groose, and that was because the man was absolutely massive.

Speaking of—

“Hey, Abyss,” Groose said, pulling Abyss’s hands away from the wooden planks, fingers pressing into his callouses, “why don’t you take a break?”

“I don’t require rest,” Abyss reminded him, because he didn’t, and Shadow only slept for the enjoyment of sleep itself. He didn’t pull his hands away. “I’m fine.”

Also, dreams were weird. Really, really weird. He’d rather not have them if he could help it.

“No one can work forever,” Groose argued, and, well, it sounded like something the others would say. “Take a walk, explore the woods, maybe visit Skyloft! You can always come back later. We’re not going anywhere.”

So Abyss was effectively banned from the Settlement for the day.

Naturally, he went exploring. The local wildlife, as it turned out, were easily startled, pathetically so. The very first of the strange plant creatures he came across was just… annoyingly squeaky.

“Kwee-koo!” it screamed upon noticing Abyss crouched before it. “A monster! Please spare me!”

“I am not a monster,” Abyss said, but the creature had already dropped down and unfurled its bushy camouflage.

Abyss frowned.

He poked the creature and said, “Hey. I’m not a monster.”

The creature startled, and, peeking up from its less than effective hiding spot, it said, “You’re not, kwee?”

Abyss shook his head, and the creature picked itself back up, closing the foliage on its back. Abyss was fairly certain that Sky and that one professor from the academy had called it a kikwi.

“Oh, I see now!” the creature chirped. “You’re like the green one! With the cape, kwee… And the other one with the golden hair!”

Oh, Sun and Zelda. Then was this creature just terrified because Abyss had the wrong color scheme?

“Then… are you friendly, too?” the creature asked.

“I am,” Abyss answered. He had made lots of friends during his existence, and even if most of them wouldn’t exist for centuries, if not longer, it didn’t make it any less true.

“You should meet the elder, then, kwee-koo!” the creature said. “You have a weird energy. The elder would probably like to know, kwee.”

Dark magic must truly be foreign to get that reaction from a creature, but Abyss had nothing better to do, so he agreed and let the creature lead him deeper into the woods. Abyss found himself staring at the land around him, at the bouncy mushrooms and the large hanging fruit and the vines that crawled up trees and fell from their branches, and in the center of it all sat a gargantuan tree. When Abyss squinted, he could make out a carved path further up the trunk, but the kikwi wasn’t leading him toward the tree, so he made a mental note to check it out later.

Instead, the kikwi led him to a raised clearing of flowers. The center was cleared, likely for the sheer size of the creature that Abyss could only imagine was the elder. It looked, to put it bluntly, like an overfull waterskin, all round and smooth and just utterly huge.

Two beady eyes peered over a ragged mustache down at Abyss, who made no move to speak.

“I am the elder kikwi,” the large creature said. “You are like the girl and the boy, but the light of the heavens does not cling to you, kwee-koo… Tell me, who are you, godchild?”

Abyss blinked. He had definitely never heard that one before.

“I am Abyss,” he answered anyway. “What do you mean by godchild? And speak plainly. I do not enjoy riddles.”

“Kwee-kee… you do not know?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“I see, kwee…” the elder hummed. “You are different from the others I have met, like the boy and the girl. There is something brewing in you. Whatever awaits you, it will be grand, kwee.”

Perhaps… Perhaps Groose was right. Abyss needed to get out the Settlement. This world was new, emerging from an age of rampant nature, and he had so much to see. Hyrule and Wild would be disappointed in him if he didn’t go explore these vast lands.

And if he was destined for something great, then he might as well step into it facing forward.

That evening, Abyss returned to the Settlement, packed his things, and told Groose to tell Sky and Zelda when they got back that he would be away for an extended period.

“Wait, where are you going?” Groose asked.

“I’m going to explore the surface,” Abyss said. “Don’t worry. I’ll map everything as I go. You need maps, right?”

“When will you come back?”

“I don’t know.”

“I… Stay safe, then.”

“I do not make promises that I cannot keep… but I’ll try.”

Eldin was terribly hot. Crenel sat south of Death Mountain, much smaller and much closer to the plains that laid between each region, and Death Mountain itself was even more eye-catching than the giant tree in the middle of Faron. Rivulets of molten rock flowed down the sides of the volcano, and plumes of dark smoke rose up into the sky as airborne embers fluttered around with Abyss’s every movement.

The mogmas were interesting folk, if not terribly skittish and singlemindedly greedy. They were nice enough to talk to him once they realized he wasn’t a monster, and they were happy to point him to where he wanted to go, but the needling at his own dangerousness and if he was really willing to fight monsters was rather annoying. Still, he refrained from saying anything rude.

Abyss wandered away from the fire temple no worse for wear, apparently naturally resistant to heat, when he caught a trail of potent magic.

He had learned that his senses were strange, that others could not see the things he could. He could look at someone and see the magic that clung to them. From the beginning, he had seen the shattered darkness around Shadow healing with every day that passed, and he had felt the foreign magics that clung to Time and Wild, a whisper of something that did not belong to them. He had seen the divinity within Zelda.

Following this magic was child’s play to him, and before he knew it, he found himself in a stone chamber, the walls decorated in mosaic patterns even as lava glowed below.

The lava bubbled, and Abyss stepped back just in time to avoid being splashed with the too-hot liquid as a large figure flew out from below. He craned his head back and watched with wide eyes as a dragon flew through the air, floating over him with effortless grace. The sheer amount of fire magic flowing through this being was almost overwhelming, just as bright and hot as the lava that flowed under the red rock of the volcano.

“Who are you, dark one, and why have you come here?” the dragon boomed, golden eyes burning into Abyss.

“My name is Abyss,” he answered. “I have not come with any hostile intent. The hero Link is my friend. I only followed your magic. It intrigued me.”

“My magic, you say?” the dragon hummed, leaning forward. Its eyes were no longer suspicious but instead gleamed with curiosity. “I am Eldin, one of the three dragons that were tasked with watching over this land. The others are Faron and Lanayru. Have you met them as well?”

“No,” Abyss answered, shaking his head. “I have not.”

“Perhaps you are lucky, then, that you met me first,” Eldin chuckled. “Faron might not take so kindly to an unknown being of darkness like yourself.”

“I will take note of that.”

“Say, why don’t you stay with me and chat a while?” Eldin offered. “It has been too long since I had a good conversation.”

“Alright.”

Lanayru—the region, not the dragon—was not as hot as Eldin, but in return, it was unbearably dry. The days burned, and the nights froze, and very little was spared.

Abyss was convinced that if he lacked wings and was a being of true flesh and blood, not woven from magic and instinct, that he would have surely perished in this desert. He sketched his maps from where he kept himself aloft over the land, wary of the seas of quicksand that sprawled across the region, and he silently commended Sky’s perseverance for surviving this place.

The most interesting thing he had found here, however, had to be the strange indigo stones that laid around. Somehow, they held the ability to turn back time in a localized area when struck, though Abyss himself seemed immune to the effects. The little robots were funny in a pathetic sort of way, but the morbidity of knowing their fate, which they were all blissfully ignorant of, kept Abyss’s mouth sealed shut.

After all, their little mechanical bodies had collapsed where they did for a reason, right? There had to be a reason they shut down in the middle of work, but Abyss suspected that the exact reason was lost to time.

The stones also made Abyss wonder what the land had looked like in ages past. The grand ship that sat in pieces in the dunes was unnatural for a desert, whispering tales of a sea long gone. Was it possible for a lush land to dry out into a desert like this? Was this connected somehow to the collapse of the robots?

Abyss would have loved to see the ancient ocean, but no timeshift stone was grand enough for that. The pirate robot’s boat was charming, but even its radius was too small to see the true grandeur of what once was.

Speaking of.

“Take a timeshift stone with you,” Lanayru the dragon suggested when Abyss used one of the stones to revive the skeleton he had found in the sand. Lightning and rain ran through this dragon’s veins, and it felt somehow familiar. “It might be useful to you. I would hate to see such power be forgotten and go to waste.”

Abyss accepted the iridescent stone the nearest robot carried over, and he carefully wrapped it up and tucked it away in his bags. With any luck, it would stay inert until he could bring it back to the Settlement.

Abyss said his goodbyes, turned on his heel, and left the desert.

Abyss stood in a grand field, and the sky was bright and wide open, not a cloud in sight. The sun shone down with golden, blinding rays, and the tall grass brushed at Abyss’s fingertips. The wind was gentle and smelled distinctly of nothing. When he looked to the horizon, he couldn’t see where the world ended and the sky began. The distance simply blurred into nonexistence.

He turned to look around, and behind him towered a hill, nondescript but still entirely demanding when framed by such flat lands. At the crown of the hill sat what appeared to be a sapling, small and gentle. Soft green leaves reached up toward the sun.

When Abyss had ascended the hill, he wasn’t sure, but he was now crouching down to look closer at the plant, close enough to see the dew gathered in its crevices. What was such a lonely thing doing in a place as empty as this, and why did it lack the spark of life that all living things held?

“ Oh ho ho, what have we here? ”

Abyss startled and spun around. The voice grated against him in the exact opposite way Gloam’s voice did. Where Gloam’s voice rumbled and scratched and reverberated in on itself, it was still a purely superficial thing. This, on the other hand, struck Abyss to his very core. That was new. He didn’t like it.

“ A little one, hm? And here I thought the golden ones had abandoned these realms long ago ,” the voice sighed. “ Or maybe… you’re your own being? Oh, how delightful! I’ve been waiting for a playmate! ”

Its cackle rang through the air, and Abyss growled lowly. His hands flexed, no blade coming to him despite his attempts at tugging on his magic. His claws would have to do… if he could find the damn thing.

“ Up here, godchild ,” the voice giggled, all high-pitched and terrifying childish despite its clear malice.

Despite the fact that he really didn’t want to know what was waiting for him, he turned and looked up only for his entire body to freeze.

Looming over him, far too close to the earth, the moon grinned down at him with too many teeth and huge, buglike eyes that shone gold and red and green all at once. Colorful spikes slowly pushed out of the sides of the moon like iron nails through flesh, and behind it, hidden in the shadows of the abruptly darkened sky, Abyss could almost make out thin, writhing shapes like whips or tendrils.

He wanted to puke. He wanted to run away. He wanted to rip his skin off and his eyes out and never witness this again.

But no, he stayed exactly where he was, even as unprecedented heat and pressure began to swallow him whole under this rock, still white and still lying about being purified of malice.

Never before had he been truly terrified.

And then the moon opened its mouth.

“ Bye-bye for now, my new friend. ”

Abyss woke up.

He shot upright and gasped. His lungs drew in the cool night air, flooding his chest and grounding him as one hand dug into his scalp and the other buried itself in the dirt below.

“I am not your friend,” he spat under his breath. “You have no right to that title. I am not your friend. I am not your friend.”

Slowly, under his muttering, his breathing and heart rate returned to normal. The sweat that had gathered across his back had cooled and now brought with it a chill that forced a shiver down his spine.

When had he even fallen asleep in the first place? Did people always forget when they dozed off? Perhaps his adventures had tired him out, but did it really work that way for darks? And more importantly, what was that nightmare? It certainly hadn’t felt natural. There was an element of otherness to it, like it hadn’t really belonged to him, like it was almost real.

But… no. The horizon didn’t exist, and the moon was still in the sky, white and faceless and pure. It wasn’t even whole. It was currently carved into a thin crescent, like a grin—

No.

No, but the nightmare reminded him of something else.

However much of their light’s life a dark remembered seemed to fluctuate wildly. Secret had known everything as if he had been there himself, up until the point of his summoning, but Shadow only knew as much as if he had been told those things by another party. Civil and Midnight had only known select bits and pieces, but Wander, much like Abyss, knew little to nothing.

Abyss liked stories, but much to his dismay, he had found that with every deep sleep he fell into, a memory that was not his own would play out like a scene on a stage. Now, in the aftermath of that awful dream, in his mind’s eye, he watched a grand obsidian blade disappear from its master’s hand.

Had… Had that ever been cleaned up?

Abyss buried his face in his hands and groaned.

This was why he didn’t like sleeping.

If there was one thing Abyss had learned from being around Shadow and the heroes, it was how to let go of what he was made to be and to embrace what he wanted to be. If there was another thing he had learned, it was the inability to let things lie, and that was exactly how he ended up here at the bottom of a ravine that cracked through the earth.

He had found that whisper of darkness, of something that was once far more powerful than it had once been, and while it felt more like Civil than Abyss himself, it was somehow as structured and orderly as Gloam. As Abyss followed that trail, he came upon the vast plains dotted with trees that blanketed the region in the center of everything, and wandering that field was a creature that Abyss had come to know as a goron, a being of moving stone and heat.

“Are you headed to Faron?” Abyss asked without preamble.

“Uh…. yeah, goro,” the goron answered awkwardly. An oversized hand rose to rub at the back of the goron’s head. “Why do you ask? You’re a, uh, a hylian, right, goro?”

“Close enough,” Abyss said. He pulled one of his pouches off his belt and held it out toward the goron. “Take this to the Settlement, and make sure it gets to the hands of Link, Zelda, or Groose. Tell them it’s from Abyss and that I’m fine.”

“... Alright.”

That bag had held Abyss’s maps, sketched out to the best of his ability. A bird’s-eye view certainly helped with accuracy, in his opinion. At the bottom of the bag also sat a small chunk of timeshift stone, carefully wrapped up with a piece of paper holding one partial sentence.

For the ocarina.

Abyss followed that trail, winding and looping and frustratingly vague and weak, but he was nothing if not stubborn. Near the end, the trail led him through the desert and back again to a canyon of red rock, and at the bottom, rusting under a trickle of water, sat a blade of black obsidian, far too large for any hylian to feasibly wield.

Abyss scowled at the blade. The Master Sword was beautiful, all elegant edges and shimmering a soft, knowing blue, but this sword was just… gaudy. It looked impractical.

“This is it?” Abyss muttered.

Maybe it wasn’t worth tracking down, after all.

On second thought, no. This had to be taken care of, if only to ensure his light’s comfort.

Abyss rolled his eyes and sighed through his nose as he reached forward.

When his fingers brushed against the hilt, the sword sparked in warning, jagged black lightning running along the dark metal, and Abyss scoffed. As if lightning could harm him at this point. Maybe when he was younger and newer, he would have flinched back, but now, he knew the true meaning of storms and had heard the melodies of ozone and electricity and rain.

Those melodies sang to his rhythm these days.

His hand wrapped around the handle, lightning sparking uselessly off his skin, and he hefted up the too-heavy blade. With a light hum, he slashed through the air, and he found himself mildly surprised at the craftsmanship. The balance was as fine as any summoned blade, though it was a bit heavy for Abyss’s taste.

Excuse you! What do you think you’re doing, you little… well, you’re not the skychild, but you are certainly a little menace that shouldn’t be laying its filthy fingers on my elegant and powerful form—

“Shut up,” Abyss interrupted. The voice’s indignant spluttering and huffing echoed through Abyss’s mind. “I am not the… skychild, as you put it. That much is correct. Though, I have been called a godchild more than once.”

The voice went silent for a long moment.

“A godchild?” the voice scoffed, though it was quieter than before, no longer screeching. “Hmph. I don’t believe you. You’re far too… small. And pathetic.”

Abyss hummed halfheartedly.

“Still, you’re unworthy to hold me. Drop me this instant.”

Actually, Abyss was feeling rather petty today, so instead of leaving this sword to rust and decay at the bottom of a canyon in the middle of nowhere like it deserved, he set the tip against the ground and leaned forward, setting his weight against it. His mismatched eyes reflected back at him from the flat of the blade, somehow still shiny and polished despite its abuse.

“Make me.”

In hindsight, provoking the sword spirit had been a horrible idea, especially when Abyss had enabled it by letting it drag him into a void space to fight, but at least he had won.

Ghirahim, as Abyss had learned the spirit was named, leaned over his prone form nonchalantly, as if Abyss hadn’t just beaten his lanky pale behind into the ground. Black, gooey blood dripped from under the spirit’s hairline, and Abyss stared back up blankly from where he laid on the ground. His fingertips were still as numb as his magic, and if he actually needed to breathe, he might have passed out by now. His face burned, and his eyes felt weird, but he had won despite Ghirahim’s attempts to play dirty.

“Your face is different,” the spirit said, holding none of the vitriol from before. “So is your power. It’s… awakened, I suppose. I can see why they called you godchild… whoever you spoke of.”

It felt like it, certainly. It was like a floodgate had opened just when he was pushed too far. The power had shredded Abyss’s throat and hands and blood vessels without actually physically touching him. It had hurt, but now it sat like a stagnant ocean in the depths of his core, settled and calm.

His face still burned.

“What do I look like?” he asked, because something felt different.

Ghirahim raised a hand, and with a shimmer, his skin turned black and reflective. Staring back from the distorted surface was a face with paler eyes and familiar lines of blue and red burned into his forehead and cheeks.

Well, that probably wasn’t good.

But… he might as well step right into his fate if this was what it was.

“Can you change your sword form, by any chance?”

“I regret agreeing to this,” Ghirahim’s voice chimed through Abyss’s head.

“Either you listen to me, or you rust at the bottom of that canyon,” Abyss said for the thirtieth time since climbing back up from that rift in the earth, a great blade of twisting green and blue on his back.

Ghirahim grumbled but went quiet as he always did, and Abyss wondered what would come first—Ghirahim’s complaining or Abyss’s first glimpse of the Faron Settlement in months.

Abyss was pleased to find that the Settlement showed up first. He muttered a reminder of manners to Ghirahim, who spat back an indignant retort, but when Abyss was the only one who could hear him, it was both easy and satisfying to simply ignore the spirit.

“Abyss? Oh Hylia, you’re back!”

Abyss turned just in time to see Sky moving toward him, and he gladly accepted the hug. Sky’s arms crushed his ribcage in a pleasantly warm way. Abyss had missed hugs.

“How have you been? You didn’t get hurt, did you?” Sky asked before he had even pulled away, but when he let go of Abyss and finally took a good look at him, Sky’s smile fell, and his face paled. “What… What happened to you?”

His thumb came up to ghost over the red streaks over Abyss’s cheeks.

“The kikwi elder and the dragons call me godchild,” Abyss said. He reached up to pull Sky’s hands away from his face, careful to keep his touch gentle and slow. “We both know what this means, don’t we?”

Sky’s face crumpled.

“I wish I didn’t,” he said, “and yet, we don’t know enough.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Abyss shrugged. “I have plenty of time.”

“Still.”

“Tell me what’s new,” Abyss said, unwilling to let Sky wallow on this development. “Have you gotten married yet? How are Groose and Zelda?”

“They’re good, yeah,” Sky sighed. His cheeks dusted red. “And, uh, no, Zelda and I haven’t had the ceremony yet. We were, uh, waiting for you, since, you know.”

Abyss blinked.

“No, I don’t know,” he said, because he only knew the bare minimum about marriage ceremonies, and he was fairly certain most of what he knew came from other time periods. “Why?”

“Because you’re my family,” Sky said like it was obvious. “Before I stepped through that portal, I didn’t really have any family, but then I gained so many brothers, and while most of them are gone, I still have you. I want my family at my wedding.”

Sky looked just as winded from saying that as Abyss felt. Something tight and warm curled in his chest, and despite himself, he felt his face warm.

“Oh,” he said simply. Sky nodded, and after a moment, Abyss asked, “When’s the wedding, then?”

“Soon, now that you’re back.”

The days passed. The sun rose and fell and rose again in an endless march, and Abyss watched the Settlement grow into a village, and before long, everyone collectively agreed to move further north to the plains, where they’d have more room to build and grow.

The wedding was lovely, and for one evening, Sky’s and Sun’s faces were completely devoid of any guilt they may have had over Abyss’s fate. Abyss was glad to see them so happy and carefree, so dearly loved and in love. It was a golden warmth that surrounded the community that day, and for once, Abyss didn’t mind the noise in the slightest. It was a celebration of joy. Abyss was happy to be there to see it for himself, and he wondered if this happiness was what Shadow spoke of all those years ago, back when things were simpler but so much more frustrating.

The sparse houses in the fields grew into a village, and before long, the stone mansion everyone had insisted on constructing for their community leaders was populated by Sky, Sun, and two daughters. The first had her mother’s hair, bright and pure like spun gold, and the second had her father’s eyes, kind and soft yet promising the wrath of a storm if anyone should cross her.

They called him Uncle Abyss, and it warmed his heart.

“Uncle Abyss, what are those marks on your face? Daddy doesn’t have them,” the younger one asked him one afternoon.

“You can’t just ask people why they have face markings!” the older one scolded, face turning pink. “Like when you asked Uncle Groose why his hair was red or when—”

“It’s fine,” Abyss hummed. Ghirahim remained quiet. “I don’t entirely know what these markings mean, but I do know that it means I’m strong.”

“Stronger than Daddy?” the younger one asked.

“Maybe,” Abyss shrugged. He didn’t want to try. When it came to Sky, strength meant nothing.

“Then you’ve got to be like a deity of some sort!” the younger one decided. “But not like one of those protection spirits, like the dragons. Like, uh…. A fighting one! A fierce deity!”

Abyss almost bashed his head into the nearest wall at the familiar name, but he refrained for the sake of the children.

“Don’t be silly,” the older one scoffed. “He’s no deity. He’s just our uncle!”

Her eyes, as bright blue as the sky above, flickered over Abyss hesitantly, her amused smile falling a bit.

“But since you are very strong,” she said, “will you protect us when Dad can’t anymore?”

“Of course,” Abyss answered easily. “I do that already. You need not even ask.”

It had not escaped his notice that where the hair at Sky’s temple began to grey and where the lines in Sky’s face deepened, crow’s feet setting into the corners of his eyes, Abyss’s face remained the same. Everyone around him was aging slowly but surely, and Abyss was not, so of course he would use his strength to protect that which could no longer protect itself. After all, this land was his home, and he knew that one day, a shadow would be summoned, and that shadow would come to call this land home, too.

But for now, all he had to do was defend his nieces, and he was perfectly fine with that.

Besides, Ghirahim was the type to demand action, so Abyss kept him busy and quiet by hunting down monsters every few weeks. Abyss was killing multiple birds with one stone by defending the budding kingdom.

One morning, when Zelda had stepped down as leader and her elder daughter took her place, when the village was turning into a town and Sky’s hair was turning white, Abyss found a moment alone with his light. It hurt his heart to see Sky be so old and withered in comparison to Abyss, but at least the man still stood tall and strong—if not in body, then in aura—and his soul burned as bright and pure as ever.

“What did you want to speak about?” Sky asked, an easy smile on his lips.

“You are the godslayer.”

Sky sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Abyss understood the frustration of repetition, but in the end, they wanted different outcomes of this situation.

“Before you are gone from this earth, will you take my fate into your own hands, or will you simply let everything happen as it will?” Abyss asked.

“I’m not doing this,” Sky said, firm as ever. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again as many times as I have to. No.”

“What if I lose myself over time?” Abyss pressed with a frown. “What if I eventually come to turn my back on Hyrule? Forever is a long time to be alive.”

“You won’t. I know you, and you’re better than that. You won’t turn on Hyrule, and besides, it’s not my place to make this decision,” Sky argued. “Ask Zelda to unweave you, like the Champion’s princess did for Civil. Or ask my daughters or their daughters or whoever comes along down the line. But it will not be me who kills you.” Sky sighed again. “I have seen too much tragedy already. Do not make me kill my own brother.”

Abyss hesitated, unhappy, but he conceded. It was true. That was a cruel task to ask of anyone.

So he waited.

He watched his nieces grow up into a powerful archduchess and a wise queen. He held Sky’s hand and watched the light in his chest fizzle out, disappearing to wherever souls went before they were reborn, and he stood silently on the sidelines as attendants carried out the funeral for the first queen of Hyrule. His excursions into the wilderness grew longer and more frequent, and when he passed through towns or returned to the castle, striding quietly through the crowds and shadows, he gathered that he had become something of an urban myth, a mysterious figure that lived outside the realm of the average mortal.

They said he was a wandering god of storms, lightning and rain following him wherever he went. They said that the storms followed his commands, lightning and thunder booming wherever he liked and the rain carefully avoiding him, keeping him dry no matter how long he stood under the thunderclouds. They said he had the strength of one thousand men, that his helix blade could slice mountains in twain, and they said that the marks on his face were proof that the fierce deity was there, looming ominously like a harbinger of doom.

The rumors weren’t entirely nonsensical. Abyss had lived far longer than any hylian could, and storms did follow his footsteps like ducklings trailing behind their mother. His ever-growing power and the blade on his back and the title of godchild that weighed heavy in his mind refused to let him forget that he was a being of magic more than he was a being of flesh and blood. His face was still unaged, though he swore he grew paler with every day that passed. Ghirahim claimed that it was the influence of his divine power.

Perhaps he was a god after all. He didn’t know the difference.

He watched his nieces have children and grandchildren of their own, and before he knew it, he had become nothing but a distant guardian figure to the descendents of his light, like a childhood imaginary friend that will eventually be forgotten or regarded as fiction. After all, these days, he only appeared in order to deal with the stray monster or conspirator that managed to slip past him.

Once upon a time, Abyss had enjoyed a life where he was considered a member of a group, a part of a community, and now, he was alone.

“A rupee for your thoughts?” the blade chimed, voice ringing clear through his head despite the pouring rain surrounding them, and Abyss sighed to himself. No, he wasn’t alone.

“It’s been too long since I took a nap or sat down and ate a meal with friends,” Abyss said. “I’ve done a disservice to my friends, but I’m trapped. I am too intimidating to simply rejoin hylian society. I was lucky with the heroes, but now… I’m supposed to enjoy life, but I am simply wandering from day to day in wait for a future that lies ages away.”

He sighed to himself.

“I’m tired,” Abyss continued, his voice softly echoing against the stones of the mountain path he traveled down. His voice was almost lost to the sound of water hitting mud, but he knew Ghirahim would hear him anyway. “And if I stay any longer, I will want to interfere with events that I should not be a part of. I can’t risk those not happening, because if they don’t, then I wouldn’t be here, and I don’t want to puzzle out the consequences of a time paradox.”

“Right, right, your little time travel adventure with the skychild and his ilk. And what do you intend to do about staying, hmm? You’re a god. You can’t just curl up and rot to dust in a corner like a mortal.”

“I intend to sleep, in a way. A magical sleep,” Abyss answered. “Will you come with me? I won’t force you to if you don’t want to, but considering your standards, I think it would be a lonely existence.”

Over the years, Ghirahim had softened somewhat, though his judgement toward Sky was still rather harsh. Abyss figured that Ghirahim was just stubborn and liked holding on to grudges. The sword spirit claimed that the wielder of a powerful blade always affected the attitude of the spirit inside, if there was a spirit at all, thus placing the blame entirely on Abyss despite the fact that Ghirahim’s personality was still very different from the young deity. Abyss only once made the mistake of pointing out that he was created from rage and survival and yet Ghirahim was still frilly and dramatic. The ensuing hours of nagging and indignant ranting ensured he never brought it up again.

Something like a friendship had formed between the two of them, being the only constants in the ever-flowing current of time, and, in bits and pieces, they came to know each others’ histories. Ghirahim knew of Dark and Shadow and the others, and in turn, Abyss heard about the ancient past, of Demise and Hylia and their struggle. There was an unspoken agreement to not question each other on past choices, perhaps born out of a mutual respect, and it was due to that mutual respect that Abyss asked that question.

He had dragged Ghirahim this far with him, but there was no need to assume anything.

“And leave you on your own?” Ghirahim scoffed. “I think not. Who knows what trouble you’d run into, even while asleep?”

A rare smile wormed its way onto Abyss’s face.

“In that case, we should start searching.”

“For what?”

“I have no idea.”

“Are all darks as infuriating as you?”

“Only some of us.”

“I hate you.”

Abyss only hummed. He knew it wasn’t true in the slightest.

“Who are you? What are you?”

The man’s smile never fell from his face, and instead of cowering under Abyss’s suspicious glare, he merely clasped his hands in front of his chest.

“I’m merely a salesman, sir,” the man answered.

“A salesman who knows a song that I’d only heard from a man who visited a land that may or may not exist.”

“Oh? What a fascinating description! So you know the song of healing as well?”

“... Yes. Can you… Can you use it on me and guard my power until it is needed again?”

“What a strange request… but yes, if you wish. It would be my honor. To carry a deity is no small thing.”

“I have another request. When the time comes, would you deliver these? The ocarina to the royal family, and the letter to… to a forge.”

“Of course.”

The sun set, and days passed, and the mask remained asleep within the bags of a being not quite human. Night turns to day turns to night, the stars slowly turning over a land vibrant with life, and underneath this evershifting sky, the people of a young kingdom danced and laughed, mourned and wept, slept and breathed and lived their lives like flickering lights in the darkness.

The mask knew no time, but it knew that years and years had passed, and at some point, a young boy would watch a mage with ill-gotten magic turn his best friend to stone. Years later, that same boy would face himself and a reflection of his own chaos and mischief, and somehow, despite everything, that boy would grow to care for his reflection, and that shadow would love him in return for his kindness. To a shattered mirror that shadow would fall, happy to know that someone in this life loved him in some form or fashion.

Centuries later in a time that even the mask did not know the details of, that shadow would be summoned again, but that story hadn’t happened yet. Rather, the end of that story came first, because only a few years after the mirror was shattered, the boy came back from another adventure, and with him came his shadow, once again alive and well.

Another two years, and a letter would find its way to the hands of this shadow, kept safe for centuries by a salesman with a too-permanent smile who carried an aura of death about him.

In the quiet safety of his room, the shadow opened the letter.

Dear Shadow,

By the time you read this, it will have been centuries since I last walked this earth, and I will be not gone but asleep. I suppose by your definitions, I am not quite alive, but rest assured, I chose this path for myself.

You and my light were right. The people of Skyloft were kind and welcoming, despite my appearance. I helped build the Faron settlement and graphed the surface as best I could. My light and her grace had two children—daughters. They were just as kind as their parents, and I was their uncle. It was nice.

However, it seems that Dark was also right, in a way. We are not naturally created for this world, and in the end, peace is difficult to achieve, being so tied up in divinity and fate as we are. I, in short, became the Fierce Deity, the very same creature the Hero of Time had been so… not fearful, but cautious of. I understand why, now. My full power is permanently awakened, and perhaps it was the inheritance of the Godslayer, but this is… a lot. It’s dangerous. Perhaps this was the power that Dark sought after all those years ago when he summoned us, or perhaps it is more in line with the power that Ganon coveted. I don’t know.

Also, did you know that we will outlive our lights if we do not get killed first? It never occurred to me before the day I noticed my light had grown old and grey and I was still young. Perhaps my case is unique, being an apparent deity, but we are beings of magic first and beings of flesh and blood second. I wonder if you and the others will also live on as long as I have.

You told me to leave you something. Maybe, if we were temporally closer, I could have stayed long enough to meet you, but I know that I could never stand by and simply let everything happen, so I chose instead to sleep. I will wait for someone, perhaps your light’s own successor, to wake me up once more, but until then, this letter is what I will leave for you.

On one last note—Shadow, you changed my life. You taught me kindness and gentleness, things that did not come naturally to me, but more importantly, you showed me that there is more than breathing and fighting. There is an intrinsic understanding that happiness exists, but to pursue it is something entirely different, and yet you strove for it and showed me that it was possible, that it was not a futile endeavor. Your friendship meant the world to me, and it is because of you that I was able to live the life I did. I have regrets, but so does everyone, and I was happy.

So thank you, Shadow. I look forward to seeing you again, whenever that may be. I believe it to be the way of fate—always allowing another greeting.

Live well.

Your friend,

Abyss

Parchment wrinkled under pale hands, and a tear fell from crimson eyes onto the page. Despite this, the shadow smiled.

“See you later, buddy.”

Somewhere else, an ocarina of shimmering, iridescent blue returned to the hands of the royal family, and a smiling salesman left the borders of Hyrule.

Another few hundred years passed, and the mask fell into the hands of a boy desperate for an ending, desperate to save a land that never had the time to know him from a grinning moon and a malicious god.

The wood pressed into soft skin, and as the boy screamed, his flesh melding with the mask as his body cracked and stretched and morphed, the soul inside woke up, and a second voice screamed alongside the boy.

The sapling had grown into a grand tree, branches reaching out across the sky. The creature in the moon had pulled its tendrils and colors into its own form, and the soul hated it.

For that battle, the soul only knew its own ferocity and the foreign press of the boy’s desire to keep going, to heal, to save , and the soul lent its strength to the boy who so dearly needed it. It had to protect this precious life, because it didn’t, then nothing else would, not in this chaos-forsaken place.

Why, exactly, it stepped back, it did not know, not until everything was over and it sat in the boy’s bag rather than on his face.

And everything flooded back.

Chapter Text

Link was a strange child, and he was very much aware of it.

After all, other children didn’t have charcoal grey skin that their fathers had to warn them to hide, and as far as Link knew, other kids also tended to look like their parents. While he did greatly resemble his father, nothing of his mother could be found in his face, and neither of his parents had his black hair or crimson eyes.

But that was alright. They were still his parents. He loved them, and they loved him, so it was alright.

He remembered the night his dad brought him home. The wind was warm and sweet, and the sky was just bright enough that the stars hadn’t come out yet. A pretty lady with red hair opened the door and looked at Link with wide eyes, but she had greeted them both warmly enough. Link had come to learn that the lady was his mother, and her name was Malon.

They were his parents, and they were family, and that was that.

It wasn’t just his looks that separated him from other children, however. It had only taken him a few days to figure out his strange, wispy, black magic before he had stumbled down the stairs one morning to show off how he had changed his skin to the same peachy color his parents had. They had taken a moment to process it, but then they congratulated him, and he got hugs and even got to have apple pie for dessert that night, but the next day, his father pulled him aside.

“You cannot let anyone else know about your special abilities, do you understand?” his father told him. “Many people would not take kindly to your magic or your true appearance.”

“Am I bad, then?” Link had asked, and his father’s face crumpled like he’d just watched someone spill a month’s worth of milk. His father sure did like milk.

“No, of course not,” his father answered. “Whether you’re good or bad depends on your actions, not on what you are. You’re a good kid, Link.”

In order to be good, you had to be a good person. Link figured that that was easy enough. He liked helping his mom and dad on the ranch, and the horses and cows were lovely. Even the cuccos were fun to hang out with when they weren’t hungry, much to his father’s chagrin and his mother’s amusement.

More than helping out on the ranch, though, he loved the quieter moments. He loved his dad carrying him to bed and tucking him in after a long day on the ranch. He loved listening to his mom sing as she showed him how to calm an unruly horse. He loved when his grandpa brought him into the living room for reading and writing lessons. He loved it because it meant they loved him, and it made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

So really, it didn’t bother him too much that he didn’t look a lot like his parents.

Link liked horses. They were pretty and tall and strong, and none more so than his parents’ favorite mare Epona. Epona was hotheaded but loving, and Link had grown used to her habit of snuffling affectionately at his hair but throwing a fit when he tried to ride her without either of his parents around. He sometimes wondered if she was somehow instructed to not let him ride her.

At the age of nine (the number was an estimate on his parents’ part), he was able to do his own tasks independently around the ranch, and at the moment, he was brushing down a grey foal. It had been born this spring as a healthy baby boy, and he was quite fond of it.

“Good boy,” he hummed happily, running the brush down the foal’s neck. The foal snorted and gave him that funny side-eye that animals were so fond of.

An owl hooted overhead. Link thought his father said that owls were nocturnal. Curious, he paused and looked up, meeting the piercing stare of a rather twitchy owl.

“You’re not supposed to be awake, Mister Owl,” Link said.

“I could say much the same about a creature like you.”

See, Link was a child, and as a child, he didn’t think too much about speaking to animals, simply talking just to talk. Hence, when the owl opened its beak and spoke back in perfect hylian, Link did not yelp or shout in alarm. He only stared, dumbfounded.

“You can talk?” Link asked.

“Oh, yes, of course,” the owl answered. Its head twitched to the side, large eyes blinking down at him. “I quite enjoy talking, but I don’t have many to talk to. Neither do you, isn’t that right?”

“I… I guess so,” Link admitted. He scuffed the tip of his shoe against the ground. “I don’t have many friends here… but I do have my mom and dad! They’re nice to me.”

“Hmm, I see,” the owl hummed. “You truly don’t understand, then.”

“What?”

“You were not born, little one. You were created for a purpose, and not a very kind one, at that. You were not created to live in this world, but it appears that circumstances have defied fate and put you here regardless. That does not mean that you are safe yet, however, for there will always be that threat hanging over you. What you have done will eventually come back around, as all things do, but will you be ready when it does? Will you be able to recognize and restrain that burning flame in your chest? The one that yearns for your true purpose in spite of everything you strive for? Or will you give in and succumb to the same desires that drove you to this state in the first place? A cruel cycle, perhaps.”

Link blinked. He understood none of that.

“Wha—”

“Did you get all that?” the owl chirped.

“Hey! Gaebora! Get out of here!”

Link startled and spun around at the sound of his dad’s voice. The man himself was walking directly toward Link and the owl, and with a ruffle of feathers, the bird lifted off and flew away before his father could get too close.

“Go on, shoo!” his father shouted after the owl as it became a dot in the distance. One blue eye turned to Link, brow pinched in concern. “Are you alright, Link? Did he say anything strange?”

“I’m fine,” Link assured him, throwing in a nod for good measure. “He said a lot of things. I don’t get it, though.”

“He… probably would have just repeated it if you told him that,” his father sighed. His large hand reached down and took Link’s much smaller hand, completely dwarfing him, and then he crouched down to look Link in the eye. “Your mother and I have been talking, and we’ve agreed that I should teach you how to fight.”

“To fight? Like with swords and stuff?”

His father snorted but nodded and said, “Yes, with swords and stuff.”

Link’s father was a great warrior. Link knew this because all his uncles were fighting something before he forgot everything, and his father was one of them, a true fighter. Besides, his father had a really cool set of armor, and everyone knew that only warriors got to wear armor like that.

Needless to say, he was excited.

“Ok!”

“Again.”

Link grunted and pushed himself back to his feet. His sword hand was uncomfortably sweaty. Actually, no, his entire body was uncomfortably sweaty, and his father wasn’t even phased. That goron sword was just awful to try to get past.

“You’re trying too hard to pull off fancy footwork,” his father told him. “Stick to the basics first, and then you can improve.”

“But the basics are easy,” Link complained, because they were. If anything, it felt natural.

“That’s muscle memory talking,” his father said with no small amount of amusement. “You don’t actually know the basics or how to use them efficiently. Now try it again, and stop trying to backflip.”

Link did, but it was unfortunately difficult to want to try maneuvers that he simply wasn’t ready for. That night, his father applied bruise balm to his shoulders and carefully brushed his fingers through dark hair, making sure that Link didn’t hide any injuries.

Training wasn’t bad in any way—no more than any normal combat training, he was pretty sure. In truth, Link wanted to keep fighting, but he understood that his father was getting older and was growing tired. Not tired in the loud, gasping way like when Link had to run after a particularly rowdy foal and ran out of breath—he was tired in a far quieter way, like when his grandfather would drift off to sleep wherever he could or when his mother would sag down in her seat after a long day’s work.

“What’s the symbol on my sword for?” Link asked in the light of the crackling fire.

“You mean the swirling one?”

Link nodded, and his father sat back and hummed. Link struggled for a moment, but he managed to turn around and face his father without falling off the couch.

“That is a symbol of the forest,” his father explained. “I grew up there, and before I left for Hyrule, I took that blade with me. The forest is dangerous, even now. The sword has served me well and saved me many times.”

“But isn’t it too small?” Link asked. When his father held it now, he made it look like a particularly large knife, especially when compared to his usual blade. “It’s a kid’s sword.”

“It is a kid’s sword. I was a child when I left,” his father answered. “No older than you are now.”

“Oh,” Link said. He fiddled with his fingers. “Is that why you’re teaching me how to fight?”

“Partially,” his father admitted. “It’s also just a good skill to have. Hyrule might be in peace times now, but monsters are always just around the corner. You never know when you might need to defend yourself.”

“Does that apply to people, too?” Link asked.

He knew that criminals existed. He knew they could be mean and cruel but sometimes were no more than slaves to their circumstances. How he knew that, he wasn’t sure, but he knew it to be an undeniable truth.

So why did his father look hurt by the thought? Surely he knew, too.

“Only when necessary,” came the answer. His father cleared his throat. “Take care of that blade, now. We’ll get you a bigger one when you grow up, but for now, just know that your Uncle Smith would be very upset if you let that blade sustain any damage.”

Link nodded dutifully.

He remembered that much.

“Link, your father and I have something very important to tell you.”

Link looked up from his book to see his parents standing in the doorway with shiny eyes and excited smiles. Slowly, he slid a bookmark between the pages and lowered the book.

His mother took that as a cue to continue.

“We’re pregnant!” she squealed, as if unable to contain her excitement. She rushed forward and pulled Link into a tight hug. “Oh, Link, you’re going to have a sibling!”

Link blinked and, feeling a smile spread across his face, he looked to his father. The man leaned against the doorframe with a soft smile and a fond tilt to his eye. When he met Link’s gaze, he gave a small nod, and something bright and warm sparked in Link’s chest.

A sibling, huh? The more he thought about it, the more he loved the idea.

Over the months, his mother’s belly grew larger and rounder, and Link and his father took on more ranch work for her. She had consistent pains, and she and Link’s father were worried about everything but refused to explain it to Link. They said that it was just adult things, nothing he should have to worry about.

He wasn’t an idiot, though. He knew they were scared, and it wasn’t just anxiety about having a child. After all, they already had him, so they had to have experience already. No, they were scared about something else, something about the child.

The fact that Link loved his parents was still very much true, but when they stressed so much and didn’t tell him about it, he simply had to get away. He liked to sneak away in the evenings, when the sky was dark enough for the stars to come out of wherever they hid away during the day.

Tonight, Link found himself sprawled out over the rooftop, staring up at the starry night sky. He had waved away his magic, his skin once more a dark grey, and he wondered if his new sibling would mind his appearance. The kids at Castletown had called him a monster when he was first brought there to visit, when he let his magic slip just once, for no longer than a couple seconds.

He hoped his sibling wouldn’t mind. He hoped they would accept him just the same way as his parents did, with understanding and protection… except, no, that wasn’t right. Link was the older one. That meant that it was his job to protect them, right? Well, that settled that, he supposed.

That baby would be his responsibility to protect.

One day, his mother shouted for his father, and then his grandfather had a rare moment of flurried movement. Link felt panic settle over him, sinking into his blood, and when his father came stumbling down the stairs, his magic wavered.

“Link, listen carefully,” his father said, doing a terrible job of keeping his voice steady. “Take Kier and go to Kakariko. Go to the doctor and tell him that Malon just went into labor, and get him here as quickly as possible. Can you do that?”

Link nodded. His blood rushed through his ears, and his heart pounded mercilessly against his sternum, so loud and fast and overwhelming. The next moments were a blur. He couldn’t remember how he got onto the black horse, considering it was usually too large for him to get on by himself, but he’d apparently managed, because they were galloping across Hyrule Field, and then he was on the ground again and stumbling toward the doctor’s office.

He shoved his way in, his hands too shaky to actually grab the handle. The door slammed against the wall, and he winced when the man behind the counter flinched at the sound.

“Hey, settle down now, boy,” the man grumbled. “There’s no rush—”

“My mom went into labor!” Link gasped, somehow out of breath despite Kier doing all the running. Perhaps it had to do with his too loud heartbeat. He was pretty sure his disguise magic was still up, but he wasn’t completely certain. It didn’t matter right now, anyway. “At Lon Lon Ranch! Please. My dad sent me.”

The doctor’s eyes widened, and without delay, they were both on the horse and galloping back to the ranch. They arrived far too early and yet still so late. Link hopped off the horse and steadied himself. The doctor was grabbing his bags when Link heard his mother scream from inside the house, and Link…

Link froze.

The doctor rushed past him and into the house, and the sudden movement startled him out of whatever that had been. He looked down just to make sure that there was nothing holding his feet in place, no hands trying to pull him down into the earth, and he let himself breathe. Labor was painful, according to the books he’d found laying around the house. That scream was probably perfectly normal.

At least, he hoped so.

Link put Kier back in the stables, and when he returned, he found that his father and grandfather had been kicked out of the room and were now sulking in the living room. He knew they would never admit they were sulking, but they were. Link lived in a house of very stubborn people.

“Dad, Grandpa?” Link asked as he pulled off his boots by the door. “Is, um, is Mom gonna be okay?”

“She’ll be just fine,” his grandfather sighed, lightly shoving his father’s shoulder. “She’s a strong woman.”

“Come here,” his father said, waving him over. Link padded over and let his father pull him down into the cushions, squished between him and Talon. “Are you excited?”

Link nodded.

“I’m nervous, too,” Link admitted. “Am I going to be okay?”

His father and grandfather gave him weird looks, and Link found his face burning. He didn’t mean for it to come out like that.

“I-I mean, am I going to be good enough for them?” he stammered. “I know I’m just adopted, so am I going to be a good enough big brother? What if I need to protect them but I can’t, or—”

“You’ll be just fine,” his father said, a tired chuckle slipping out as he pulled Link into a side-hug, his hand large and warm against Link’s shoulder. “You’ll be a great big brother.”

Link buried his face in his father’s shoulder.

Some time later, Link woke to his father gently shaking him and telling him that they could see Malon again. He pulled himself up, unsure of how much time had passed, and followed his father up the stairs.

His mother’s hair was tangled and loose over the pillows and sheets, and while she looked utterly exhausted, there was an undeniable smile on her lips. The doctor sat by the bed, speaking in quiet tones until he noticed Link and his father and grandfather at the door, and the doctor got up and left to give them some privacy.

“Come here,” his mother said, and for once, both his father and grandfather looked as unsure as Link felt. “Come see.”

It was his father who stepped forward first, and his face softened as he knelt down by the bedside to look closer at his newest child. Curious, Link walked over and peered over his father’s shoulder at the round, chubby, red creature in his mother’s arms.

“She’s a girl,” his mother said.

Link hesitantly reached out, and round blue eyes stared at him as a chubby hand came up to grab his finger. The grip was tight, and he marveled at how utterly tiny her hand was in comparison to his.

“She’s so small,” he said.

“She’s a baby,” his grandfather chuckled. “They usually are.”

“Say hello to your big brother, Aria,” Malon cooed down at the infant. “Link, say hi.”

The baby gurgled, and Link found himself smiling as he said, “Hello, Aria.”

Link didn’t get to go to Castletown very often, but his father apparently received a strongly worded letter a week or two after Aria was born, and now he was visiting not just the city with his father but the castle.

You know, the place where the royal family lived.

Link hid behind his father’s legs, wary of the guards. They didn’t seem very competent, somehow, but something deep in his chest whispered to act with caution.

The queen, Queen Zelda Lulla Hyrule herself, on the other hand, was definitely dangerous, and she was currently tearing his father a new one while Link himself sat on the sidelines twiddling his thumbs and avoiding eye contact.

“And how do I find out that you have had not one but two children in the past year? Through a letter. From your wife! ” the queen hissed. “Now, I adore Malon, and we both know that, but you’d think the hero would have the basic decency to tell me, their godmother , about them—”

“Godmother?” Link whispered to his father.

“Someone who takes care of you if our family can’t,” his father whispered back, much stealthier than Link.

“Oh.”

“Excuse me, your grace,” his father spoke up. The queen raised a sharp eyebrow at him, and Link had never before felt so strongly that his father was a brave man. “May Link explore the castle grounds?”

Sharp eyes turned to Link and softened. She was bright in ways that Link couldn’t explain. Glorious and strong and yet so very dangerous.

“Yes,” she said. She pulled something from her pocket and offered it. Link reached out and found himself holding a slip of paper with elegant writing scrawled across it. “Keep this with you. It will let the guards know you’re not trespassing.”

Link nodded and left before the queen could continue scolding his father.

The palace was huge and resplendent, and all the twists and turns made Link dizzy. The crimson carpets were plush under the soles of his shoes, and the walls and floors were so sharp and clean and bright, nothing like the warm browns of the ranch. He felt like he might get in trouble if he were to bring dirt in here. This place was so much bigger than the ranch. He wondered how anyone remembered how to get through here.

Before long, he came upon a door to the outside, more like a gate than a door with its thin swirls of silver, and when he pushed it open, he found himself standing in a garden. The sunshine glittered off verdant leaves and colorful petals of flowers he couldn’t name, and the gentle breeze pushing through the courtyard carried with it the sweetness of the flowers.

A little ways into the garden stood a small figure in pink, and for a long moment, Link froze. Something in his brain whispered that this figure was dangerous, just like the queen… no, potentially dangerous. It whispered to him to be careful, to turn and run away before he was noticed, because if he was noticed, then…

Then what?

Link didn’t know, but his hesitation gave the figure enough time to turn and notice him.

The girl startled, dark indigo eyes widening, and Link tensed, waiting for her reaction. His eyes lingered on the gleaming golden tiara around her head.

“Who are you?” the girl asked, voice high and anxious but still strong. “How did you get here?”

“I’m… um… I’m Link,” he said. “My dad is visiting the queen.” He paused, then added, “She seems really mad at him.” He pulled the slip of paper from his pocket and held it out. “She said I could be here.”

“Oh,” the girl said, not taking the paper. She blinked, then cleared her throat. “Well, I’m Zelda. Um, Mother tells me to introduce myself as Princess Zelda Operian Hyrule, but that’s a lot of syllables.”

“It is,” Link agreed, never having felt more awkward in his life, regardless of how little of said life he remembered.

“So, um,” Zelda said, already losing some of her bravado. “I don’t usually speak to others my age. What do kids talk about?”

Link blinked, opened his mouth, then closed it again in realization. After a moment, just long enough to make the silence awkward again, he answered.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I usually just stay home with my mom and dad. Other kids don’t like me.”

“Why not?”

“I look like my dad, a lot,” he muttered, his hand coming up to tug at his pitch black hair, “but, um, I don’t look like my mom, and neither of them have dark hair.”

“Oh,” Zelda said blankly. “That’s stupid.”

Link blinked at her in shock. Some part of him wanted to laugh at her blunt words, but the rest of him was too stunned to speak.

“You don’t get to choose how you look,” the princess huffed, her brow furrowing into a pout. “It’s unfair to be mean to someone over something as silly as appearance.” She set her hands on her hips, a new air of determination about her. “I’m sure they’re missing out on a great person, so do you want to be friends? I don’t have any, but I think it would be nice.”

“I don’t have any, either,” Link said, but he couldn’t deny that she might be right—it could be nice. “Ok. Let’s be friends, then.”

After a second, both children came to the same realization.

“Um…” the princess trailed off, “what do we do now?”

“I have no idea.”

Link wasn’t quite sure he knew what it was like to want to protect something before he met his little sister.

He was there to watch her first steps, toddling over to their mother on wobbly legs, and the way Malon squished her little rosy cheeks in joy was nothing short of precious. He liked to watch over her, keeping an eye on her as he went about his chores on the ranch, and when his parents had to get too hands-on with a rowdy horse or a pregnant cow, he simply took over and kept Aria occupied, playing with her. Sometimes he’d take her to see the fairies, which never ceased to amaze her even if they didn’t seem to care too much for him, but sometimes, she liked to play make believe.

It wasn’t uncommon for her to play the hero and him to play the damsel in distress. He liked the dramatics well enough, and he knew he could pull off his mother’s childhood dresses, but sometimes, he liked playing the big bad dragon instead because it meant he could take down the heroine with a tickle fight.

Besides, Aria liked it when he pulled out the red eyes. His true form was great for playing dragon.

Speaking of Aria—

“Who’re you writing to, big brother?”

Chubby hands curled into his pants, and her inexperienced tongue tripped over her words sluggishly, but even as a toddler, she was proving to be just as intelligent and strong-willed as their parents. The ink scrawled across the paper under Link’s hands slowly dried. His handwriting was still sloppier than his mother’s, but she insisted he was doing well.

“Our cousin Zelda,” he told her, setting the pen back in the inkwell. “She’s a real princess, and she’s really nice.”

Blue eyes widened in wonder, and her grip on his pant leg tightened.

“Can I meet her?” she asked. “I wanna meet a princess!”

“Maybe, if our parents agree,” he answered with a smile. “She would love you. I’ve been telling her all about you, you know.”

“Really?” Aria gasped.

“Of course,” Link laughed. He reached down and hefted his sister into his lap just so he could squish her in a hug. She let out a squeal, giggles light on his voice. “She would love you, I think. Almost as much as I do.”

After a moment, he set her back down on the floor, careful to keep her on her feet.

“Now, shoo,” he said, not unkindly. “I need to finish this letter.”

Aria nodded dutifully before toddling off, and once he was done writing, he blew on the parchment to dry the ink. He sealed it in an envelope and picked up Aria on his way to the mailbox, setting her against his hip so she could feel included.

“I told her you said hi,” Link told her as his feet carried him over the worn dirt path.

“But I didn’t say hi,” Aria said. “Who am I supposed to say hi to?”

“It’s a saying,” Link said. “It means that, since you can’t say hi to Zelda, I’m saying it for you. I assumed you’d want to say hi.”

“Oh. Okay!”

Link managed to open the mailbox with one finger and slipped the envelope inside, making sure to close it behind himself. The mailman, ever dutiful, would come by sometime to deliver it, and then he’d just have to wait for Zelda’s response. He liked to think they were good friends by now—

Something was off.

He spun around, keeping Aria turned away from the presence, and he found himself facing an unknown masked adult, clad in dark blue and far too silent. A long, pale blond braid laid over their shoulder, and bright red eyes focused on him.

He’d never seen anyone else with red eyes, except for his uncles, like Uncle Shadow and Uncle Gloam, and—

“Relax, Link,” the adult sighed. “I’m no intruder.”

“Who are you?” he demanded, internally cursing his voice crack. “Do my mom and dad know you’re here?”

“Not yet. I just got here,” the adult said. They crouched down, all graceful and nimble and effortless. “I said to relax, Link. I’m here on invitation.” They extended a hand. “I’m your Uncle Sheik, your godfather.”

Link blinked, looked back to his sister, who stared back in confusion, and turned back to the adult. Slowly, he took the proffered hand and shook it.

“Are you Zelda’s dad then?” he asked, letting go of their hand.

Sheik blinked, surprised, and released a snort of laughter, the corners of their eyes crinkling.

“Ah, not quite. She is my daughter, but I am not her father,” Sheik said between laughs. Link frowned. “I understand the confusion, though. It’s complicated.” They hummed as they sobered. “You’re a sharp one, though. Zelda might just be right about you.”

Without further clarification, they rose back up to their full height, turned, and headed toward the ranch. Link gaped after them, and after a moment, he ran after them. Aria gripped his shirt tighter to hold on, but really, she didn’t need to worry. She was safe in his arms.

“What does that mean?” he asked. “What did she say about me?”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s nothing bad,” Sheik assured him, never slowing down even for his shorter stride. “You might have some certain potential, but I’ll have to discuss it with your parents first.”

“... Alright.”

Link had no idea what the potential was for, but he figured his parents would know. They knew a lot of things that he didn’t.

Indeed, Sheik had not lied. His parents greeted them with delighted surprise, but they didn’t mention anything about Link’s exchange with them outside. They stayed for dinner, talking with his parents and playing with Aria until late in the night. Link fell asleep on the couch.

The next morning, his father suggested a trip to Kakariko.

“Is this about what Uncle Sheik told me?” Link asked. “About, um, potential?”

His father didn’t even look surprised.

“Yes,” he answered. He looked like he had all the serenity in the world, but Link wasn’t a fool. He could see the heaviness in his father’s gaze, the way his eye slanted ever so slightly downward in reluctance. “Sheik tells me you have an affinity for the shadows. You don’t have to decide immediately, but I’m taking you to Kakariko to see if you’d want to learn from them. We’ll look around, just so you know what you’re getting into, and then we’ll come right back home.”

“Learn from who?” Link asked. “Uncle Sheik?”

“No,” his father said, shaking his head. “The Sheikah.”

Link was fourteen years old, and with Aria learning her way around the concept of independence, he decided to finally take up his Uncle Sheik on the offer to learn from the Sheikah. After all, he enjoyed fighting. It felt right , somehow.

Now, Link was not a fool. He never had been. He knew why his godfather had mentioned it.

He had an affinity for the darkness because he wasn’t like his parents or Zelda or Aria. They were bright in a way he couldn’t explain, nothing like the shining darkness that sat in the back of his father’s dresser drawer, and nothing like Link himself, who felt most comfortable in the shade of the barn and under the stars of the night sky.

Maybe he would learn something. Maybe he wouldn’t. What he wanted was to learn control, even if it was only physical control. He could change his hair color now, but it took so much effort to banish every shade of black from his form, and he wondered if his uncles ever had the same troubles—not the bright, pure ones but the darker ones, the ones that looked at him strangely and yet still treated him kindly, like he was to be protected.

Not that he could ask them. He and his father had said their goodbyes to them years ago.

So to Kakariko he went. His mother fretted over him, overpacking his bags with food, blankets, and clothes, and his father never stopped dropping strangely ominous survival advice. Aria clung to his legs until he tripped over her, both of them laughing at how stupid their antics must look, but it wasn’t long before he stood at the gates of Kakariko, alone for the first time he could recall.

An old lady with a sharp, crimson gaze found him and introduced herself as Impa, and Link found himself sweating under her piercing stare.

“You look so much like your father when he was young,” she said. “Except he had blond hair.”

“I know, ma’am,” Link muttered. “I’ve been told many times before.”

Impa immediately smacked him in the side with her cane, and he yelped. It didn’t quite hurt, but he certainly hadn’t expected it. His disguise almost slipped.

“Speak up,” she huffed. “My hearing isn’t what it used to be, you know, and your instructors won’t appreciate mumbling.”

Link wanted to grumble out a complaint, but he wisely kept his mouth shut instead and let Impa show him around the village. She was awfully quick and spry for a woman her age, and she was incredibly knowledgeable. Eventually, she led him to a large building hidden away in the back of the village, covered by foliage and built into the natural earthen walls that surrounded the village.

“These are the barracks, where we put the trainees and mentors,” Impa told him. “You’ll be staying here.”

“Which room?” he asked, only to realize the woman was somehow already gone.

He blinked at the empty space where she should have been and pursed his lips before turning back to the building. With a sigh, he stepped forward and pushed the door open.

And there was a knife in his face. Wonderful. What a warm welcome. He loved that.

“I’m supposed to be here,” he said, looking past the knife to meet the pair of squinting red eyes that sat just above a dark mask. “At least, Ms. Impa told me that before she just kind of… disappeared.”

The sheikah withdrew the knife with a sigh.

“She does that,” the sheikah said in the voice of a young man. Link had to fight to keep himself from perking up at the presence of someone close to his age.

Someone with the same eyes as him.

“She didn’t tell me what room I’m supposed to be staying in,” Link said, and the young man went over to a desk and flipped through a thick book.

“Of course she didn’t. Name?”

“Um—Link, Link Lon. Junior.”

“Ugh, juniors,” the sheikah grumbled. “Alright, yeah, I see you here.” He shut the book and turned back to Link, hands on his hips. “Follow me. I’ll show you where you’re staying and who to complain to if, I don’t know, there’s a leak or you get lost or something.”

He turned on his heel, and Link had to jog to catch up.

“How will I find them if I’m lost?” Link asked, frowning.

“Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Link’s frown deepened. He didn’t think it was stupid. It was a reasonable concern.

“Fine,” he huffed. “Then what’s your name?”

“Why do you need it?”

“I mean, I can call you Mister Stick Up His Behind if you want,” Link snarked.

The boy’s shoulders lifted to his ears indignantly, but he didn’t slow down or turn around.

“Katsuo,” the boy grumbled, and Link felt his face split into a wide grin.

“What was that?” he hummed. “I didn’t hear you. Mumbling isn’t appreciated in Kakariko, no?”

“Shut up,” the boy snapped. Link smirked. His ears were red. “My name is Katsuo, and I’m not repeating myself, got it?” He stopped suddenly and opened a door, gesturing curtly inside. “You’re staying here.”

“Oh yeah, sure thing,” Link agreed easily. His smirk leaned into something more genuine. “Thanks.”

Katsuo looked away and shuffled, then turned back and started walking away.

“See you around!” Link called after him.

“I hope not.”

Luck, it seemed, was not in Katsuo’s favor.

The way the boy’s eyes scrunched up in dismay when Impa’s daughter Payam told him he’d be in charge of looking after Link during his stay was downright comical, and Link had to bite down on his tongue to keep from bursting out laughing right then and there. He wished he could see the expression Katsuo was making under the mask, but then he wouldn’t be able to keep quiet at all.

On the downside, that meant that Katsuo was also in charge of kicking Link’s ass. Link thought his father was a harsh combat teacher, but despite his skill, his father was aging and favored heavy combat over the quick and dextrous moves that Link preferred. He was also kind. The sheikah, on the other hand, had spent centuries perfecting their silent and precise combat, and Link found himself on the floor, the wind knocked out of him, more often than he found himself on his feet. Katsuo in particular was not a particularly kind teacher, but Link would be lying if he said it wasn’t effective.

This meant that Link spent a lot of time around Katsuo, more so than he did with the other sheikah trainees, and that meant that he noticed Katsuo’s growing agitation toward him, though he didn’t quite understand why. Link thought he was a pleasant enough person to be around, especially in Kakariko, where crimson eyes weren’t an unusual sight.

Really, though, it was only a matter of time before Katsuo had him cornered, a knife threatening to take out his eye.

“What’s this for?” Link asked, nervous laughter dancing on the edge of his voice. He fought the urge to scratch the back of his neck. Any movement might garner a reaction from the guy who was holding a knife inches away from his face.

“It’s my job to watch you, so I have done exactly that, and if I know one thing, it is that you are no hylian,” Katsuo said, his voice low like a growl. “Elder Impa told me not to worry, but I cannot turn a blind eye to this. Darkness clings to you not like a veil or a weapon like it does with my tribe. It does not follow you. It spills from you, and in moments of weakness, your skin turns to charcoal.” Katsuo leaned closer, crimson eyes narrowing into a glare. “What are you, and what are your intentions?”

Link frowned. He thought his disguise had been practiced enough, but then again, he didn’t usually get so thoroughly thrashed on a regular basis, so he supposed there was a chance he might have slipped a few times during their spars. Uncle Shadow shapeshifted with ease, and Link quite frankly aspired to reach that level someday. Actually, when he thought about it, a lot of his uncles could shift their appearances to match at least one other uncle.

Speaking of, he was lucky he had asked his father for clarification on his existence before he’d left the ranch.

“I’m, uh, a being of darkness, yes—Impa knows about it, I swear!” Link admitted, quickly tacking on the last part before Katsuo decided to stab him. “Really. But I’m still a person, and holding a knife to my face is pretty rude, you know.”

“Why are you here?” Katsuo demanded.

“The sheikah training? The princess recommended it, and the queen approved,” Link shrugged. “They’re, like, extended family. Kinda.”

Katsuo squinted harder and said, “That’s… not what I meant. Why do you exist ? Things like you aren’t naturally born. They are made, created.”

Oh. About that—

“I don’t know why or how I exist, but… I’m here now. And I only want to live my life,” Link answered. He paused, and after a moment, he added, “I hear I’m lucky to have this chance.”

Link scowled.

“And don’t call me a thing,” he retorted. “I’m a person, too.”

“That… wasn’t my intention,” Katsuo said, withdrawing his blade. A quiet sigh escaped him. “Fine. I’ll leave you be, then, if only because you have the trust of the royal family, but be aware that I have my eyes on you.”

“Why, you flatter me,” Link said, batting his eyelashes, unable to stop himself from falling into his regular taunting. He knew it was mood whiplash, but watching Katsuo struggle to keep up with it was what made messing with him so fun.

He was rewarded with the boy flushing red in indignation.

“I-I was going to apologize for threatening you, but now you deserve it!” Katsuo stammered. His pale hair stood in stark contrast to what was visible of his bright red face. “You’re insufferable!”

Katsuo turned on his heel and retreated, and as he disappeared, Link couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of his chest.

He liked living in Kakariko.

“Big brother!”

Oh, he’d recognize that call anywhere.

Completely ignoring Katsuo’s questioning sound, Link turned around. He saw only a blur of red before a small figure crashed directly into him, knocking him clean off his feet. Tiny arms wrapped around him, and he was laughing before he even hit the ground.

“Aria!” he laughed. “When’d you get here? I didn’t know you were visiting!”

“I told Mama and Papa I missed you, so Mama brought me!” the tiny bundle of joy in his arms proclaimed, a wide grin splitting her face and scrunching up her eyes.

“Mom brought you?” Link asked. “Then Dad is running the ranch? By himself?”

“Mmhmm!” Aria nodded.

That was, in Link’s opinion, a recipe for disaster. His father could handle himself just fine in combat, but when it came to more domestic things, his mother was infinitely more competent. That was to say, his father could not manage a household on his own for very long.

At least Kakariko wasn’t too far from home.

“Aria—oh, well! You’ve found him!”

Link looked up at the voice of his mother, ears perking up, and he picked up both himself and his sister in order to greet her with a hug. She pulled him in tightly, and Link sighed into her warm embrace. His mother was incredibly strong, but she was gentle, and she always felt safe.

“Hi, Mom,” he said.

“Hello, sweetie,” she said, pulling back to cup his face. Her eyes flicked over him, as if checking for wounds. He was nursing bruises, but he figured that was a given when training with sheikah agents. “Have you been doing alright? How has everyone been treating you here? Do I need to send you anything from the ranch?”

“I’m fine, Mom, really,” Link chuckled, though he didn’t shake her hands off. “I really like it here. What brings you to Kakariko, though?”

“Oh, just getting some medicine for your grandpa. You know how he gets during the cold season,” she said, waving off his concern. “I’m glad to see the folks around here are taking care of you. Speaking of, is this a new friend of yours?”

Link cast a glance back at Katsuo. He’d honestly forgotten he was there.

“I, um, we’re not—” Katsuo started.

“This is Katsuo,” Link interrupted before he could burst his mother’s bubble with teenage denial. “He’s responsible for me while I’m here.” Before his mother could respond, he turned fully to her, keeping a hand on Aria’s back as she clung to his waist, and said, “If you’re here for errands, I can look after Aria.”

“I shouldn’t bother you with this,” his mother sighed, but she was hesitant.

“Come on, Mom,” he insisted. “It’s been ages since I got to talk with Aria.” He looked down at his sister and smiled at her. “Isn’t that right, Aria?”

“Yeah!” she agreed, nodding emphatically.

“Well… if you insist!” their mother laughed, the corners of her eyes crinkling.

“We have a schedule to keep,” Katsuo hissed in Link’s ear.

Link only smiled at his mother and stomped on Katsuo’s foot. Katsuo grunted and moved away. He could try to interrupt family time, but Link knew he wouldn’t get far, especially not with Aria around. Aria always got her way eventually.

Which was exactly how Link ended up chasing her around the village.

When they played, he had gotten used to going easy on her, if only to avoid his parents reminding him to be nice. Aria could get away with murder at this point, he was pretty sure. So, as always, he let her have her fun before finally catching her. He picked her up and pulled her into his chest, tickling her sides to incapacitate her with giggles.

He laughed along to the joyous sound of victory.

It was only after he released her and she calmed down that she leaned back into him, her tiny hands playing with his bigger fingers.

“Big brother,” she said, “what’s the forest like?”

Link paused and looked down at her, raising an eyebrow.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked.

“I dunno,” she shrugged. “I wanna go see it. It, um, looks nice. And fun.”

“You shouldn’t,” Link said. “You know Dad tells us not to go there.”

“But why not?” Aria pouted.

“Because it’s dangerous.”

“Why?”

“Hm?”

“Why is it dangerous?”

“Well, there are all sorts of monsters… I’m pretty sure,” Link said, realizing he was actually unsure of the exact dangers of the woods. “Dad had a sword when he left the forest. He wouldn’t have one if there weren’t any monsters, right?”

“I guess…” Aria mumbled.

“And besides, no one knows how to navigate that place,” Link added. “If we go in, we could get lost and never find our way home.”

Aria’s grip on his hands tightened.

“If I get lost, will you find me?” she asked, quiet. “I don’t want to get lost.”

“Of course,” he told her. “I’ll always be there for you.”

“You promise?” she asked.

“I promise,” he answered, hooking her pinkie finger with his own. He wasn’t quite sure where he knew this from, but he felt like there was some sort of significance to pinkies and promises.

Before he knew it, time passed, and they met back up with their mother. Aria was slumped over in his arms, fast asleep and drooling on his shoulder. Their mother took Aria into her own arms, and as she adjusted Epona’s harness, getting ready to ride back to the ranch, Link opened his mouth.

“Mom? Can I tell you something?”

“Of course, sweetheart,” she said, looking back at him when she could, though her attention was divided. “You can tell me anything. You know that.”

“Yeah,” he said. He looked down to the ground, and he hardened his resolve. “Um, I think I have terrible taste in boys.”

His mother paused, and after a few seconds, she turned around to face him fully, confusion clear on her face.

“What do you mean?” she asked, and Link’s face went hot.

“W-Well, um, he’s mean and a giant jerk. I don’t think he knows how to lighten up at all, but it’s kind of funny to mess with him because of it, and he cares more than he wants to admit, a-and—and he doesn’t care that my eyes are red or that my hair is black, and…”

Link suddenly wanted the earth to swallow him whole.

“I-I… Actually, nevermind. This is silly—”

Laughter interrupted him. His head shot up to find his mother trying and failing to muffle her laughter, and Link’s ears folded back against his skull in mortification.

“Don’t make fun of me,” he muttered.

“I’m not, I’m not!” his mother giggled, her own face flushed with mirth. “No, you just—you’re reminding me of your father.”

Link blinked at her.

“What?”

“Oh, he was terrible when we were younger,” his mother said, her amusement still clear on the edges of her voice. “What a menace. He had a heart of gold, but he was always under the impression that he alone was responsible for everything, so he came off as being cold or harsh when he really did everything out of compassion.” Her smile was fond. “I liked teasing your father when we were younger. It was the only way to get him to stop with that terrible, misplaced sense of duty, sometimes.”

…Oh.

“I also thought I had terrible taste in men, but then I saw how Epona loved him so much, and I saw how he cared for everyone around him, and I realized that maybe I had good taste after all. Turns out, I absolutely do,” she said. “Anyway, maybe the boy you like feels the same way your father did… though, it’d definitely be for different reasons.”

Huh.

“Do you think so?” Link asked.

“Maybe,” his mother shrugged. “I don’t know the boy, but I think you should observe him more. See if you like what lays underneath his negative qualities before deciding that you’re bad at picking boys.” She smiled and reached out to gently brush her fingers through his hair. “After all, you’re my son. I’m sure you’ll be just fine.”

Link smiled, something small and vulnerable.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“I love you, Link.”

“I love you, too, Mom. Tell Dad I say hi.”

“Of course.”

It wasn’t until his mother and sister were long gone that Link realized he never warned his mother about Aria’s curiosity about the woods.

“I’m home!”

Link’s voice carried through the house, and not even a ten seconds later, he was being dragged into a family group hug, punching a laugh out of his chest. He had missed this.

His parents would stop by Kakariko fairly often, but it was different from when he got to go back to the ranch himself. His visits weren’t rare, but that didn’t keep him from cherishing times like these.

“Do you like swimming?” Aria asked, snapping out of her own rant about some friends she made when their father took her to the river. “I like swimming. I think it’s fun.”

“I’m not a huge fan of water,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t really know how to swim.”

Aria stuck her tongue out at him. 

“You don’t know how to swim? Geez, it’s like I barely know you these days,” she huffed. In Link’s opinion, she was getting an attitude far too early. She was only seven. Link was a much more docile child, as far as he remembered. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Same old,” Link shrugged. “Before you know it, you’ll never be able to catch me sneaking up on you ever again.”

“Mean!” she gasped indignantly, swatting at his arm. He only laughed in response.

“What about you?” he asked. “Are you still thinking about the forest?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, leaning back. “Merchants say that the Lost Woods are moving back, so maybe it’ll be safe to explore someday.”

Link frowned.

“Maybe,” he said, “but not yet. It’s hard to tell when the Lost Woods start and end—”

“Oh really?” Aria snarked. “And have you been there?”

“I—no, but—”

“Then how do you know?”

“Because Dad told me.”

Aria folded her arms and looked away, and Link’s frown deepened.

“What?” he prompted.

“Doesn’t matter,” she muttered.

Link bit his cheek.

“What is it?” he asked, lowering his voice. “What’s bothering you?”

“I just… I mean… It’s hard to explain,” Aria said. “It’s like… It’s like the forest calls out to me. A part of me really wants to be there and disappear into the trees.”

Link grimaced.

“It sounds bad when I put it that way,” she frowned.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Really bad.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Just stay away from there. It… It doesn’t feel right.”

“... Alright.”

Link’s favorite festival in Kakariko had to be the New Year.

It was perhaps the one time of the year where everyone was outside in the dark of night despite the cold, though perhaps that was because it wasn’t really dark. Hand-crafted lanterns sat on display, and children ran through the streets holding streamers and snacks. Stalls selling all sorts of food were set up, and even the sheikah joined in, some of them even taking off their masks and armor for the celebration.

The first time Link had seen the festival, he ended up stumbling through the streets, staring in awe at everything until some children roped him into a game he’d never played before. One of their fathers found his attempts amusing and bought him some food while the children plotted how to show him around.

“You can’t be lost on New Year’s!” one child proclaimed.

“Yeah!” another child agreed. “You gotta be happy to start the new year, or it’s bad luck! My mom told me so!”

This year, Link knew his way around, so his exploration of the festival was much more confident.

Food, games, and pretty lights. The atmosphere was a bit loud and overwhelming, but he wasn’t about to complain about other people being happy…. Speaking of which—

“What’s up?” Link said as way of greeting as he dropped himself into the seat next to Katsuo.

The guy still had his mask on. What a drama queen.

“I bring sustenance,” Link announced, pushing his tray closer to Katsuo so it sat between them. “You’re welcome.”

“I’m not hungry,” the sheikah said instead. Link made a face, and Katsuo rolled his eyes. “Not going to make me eat, are you?”

Link snorted. His mother had tried that last time she visited, and poor Katsuo was subjected to realizing Malon Lon’s sheer amount of strength and motherly affection.

“No,” Link answered. “I’m not my mom.” He popped a piece of food into his mouth. “You’re still going to enjoy something , though, right? If you decide to be a stick in the mud this year, too, I’m going to have to tattle on you to my mother.”

Red eyes peered at him suspiciously.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I’m afraid she made me swear it,” Link sighed. “She likes you, you know. Says I need more friends.”

Katsuo’s ear twitched.

“I never did say it before, but uh, thanks,” Link said.

He looked out to the crowd to avoid eye contact. He really didn’t like being vulnerable, but he’d never been one to falter once he made a decision. His mother told him he was like his father in that way.

“For what?” Katsuo asked, his brow pinching in a frown.

“Not caring that my eyes are red,” Link shrugged. “I guess it’s more normal for you, though, since you’re a sheikah and all that, but even after you confronted me about being, well, dark , I guess, it didn’t really change how you treated me. So… thanks.”

Katsuo was silent, and Link felt his ears burning.

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Link muttered.

“I don’t feel like that deserves being thanked,” Katsuo said. Link risked looking over at him, and the boy was staring down at his lap. “You say you’re still a person regardless of what you are, so that’s how I treat you—like a person. It’s merely decent behavior. To do otherwise would be… dishonorable.”

Dishonorable, as Link had learned over the past couple of years, was sheikah speak for despicable, which could mean being rude or obnoxious in some circumstances. It was a nicer way of insult, and hearing Katsuo use the word now made Link smile.

“You’d be surprised to learn how many people lack basic manners, just because I look like my dad without looking like him,” Link said.

Katsuo only hummed, and when he looked up, he pointed, drawing Link’s attention to the makeshift stage. The technicians were setting up the fireworks, which meant that it was approaching midnight.

“Did you guess this year?” Katsuo asked, and Link shook his head.

Kakariko had several New Year’s traditions. One of them was a game where people would submit their guesses for the yearly fireworks’ color scheme. The elders always chose four colors, supposedly to represent each element, but it was surprisingly difficult to guess what colors they’d pick.

“Not officially, no,” he said. “I always want to say red, green, blue, and purple, but that would be too obvious, don’t you think?”

“Traditionally speaking, yes,” Katsuo nodded. “Elder Impa likes to keep us on our toes.”

“Maybe one year,” Link shrugged. “Just to throw everyone off.”

“Maybe.”

One of the elders stepped up and coughed, drawing attention toward herself, and she began her speech. She spoke about hope and new beginnings and stuff like that. Link tuned out most of it, but he found it impressive how, apparently, the speech ended at exactly midnight every year, somehow. 

And—

Crack!

The first firework went off, drawing Link’s attention up to the sky just in time to see the first colors bloom across the night sky. Blue and white, then red and yellow. Link smiled to himself. He would’ve lost the bet this year, if he had submitted a guess.

Speaking of, there was another tradition, one that was more widespread through Hyrule if his parents’ habits were anything to go by.

“Did you kiss anyone last New Year?” Link asked.

“….No,” Katsuo said, his voice barely audible under the arrhythmic crackling of the fireworks. “Did you?”

“No,” Link said.

He swallowed, bracing himself, because he’d already made the decision, and without looking away from the sky, he reached out to tangle his fingers with Katsuo’s. The boy startled, but he didn’t do anything to pull away.

“But I’d like to,” Link finished, his voice coming out far quieter than he’d meant to.

Link heard no response for a few seconds, and then a hand gently turned his face, and… oh. Katsuo had pulled down the mask. Link had had no idea he had a scar there, crawling from his jaw up and over his lip.

Link felt his face burning hotter, and he knew he was bright red.

“Then who am I to say no?”

Ok, that was unfair. That was so unfair! Why did he get to be the smooth one? Link was the one with the crush here.

But then Katsuo kissed him, and all those thoughts went out the window. He could feel the scar through the kiss, and it was so warm, or maybe the heat just came from how hard he was blushing. He couldn’t even be bothered to recognize the bursting of light and sound up above.

It was over far too quickly, sweet and chaste and light. Link blinked, not quite sure if he was breathing or not. Katsuo coughed into his hand, turning away quickly as red bloomed across his face, and Link curled his fingers, further tangling Katsuo’s hand with his own.

Katsuo stayed silent, but his fingers curled in return.

Link was eighteen when he got into his first big fight with his father.

He supposed it was something to do with his teenage moodiness, since he was self-aware enough to admit that it was a problem, but he hadn’t realized before that moodiness on its own didn’t really cause problems. No, it was when moodiness clashed with issues that already existed that things began to blow up.

The triggering sentence was nothing more than his father reminding him, “You don’t have to be so ruthless. It’s only a friendly spar.”

Yes, Link knew that, but he was also used to training with assassins. His temper was growing hotter as he grew older, and that day was just… a bad day. Everyone had those. That didn’t make it any better.

“What am I?” Link snapped. He realized his train of thought wasn’t so clear, making the question sound like it had come out of nowhere, but quite frankly, he didn’t care right now. “I know I’m not hylian, and I know I’m made of darkness. I am made to—to be violent! I can feel it in my bones, and I don’t like it, but it’s there, a-and… and I look like you! I look exactly like you! Everyone’s told me time and time again, but you’ve never explained anything to me.”

His father stared at him coolly, his one eye giving away absolutely nothing, and it pissed Link off, anger sparking deep in his chest.

“Are you sure you want to know?” his father asked. “It’s a lot, and it’s not… good.”

“I have the right to know,” Link scowled.

His father sighed, something heavy and melancholy, and the anger gentled, quieting down in a childish guilt of “I made my father feel bad”. His father set his sword down and lowered himself to the ground to sit. Link stayed standing, but he put his own blades away.

“You remember your uncles, yes?” his father began. “As in, Shadow, Abyss, Gloam? The others?”

“You mean the dark ones? The ones like me?”

His father nodded.

“Not very well, but yes,” Link answered. It had been too long to remember all of them. “What about them?”

“You are like them,” his father said. “The others’ names were Wander, Olive, Midnight, Secret, Civil… and Dark. You called yourselves darks, reflections of parts of us we wanted to hide away and yet still so much more than that. There were nine of you, just as there were nine of us.”

Link blinked.

“Nine?” he asked. “But including me, that’s ten.”

“No,” his father said, shaking his head. “You were Dark.”

“What?”

He didn’t remember that.

“You were the catalyst to everything,” his father said. “Without you, the other darks never would have met us, nor would we have met each other. Gloam would’ve stayed guarding his empty temple. Shadow, Olive, and Secret would’ve stayed dead, or whatever your version of death is. The others wouldn’t have ever existed.”

“W-What are you saying?” Link choked out. He knew there was a story, but he hadn’t know it would be this big. “Am—Am I…?”

“Meanwhile, myself and the rest of your uncles… we share a spirit. We are bound together by divine duty and curses,” his father continued. “I had forgotten about you, long ago. I thought, after everything, you didn’t exist, but I was wrong. Instead, you waited and built up your strength and power, and you stepped through time itself to pull us all together, as well as the other darks.”

“But why?”

“Shadow explained this to us, but each dark is made of two things,” his father explained. “First, they are made of what their light rejected at the time, like violence or pride. Second, they are made with a purpose. Gloam’s purpose was to guard. Shadow’s purpose was to cause chaos. And yours?”

Link swallowed, unsure if he actually wanted to hear it, but… no. He’d made his decision. He would listen.

“Secret locked away your memories, so we can never know for certain, but I believe your purpose was to kill me.”

Link brought his hands up to his temples.

“You summoned the other darks so you could kill all of us in one fell swoop,” his father said. “It didn’t work out, but that was your intention.”

“Wait, so… I’m your evil self, and I’m supposed to kill you and actually wanted to, but another… dark, was it? Another dark just erased my memories, so it’s all good now?” Link asked, squinting at his father… no, his light. That was weird to think about.

Link, the hero, nodded.

“Are you insane ?!” Link hissed. “I-I— Apparently , I’m an evil mastermind who got his memories erased and got de-aged? I guess? And you decided that, yeah! It’s a great idea to raise the guy who wanted to kill me!?”

“You were just a child,” his father argued, his gaze hardening. “I couldn’t just leave you there, nor could I let the princess of that era destroy you.”

“Well maybe you should have!” Link shouted.

His father’s mouth fell open, his bad eye cracking open to just a sliver of white, and Link’s breath caught in his chest. He didn’t mean to say that.

But… how could his father do this? How could he look at the man who meant to murder him and all his brothers and forgive him? For all intents and purposes, Link—and, oh, what an ironic name now that he knew the truth—might have been pacified, might have been a child, but that didn’t change the fact that he had wanted to kill everyone. He didn’t understand why he would have wanted that, but if a so-called “purpose” was key in creating a dark and his was to kill, then perhaps they were all lucky that he hadn’t turned into a homicidal maniac yet.

Especially since he and the queen had apparently thought it was a good idea to send him to learn from actual assassins and foster his darkness.

It was like no one in this world had any sense whatsoever.

Link felt sick. He didn’t want to kill his father.

His… light?

That felt right, but it felt more wrong to stop thinking of this man as his father. He raised Link. That counted, right?

It should.

“I could never,” his father breathed. “You weren’t the same person as when you were—”

“Does Mom know about this?” Link interrupted. “About what I did?”

“... Yes.”

“I… I think I need some time alone,” he said, and before his father could stop him, he turned and fled.

He needed some air.

Maybe he should write to Zelda about this.

Despite his father’s impeccable sense of it, time was not something that Link was very good at keeping track of. The sun was already setting by the time his mother called him down.

“Have you seen Aria?” she asked.

Alarm bells went off in Link’s head.

“No,” he said. “Is she not inside?”

“No,” his mother said, wringing her hands. “I can’t find her anywhere.”

The alarm bells grew louder.

“Did she, uh, say anything recently?” he asked. “Maybe about, um, trees? Or fairies? Did she leave the house?”

“Um… yes, I think so—”

Oh no. That was bad. That was really bad.

“Why?” his mother asked.

“I gotta go,” he said, moving forward to grab his things from his room. “Love you, Mom. I’ll back as soon as possible.”

If he ever came back.

He shouted a warning out to his father as he left, because if he failed, then someone had to go find Aria in his stead. Not hearing anything his father might have been saying, he took a horse, not even really bothering with a saddle, and he rode to the edge of the forest, more panicked than he’d felt since he ran to find a doctor to help with Aria’s birth.

His existence and his spat with his father wasn’t important right now. The only thing that mattered was making sure Aria was safe.

He ran into the woods, letting the forest and its strange mists curl around him, swallowing him whole. Branches hung overhead, perfectly still, and yet there was still wind, carrying whispers of spirits and the faintest melody. The grass, untamed and wild, seemed to cling to his every step as he ran, desperately searching for a splash of color that wasn’t just green, green, green.

The forest seemed endless, its countless log paths somehow leading him in circles, and he swore he could hear something laughing at him. He growled, but it wasn’t important.

“Aria!” he called out, pausing to regain his breath. “Aria! Where are you? It’s me, Link! Come on!”

“You’re not Link, silly little shadow.”

Link almost choked on his own spit at the unexpected voice. It sounded like it was coming from every angle at once. He turned, trying to catch a glimpse of the speaker, but there was no one there.

“Who’s there?” he asked. His voice echoed back to him in a way that it shouldn’t, not in an area as densely wooded as this. “Have… have you seen a little girl pass through here?” He held out his hand. “About this tall, with red hair and blue eyes?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” the voice chimed. “What’s it to you?”

The voice abruptly focused, and Link spun around to find a girl standing before him, short green hair curled around her face. She was just as green as the forest around her.

“She’s my sister,” he said. “Please, I need to find her.” Something about this girl… it tugged at his chest, and he found that he wanted to spill everything. She was a complete stranger, likely not even hylian, but she felt oddly reliable. “I already got in a fight with my dad, and I know I’ve done a lot of bad things, but I promised Aria I’d do this much for her. Please, I can’t lose her.”

The girl hummed and tapped her chin.

“Alright,” she said. “She’ll be safe, then. It’s the least I can do for my little brother.”

With that, she disappeared in a flutter of leaves, leaving nothing behind save for a faint melody.

Link took a moment to register what just happened, but when he did, he released a sigh of relief and fell to his knees. His eyes burned as he gasped into his hands, trying to steady his breath as his fingers trembled.

“Oh, thank you,” he gasped to the ground below. “Thank you so, so much. Hylia, Farore, Din, Nayru, thank you for saving her.”

It was a shame, he thought, that he did not deserve the same grace.

Maybe he was a fool after all.

Time had considered himself retired, but a hero’s work was never finished.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that a father’s job was never finished.

He’d donned his armor as quickly as he could after hearing Link shout about the Lost Woods, and his sword once more sat on his back. The mask in the back of the dresser drawer called out to him, silently demanding to come along, to offer its power, but Time refused. It was a dark power, one he’d never release again, regardless of its claims.

He said his goodbyes to Malon, took Epona, and went to the woods.

When Saria greeted him at the bridge, sitting on the wooden post and playing her tune on an ocarina, he almost sobbed. Aria was curled up on the grass, fast asleep, and tied to the post was a horse, the same one Link took with him.

One of these was a blessing. The other was quite the opposite.

“Saria,” he gasped.

“Hello, little brother,” Saria chimed, a smile on her face. “It’s been too long. Look at you, all grown up with a daughter.” She lowered her ocarina to her lap. “It’s sweet you gave her a name so similar to mine!”

“I have a son, too,” Time said. Aria looked unharmed, only asleep. “Have you seen him?”

Saria frowned and tilted her head.

“Oh?” she asked. “The dark one, you mean?”

“Yes! That’s Link. He’s my son,” Time said, feeling like he was begging. “Where is he? I need to get my kids home safely.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Link,” Saria sighed. “He’s already lost.”

…

What?

“No,” Time argued. “That’s too quick. It’s not been long enough.”

“He’s dark,” she said simply. “The Lost Woods take creatures like him faster. Don’t you remember?”

Saria was no liar.

He scooped up Aria and put her on Epona’s saddle, securing her tiny form to the old mare. He patted Epona’s haunches, and his old friend took off at a safe pace, knowing exactly what to do.

“Good girl,” he muttered after her, untying the horse Link had taken. The horse would leave on its own to return to the ranch if they took too long.

He started toward the bridge.

“You’ll get lost if you go now, Link,” Saria warned him. “You’re an adult, and you have no fairy to guide you. I won’t be able to save you.”

“I don’t care,” Time said. He didn’t turn back to look her in the eye. “I’m bringing my children home.”

Being back in the Lost Woods was strange. The forest did not recognize him, feeling more hostile than ever, like it might chew him up and spit out nothing but broken bones. Knowing this place, that might very well happen.

Time, for once, wasn’t sure of how long he wandered. The normal flow of time had no hold in this place, too steeped in ancient, misleading magic, and he wondered if Sky or Four had anything to do with that. Perhaps they did, or maybe the Lost Woods formed all of its own.

He was beginning to feel weary and lethargic, and he knew he didn’t have much time left. He was strong, but without divine or faery blessings, there was no way out. He hoped to run into a fairy at some point, but with how empty this place was, he didn’t expect much. He’d heard the Lost Woods were moving, but he hadn’t known that the fae and kokiri would be the first to move, leaving the maze-like magic more dangerous than ever.

Eventually, though, he did find Link. Whether it was by chance or by the last remaining blessings of gods and fairies, he did not know, nor did he care.

The boy had lost his disguise once more, slumped against a tree trunk. His eyes were half-lidded, the red of his irises dimmer than Time remembered. His fingertips were stained green, and the grass seemed to cling to him.

“Link!” Time gasped, stumbling over. His feet were already failing to respond as quickly as he’d like them to. He fell to the ground and took his son’s hand, and red eyes flickered up to meet his own.

“Dad…?”

He already sounded weak.

“I’m s… orry…” Link choked out, tears welling up in his eyes. “I-I’m so… sorry.”

“No, no you have nothing to apologize for,” Time said, squeezing his hand. “ I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I’m sorry you had to come here on your own. I should’ve protected you better. I—”

“No,” Link breathed. “No, you did… just fine. Thank you…” A tear spilled out and rolled down a charcoal grey cheek, far too young for such a fate. “Hey, Dad…? I-I lo…ve you…”

Time’s eyes burned, and his own face grew wet. The markings burned into his face flared up, hot and irritated, but he’d left the mask back on the ranch. Even if he wanted it, he would be receiving no aid from it.

“We should go home.”

“I can’t… You know… that, r-right?”

He did. He knew Link was right.

Saria didn’t lie.

He was already lost.

“You… should go.”

… but so was Time.

“No,” Time told him. “I’ve already let you down before. I’m not doing it again. I’m not going to leave you to die on your own.”

Link’s face twitched, twisting into a sob as tears spilled down his cheeks. He couldn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. Time knew his son, his child, his own dark, so he pulled that child in close to his chest and held him tight.

“I love you, Link,” he said, and the fingers in his palm twitched.

Long after Link breathed his last—whether it was minutes or hours, he didn’t know—Time laid down in the grass, and he cursed the gods.

“All we wanted was a happy ending,” he whispered. “Must you deny even that?”

As always, the gods remained silent.

In the end, Dark did fulfill his purpose. The Hero of Time was finally dead.

Katsuo was not one for house visits. At least, he was not one for domestic house visits. He was more of a teacher than an actual agent. He kept his eyes on the kids, not their families or any potential targets.

So finding Lon Lon Ranch and knocking on the door, he decided, was very strange for him.

Link’s mother opened the door, her eyes distant and melancholy but still present enough to recognize him. Her hair was pulled back in a bun, but he could still see how messy it was, and he swallowed.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Lon,” he said. “Link has not returned to Kakariko yet, and I am here to inquire why.”

Mrs. Lon sighed, looking exhausted, and she stepped aside. Katsuo frowned in concern.

“Please, come in,” she said. “It’s going to take a moment to explain.”

He acquiesced and stepped inside, and once he accepted her offer of tea, she sat down with him.

“You have to understand, it all happened so quickly,” she said. “I’m still adjusting, myself, and I can’t imagine what Aria is going through. Poor girl said she doesn’t remember even going into the forest. She only got upset when she heard her father and brother arguing, and then…”

Katsuo held his tongue, and Mrs. Lon explained. She spoke of the Lost Woods, of how Link and his father had gotten into an argument that afternoon, how she couldn’t find her daughter anywhere. She spoke of how her son and husband disappeared into the Lost Woods but sent back Aria, safe on horseback, and Katsuo’s fingers curled around the ceramic cup in his grasp.

Everyone knew what getting lost in the Lost Woods meant.

He swallowed. The lump in his throat did not go away.

“I see,” he said into the silence. “I… You have my sincerest condolences. If… If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.”

She denied his offer, but he stayed, and he found himself helping out around the ranch. Mrs. Lon showed him the ropes, and he found himself wondering at how Link grew up doing things like this.

He ran into Aria three days into his stay, and the girl was despondent, too sad for such a young child.

“Papa and Link are gone because of me, aren’t they?” she asked one evening, her quiet voice barely audible over the crackling of the fire.

“It’s not your fault,” Katsuo said. He didn’t usually console children, but trying was the least he could do here. “Being a victim is never your fault. They love you.”

“Then they shouldn’t have loved me,” she choked out, curling up as she stared into the fire. Katsuo slowly sighed out through his nose.

“It is not within our power to change the hearts of others,” he said, “but I think they would have hated to hear you say that.” Teary eyes looked to him. “I only ever met Mr. Lon in passing, but I knew Link, and he loved you dearly. He thought you deserved the world. There was nothing you could have done.”

Aria cried harder, but she thanked him. He didn’t know how to take that.

Katsuo returned to Kakariko soon after because he had a duty to fulfill, but he always set aside time to visit the ranch and lend a hand. He wasn’t sure why he kept going, but he knew that it was for more than just the memory of a boy he had liked. The ranch was nice in a strangely peaceful sort of way, and he got to watch Mrs. Lon and Aria heal.

Sometimes, he got to meet a strange sheikah man who claimed to be sworn brothers with Mr. Lon, and Mrs. Lon agreed with the story, but something was off. However, he considered that entire mess to be none of his business, so he left it alone.

As time passed, he came to the ranch less often, and one day, when Aria was all grown up and her mother retired, she came by Kakariko to inform him that they were moving. He had seen the abandonment of the ranch coming from a mile away, with Mrs. Lon’s age getting to her and Aria not holding quite enough love for the place to keep it running all by herself.

“We sold the assets, and we’re going to move into that new town that’s being set up in Faron,” she told him. “We… I know my father and brother are gone, but I think it would be nice to stay close to them. I know my mother would appreciate it.”

“I understand,” Katsuo nodded. “Try to keep in touch.”

Aria gave him one of her rare smiles.

“I will,” she nodded. “You know, I hear that new village has goats. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at herding.”

Six months later, the sheikah man—and what a strange name Sheik was anyway—contacted Katsuo and asked him to come help clear out what remained at the ranch.

“Why me?” he asked. “I’m only a teacher.”

“You were close to the Lons,” Sheik answered as if it were obvious. “Link Senior was a widely-traveled warrior in his prime. There might be some dangerous artifacts laying around, in which case I am obligated to deliver them to the queen for safekeeping.”

“Is there anything I should be on the lookout for?” he asked.

“Anything,” Sheik said. “Gadgets and tools, gems, weapons, armor… masks.”

“Masks?”

“You’ll know when you see them.”

And indeed he did. Pulling apart a dresser, he found a collection of masks, each of them carefully wrapped in soft, old cloth. They were likely powerful artifacts, but one in particular stood out to him. White skin and hair, with sharp red and blue lines marking the face, just like the markings Mr. Lon bore.

It was inlaid with an incredible amount of dark power, and yet, it somehow shone bright.

“That is, I believe, the Fierce Deity Mask,” Sheik said when Katsuo showed him. “Very little is known about it. All I know is that it’s powerful… and possessive. I imagine it wasn’t very happy when Link disappeared.”

Katsuo didn’t ask which Link he referred to.

“May the goddesses bring you blessings,” Sheik said.

“And you,” Katsuo answered.

Sheik took the artifacts they gathered and went off toward Castletown, and Katsuo turned back to the old ranch, setting a hand on an old fence post.

It felt strange to say it now, after all this time, but he realized he’d never said it before.

Better late than never, as they say.

“Goodbye, Link,” he said. “May you rest in peace.”

Chapter Text

Wind was right. Outset Island was lovely.

The sun was bright and golden, spreading its rays across the sandy beaches and grassy hills, painting the world in vibrant hues. A river passing through the center of the island split the small land in two, and on the far side, walls of stone rose up, towering over the land below, leafy fingers brushing the azure skies. From the shores, the deep blue ocean stretched as far as the eye could see, its strange, salty scent filling the air.

Pale golden sand crunched under Wander’s boots as seagulls cried overhead. Olive trailed behind, his hand clasped around Wander’s as Wind led them across the island, talking a mile a minute as he pointed out houses and landmarks.

Neither of the darks were disguised. Wander couldn’t shapeshift beyond manipulating his incorporeality, and Olive couldn’t hold a shifted form for longer than an hour, so they simply did not bother with disguises. Wander felt, somehow, that Wind would personally fight anyone who decided to take offense to them, anyway. He was just that kind of person.

“Aryll is away with Tetra and the crew right now,” Wind said as he casually waved off the kids that had stopped to stare at the darks. “We’ll run into them later, but for now, I can introduce you guys to Grandma. Her hearing is starting to go, though, so you’ll have to speak up.”

Oh no, volume, Wander’s greatest enemy. Civil wasn’t much better off on that front, either.

Wander would ask Wind if he was so sure that his grandmother would accept Wander and Civil as they were, but there was no point, no matter how much Wander suddenly wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole. They had already made their choice to come here, and it wasn’t exactly one they could take back at this point, especially once Wind’s knuckles made contact with the wooden door. Wind pushed his way into the cottage before they could even receive an answer.

“Grandma!” Wind called out. “I’m home! And I brought friends!”

Olive’s fingers curled tighter around Wander’s hand, and Wander squeezed back.

“Link? Is that you?”

Wander had never before seen someone more fitting of the title of Grandma as the little lady shuffling from around the corner. Wind swept her up into a hug, enthusiastic as ever, but it did not escape Wander’s notice that he was gentler with her than he’d been with any of the others. She deserved it, with thin limbs and wrinkled, aged skin.

“Oh, Link!” she chuckled. “Welcome home. Was everything alright?”

“Yep,” Wind nodded. “We figured out everything eventually, and everyone’s gone home.” He stepped aside, keeping a hand on her back, and gestured toward the darks. “Grandma, these are my friends, Wander and Olive. They didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I invited them to live with us.”

“I see. It’s lovely to meet you two. Call me Grandma,” Grandma said, moving closer. Her voice was weak with age, but it was so very warm. She paused and tilted her head at Wander. “You look very much like Link, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Wander answered. He felt as if he were two seconds away from choking on his own tongue.

“It’s nice to meet you, ma’am,” Olive said, sounding one wrong step away from falling into a whisper.

“I said to call me Grandma,” Grandma corrected, not unkindly.

“Yes, Grandma,” Wander and Olive answered in sync. Wind snorted. Bold, coming from someone who talked about her like she was a goddess in hylian form.

“That’s better,” she said with a smile. “Now, why are you still standing in the doorway? Come inside, come inside.”

Wander complied, letting the old woman usher both of them into the house.

Grandma, Wander found, was kind. She was kind in a soft, sweet, gentle way, nothing like the other darks had been. Wander had appreciated their bluntness, their unapologetic honesty, their support, but Grandma was something special. She took this little house and made it warm and welcoming, like a quieter version of Wild’s house. She made it a home.

And Wind had not lied about her soup, as Wander discovered that night. The Hero of the Wild really might have a rival in the kitchen.

“Ma’am—I mean, Grandma?” Wander spoke up that evening, once Wind had gone to wash the dishes. “You haven’t asked us any questions about who we are… what we are. Are… Aren’t you curious?”

“I am,” she said, “but I’m not going to ask anything if it makes you uncomfortable.” Her mouth stretched into an easy smile as she looked toward the kitchen. “Link has good judgement. If he wants you to be part of the family, then I’ll trust his decisions and welcome you. If you want to tell me, though, I’m always here to listen.”

Wander looked to Olive, and he found blue eyes looking back. After a moment, Wander shrugged, and Olive shrugged back.

“We are darks,” Olive began. “Wander is Link’s dark, made of his…”

“Self-doubt and wanderlust,” Wander answered for him.

“And I am the dark of the Hero of Warriors,” Olive continued. “You might have met him before we got involved. The one with the blue scarf?”

Grandma nodded.

“I remember him,” she said.

“We’re made of dark magic,” Wander said. Her expression did not change, and Wander frowned, a little itch curling up in his chest and pushing against his heart uncomfortably. “Are you… really alright with that?”

“Well… I admit, I don’t quite understand your situation, but do you have bad intentions?” she asked. “Toward my family? Or the people of the Great Sea?”

Wander and Olive shook their heads. No, of course they didn’t. They had been invited to make this place their home.

“Then we’ll be just fine,” Grandma told them, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Welcome to our family.”

When the ship pulled into the docks, Wander was standing at the bottom of the lookout post. Wind had tried to persuade him to come up to the top, but Wander refused. He didn’t like heights.

A shout came from onboard amidst the flurries of movement. Wander looked up in time to see Wind tumble from the top of the lookout post, korok leaf in hand, and by the time the gangplank hit the wooden floor of the dock, he was already there and waiting. A girl with bright golden pigtails and a skirt patterned with skulls, evidently, was waiting for him in turn. She leapt into Wind’s arms without hesitation as soon as physically possible, both of them bursting out into laughter, bold and bright.

“Hey guys!” Wind hollered. “Come meet Aryll and Tetra!”

Aryll was stuck to his side like a barnacle, and a bit behind was a girl with tanned skin and sun-bleached hair, who slugged Wind in the arm with a grin as soon as she was close enough to reach him.

Wander smiled to himself at the sight and looked back to Olive, jerking his head toward the pier silently, and he turned to head over to his light. He listened to the crunching sand behind him, and he knew Olive was following. Anxiety wound around his chest, tight and constricting. He wanted to make a good impression.

Two very different sets of eyes found Wander as he approached. One pair of eyes was round and brown, glimmering with curiosity, and the other was a sharp gray, watching both darks with a mixture of caution and faint amusement.

“Hello,” Wander greeted. His voice almost cracked. “I—”

“This is Wander,” Wind said for him, as if sensing his anxiety. “He’s my dark—made from me but not really and also dark magic, and he’s his own person. And that’s Olive. He’s the captain’s dark.”

Tetra blinked at Wind as if he had just spoken in an entirely different language, but Aryll seemed to adapt immediately. She turned her smile onto Wander, and it felt like the sun.

“Soooooo,” she said, drawing out the sound expectantly, mischief clinging to her voice, “I have another big brother?”

“Yeah!” Wind laughed, snorting a little bit. “ Two more, actually!”

Aryll cheered and latched onto Wander. She threw her arms around him, and Wander froze for a split second, a squeak escaping his throat. She waited until he moved to hug her back, slow and unsure but still accepting of her affection, before she let go and turned her attention to Olive. Her movements with Olive were slower, giving him ample warning of her movements, but he still looked like an awkward piece of cardboard, unsure of what to do with his limbs. Wander bit back a laugh at his expense.

“Oh, and this is Tetra,” Wind added. She gave him an unimpressed look.

“Um, nice to meet you,” Wander said, extending a hand toward the girl. She lifted an eyebrow at him, and Wander felt his willpower crumple like a wet napkin. He suddenly found himself wondering when it got so hot and why he was wearing multiple layers under the hot tropical sun.

“That coat makes you look like that old man Link adopted a year ago,” Tetra said. Wander had no idea how he should feel about that or who she was talking about, but Wind snorted, so it was probably fine. Her lips quirked up into a smirk and finally took his hand. “But it makes you look seaworthy, somehow, so I’ll let it slide.”

Wander swore she almost broke his hand with that handshake.

“O-Old man?” he asked, desperately trying not to shake the pain out of his knuckles. Who even needed to shake a hand that firmly anyway?

“He’s not that old,” Wind scoffed with a roll of his eyes. “His name’s Linebeck. He’s a friend.” He looked to Tetra. “Where is he right now anyway?”

“Windfall, last I checked,” she said.

Wind asked more questions, but a tug on his sleeve stole Wander’s attention away from them. He looked over to see Aryll, whose other hand clutched at the side of Olive’s tunic.

“Do you wanna see something cool?” she whispered.

Wander glanced up at Olive, who had nothing more to offer than a hesitant shrug. When he looked back at Aryll, he cleared his throat quietly before speaking.

“Okay,” he said.

With a quick chirp to Wind, letting him know that she was going to show her new brothers something, she started off. Wander let her drag him along, and when he looked over to catch Olive’s eye, he found Olive hesitant but still curious and confused enough to follow.

She led them down the shores to the rocky outcroppings at the base of the cliffs, and stepping into the water, she crouched down and gestured for them to join her. Olive blinked, and silently, Wander nudged him before crouching down to join her.

“Look,” Aryll whispered, pointing into the water below them.

Wander’s eyes followed her finger, and it took him a moment to realize that there were small, minuscule creatures in the water. Little silvery specks darted to and fro in the shallow water, nipping at whatever they could find.

“They’re silver lightfish,” Aryll told him as if it were a great secret. “When they grow up, they’ll glow in the dark like stars, and then they’ll swim far, far away.”

“Where do they go?” Olive asked.

“I don’t know,” Aryll mused, sounding thoughtful despite the lighthearted smile on her face. “Somewhere new and exciting, I hope.”

There was something about this little one, Wander thought to himself. Perhaps it was that Wander had always been the baby in the past, always looked out for by the other darks and then the heroes, but it was strange having someone look at him and see him as an older figure, someone who didn’t need protecting, someone who could handle himself… maybe even—dare he say it—someone to look up to.

The thought of being a role model was horrifying, but… there was something nice about it.

So he smiled back at Aryll and said, “That sounds nice. I think I’d like that fate, too.”

Part of what Wander was made out of was wanderlust. He and his light would both often find their eyes drawn toward the horizon, wondering ceaselessly what laid beyond. Despite his shy disposition, Wander loved new experiences, meeting new people, and seeing new places, and it didn’t matter what form that travel took—whether it was by horse, boat, magic, or none of the above, as long as he found something new, he absorbed it all with wide eyes. And yet, he yearned for more.

Another part of what Wander was made out of was anxiety and fear, and he was very much feeling that at the moment as a wave crashed against the side of the ship and sent him stumbling into the nearby handrail. His shoulder collided painfully with the wood, and he willed himself to not throw up on the spot.

Storms at sea were awful, Wander decided as he forced himself toward the door that led below deck. Wind could laugh at him all he liked about lacking sea legs, but this was objectively awful, and Olive was doing worse. Wander genuinely did not want to know what the closet Olive shoved himself into looked or smelled like at this point.

As soon as he got near the door, a small hand grabbed his sleeve and pulled him inside, quickly shutting the door behind him. Almost instantly, the crashing and thundering outside quieted to a distant, muffled rumble, as if a cloak had been thrown over his head, and Wander released a breath he didn’t know he was holding, suddenly feeling just how soaked he was.

“Gosh, swabbie, you really look like a sea ghost now.”

Wander squinted at Niko, who looked entirely unapologetic and only partially damp. Before the storm got too bad, he was told to look after the cargo and to make sure Olive didn’t keel over on the spot, so it only made sense that he was drier. Wander couldn’t help giving him the flattest look he could muster.

“What?” Niko huffed. “It’s true!”

Wander decided that now was as good a time as any, and with no more than two steps down the hall, deeper into the ship, he slipped into incorporeality and invisibility. Niko grumbled a comment under his breath, and Wander snorted to himself.

Wander liked Niko. He was comfortable to be around.

It didn’t take long to find the closet, even with the rocking of the ship. Wander set his back to the door, phasing back into corporeality to avoid slipping through it instead, and slid down to the floor with a heavy sigh. The effects of the storm really were muffled down here under the deck.

“Are you alive in there?” he asked.

A low groan came from the closet.

“Wish I wasn’t,” Olive said.

Wander’s mouth twisted into a grimace at the sour taste that seeped onto his tongue. Olive hadn’t meant to tell him about the choice he’d made, back in the era of the far future, but it had slipped out one evening, and Wander had been so very close to crying.

“Don’t say that,” he said.

“... Sorry.”

Wander brought his knees up, and his forehead thunked down onto them.

“I—I didn’t mean…” he started, only to trail off into nothing. He restarted. “I just… don’t like thinking about—that you could have not been here, that I might have had to live for who knows how long knowing that you… that you’re gone.”

“It’d happen sooner or later,” was Olive’s first response. There was a brief moment of silence before he spoke again, his voice soft and low through the wooden door. “It’s not on you, anyway. If I had chosen to die, it wouldn’t be your responsibility at all. It was my choice, you know.”

“I know,” Wander said, “but I still would’ve felt awful.” He still did.

A pause.

“It’s in the past. Civil talked me out of it,” Olive said eventually, and Wander wasn’t sure how much he believed that. Exactly which part of it he didn’t believe, he couldn’t quite say.

“What did he say to you, anyway?” Wander asked. “You never did tell me.”

Olive sighed.

“He said that… that I deserved peace. And that if I didn’t find any, then I should make my own.”

The words rolled over in Wander’s mind. It sounded a bit nonsensical, but it was also incredibly stubborn in a very Civil way. Wander hadn’t known Civil very well, but the sentiment behind the advice felt like him.

“I think he’s right,” Wander realized.

“What do you… Do you mean something else when you say that?” Olive asked.

“You do deserve peace, obviously, but I mean that he’s right about taking action,” Wander said, knocking his head back against the door as his eyes drifted up toward the ceiling. “The others thought the same thing, too. Dark only summoned us because he didn’t like how things were and took fate into his own hands. And then Shadow made his own choice to break away and join his light.”

“That only led to their demise,” Olive muttered. “Or just… bad consequences.”

“But it led to a happy ending anyway, right?” Wander shot back. “I mean, I exist now, and so do Midnight and Abyss, and Shadow did get what he wanted in the end. It’s not perfect, but it’s—it’s good! I love this life, and I wouldn’t have any of it if no one had tried to change things. We have a new family, and we have friends and a home, and…”

Wander felt his face heat in embarrassment at his next words, but he said them anyway.

“And I’ve got you, now,” he said, a small smile tugging at his mouth. “I really like that you’re here with me. I don’t feel so alone.” His face flushed further, his ears burning. “Not that you’re living for my sake or anything, but I—I wanted to, um, express this.” He cleared his throat. “But, um, yeah, Civil was right. Sometimes we have to fight for what we want, and that’s okay.”

“I… thanks. You’ve got a point, I guess,” came the quiet response. “I’m glad to be here, too.”

A quiet choking noise echoed from the other side of the door as the boat suddenly lurched. Wander almost fell over even while sitting.

“Well, not here,” Olive whined pitifully. “A-Anywhere but on this boat.”

Wander grimaced at the subsequent retching noises from inside the closet. He’d reach inside and pat Olive’s shoulder, but he really didn’t want to know what it looked like in there.

“There there,” he said awkwardly. “The, um, the storm should be over soon.”

“Please, gods—”

Gross.

He’d help Niko clean that up later.

“Land ho!”

The cry rang through the air, clear as a bell, but the sounds of surprise and awe drew Wander’s attention more than the initial shout did. He crawled partway up the nearest rope and looked toward the bow, and on the distant horizon laid a long, uneven line of land, far more vast than any island of the Great Sea.

“It exists,” Wander found himself saying, his voice naught but a whisper carried away by the breeze. “It really exists.”

Wind and Tetra had spoken of such a land, dreaming and hoping that one day they might find a continent to settle on and found a new Hyrule. Wind had been dazzled by the kingdoms of other eras, and he had so dearly wanted to see if it was possible to create such a thing in his own time. Being tugged around the Great Sea and meeting all kinds of people had made that hope feel like a pipe dream to Wander, like there was nothing else to this world but the vast blue ocean, but lo and behold, there it laid, a vast swathe of solid ground that hadn’t been drowned beneath the waves.

Wander was going to let the others explore first, but when Wind asked if he wanted to come with them to the shore, he couldn’t say no. The crew cast anchor, and he, Olive, Wind, and Tetra climbed into the rowboat. As soon as they hit the beach, Olive climbed out and collapsed onto the sand, ignoring the way it got into his hair and clothes.

Olive reveled in every moment spent on land, and now that they had found a continent, Wander wondered if it would even be possible to get him back on the ship. It was quite the journey back to the islands of the Great Sea. Though, he supposed it didn’t really matter. Seeing the awe on Tetra’s face and the excitement on Wind’s, it seemed that they had found the land of their future kingdom.

“I’ve never seen so much land in one place,” Tetra breathed, wide eyes taking in the distant hills, mountains, and forests. It looked wild and untamed, no doubt difficult to travel through for those accustomed to the open sea. “Was Old Hyrule this big?”

“Sometimes,” Wind answered, already climbing up the nearest hill to see what laid beyond the beach. “I never got a good look at where the borders were, but…” He turned back around with a wide grin, the wind tugging at his hair. “This place is perfect.”

Back when everything first began, Wander simply could not understand why Shadow would turn away from his own kind to run to his light when it had been Dark who had summoned and created them, giving them new life and a new chance, but then his own light’s kindness had been turned onto Wander, and he understood. He realized that there was beauty outside the darkness, too. It was terrifying and intimidating, choosing to be around something that glowed so bright that it might hurt, that it might one day burn itself out like a star, but there was something there to admire, too.

Wind, Wander found, was like Aryll’s lightfish. A spark of light traveling far into the distance seeking a new place to call home, with all the strength and willpower in the world to make it his home.

They began to build, and Tetra and her crew went to get more people. Some of the inhabitants of the Great Sea had mentioned that they wouldn’t mind moving to a new land, especially one where they wouldn’t have to worry about space and resources. Here, there was plenty of potential farmland, and there was no shortage of space or wood or stone for building. The wildlife was more plentiful and evenly spread out, and for the homesick, the ocean was nearby, promising an easy return should they ever feel like it.

Among the first people to arrive and join the efforts with New Hyrule was a friend of Wind’s, who Wander had only ever heard of before. This friend happened to be an older sailor named Linebeck from another dimension (Wander still didn’t quite understand that situation, in all honesty), and he was one of the most skittish people Wander had ever met. He suspected that Linebeck’s hesitation to interact with him had to do with his appearance. In all fairness, he supposed that he did look rather off-putting to the average person.

“Where, uh… Where’d you get that coat, kid?” were the first words Linebeck said to Wander, and the poor man was sweating from sheer anxiety. Wander felt that on a spiritual level.

“The one who created me,” Wander answered truthfully. His voice was naturally much softer than Wind’s, and it seemed to catch Linebeck a bit off-guard. “I think he stole them, but I like these clothes.” He tilted his head, feeling his hair catch on the air around him with the motion. “Why do you ask?”

“N-Nothing!” Linebeck said with a nervous laugh, avoiding eye contact and failing to act as though he wasn’t wearing a similar coat, albeit in much better condition. “No reason at all! Just, uh, nice sense of fashion.”

Wander blinked slowly.

“So, w-what exactly are you?” Linebeck asked, still looking like he was one wrong move away from soiling his pants. “The kid explained it to me, but I don’t really, uh… understand?”

“I guess it is complicated for someone who isn’t directly experiencing it,” Wander hummed, setting a finger to his chin in thought. “I am the darkness of Link himself. One might think that someone so good wouldn’t have much to pull from, but the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows.”

Linebeck’s expression was devoid of any and all comprehension. Wander sighed to himself and corrected. It seemed that the others’ penchant for dramatics had rubbed off on him far more than he had realized.

“I am Link’s less appreciated traits given human form,” Wander said. “I am my own person, and I am his friend. Olive is the same as me, but he comes from someone else and is made of different traits. Is that clearer?”

Linebeck blinked.

“Clearer than the last explanation I got,” he admitted.

Wander… didn’t want to know what Wind had said, actually. His light tended to forget that others might not understand the same things he saw as normal.

The man walked away, ending the conversation in the most awkward way possible, but considering that Wander barely knew how to socialize himself, he couldn’t really judge.

While the days were spent clearing land, laying the foundations for new buildings, and desperately trying not to die to the natural dangers of the wilderness, the evenings were much calmer, and Wander liked spending his with Olive.

“Are you holding up alright?” Olive asked him one night.

Wander nodded and responded, “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Olive answered.

“Why do you ask me that every day?”

“Well… you are wanderlust and fear,” Olive shrugged. “That’s not a very kind combination, and while I, of all people, am aware that our traits don’t always define who we are, I… I just want to make sure you’re alright.”

Wander hummed for a moment in thought.

“What about you?” he asked. “Hubris and obedience, right? That’s not very kind, either.”

“I… It’s difficult, but it’s manageable,” Olive said. “No one said life was going to be easy, though.”

“That was probably one of the only things Shadow and Dark agreed on,” Wander found himself laughing, and Olive’s own ribcage soon shook with quiet laughter. Wander sighed, and without dropping his smile, he said, “I miss the others. I hope they’re doing alright.”

“... Me, too.”

Wander was convinced that he was the only one here with a healthy dose of fear.

The first thing Wander had done upon seeing Wind leave the tower was pull him into a hug. The second thing he had done was smack him in the back of the head, because everything he’d done in the last few months had been utterly moronic.

“I knew there was something wrong with that train!” he huffed. “But did you listen to me when I told you to be careful? No, of course not—”

“I’m glad to see you, too,” Wind laughed instead, completely ignoring the blood running down the side of his face. “Did you manage to…?”

“I handled it with Olive’s help,” Wander sighed. He scowled. “But what were you thinking, taking on a whole demon king like that?”

“Everyone else’s safety,” Wind answered. “And that monster had Tetra’s body! I couldn’t just let him keep it! That’s just creepy. Besides, Sky faced worse, and he’s fine.”

Wander sighed and brought a hand up to his forehead.

Over the last several years, the construction of New Hyrule had gone splendidly, especially with the help of the local tribe who called themselves the lokomo… that was, until they had discovered a demon king and his minions, which had been sleeping deep beneath the earth. With the recent technological innovations, the pinnacle of it all being the steam engine, there had been enough activity on the surface to wake up the monsters, and Wind had been called to action yet again.

The self-proclaimed Demon King Malladus had committed a number of wrongs against Wind and the people of New Hyrule, including but not limited to terrorism, theft, violence, and trying to recruit Wander and Olive, having sensed the darkness that comprised their physical forms. Wind had sent word to Aryll to avoid traveling to New Hyrule until everything was sorted out. Linebeck had complained in his endearingly pathetic way about the trade routes he’d been working on getting compromised by the rampant monsters, and the brand new Aboda Village had to halt its construction to focus on defense. The last straw, however, had been Malladus stealing Tetra’s body, kicking her spirit out, and Wind simply couldn’t have that.

Somehow, it had ended with a train battle that turned into a showdown in the grand tower that the lokomo and anouki tribes had been building for the very purpose of sealing Malladus away, and Wander had had to wait for hours before Wind emerged victorious. No doubt Tetra was waking up soon in the little clinic Wind had stowed her body away in.

“I think I sealed him away for a while,” Wind told him. His smile strained just a bit. “I… hope.”

“You hope ?” Wander questioned, unimpressed.

“What?” Wind huffed. “I’ve never had to deal with seals before! I usually just kinda… kill my enemies.”

Wander gave him a look, and when Wind refused to change his expression, Wander sighed and took him by the arm, marching him over to the closest train. His light needed medical attention after such a battle, regardless of whether or not the future was in danger.

After all, historically, seals didn’t work very well.

Tetra met them at the clinic doors, and while she was none too pleased about having to be saved yet again, she issued orders to the medics and made quick work of getting Wind’s wounds treated. She made sure he was taken care of before she left, muttering under her breath about how much she’d have to catch up on, and Wander wondered if she knew how much work founding a country would actually be. He wondered sometimes if Abyss was having similar issues or if he’d left it up to everyone else.

“Hey,” Wind spoke up an hour or two after Tetra left, “how come you’re aging with me but Olive isn’t?”

That… wasn’t the question Wander was expecting, but it was certainly one he himself had been wondering.

Over the years, Wind and Tetra had grown, and by this point, they were both adults. Wander’s appearance matched Wind’s, keeping up with both his height and his longer hair, but he wasn’t sure if it was a subconscious reaction or if it was his own natural aging process. Olive, on the other hand, hadn’t grown a bit. The biggest difference in his appearance had to be his abandonment of armor in favor of looser, softer clothes.

Wander almost looked as old as Olive, now, and he wasn’t sure if anyone was comfortable with that information.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” Wind shrugged, eyes drifting toward the ceiling. “Just…” He huffed and restarted. “There’s so much to think about. We’re creating New Hyrule, and I just sealed away Malladus, but what about the future? What if Malladus breaks out and kidnaps a child or destroys entire towns or something? Or what if a new evil comes along? I got rid of Ganondorf, but there’s always something new to deal with… and now there’s you. Will you die with me, or will you live on with Olive? What’s going to happen with you guys?”

Wander gnawed on the inside of his cheek for a moment.

“Don’t worry about it,” he decided. “We’ll figure it out when we get there.” He offered a lighthearted smile. “It’s my job to worry. You sit back and look pretty, Hero of Winds.”

Wind snorted in laughter, and Wander sat back, considering it a win.

Wander was right, though. Worrying was his job, and he would keep it to himself. He had to keep a lot of his fears to himself, just to maintain the sanity of everyone around him, and newly among those fears was a recent incident, one that had happened when no one else had been around to witness it. Or, well, no one that mattered.

He really hadn’t meant to, but when he snuck into a demon camp, intending on incapacitating them stealthily so that no one else would have to deal with it, he had overheard plans to harm his light. He had reacted without thinking, and then, next thing he knew, he had stepped into one of the demons, looking out at the surroundings with eyes that simultaneously saw brand new colors while being relatively colorblind.

In his panic, he had lashed out. By the time he calmed down, his hands were covered in blood, and all the demons around him were crumpled on the ground. Wander stumbled and fell against a wooden support beam only to catch a glimpse of his reflection in a puddle, and framed by the barely inhuman face of the demon were Wander’s eyes, dark and red and pupilless. He let go, recoiling from the sight, and the demon’s body collapsed at his suddenly very corporeal and independent feet.

He hadn’t checked if the demon was still breathing. He had been too busy running away from any evidence of those actions.

He knew that darks could develop new and powerful abilities, sometimes revealed under stress like Abyss’s wings, but Wander had been caught so violently off-guard that he had run away. His lips were sealed tight on the subject, only daring to whisper bits and pieces of it to Olive. From what he’d been told, this new ability was a bit too reminiscent of a certain parasite that Wind and Linebeck had struggled with, so he would not speak a word of the incident to his light.

So, yes, there was nothing for Wind to worry about. It was Wander’s job to worry.

The construction of Castle Town was well underway, and a little further away, with the help of some particularly enthusiastic carpenters and lumberjacks, Wander watched as a small cabin was constructed just a few minutes away from the little village called Whittleton.

“It will be nice to have somewhere to retreat to,” Olive told him. “If any of our little family needs to get away for a while, they can just come here.”

Wander had to admit that he liked the idea. Once Wind got back from exploring the snow realm, he’d invite his light. For now, Aryll was delighted to receive the favor of open arms and open doors, and Tetra had promised to visit at some point, though she made it sound not unlike a threat.

Olive started a garden in the front yard, one that would end up spanning the entire little clearing. It began with a few seeds gifted by some lokomo they had met before the war with Malladus, which bloomed into flowers and saplings the likes of which neither of them had ever seen before. The flowers were lined with all sorts of colors, whispering of vastly differing origins and yet peacefully coexisting with each other. The saplings, they learned, would eventually grow into trees. Some grew blue leaves and violet blossoms, and others shone verdant green and bore small fruits with juices that burst across the tongue with sugar and flavor.

“I’ve brought life to something,” Olive would breathe one morning after many years had passed and fairies fluttered around the strange and vibrant plantlife, unafraid of the dark beings that called this place their home. “I never imagined that I could accomplish this. Such gifts do not belong to instruments of war.”

“You’re far more than a soldier,” Wander would say on reflex.

“I know,” Olive would answer, softly speaking with a confidence and surety that was once uncharacteristic of him. “I’ve made my own peace. Civil… well, I don’t know about being proud, but I bet he’d say that he told me so.”

However, such a conversation would not happen for years to come. As of the moment, the cabin was still under construction, and they were still watching New Hyrule grow and heal after the war with the demons, but even so, after so long exploring, so long building, so long fighting , it was strange to simply sit down and let the rest of the world move on its own.

“Did you ever think we’d make it this far?” Wander asked one night. The two of them were sprawled out in the grass outside the half-finished cabin, staring up at the glittering stars.

“Not at all,” Olive answered. “I never thought I would make it off the battlefield.”

“Me neither,” Wander admitted.

There had been a time when there had been nothing beyond the fortress, a motley collection of heroes and darks, and a handful of portals, and now, a whole world was laid out before them both. That time now seemed so far away.

“Do you think they’re doing alright?” Wander asked. “The other darks, I mean.”

“We’re making it alright,” Olive hummed. “I’m sure they’re going their best, too.”

“Gods,” Wander realized, “how many of them do you think had to learn how to do taxes?”

That startled a laugh out of Olive, and Wander was reminded of a time when such a sound would have been impossible to wring out of his brother like that.

“I can’t see it,” Olive managed to say through his lingering chuckles. “I really can’t. They’re probably all committing tax fraud somewhere out there.”

Wander didn’t fight the warm laughter that bubbled up from around his heart.

The clearing in the woods, filled with flowers and fruit trees, held a cabin, and in this cabin resided two beings of darkness, vice, and kindness. Brothers in all but blood, they found a peaceful existence together, and that clearing became like a bubble to them, sealed away from the outside world. The two had grown and found a new home far from where they began, just like the lightfish a little girl had told them about on a shoreline long ago.

Wander could not say when they became so distant from New Hyrule. It was more of a gradual thing, spending more time at the cabin and less time among the people. They had kept up with Wind’s and Tetra’s lives, visiting the castle or hunting down the ever-aging explorer, but perhaps it was when they received notice of Wind’s funeral that they ceased contact with the people.

They were still young, after all, despite the time that had passed. Wander, being away from Wind, had apparently forgotten to age, and the funeral invitation had caught him off-guard. Sure, he had noticed the deepening wrinkles and the whitening hair, but he hadn’t realized that it would happen so soon. He had forgotten the passage of time.

They attended, of course, but Olive cloaked himself with color, looking like his light for the first time in ages, and Wander hid in the shadows of invisibility. Only Tetra noticed the two of them.

“Took you long enough,” she taunted with no real malice. “You’ve not aged a day past thirty, at most!”

It was true, Wander lamented as he took in Tetra’s aged appearance. His own looks had grown stagnant, but she was undeniably old now. Her grandchildren would soon be finding spouses, he realized, and they wouldn’t even know who Wander and Olive were. Already, the stories of the past had been lost, all because they had lost track of time.

“It’s not our fault,” Olive told him when they returned to the cabin. “Besides, as long as we’re around, everyone’s stories live on.”

Wander conceded to Olive’s words, and they lived in peaceful solitude for many more years.

And then, one sunny afternoon, a blanket of dark storm clouds appeared out of nowhere and plunged the land into darkness. A rumble shook the earth, and when he felt it, Wander’s breath caught in his chest, and the blood drained from his face. The darkness that had slumbered beneath the earth, bound by forgotten chains of wood and steel and locked by a grand tower of blessed stone, was suddenly gone .

Wander spun around to find Olive, and he found his brother staring up at the sky with wide eyes, looking scared for the first time in decades.

“You feel it, too?” Wander dared to ask, his voice quieter than he’d intended.

“Malladus is free,” Olive breathed. Blue eyes met Wander’s, hesitant and unsure. “How did—how did we not notice?”

Wander bit the inside of his cheek. They were fools to have ignored the shifts in the land’s magic over the last few days. They’d thought of the shifts as nothing more than minor anomalies, but they were wrong.

“There’s no hero this time,” Wander said. He inhaled, steadying himself. Wind was no longer around and hadn’t been for years. “I guess there’s no other option, then. We’ll have to investigate.”

Olive nodded, and they both returned inside to gather their things, some of which were items that hadn’t been touched in decades.

… Perhaps they should perform maintenance first.

After some meddling, some monster killing, and perhaps a little bit of possession, Wander and Olive discovered a very important piece of information.

Wander was wrong. There was, in fact, a new hero, and with the aid of the lokomo, he didn’t need their help.

Even with the evil already destroyed, Wander went and found him.

The first time he saw the boy, he had forgotten for a moment what the date was. All sense of time and place was gone, and he was suddenly a child again, seeing his light for the first time.

But, no, this boy was someone else entirely. The slant of his eyes was sharper, and his irises were a soft silver instead of the vibrant sea green that Wander remembered. Instead of a sky blue tunic decorated with white patterns of sea creatures, the boy wore an engineer’s uniform, and his hair was paler and softer, crammed under a scuffed red hat. The way he carried himself was smaller and quieter as well, but even with all the differences, he still looked so strikingly like Wind that Wander had to wonder if his light had hidden a secret child from him.

Wander followed the boy all the way back to Aboda Village, silently sitting in the back compartment of the train, as he was unsure if the boy also shared Wind’s gift of sight. Much to his surprise, he found that the boy was living with none other than Niko, and it was out of respect for his old friend that he remained outside, turned corporeal, and knocked.

A shout from inside reached Wander’s ears, and darkness below, the boy even sounded like Wind. Where had Niko found such an uncanny child?

The door opened, and silver eyes widened at the sight of Wander. For a moment, everything was still.

“Hello,” Wander greeted, suddenly realizing that he had fallen back into his first form, childish and soft.

The door slammed in his face. He blinked owlishly at the wood grain inches from his nose, barely registering the panicked sounds from behind the door. A few moments later, the door opened again, but this time, a sword was pointed at him.

“Are you a demon?” the boy questioned, narrowing suspicious eyes at Wander. “If you want revenge for Malladus, you’re gonna regret it—just saying.”

Wander couldn’t have stopped the giggle snort that escaped him even if he had tried to. Even so, he covered his grinning mouth, sparing just a bit of dignity for the boy.

“No, no, I’m no demon,” he said, well aware of the audible smile in his voice. “My name is Wander, and I’m an old friend of Niko’s. Is your name Link, by any chance?”

“How did you know?” the boy blurted out before he could stop himself. Pink dusted his cheeks, but he kept his voice steady. “How are you Niko’s friend if you’re… you know, a kid? And how do I know you’re not lying?”

“Educated guess, I’m older than I look, and I guess you’ll just have to trust me,” Wander said, pushing the blade down with a fingertip. He gestured toward the doorway. “May I come inside?”

Link hesitated and stammered out a vaguely affirmative sound, so Wander stepped around him and entered the little house. Every wall was decorated with sailing and engineering gear alike, along with mementos of old adventures across the Great Sea and even more items and trinkets that Wander did not recognize. A wave of nostalgia washed over him, warmth tying itself firmly around his ribcage.

In the corner, an old man napped in a rocking chair, only recognizable by a wardrobe he’d never grown out of.

“Hey,” he said softly, nudging at Niko, who snorted and blinked awake blearily. “Hey, Niko, are you with me?”

Niko groaned, looked at Wander, rubbed his eyes, and stared at him. Wander bit his tongue to keep silent as his old friend processed his presence, and then Niko gave an alarmed and very delayed yelp, sitting up straight in an instant despite his age.

“You—Wander?” Niko choked out, voice rough and so painfully old. “Is that you? You look so young again!”

“I guess I forgot myself,” Wander laughed sheepishly, letting Niko’s hands curl around his in a vice grip. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yes!” Niko huffed as if offended by the very idea. He might actually be, knowing him. Wander made a mental note to visit again soon. “Yes, it has! What brings you here?”

“I found out there was a new hero in town,” Wander said, allowing his gaze to slide over to the suddenly very self-conscious Link. “You just happened to be here, too. I didn’t even know hylians got this old. What are you now? 120?”

“Oh, right,” Niko sighed with no small amount of dramatics. “You really did forget about me, huh? Your very best friend? And I’m 122, for your information.”

“Forget you? Never,” Wander assured him with a smile, knowing that Niko didn’t really mean it.

He patted Niko’s old, wrinkled hand and turned to face Link.

“Now, Link, I’d like to hear your story, if you don’t mind,” he said. “You took down Malladus, after all, and that’s no small feat.”

While Link’s accomplishments were certainly impressive, and his story was more than worthy of the hero’s spirit, Wander still had no idea why this one hadn’t been there when Dark had pulled everyone together. Had he overlooked this one? Had there been even more heroes that Dark simply hadn’t bothered with? What set this child apart from the other children who were called to action by fate?

Wondering about such things was, perhaps, a useless endeavor, as any answers had been lost when Secret had sealed away Dark’s memories, but Wander couldn’t help it. If he had known, then perhaps he could have offered some support when Link and the princess had gone through their adventure.

Though, evidently, the two of them had been just fine on their own. Wander found himself brimming with pride over two kids he barely even knew.

Wander introduced Link to Olive, who was rather surprised to both find a child that looked so similar to Wind and see Wander in such a young form again, and in turn, Link took them to meet the princess. Wander was pleased to meet the girl who Link had lauded with so much praise, and she was eager to meet the two darks who had known her ancestor personally, fascinated with their existence.

Wander felt bad for not letting her know they were there before then. Perhaps she could have used their help, ruling alone at such a young age.

Over tea, in bits and pieces, Olive and Wander told their own stories to these two successors of old friends, and the two clung on to every word.

“This might be a sensitive subject, but if you ever want to rest, I could probably, um… how did you put it?” Zelda hummed thoughtfully. “Ah! Unweave you.” She blushed, suddenly aware of how bluntly her words had come out. “That is, if you want to.”

Wander blinked at her, but it was Olive who spoke first.

“No thank you,” Olive said. “Though, after hearing your story, I would have thought you’d be more avoidant of such topics.”

“After the final battle, after everything with Byrne and Anjean…” she sighed, looking down at her tea. “Maybe I would be, if it had been me from before everything, but I have seen far too much and met too many people to think of it that way. The lokomo were very much in touch with the spirits, and Anjean was at peace with everything in the end. She chose to return to the spirit realm.”

Link nodded in agreement and added quietly, “I don’t know how you think, but you are older than most people alive today. If you are anything like the lokomo, then we thought that, maybe, you’d want to rest at some point.”

“Thank you for the concern,” Wander said, “but I’m alright.”

Olive nodded in agreement.

If they ever wanted peace, they could always ask a princess for the favor, but Wander didn’t want to leave quite yet. He had been reminded of the future by Link and the spirited young princess.

The ancient demon king was dead, and yet blessed train tracks still criss-crossed the land, and clouds of steam puffed from the engines of the trains that pulled resources and people alike to every corner of New Hyrule. This kingdom was young and lively and growing, and despite every haunting evil and every setback, it would persevere, because that was what Hyrule had done since the very beginning.

On the way back to the cabin, Wander caught a glimpse of the shores, and he took in the glimmering waves of the sea, deep and vast. The Great Sea had been home to many gifts, many people and places, and, yes, almost all the people Wander had known were long gone, but those memories did nothing to take away from the beauty of the ocean. On the shores, the people of Aboda Village continued milling about their daily lives, and across the plains, rabbits played and burrowed. In the snowy forests and hills, he knew, the anouki fished and cuddled up with each other, and the gorons up on the fiery mountains, lava flowing around them, were living life as normal, as they always did.

Wander had spent a long time as a hermit in the woods. Before that, he was a settler, and even before that, he was a member of a pirate crew who once sailed the waves with no fear. And in the beginning, he was just a scared little boy, afraid of the world itself.

He was still all of that, really. He would always be wanderlust and fear, but he could always be something more . He grew up and glowed in the dark like a star and swam far away to become a part of this future he found himself in. Every day, more new faces were born, and one day, they too would grow up and glow in the dark and swim far away, perhaps to places he knew nothing of.

And knowing that felt promising.

“What are you thinking of?” Olive asked.

“Everything and nothing at all,” Wander shrugged. He hummed, then asked, “What do you think about becoming florists?”

“Why florists?”

“Why not?”

“Well… alright, then. Why not? Flowers it is.”

The future of Hyrule was bright and ever-changing. He couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.