Work Text:
Warriors has been a captain for almost one year now. He was actually called Link, but so was also his, by seven years, younger brother. For some reason his parents decided to give them the same name, a heroic one, apparently. But they were long since gone, long before he had joined the army.
Now they were stuck in the middle of a war and he was not only stuck with a lot of responsibilities but also stuck with a little brother trying to prove himself.
Wild, he had decided on the name himself, was a capable fighter albeit young, only 17.
And Warriors would rather have him somewhere safe than on the frontlines or on the battlefield at all. But they had few soldiers to begin with and he couldn’t afford it. His brother was reckless, smart and strong, but wild, as his name implies. Besides he once tried to keep him away from the fighting, only to discover him, acting on his own, fighting alongside the soldiers anyway. He used his status as the captain’s younger brother to wriggle his way into the camp and just continued helping. No one bothered to inform the captain for three weeks, because everyone though he knew! And everyone appreciated the help, so even after he was discovered there was little he could do to get Wild to back out.
Warriors sighted. He had seen his brother fighting many times ever since and knew he was good at it, more capable than any officer and even a match for Impa. Especially archery, there was probably no one better at it than him. Hell, just in the past month he improved in leaps and bounds. He bet he would have to struggle to win against him now.
But Wild wasn’t at his side now, he was on a mission to deal with some ambush unites. Impa and Sheik had accompanied him, but returned just a one hour ago to help with his own mission. They reported how the enemy had been dealt with and Wild stayed behind to deal with the last stragglers. He was glad he wasn’t here for the next mission, it was way too dangerous, however not knowing how he was, was so much worse than seeing him fighting at his side.
Not to mention…
A bit more than two months ago, Wild suddenly went missing in the midst of a battle. For two entire weeks, they couldn’t find him. He hadn’t been among the fallen, but that had done little to calm him down. They didn’t know what had happened to him. Had the enemy captured him? Was he too injured to return to them? What. Had. Happened?
After two weeks Wild had shown up in their camp. He was cowered in so many new scars. His personality was still the same, but something had happened, had changed. Warriors saw it instantly, in the stance, the mannerism, the eyes. But Wild always avoided talking about those two weeks. Even after careful probing, he couldn’t get an answer out of him. All he knew was that those weeks caused horrible nightmares.
Warriors felt the guilt coming back again. Wild had insisted he was fine, had insisted he returned to fighting, had insisted he knew what he was doing and knew he was capable of helping.
He reluctantly agreed to let him go back to fighting, mainly because Wild would have gone off by himself otherwise. He didn’t know what to do and could only imagine what caused such change in Wild. He hoped the truth would reveal itself, hoped it wasn’t any atrocity the war had put him through, but even a month later he had zero information.
Warriors stared at the map in front of him and then at the fortress just a short distance away. He forced his worries aside, he had a fortress to take down.
Impa and Sheik were waiting for him. There was a thick tension in the air and Warriors felt unease crawl up his spine. Some tension was normal before a battle, but this, this was something else, even Impa and Sheik were affected. Something was up. Warriors could tell, but he didn’t have time to inquire about it. The fortress needed to fall.
The battle went smoothly, they made it inside the fortress without many difficulties. The had gathered in the open courtyard and Warriors disposed of another group of enemies, when a loud rumble went through the building. With a deafening crash the walls and gates on two sides collapsed and trapped Warriors and Sheik between enemy and rocks.
“Of course, things have been going too well.” Warriors was more annoyed than worried. This wasn’t the first time he had been trapped after all and the enemy was quite weak right now. They were probably desperate.
“Stay on guard.”
A sharp reminder from Sheik had him snap out of any overconfidence he had felt just now. He knew Impa was around somewhere and should be close by. They just had to hold out until they joined up and then break out of the encirclement.
A shadow loomed over them menacingly and an ugly giggling sound was heard.
“The commander graces us with his presence.” Warriors tried to mask his unease with a smile. The commander appearing wasn’t good news, not now.
“Nice to meet you hero. And farewell, for you will die here.”
“Ha! As if I couldn’t deal with you.” Warrior pointed his sword at the enemy.
Another giggle echoed over the battlefield. “We’ll kill you, like we killed your brother. With pleasure.”
What, my brother? Fear slammed into Warriors, hot and cold waves washed through his veins at the same time.
“Poor boy, weren’t you told? Didn’t you wonder where he was.” A gleeful smirk appeared.
Warriors was frozen in place. His brother? His brother was supposed wrap up a simple mission. Impa never said anything. They killed him? When? How? They must be bluffing. Yes, yes to catch him of guard.
His thoughts were spinning like crazy, when a bundle was thrown in front of him.
The world seemed to have disappeared around him. The bundle consisted of Wilds Sword, his broken bow and his blue tunic, all stained with blood, to the point where the shredded blue tunic was more red than blue. His mind went blank.
They killed him? They. Killed. Him.
Warriors heard nothing but his own heart racing and the echoing laughter. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the bundle in front of him and he distinctly felt himself starting to tremble.
This couldn’t be real! This couldn’t be happening!
“I’m so sorry captain.” Sheik stood next to him, his voice was quiet, pained.
“You knew.” Warriors figured immediately from the tone, Sheik wasn’t surprised, Sheik knew, Impa must have known too. “YOU KNEW!”
A sob escaped his lips and his body began shaking. The picture of Wild waving goodbye as they left for the mission sprung into his mind, followed by an image of a bloody, battered, broken body lying on the ground.
Dead… dead… the killed him.
He grabbed Sheik and brought their faces closer. He was seething with anger and pain.
“Why didn’t you tell me.” His voice was surprisingly cold as he spit out those words, only to start shaking along with the rest of his body. “Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why him?”
He felt Impa approaching and turned his head to stare at her. She stopped in her tracks and didn’t get any closer.
She froze in place. She had been on the battlefield long enough to know what such eyes meant. Blue eyes with a piercing glare, wide open from anger and shock, ready to lash out on the slightest provocation. Those eyes were dangerous, do not go closer until the tension lessened. And Link was not someone she would be able to restrain without getting hurt. She needed him to calm down first.
“Captain please.” Sheik put a hand on Warriors arm. But his eyes remained cold, yet a fire was raging inside them. A single tear rolled down his cheek.
“Sir.”
“Captain, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know how to tell you.” Sheik tried to use a comforting tone and looked to the ground.
“Sir!”
“I know how much you love your brother. Look at you now. This is the other reason I couldn’t tell you. This mission could decide the entire war. We needed the captain.”
Impa watched the exchange silently and filled with guilt. Of course, she had known of Wilds fate. She had seen his last moments, had seen everything. And had agreed to remain silent until this mission was over, to only tell him after the battle. Too much would be lost if this mission failed, and without Link, it definitely would be almost impossible to succeed. She hadn’t thought the enemy would take Wilds belongings, the battlefield had been too chaotic. She should probably help Sheik but…
Something else drew her attention and she shouted her orders.
The floor shook with a lout stomp close to Warriors. That broke them out of the situation, but it only shook the captain halfway out of his trance. A gigantic enemy had appeared. His eyes darted to the soldier closest to him.
“Sir. I tried to warn you.” The soldier went quiet and took a few steps back when Warriors glared at him.
Warriors couldn’t think properly. He felt like he was breathing too fast, but he didn’t care.
Wild was dead, they had killed him, and he didn’t even know. His younger brother was gone and no one bothered to bring the news. Dead, he was dead! And he wasn’t there to prevent it. Wasn’t there to help. Wasn’t there…
For a moment he didn’t know who the enemy was, couldn’t distinguish Sheiks red eye from all the red he saw.
They are going to pay. They will all pay for this!
Fire burned in him, it hurt so much. His eyes had trouble focusing on the enemy. For some reason his sword hand trembled, Warriors led out shaking breaths.
Why? WHY? Why had it to be my brother?
He felt a hand on his shoulder. Sheik said something but he couldn’t hear.
Sheik was there, why didn’t he help? Wasn’t he an ally, his friend?
Warriors thoughts seemed to be unbearably slow, his body was slow to react too, everything was slow.
Sheik yanked him backwards. A giant club struck the ground where he had just stood and barely missed them.
Time reassumed working normally. Warriors was panting and stared up at the enemy. How did he miss this thing?
But now wasn’t the time for to wonder and feel guilty, to feel anything. He needed to quickly rally the soldiers and to engage the enemy. He needed to come up with a plan before they were smashed to death. He took in the state of the battlefield and didn’t like what he saw. The allied soldiers were scattered everywhere and Impa fought the enormous enemy by herself.
“Captain, we need to fall back!” Sheiks alarmed voice reached him.
Right, right, they needed to retreat. His sword arm still shook and he knew he was in no state to fight like this.
He would deal with the enemy once his soldiers were safe. As soon as he could swing his sword properly, he would make sure to send every single enemy straight to hell.
The situation looked dire. The enemy still had them trapped and their numbers were growing, while the enormous enemy caused a lot of damage.
They unsuccessfully tried to push the enemy back. The huge enemy was like an unmovable mountain. Warriors avoided another hit from the club and his thoughts raced around, but he had no chance of formulating a plan in his current state of mind.
A bomb exploded in the giants’ face. And another one, and a third. Several arrows followed and ladled the enemy and caused it to stumble back.
Warriors heard laughter, laughter he knew so well, laughter he was surprised and unbelievably glad to hear. The laughter of his younger brother.
Another tear made its way down his cheek as relieve allowed him to breathe again and he looked up and saw his brother glide down with … a kite? Long hair fluttered in the wind behind him and a reckless grin span across his face, one Warriors knew too well.
Wild let go of the glider and fired another round of arrows straight into the enemy’s face, faster than Warriors could follow. Wild landed on the monster shoulder and out of nowhere had a great sword in his hands. The enemy’s throat was slit open and the monster fell backward. The corpse crushed some of the smaller enemies, which were now running heedlessly around.
Wild jumped down before the body hit the ground and came running towards Warriors with a huge smile on his face.
Warriors let out a faint laugh. He didn’t know what to make of this anymore. They had just told him he was dead, killed, and even provided proof, and now here he was, defeating an abnormally strong enemy singlehandedly. With abilities he had never seen before.
He looked to Sheik, who stood there frozen, eye wide and clearly bewildered.
“Hey brother. I thought you could use some backup.” Wild cheerfully greeted him and froze in place when he saw Warriors tearstained face. The smile disappeared instantly. “What happened?”
Warriors lunged forward and wrapped his brother in a tight hug.
He was alive. He was here and warm and still the same reckless idiot. Warriors’ breath hitched as he let the tears stream down and buried his face in his brother’s shoulder.
Wild brought his arms around Warriors and hugged him back. He shot a questioning look to Sheik, who only stared back.
The noise of the fight had died down, the enemy dead or retreated, and Impa ran towards them. She looked at Wild suspiciously as if she wasn’t sure what she saw.
“They said you were dead.” Warriors managed to bring himself to say after another sob. They lied, lied to rile him up, to shake him up. But why had Sheik acted that way, as if what the enemy said was true? Something wasn’t right, but he didn’t care. Wild was here and alive.
“He was dead.” Sheik looked directly into Wilds eyes. “You died in front of us, struck from behind, impaled by a sword. I was next to you; I felt your last breath.”
“Ah, yeah … that” Wild had brought up a hand to scratch the back of his head and averted his eyes.
“I’m fine.” He exclaimed and pushed Warriors so he could see his face. “Brother, I’m alright.”
Warriors’ breath steadied as the sobbing slowly stilled. “Yeah, I can see that”
“But how?” Impa kept her eyes on Wild, disbelief written in her face. “I witnessed your death as well, people don’t just come back to life.”
“Wild, please we need to know what’s going on.” Sheik carefully approached them.
Wild didn’t look at them, instead looked everywhere else. “Well…” but that was all they got.
Warriors heard him mumbling something more, something about a Mipha and some sort of power. But he didn’t really care about how his brother cheated death, he was here and alive, that was enough.
After a few more moments, Warriors calmed down at last, a faint smile appeared. “When did you get so skilled? And what was that thing you used?”
He finally took notice of the strange device on Wilds hip, “And what’s this?” Things didn’t add up. Since when did he have this? He said something about a power. Wait, he had that after the two weeks missing. But eh? But Warriors mind was too exhausted to piece anything together.
“So… remember when I disappeared a while back?”
“Of course, I remember! You were gone for two weeks. No one knew where you were. I thought the enemy captured you, or worse. And you said nothing about it when you got back.” The uncertainty had gnawed at him all the time, he felt like he was walking on burning coal and could barely get any of his duties done. He was desperate to get any info on his brother.
“Yeah, you were pretty angry.”
“Wild!” He was only angry because he didn’t know what had happened, what had happened to him. Because Wild clearly didn’t want to talk about it, it had his imagination run wild with all possible scenarios, as bloody and gruesome as they could get, for every scar.
“You see, back then I got thrown through a portal.”
“Shit, you spent two weeks inside a portal? In another world?”
“About that, for me it was two years, you know. I was surprised to learn that only two weeks had passed here, when I managed to come back. My body just readjusted, which felt quite strange, but the scars remained. I guess that just happens when you mess with space and time.”
Warriors groaned. So many things suddenly made so much more sense. The scars, the change in Wilds mannerism, how he had improved in leaps and bounds. Back then he didn’t dare question it too much, because he was just so glad to have his brother return to him and didn’t want to pry open any trauma Wild wasn’t willing to share just yet.
He looked at Wild. At this point he was too exhausted to feel anything but relief, it was enough to know he was alive. Anything else could wait until later.
“I believe this is quite a tale to tell” Sheik stepped next to them “But let’s get back to camp for that one”