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Chapter Text

They tumble through a portal and into the castle of Warriors' era. After some half-true explanations to guards and a conversation with Wars' Zelda, they head off to the rooms in the castle specifically for interdimensional guests. Artemis—that's what they call this Zelda—says, before they leave, that there's someone who will want to see one of them. It is cryptic, but it is later, too, and they are all tired.

They sleep in beds, and they sleep in separate rooms. Legend can't remember if he dreams; it is of no importance, so he doesn't care to remember, whatever the answer may be.

He is awoken by a knock on his door, and when he checks the time he sighs; he was this close to actually sleeping in for once.

So he opens the door and says, "This better be important," and—no, it's just Warriors. Something about breakfast. Legend can't be bothered to listen. He shuts the door in his face and, after taking a moment to consider trying to get back to sleep and ultimately deciding he would fail, gets ready for the day.

He goes to the dining area in this interdimensional-guest-section of the castle and makes sure to glare at Warriors when he enters, and because he's busy glaring at Warriors he walks straight into someone.

"Shit," Legend says, with a "Watch where you're fucking standing," already on the tip of his tongue; as soon as he turns to see whoever he bumped into, his words dissipate from his mouth.

Like a dream.

He pinches himself. He, quite honestly, cannot tell if he feels it.

"Oh," she whispers, and smiles a little hesitantly. "Link?"

"Marin?" he asks.

Marin nods. And her face breaks into a grin, and she crashes into him for a hug, and he can't do anything but return it and stare off into space and sway a little. She cries, soft, "Oh, oh Windfish, I thought I'd never see you again!"

He might be crying, too. He buries his face in her shoulder to hide it. She smells like the ocean.

There's other people in here, Legend realizes after some amount of time. Ah, fuck. His reputation.

So he starts to pull away, even though he doesn't want to, because he knows the Captain will tease him and he's hungry. And he wants to look at Marin again.

Marin, who lets him go, and who smiles like the sparkling sea and bounces a little, and who takes his hand and pulls him over to the table where some of his companions—Wild, Warriors, Time, and Twilight, so far—are sitting, and who is far too good to be true.

Marin, who says, "Captain! You didn't tell me Link was in your group! Er, my Link!"

Warriors laughs. "I'd never have guessed the vet of all people was yours."

"Really?" Marin pouts and tugs at Legend's hair, the pink bit. "Why, has my bunny changed that much?" Legend frowns. Twilight momentarily chokes on his muffin.

"The vet is not nearly as sweet as your stories!" Warriors tells her. "And nobody would get away with calling him bunny. He's the biggest grump and the biggest ass I've met." That's an exaggeration and a half. Soldiers are worse, always.

Marin huffs and turns on Legend. He can tell she's worried. She pats his cheek and says, "Well, smile. It's too lovely to waste on frowns." Legend is already smiling, a little. He tells her as much–

"I am smiling."

"Not enough," Marin insists, but she leaves it at that.

Wild steals Twilight's now abandoned muffin. "So, uh..." He takes a bite of the muffin. "Who are you?"

"Oh! Oh, I should have expected that," she laughs. "I'm sorry. I'm Marin, from the island Koholint."

Wild hums. "Koholint... That sounds familiar."

"Probably not," Marin says.

"No– Oh!" He snaps. "I got it! There's an island in my era called Eventide, and it's got a hill called, like, Koholit Rock."

Legend blinks.

Wild hands over the Sheikah Slate. It's open to the map and zoomed in on the island in the lower right corner. "Nobody lives there, and it's kinda small anyway, but it's the biggest island on the map. Had an awful shrine quest."

Legend examines the map. "That shouldn't be possible," he declares after only staring blankly for a few seconds. And then he pinches himself again. It doesn't hurt. Oh, he accidentally chose a spot with nerve damage. He tries again. That does hurt. Then again, he felt pain on Koholint. So. It's not the most effective test, in his experience.

He'd done a lot of research on dreams, after getting home from Koholint. Nobody knows how dreams work, or why they happen, or what they're for, he found, but that dream was certainly magic, so none of that would have helped much. He was after the little quirks of dreams, anyway, because he was afraid of getting stuck. It didn't help much. Everything that would supposedly be different in a dream was the same as the waking world on Koholint. The only thing he can remember being different, he thinks, was the taste of the magic. He's in a different era than his own, right now. Of course the magic "tastes different". He doesn't even remember what Koholint felt like—just that it did. That it did feel like something, he means, that he did feel. Koholint felt real, is what it was. This does too. There is no way of knowing if it's true.

"Stop doing that," Hyrule tells him.

Legend follows Hyrule's concerned gaze down to his arms, where his right hand has taken a very tight grip of his left forearm, by the elbow. He's not sure how he went from pinching himself to that. It hurts. He looks up at Marin, who has one hand touching the table where she wants to sit and the other hovering by his shoulder. He releases his arm and shakes out his arms, and gives Marin a smile.

Well. If this is real, then he wants to enjoy it. If it isn't, nobody else will know he's a sap.

So Legend has french toast (what is a "french"? That sure doesn't sound real) for breakfast, and he lets the conversation stay on him, because he wants to solidify Marin's presence in the world, and he wants to solidify his own presence in the world. (For his whole career as a hero, he's just let things happen, because he knows they'll work out, because he's good at what he does, and he hasn't completely failed at reaching the end goal yet. Ironically, Koholint was the first time in years that he'd felt properly in place, instead of drifting along wherever the stream of time took him. And then that crumbled in on him, and he went back home and went back to just letting things happen. And now Marin is here, and he is here, and he so badly wants to dig his feet into the bed of this river and climb out and sit on the shore and let the heat of the sun dry him and actually live his own life. (He'll have to leave eventually, though, as is inevitable with this kind of quest.))

Warriors says, "Soo... How'd a grumpy guy like you end up with such a sweet woman like Marin?" He's smirking. It's obnoxious.

"Well," Legend drawls, leans over with his chin resting on his hand, "I nearly died in the middle of the ocean."

Warriors grimaces. Marin giggles. "I found him passed out on the beach," she says fondly, "and as soon as he woke up, he left to find his sword."

Hyrule snorts and Warriors chuckles. Wild reaches across the table and steals more of Twilight's food. Marin does the same to Legend. Instead of stopping her or saying anything, he just takes some of her food to retaliate.

"You change the veteran as a person," Wild observes.

Warriors nods. "Fundamentally."

Hyrule shrugs and wiggles his hand in a so-so gesture. "He's just happier."

"Aww," Marin coos. "Do I make you happy?"

Legend huffs. "Of course knowing you haven't ceased to exist makes me happy."

"Tsundere," Wild says, inexplicable as always.

Conversation moves on. They know they won't get anything else out of him, and Marin won't say anything he won't. It's a losing game.

And then Wind comes in, and Legend realizes he's going to have to keep answering questions and avoiding questions, and he might end up having to spill out his soul. (Not like it matters; if this is a dream (which it is) they won't remember.)

Wind announces his presence by opening the door a little too loudly and exclaiming, "Woah, vet, you didn't tell me you got a girlfriend!"

Legend groans and slumps forward to drop his face in his hands. His back is to Wind, so he doesn't realize that Wind is making to squeeze into the space between him and Twilight before the kid is already doing so, and so Legend can't properly defend himself. Whatever. It doesn't matter. He relents.

When Legend lifts his head and moves his arms, all his toast is gone. Darn.

Wind wipes his fingers on his pants inconspicuously (or in an attempt to be inconspicuous) and says, "Y'know, I kinda thought you'd react more to the girlfriend allegations."

"The fucking what now," Legend asks, because he's never heard anyone say fucking "girlfriend allegations" in his life.

"The girlfriend allegations," Wind repeats like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "You don't seem very defensive. Am I right?" He grins and bounces in his seat. "Is she your girlfriend?"

Legend huffs. Marin takes his arm and gently tugs him a little closer. ""She" is named Marin. And wouldn't you like to know, wind boy."

"I would like to know," Wind pouts. "That's why I'm asking."

"She's definitely his girlfriend," Wild inputs. How helpful.

"Yep," Warriors says, "when we visited the old man's place, he talked about him and his wife like he was comparing them to himself and some mystery girl." How helpful. "And whaddya know! He was!"

Said old man snorts in amusement, but he doesn't say anything. Wise of him to keep quiet.

Legend closes his eyes. Sue him, seeing someone older than you with a job like theirs, settled down and happy with a woman who looks just like the girl you loved and essentially killed, will get you down. And sappy. And whatever else.

Marin pulls him ever closer and rests her head on his shoulder. They're nearly the same height. That can't be comfortable. (He sits a little straighter so she doesn't have to bend her neck so harshly, and he pretends he was just shifting in his seat.) (And he tilts his head a little to sort of rest it on hers, maybe, and he hopes nobody notices.)

Wind kicks his feet under the table. He hits Legend's right foot a couple times. Annoying. "Smells like salt. Are you from the sea, Miss Marin?"

Marin hums with a little laugh. She sounds like birds, in a very abstract and lovely way. "Yes, I'm from an island called Koholint. Do you live on an island too?"

"Mhm! 'T's called Outset, in the Great Sea."

"Oh!" She starts a little bit, and Legend opens his eyes; she's sharing a look with Warriors.

Legend hums and turns his head to press his face into Marin's hair, just behind her ear. He's tired now, for some reason, even though he just woke up. Can you be tired in a dream? He can't remember if he was ever really tired on Koholint.

Marin smells nice. Like the sea, like salt like Wind said, like flowers. Her hair is soft and warm, like she'd been standing out in the sun for a while. It's still early, the sun wouldn't be shining hard enough; maybe it's something to do with magic. Maybe it's something to do with her coming from a dream. (Maybe it's because this is a dream.)

Her hand moves from his arm to wrap her own arm around his waist and rest her hand on his bicep, and she is so gentle that he gets all choked up again and has to bury his face into the fluff of red hair at Marin's neck where it rests on her shoulder.

Wind snickers. Legend reaches over and flicks his cheek with a finger. It doesn't miss the mark, judging by Wind's indignant cry. Marin laughs. Her movement disturbs Legend slightly, but even that is something he's thankful for. She feels real. (Even if she isn't. Even if she isn't, the illusion is enough for him.)

His face is warm. (The curtains are blue, and his face is warm.) How lovely.

When they finish breakfast, Marin brings Legend to the castle garden. It's sunny here, despite the early morning fog and mist that Warriors' era always gets.

Marin tells him of the flowers she's been growing. Hibiscuses are among them. She picks one and tucks it in his hair by the pink, and she calls him bunny and they sit together on an intricately carved stone bench. He holds her hand and traces the lines of her palms.

She asks, with a little laugh, "What are you doing?"

He says, "Making sure this is real."

She laughs some more. She calls him a charmer. His ears go warm and red and she kisses one a couple times, and somewhere nearby there's a muffled "gross!" that sounds suspiciously like the sailor.

Sometime before noon, Twilight finds Warriors down by the training grounds.

"Hey, rancher," Warriors greets as he sheathes his sword.

Twilight dips his head in acknowledgment, and cuts right to the chase. "We should stay here."

"Hm," Warriors hums. He tilts his head and puts his hands on his hips, and asks, "Why?"

"You saw the vet," Twilight says simply.

Warriors nods. "I did."

"I've never seen 'im so content. I think..." Twilight looks off into the distance, thoughtful, reminiscent. "I think he's happy."

"You're saying we should stay here."

"Yep."

"Alright," Warriors says. "We could all use a break."

Time announces, later, that they will be staying at the castle for the time being. Legend cannot help but be relieved, because he cannot bear the thought of leaving Marin, and he doubts he could fight well at all with his mind preoccupied so.

Marin pulls him away soon after to show him the city surrounding, and they end up sitting on a bench outside a flower shop, and Legend is left to admire the way Marin's hair floats slightly in the breeze. He is left to let his mind wander.

He'd just begun to finally get over it, before this. He'd found that ever-elusive final stage of grief, and he was inches away from taking hold of it, and then—

And then, he no longer had a reason to grieve. Strangely, ungratefully, he wishes this had happened either earlier or later. As it is now, he is left grasping at nothing.

He has to wonder if, when he wakes, he will have to start the process all over again. Or, he could circumvent the problem entirely by simply never waking up.

He feels the sudden urge to make sure this is real, despite knowing it is not. So he sidles closer to Marin and gently places a hand on her jaw, and turns her head a bit towards him and brushes a thumb over her cheek. Her eyes widen and her mouth pouts a little.

"Just making sure you're real," Legend murmurs. Marin smiles and touches her own hand to his.

"Of course I am," she assures him, and because he can feel the subtle roughness in her skin from old acne and old old sunburns, and he can see every freckle, even the hardly visible specks, and he can feel her jaw move as she speaks, he is nearly convinced. Her eyelashes are not particularly long, but they are thick. Her eyebrows are thick like her lashes, though not nearly as full. One eye closes slightly more than the other when she squints at all. There are so many little details, here, and it is all just the same as on Koholint; he'd forgotten, over time, until her face in his memories was hardly more than a blur with pretty eyes and freckles like stars, but he knows now exactly what she looks like. And he will do everything he can to commit each and every detail to memory, so as to not let her slip away from him once more.

As if in a trance, he leans forward and presses his mouth to her cheekbone. It is hardly a kiss, because he is really just resting his face against hers, but the intent is about the same. The intent is to soak in her presence and to touch her skin to his in a carefully intimate manner. He feels her cheek shift as she smiles more, and as she turns her head to steal a small kiss on his mouth before he realizes what she is doing. His ears go red. She laughs, and it sounds like an orchestra playing a beautiful song just for the two of them.

Down the street, someone plays music. Marin stands and takes his hand and brings him over to where people have begun to dance, and she pulls him in to join. They spin in the square to a jaunty tune, and Legend finds that he is happy, truly happy.

They return to the castle for dinner five minutes late, grinning and red and panting. Wild says he helped make the food for tonight, because he spent most of the day in the kitchen learning recipes of this era, and he is very excited to know what everyone thinks. Legend thinks it is delicious, and he says that he guesses it's okay. Marin thinks it is delicious and she showers Wild and the cooks with praise. A conversation about favorite foods begins, and Legend learns that Marin has discovered countless unfamiliar dishes since coming here, and that she loves a rather expansive number of them.

She loves strawberries most of all. Legend never liked strawberries much, thought them too bitter, or sour, or something; apples were more his taste, the apples he grew up with. Marin says apples are her second favorite. Four points out those are all fruit. Marin smiles and says something pretty about apples and strawberries and Link. Wild says, "You calling him a fruit?" to which Marin says yes, my favorite fruit, and for some reason this makes Wild cry laughing.

Legend and Marin stay up late in her bedroom, chatting about their lives and gossiping about their friends like a sleepover. Marin's bedroom feels like home. It is cozy, full of fairy-enchanted lights strung up on the walls like Koholint's false stars and paintings of the sea and dried and pressed flowers and potted plants. There is a fluffy rug by the bed, and the blankets are soft and the sheets like silk, and a lamp projects gentle yellow light on Marin's face and the fairy lights shower her with pink light; and one thing leads to another, and Link and Marin are sharing a kiss, this one finally on the mouth and long enough to drink it all in, and it is beautiful. It is a wonderful feeling. He'd thought it lost, he'd thought he'd never find this again, and yet here he is, and it is better than he ever dreamed.

Legend wakes up in someone else's bed with the sun streaming down through lace curtains and red hair tickling his cheek. He breathes in deep; he smells the sea and hibiscuses. The sheets are silk, the blankets soft. There is a warm thing against his right side.

The warm thing is Marin, with her head tucked into his neck and her hand fisted in his shirt. (A shirt that is definitely not the one he was wearing yesterday. Where did his tunic end up?) His arm is under her head and more asleep than she is.

He does not want to move. There is bliss in this moment, and he has not felt bliss in a very long time.

He does try to shift his arm, though, just to regain some feeling. Marin makes a sweet little humming sound and tilts her head so slightly to press a kiss above his collarbone. Her hand releases his shirt a moment later to reach up to his face. She says, sleepily, beautifully, "What are you crying for, bunny?"

His own hand comes up and rests over hers, and touches at his cheek. "Oh," he hums. He hadn't realized.

He has to think, for a moment. He knows why he is crying, but at the same time, he really does not. It's difficult to put into words... He could say he is happy. He could say he thought she was a dream. (He still does. But waking back up here means something, he knows.) He could say he hasn't felt feelings like this in a long time, if ever. He could say he never expected to feel feelings like this at all. He could say I love you. He could say, and he does say, because it slips out without his permission, "I'd thought I killed you."

"You didn't," Marin tells him.

"I was–" His voice breaks, pitiful, pathetic. "I was almost over it, I thought. I was almost okay again."

She shifts to hold him tight, and he can almost trick himself into thinking this is a real sensation. "I'm sorry," she says. That is incredibly wrong.

"There's no reason for you to be sorry," he says, a little sharper than intended, a little more forceful than intended. Marin, for her part, does not react. Then he repeats, "I was almost okay again. Then I saw you, and I wasn't anymore." It's like he's grieving all over again, with the loss fresh on his mind once more.

Like Icarus, reaching for the sun, he reached for the abstract idea of getting over it, and, as it was always inevitable, he plummeted back into the sea.

He is starting to think that idea is bullshit. There is no way to get over it. If you are hurting, and you terribly want the pain to be less obvious, you can pinch yourself elsewhere, and your mind might focus on that pain instead. Perhaps this is similar. Perhaps that is why he keeps moving.

"I'm sorry," Marin says again, and there is so much feeling in it. He opens his mouth to protest, but she presses a finger to his lips to shush him. "And I'm not saying that to apologize for something. I'm saying I'm sorry you feel that way, and I'm here for you now, and I hope– I hope you know that."

Legend squeezes his eyes shut and inhales, and exhales shakily, and opens his eyes back up and stares at the ceiling. There are shadows from the curtains on it, and the lace gives it an ethereal dappled effect that he finds a little difficult to grasp in the moment.

Marin pushes herself up on her elbow to lean over him. Her hair tumbles down over her shoulders and frames her face and his face too. Her freckles are in the same place as they were last night, and yesterday in town, and yesterday morning, and on Koholint. Her lips are turned into a slight frown, and he can tell she's chewing on the inside of her bottom lip on the left. When she opens her mouth to speak, he can smell her morning breath a little, but he kind of just wants to kiss her. "Link," she begins. "I don't, I don't know what you're feeling. But I know I want you to be happy."

He laughs wetly, and reaches his hand up to hold her face. "I am happy." There's no way this is real. "I am unbelievably happy."

Marin smiles, and it appears like the sun, and his hand moves faster than his mind—it wraps behind her shoulders and tugs her down to fall on his chest, and he hugs her and kisses her once she has regained her bearings.

He and Marin lay tangled in her bed, with the early morning sunshine gracing the room, and they laugh together and hold each other, and it feels like home.

And Legend is now very sure that this is not real. If it seems too good to be true, then it is not true. He learned that lesson the first time.

Legend and Marin are the last to breakfast, which means everyone witnesses the two of them arriving sleepy and disheveled together. Warriors wiggles his eyebrows and Wind giggles, and Legend steadfastly ignores them both. He just hums a song and takes an egg and, when he notices that there is strawberry yogurt, grabs some and gives it to Marin.

When they sit down, Legend plays with Marin's hair. She tilts her head a little, enough to tell him that she is curious, but not so much as to disturb him. He murmurs, as he did yesterday, "Jus' making sure you're real."

She smiles and tells him, quietly, same as she did yesterday, "Of course I am." She says it like a rule, like it is a given, and he can almost believe her.

At a lull in the wider conversation, Warriors says, with purpose and a smirk, "So, vet, what did you get up to last night?"

"None of your business," Legend bites, just as Marin chirps, "How much detail would you like?"

They look at each other. Warriors looks back and forth between them. Wind stares at Marin. Warriors seems to seriously consider his options, and Time declares, "I am making the executive decision to shut that line of questioning down."

Wind pouts. "I'm a pirate, I can handle a little–"

"I do not want to hear about this while I am trying to eat my breakfast," Time says. He has finished his breakfast. He is just drinking milk now.

Marin dissolves into giggles, and Legend can't help but snort with her. Her laugh is contagious, and her laugh is lovely.

After breakfast, Marin leaves to do errands, and Legend is dragged into a spar with Warriors. He loses by a long shot, but that's fine.

The match is over quick. As the two of them go to drink some water, Warriors asks casually, "What were you up to last night? Purely curious, you don't have to tell me."

Legend shrugs. "We just talked." A lie.

Warriors turns toward him with an eyebrow raised. "That all?"

"As far as you know," Legend says, cryptic. Then he laughs and elbows Warriors in the side and adds on, "I'm just kidding with you. We really didn't do much of anything, besides chat." Also a lie. Something in him twists at the thought of letting anyone know what's really happening, even though they definitely already know, because they've all seen him and Marin together, and it's not like they're going out of their way to hide anything. Maybe he's just trying to keep some semblance of mystery, here. It's like a shield. Better to keep nothing set in stone.

Legend drinks his water and goes back out to their battlefield, and Warriors follows. When Legend readies himself and his sword, however, Warriors simply stands there, frown on his face.

Legend huffs. "What's the issue, captain?"

Warriors shifts his weight a bit and asks, a bit hesitantly, "Is everything alright?"

"What?" Legend says on reflex, dropping his sword a bit, because really, where did this question come from? But, he feels he should hear the captain out—so, instead of brushing him off, Legend asks, "What do you mean?"

"You seem..." Warriors waves a hand. "Different. I don't know, I'm not particularly emotionally intelligent, or anything."

Legend stands up straight. "You're saying my vibes are off."

"I'm saying– Yes, that the vibes are off. And..." Warriors shifts his weight again and hums, and after a moment of thought he continues, "You haven't really been reacting to my teasing. That only happens when something's bothering you."

Legend doesn't respond, just looks at Warriors and then looks away. There's a bush nearby with flowers. They could be symbolic, if Legend knew any flowers besides apple blossoms and hibiscuses. (And the basics. He's not some kind of idiot who only knows two flowers.)

Warriors moves on to a different topic. "So what's the deal with Marin? She never told much about the circumstances she met you in."

Legend sighs and tosses his sword to the side. He sits down on the ground, cross-legged, and leans back on his hands.

He says, "My, mm, fourth? quest, began when I was out at sea. Sailing back to Hyrule from my third. I was alone on a little boat, and there was a storm, and I ended up washed up on the shore of an island. Marin found me."

Warriors sits across from him. He is listening intently, carefully.

Legend hums. His voice catches a little. "It was a nice island. Picturesque, cute... like a vacation. Like a dream. There were monsters, though, because there always is. And I had to wake a god asleep at the top of a mountain in order to stop the monsters."

He lets himself fall onto his back and stares up at the sky. It is blue. There are clouds. It's not as blue as the sky above Koholint, and the clouds aren't as fluffy as the clouds above Koholint.

"It was like a dream," he repeats, "because it was. And I knew that, I learned it halfway through, and I knew that waking the Windfish would end the dream and make the whole place cease to exist, and I did it anyway."

"You think you killed her," Warriors finally says, hardly more than a whisper, but confident as he always is.

Legend exhales, soft.

"And you're not sure if this is real."

"It isn't," Legend states. "I wouldn't be telling you this if it was."

Warriors frowns. Legend can't see it, but he hears it in his voice. "It is real."

"It isn't."

"This is all real, vet," Warriors insists, and it hurts.

Legend does not reply.

He would like it to be real. It would hurt, but it already hurts, so it couldn't hurt terribly more to play along, just for now.

Legend does not reply, but he hums, and he nods. Warriors seems satisfied.

Legend sits in the castle gardens and plays the ocarina as Marin sings; it is the Ballad of the Windfish, of course. Nothing is waking. Of course not, he needs all the other instruments.

He plays with his eyes closed; when the song finishes and he opens his eyes, he is surprised to see both Hyrule and Wind sitting nearby with rapt attention. Wind claps and exclaims, "That was so good! Marin, your voice is really pretty!" and Hyrule says, quieter, "That's a very nice song."

Marin laughs and thanks them. Legend just rests his hands and ocarina on his lap and smiles.

She sings more for them, and this time Legend can just sit and watch. She looks so lovely when she sings, as if the music has turned to light in order to highlight all her beauties. She has a slight smile and her eyes have fallen shut, and the atmosphere is, in a word, serene, and Legend can't help but let himself go all sappy.

He sees, out of the corner of his eye, Wind whispering something to Hyrule. It's probably about him. He's too busy being a lovesick fool like Sky to really care.

To fall in love is often depicted quite grandly. He has already fallen in love, but he thinks this is fittingly grand. The lighting, the song, the environment... They all come together to create a very specific kind of feeling.

It's not grand, really, is the thing. It's just another moment in life. He makes it grand simply by his own perception and feelings; quite the power, here.

Sometimes he feels like these dreams are stories. Like they're meant to entertain, and he is simply the unlucky victim chosen to take part in the tragedy. He is doomed by the narrative, and all that, and the inevitability of endings. He is the Hero of Legends, after all. Legends are stories. He, himself, is fated to simply be a story.

He hopes this is a good story. He hopes that someone cries over it and loves it and cherishes it and calls it their favorite. He hopes it's real to someone.

When Marin finishes her song, Wind and Hyrule both clap. Marin thanks them and kisses Legend on the cheek, and his face goes a little red. He pulls her to sit next to him and he knows the boys are still there and he's absolutely going to be teased for this, but he feels the sudden crushing urge to make sure this is real. Even though he knows it's not. So he looks at her, and takes in every freckle and mark, and reaches up to feel her hair.

"Eww," Wind complains, "stop being all in love when I'm here."

"I think it's sweet," Hyrule says.

Wind ignores him. "Get a room!"

Legend has started braiding Marin's hair, though he's not quite sure when. "You can leave, you know."

Wind huffs and crosses his arms and pouts. "I want to hear Marin sing more."

Hyrule nods eagerly.

"Well," Marin says with a laugh, "if you ask nicely, I'd be more than glad."

So, Hyrule asks, "Please?" and Legend is once more swept away by song.

This one is different; it's one he hasn't heard before. It feels... it feels...

It has proper lyrics, unlike Ballad of the Windfish. She's sung songs with lyrics before. She always put the most feeling into the Ballad, though—but this time, this song, she sings with that same incredible emotion.

About halfway through, he realizes why.

It must have been written by Marin herself, because it matches the events of his time on Koholint far too well to be anything but. Aside from himself, only Marin properly knows the story.

Her lyrics and melody and voice all capture the feeling beautifully. It's far too beautiful. When, through the pretty bittersweet metaphors, he can sense that she's reaching the story's end, he whispers her name. It is not of his own accord. She tilts her head a little and glances at him, and he says, voice rasping with how quietly he does so, "Stop. Please."

She obliges. She turns and takes one of his hands in her own—at some point, they'd stilled and fallen to rest on her shoulder and back—and... He knows her, knows she's frowning, but he doesn't see. His gaze is focused on a distant nothing between blurry blades of grass. He hears her voice, though.

Marin murmurs, "Link? Are you alright?"

Legend says, quiet enough that Wind and Hyrule won't hear—though he knows they both have sharp ears and most certainly do hear, but it's comforting to assume that they'll politely not listen in— "'T's a pretty song."

"Oh–" Marin gasps, "Oh, I'm so sorry." She twists further and places her right hand on his neck, right at his jaw so her thumb can brush his cheek, and her left on his opposite shoulder. She gently urges him to look at her, and she says, so very soft, "My song upset you, didn't it? I should've thought..."

There is a lot left unsaid. Marin looks so concerned and guilty already that he couldn't speak, even if he wanted to, even if they didn't have an audience.

In the end, she just pats his cheek and says, "We'll talk about it later," and turns back to Wind and Hyrule. Hyrule says something about knowing that song—or, rather, having heard it before—and Marin correctly guesses that Hyrule falls after Legend in the timeline. She asks for requests, and Legend drifts in soundwaves.

Wind has asked Marin for the music. It's super pretty, so of course he wants to know it! Luckily, the way to write music doesn't vary much if at all across timelines, so it's as quick as Marin asking around for blank music sheets, jotting down the notes and lyrics, and answering Wind's questions about little things he doesn't know. (The Wind Waker isn't exactly a musical instrument in the typical sense, and he hardly ever uses sheet music, so he's not too well versed in the technical side of all that.)

That's how he's ended up here, in the common/sitting/whatever area of where they're staying. He's not sure what to call it. There's couches, though, and a piano? Wild was trying to play it earlier, but it sounded kind of like a mess of notes. Legend had been in the room with Marin—Wind thinks he was trying to explain to her what a "kangaroo" is, which Wind tuned out pretty quickly because he doesn't know either and it seemed like Legend was doing a pretty bad job—and said something about "jazz" and "experimental".

That's a tangent. Right, so Wind is in the couches room with the sheet music spread over a couch table. He's got the Wind Waker out, because he had been trying to learn the music, but now it's abandoned to the side in favor of puzzling out the lyrics.

Said lyrics are very intriguing. They've got a lotta metaphors, but he's having a real hard time telling what is and isn't a metaphor. Lots about dreams and the ocean, which is a little unsettling given that he and Legend are probably around about the same amount of... time, after Time, give or take a hundred years or so. Well, unsettling with further context.

Here are some things Wind knows:

When Marin stopped singing it, it was because Legend stopped her. They were really quiet, and it seemed personal, but Wind is a 14 year old boy who is also a pirate and a hero, so of course he's gonna eavesdrop if he's curious! It might be important! Anyways, that's the thing—it seemed personal. Legend stopped her singing towards the end because, Wind guesses, it was too personal. Personal between him and Marin. For privacy's sake, Wind isn't going to dive too deeply into whatever that means, but he'd guess it has to do with whatever adventure of his that he met Marin on.

On that note—Wind also has no godsdamned clue what this song is actually about. Is it real events, presumably the events of that mystery adventure? Because Legend's never mentioned anything that Wind could even vaguely connect to any of these lyrics. Or, more likely, it's just a vague sappy song about probably hypothetical events that the two happened to bond over in a very emotional way. It being Legend, though, he really can't discount that first option. The guy never talks about himself, and he'd never talked about even Marin before this despite clearly having some sort of history with her.

...Actually, now that Wind thinks about it, Legend didn't seem to know the song itself. When Marin started singing it, he seemed more intrigued than anything, and only got that I-am-feeling-so-many-emotions-right-now-but-I-am-NOT-going-to-start-crying-in-front-of-other-people kind of reminiscent expression later on.

And, hey– Reminiscent? And Legend stopped her towards the end. He didn't want to hear the end.

Wind scans over the lyrics till he reaches about the spot Marin stopped singing at and reads the whole section after that. Then he reads a bit before, then the whole end again. Then he makes a mental conspiracy board, red string and all, and comes to a conclusion. Two, actually.

One, this song is definitely about the quest of Legend's that he met Marin on. Two, this is already a huge fucking breach of privacy and going further on his own would just make him uncomfortable.

He's still really really curious, though.

So.

Legend is at the piano again, attempting to figure out whatever Wild had played. It, at first, had sounded like he was just playing random notes, but he had realized that it was actually somewhat coherent. It had an air of danger to it on top of that. Wild hadn't even known what a piano was at first! How! Did he do that! If he'd never fucking seen a piano! (Side note—he somehow does know what an accordion is. It and maracas are the only instruments he's heard of. Wild certainly never fails to amaze.)

Legend is at the piano again, because Marin is off doing more errands. He shouldn't be disappointed that she has a life, he knows, but he is.

He is filled with an overwhelming urge to check that she is real, (despite knowing she is not,) but he cannot. So he is here, staring at this fucking piano and getting nowhere with his thoughts, because if he panicked over Marin being gone for two hours then he might as well just go out to town in a jester's cap and pants and transform into a bunny right in town square. (It would be humiliating, is what he's trying to say.)

So he's here.

He lifts a hand, either to pinch himself out of habit or to press a key on the piano, but is shocked out of the action by Wind, who has decided that clapping a hand on someone's shoulder with no warning and shoving a paper in their face is an acceptable way to start a conversation.

Wind asks, "What do the lyrics of this song mean to you?"

Legend stares. He realizes now that his eyes had unfocused, like they so often do when he stops paying full attention to the world. Or maybe the paper is just too close to his face.

Wind takes this lack of an answer as hesitation, apparently, and withdraws the paper—oh, papers. He's got a whole packet. What exactly is going on?—and says sheepishly, "You don't have to answer. Of course. It's probably personal..." He trails off into gibberish after that. Legend couldn't even transcribe that, honestly. Impressive.

"You stuck it right up to my eyes, sailor, I wasn't even able to read it," Legend tells him. Then he takes the papers from Wind's hand, saying, "Give it," as he does so.

It's... the song Marin sang. Handwritten by Marin herself on a sheet music template, and annotated by Wind. There's little comments on symbols and such... And the occasional underlined verse, sometimes with a question mark by it. There are more towards the end. Another note, too, is by where the lyrics he recognizes stop—it says simply, "where Vet asked to stop. ??" He doesn't read past that.

Legend frowns and mutters, "...Are you theorizing on my tragic backstory?"

"I knew it!"

He jolts at Wind's sudden exclamation and swears. He hadn't meant to say that out loud. He goes to speak, but words fail him and he is left flapping his mouth like an idiot.

"So," Wind says, bouncing on his heels, "now that I've got confirmation, I need to know if you're okay with me continuing my investigation."

Legend steps back and takes a deep breath through his nose. He lowers the papers, folds them all together twice, and sticks them in his bag. With some hesitation, he says, "Come with me," and knows that he will regret this.

He's only used this bedroom once. Both nights since reuniting with Marin were spent in her room, where she is an arm's reach away at most, and he is not alone and grasping at silky threads of dreams when he wakes. The blankets are still shoved aside from when he woke that first morning, but that's the only sign that someone had used this room. He took his things with him, because leaving them here was basically asking for theft, so. It's pretty empty.

Legend sits at the desk; Wind tosses himself backwards onto the bed and lets the mattress springs bounce him up to sit properly.

"Tell me what you think you know," Legend says, and Wind does.

He is spot on. Dream, whale, the whole shebang. He finishes it by mumbling something about how he also had a quest involving whales and dreams, which provides the small comfort of prior experience. It's unlikely that anyone else would figure it out, then, with how vague and metaphorical these lyrics are. (It's also an equal discomfort, because Legend hates the idea of Wind experiencing that same guilt as he did.)

Legend asks, "What are you looking for?"

Wind shrugs and says, "Just confirmation, I guess."

Legend can do that. He tells him, "None of this is real," simply and bluntly.

Wind frowns. His brow furrows, he looks around; he starts, somewhat incredulously, "...No, I'm pretty sure it is."

"Marin is dead," Legend insists. "I killed her."

Wide, worried eyes stare him down. "You did?"

Legend nods. He did, he did.

"Can I see the music sheets?" Wind asks, kicking his feet. Legend pulls the folded paper from his bag and hands it over. Wind unfolds it and holds it close to his face with that scrunched-up expression of thought, and says, "Nope, I think this part is supposed to be after that. And—" he lowers the paper to look Legend in the eyes— "she looks pretty alive to me."

"I don't think you understand," Legend says, and stands up. "This isn't real. I'm in a dream right now."

And, he doesn't say, I don't want to leave it.

And, he doesn't say, I couldn't bear the possibility that I've been grieving for nothing this whole time.

(And, he doesn't say and doesn't think, I couldn't bear even the thought of leaving her behind again.)

When Marin comes back, Legend holds her close. She teases, "Aw, did you miss me already?"

And he tells her, "Just making sure you're real."

When Legend wakes up in the middle of the night in the midst of a panic attack, Marin wakes as well and asks if it was a nightmare. He holds her tight and says no, because he never dreamed on Koholint, so why should he—how could he—now? He holds her tight and asks, "How do I know this is real?"

She tells him, "You just have to trust." She pets his hair, and he burrows his face into her neck, and he doesn't tell her that he hasn't found himself able to truly trust reality in a long time.

Marin goes to Link, the Link of this time and not her own, because she is worried. She is worried about her Link, of course, because he is so different and, and sad, and it hurts her so much to see.

And then there is the fact that he can't seem to convince himself that her being here is a truth and a reality.

She did not truly cease to exist after the Windfish woke; rather, when it eventually returned to sleep, 2 or so years later, she reappeared with knowledge of her life for those past 2 years. Knowledge, not memories; she knew what had happened, but she could not recall the moments.

She wrote a song.

She, eventually, accepted that she would not see him again. She accepted that to him, she was gone, and that he likely had accepted that too. She'd told herself, why should you be so sad, when he is out there somewhere, having been the one to do it, and is most certainly over it by now? It has been 4 years, after all, or maybe 3, or maybe 5.

It had been 3 years, and then she could see land where she hadn't before. It was very close, and she figured this must be the mainland, brought close enough by magic or divine interference for reality to accept her world. So, she packed some things, including the Sea Lily's Bell—she'd discovered not too long prior that it is actually quite useful as a weapon, and it makes pretty sounds as a bonus—for self-defense and as a memento and reminder of home, and bid her father goodbye and sailed off to that land.

Next thing she knew, she was wrapped up in a war she knew little about.

She stayed, when it was all over, because somewhere in her she still held hope that perhaps, someday, she would meet her bunny once more.

And she did. How wonderful, how lovely!

It is strange, then, to find that he is so changed while she is the same. Her hair is a little straighter, long enough that it weighs itself down, and she can fight like nobody's business, and she is a little older and more aware of the world, but he is a whole new person. She can still find who she knew him as, baked into the little things and his smiles and his everything, but—her mind is brought to that first conversation with Captain Link's friends over breakfast. Where her Link smiled less and pinched himself so hard she could see the crescent indents sit in his skin for longer than they ought to, where he'd been labeled a "grump" and an "ass" and described as happier despite it all.

And he said, not once, not twice, but four times, that he was simply making sure she was real. She can see where he's coming from, of course—he'd told her, confided in her, just before he went to wake the Windfish, that none of this was real and he was sorry, and he'd cried and apologized, and, oh.

Oh, Marin knows, really truly knows, what is going on here. (It's really not much of a revelation. Just an increased understanding, if anything, but it feels...)

So she is here with the Captain in her garden. And she tells him, as she cups a pretty pink just-bloomed hibiscus in her hands, "I'm worried."

"About the vet," he says, not even as a question. He just knows. Who else? What else?

"Yes," she answers anyway. "He... he seems to be struggling with..." She huffs and lifts the flower slightly higher. "I think he thinks this isn't real, because the first time we met wasn't real, technically."

The Captain only hums. And he says, "I know." He doesn't say it, but Marin knows he is at a loss for what to do. She is, too.

What can one do to deny the powers of a god?

Chapter Text

Warriors and Time and Twilight and some of Warriors' soldiers go off to fight infected monsters, and everyone else sits at the castle and continues their stagnance.

Legend feels like he is losing his mind.

He falls asleep in the sitting room on a loveseat on purpose even though it'll kill his back. He wakes up in the morning on the floor under a coffee table and forces himself to not go looking for Marin even though he can't breathe. He eats eggs for breakfast out of spite. He entertains Wind, he kisses Marin, he sits inside and in place and sits inside and in place and stays still and looks out windows and watches birds from those windows.

The monster hunting crew returns after a few days, and on Friday comes a portal in the middle of Marin's garden.

And Legend, who had grown restless and full of wanderlust, buries his roots into the floor and tries to make himself a permanent fixture among the flowers. It does not work. Marin kisses his cheek and tells him she loves him and says she'll send him letters and that he had better reply, and she says goodbye but only for now, and he caves and says he'll be safe and he will reply and he can't wait to see her again, and follows everyone else through the portal.

They step out onto a lovely little island on the Great Sea, and Legend finds that painfully cruel. He does not sleep. He draws shapes in wet sand and stares out at moonlit waves. It's pretty. It's tranquil. He shucks off his boots and rests bare feet at the farthest point water reaches, and he lays on his back with his arms spread out beside him, and he admires the sky.

At an unholy hour of night, he hears the otherworldly bells of the Wind Waker singing out Marin's song. He can't trace the origin of the sound, but you never can with that thing; it gives the night a dreamlike quality, more so than he was already feeling.

The stars above him blur. Whether it's for tears or simply for his eyes unfocusing is up to interpretation. But it doesn't really matter, does it? Regardless, it looks the same, and he is detached the same, and the world moves on the same.

He stands in a shop, absently picking through wares on a counter. He has half a mind to just steal; not because any of this is particularly expensive, or because the shopkeep has wronged him in some way, or anything—he just... wants the thrill.

Things feel desaturated, lately. Not in a sad or depressed way, though. It's... He feels detached. He feels like he's been left to the elements a bit too long, and the dye has faded till blues and pale colors are gray.

Not faded in a depressed way, but depressing nonetheless. He hasn't talked about it.

He drops his hand and turns to check on Hyrule, at a nearby collection of items. He feels some urge to go and touch him, maybe with a casual hand on the shoulder, or something equally ordinary. Some way that doesn't betray that he is looking for confirmation that Hyrule hasn't ceased to exist since the last time he checked.

Instead, Legend says, "'M going back outside."

Hyrule grins at him and jokes, "Before you get tempted to buy out the whole store?"

Legend huffs and waves his hand dismissively and rolls his eyes, and then he leaves.

Outside the shop, Warriors is leaning against the wall by the door all casual, and is chatting with some local. Something about... pollination of crops. Legend doesn't care to listen in, so he just walks by and says he's going to the inn they chose without waiting to see if Warriors even heard.

He also doesn't wait to see the unreadable look Warriors gives him. He knows he's getting one, because everyone is doing that lately. He doesn't care. Whatever concerns they have, he won't do anything about; that's just the kind of guy he is. He doesn't tell people things. That's his business, thanks.

...He'll be fine when– if he sees Marin again, anyway.

If, because nothing is certain in dreams and dreamlike states alike, even people. Especially people. He is the type of person who puts the weight of memories on items, not people, (which is why he's a bit of a hoarder, it's because throwing any of that out would feel like abandoning something,) but it's... different, sometimes. If it was his fault. It's about control, he thinks, because he could set his own house on fire with all his things in it and not care, but if someone else did that, if someone got ahold of all the memories he cares about and damaged them, he doesn't... he doesn't know. If someone he loves dies or is gone because of something he couldn't have known about, couldn't have realistically changed in the moment, he just keeps living. If it's his fault, if he was directly responsible, if he knew, then it's. It hurts. That wasn't his to burn, that was someone else's. He went up to someone else's house, maybe a family home, with all their trinkets and mementos and gifts and heirlooms inside, and tossed a lit match inside, knowing what it would do.

A person, he thinks, is a house of all their memories, and he keeps all his memories in real things in a real house because he will die elsewhere.

He arrives at the inn at some point in time, and goes inside and sits down at a table in a corner. He ends up with a drink from the bar, and he drinks it even though he doesn't remember where it came from. If it's spiked, he'll fall asleep and not dream, and let the memories of whatever happens next die with him elsewhere. If it's poisoned, he probably has something for that. If not, then the cook does. If not, then he doesn't care right now. He would, usually, but he's. Tired. He's tired. Physically. It's like how you shouldn't give your thoughts any merit after 9pm, except he's at a permanent state of after 9pm because he hasn't properly slept in... since they left Warriors' world.

He chuckles quietly into his drink. It tastes like shit.

"Drinking?" Warriors says. "At two in the afternoon?"

Legend shrugs.

"Eh, I doubt an inn will sell anything too strong. Find out anything useful?"

Legend shrugs.

Warriors makes a displeased little hum. "Can you talk to me?"

Legend shrugs.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"No," Legend says, and takes a sip of his drink.

"Lovely," Warriors grumbles, then repeats, "Find out anything useful?"

"Didn't talk to anyone."

Warriors pulls the cup from his hands and puts it down roughly, just out of reach. "What is up with you, vet?"

Legend looks up at him blankly. And he shrugs.

Warriors rolls his eyes a little and picks the drink back up to sniff at it. "Oh, what is this? Smells awful."

"Dunno." Legend drops his chin into his palm.

"Did–" Warriors raises his head to look right at Legend, brows furrowed. "Did you not order this?"

Legend shrugs.

"That's... not safe." Warriors pauses, then adds, "And I– Ugh, forget I ever said this, but you are an attractive man, vet, and you don't look very threatening, sitting depressed and alone in a corner. Don't be an idiot."

Legend shrugs and slumps back. "It's whatever–"

"It is not "whatever"!"

"Well," he huffs, "I'm too tired to care."

Warriors shifts in his seat as if he's about to stand, hands braced on the table, ears down and back. "Yes, because you won't sleep! No shit you're tired, vet, you're living on the cook's stamina elixirs and twenty minute naps!"

"Maybe it's on purpose," Legend mutters, but Warriors' ears are trained to pick up commands in the heat of battle, so of course he hears it.

"What the fuck did that girl do to you!?"

And then Legend is standing, leaning over the table, right up in Warriors' face and pissed. Every red in the room is lit up against dull, washed out colors, and he hisses, "Just what are you trying to insinuate?"

Warriors jumps back, startled by the quick and sudden movement. "I," he stammers, "Vet, you can tell me if– Sorry. I shouldn't– Sorry."

Legend says nothing. He straightens, and sits—and he shrugs.

"Sorry," Warriors repeats as he, too, sits back down. "I've been worried, is all. You probably won't talk about it, but..." He looks to the side and smiles a little defeatedly, and he shrugs.

"It's fine," Legend tells him. It's... fine. It's fine.

Twilight does not like mirrors. He has that in common with Four. Four hasn't said much on the subject, but Twilight has made jokes about having his heart shattered into a million pieces, and Four makes a very specific face every time. So, Twilight suspects they both dislike mirrors for similar reasons—they've both had an Experience, capital E, with mirrors breaking. Twilight pointedly does not think any further about it, but it's nice to know someone else gets it, at least a little.

Watching Legend interact with Marin had been odd. On one hand, it's still nice to know someone else "gets it", but on the other, Twilight won't get that, and on one paw (because he only has two hands but he does also have four paws sometimes) knowing you have something in common with someone is actually entirely different from seeing someone deal with something they have in common with you in a way you never will.

Twilight didn't bother himself too much with it, after ensuring that Legend would be able to have as much time with Marin as possible while here. In part because of the strange feeling he got from it all, but if asked, he would say it was just courtesy.

But.

Twilight watches now, as Legend tosses an apple between his hands and stares into the middle distance, absently humming in that quiet way where only some notes come through and the rest exist simply as breaths that sound like silence. He drops the apple and swears on reflex but makes no move to pick it up again. His only response, really, is to let his hands fall to his sides and sigh. And Twilight, on the other side of camp, frowns.

It's night, at the moment, and Twilight is on watch. Legend never seems to sleep lately, and Twilight has to thank Ordona that Legend has already figured out the wolf thing, because despite definitely dissociating to the Twilight Realm and back, he is incredibly alert. It's probably the rabbit part of him, Twilight guesses.

There's not much need for watch, given all that, but Legend is just standing there at the edge of camp and looking out at nothing; he can only get so far with watered-down prey instincts and boosted hearing. So here Twilight is, taking the place of several people's pillows, and watching Legend more than anything else. A spaced-out rabbit boy and a distracted wolf add up to about one person who is paying attention, he reasons, ignoring that the only math he'd ever been good at was geometry. Which, coincidentally, is also the only math beyond the basics that he'd ever learned. Woo, shapes. Gotta love shapes.

Twilight huffs. Shapes are entirely beside the point. The point is... that Legend is being weird. No. Legend has been off, and he's been off since they left Wars' era. And that was, what, two months ago? That sounds about right. And it's worrying Twilight.

They'd been to Wind's era, then Four's, and now Time's, and Legend is still just as distant as he'd been the first night in Wind's. Maybe more, even, and nobody knows what's wrong.

Nobody knows what's wrong. Something about that, and the way Legend is, it makes Twilight a little scared in a way he doesn't think he's ever been before. Tonight, it plucks gently at a chord in his heart, and so he eases himself away from all the boys who've found their way to cuddling him in their sleep, and pads over to where Legend stands. He noses at his hand and then sniffs at the apple; it's got marks in it, like Legend had dug his fingernails into the skin and pulled till it started to give. He picks up the apple in his teeth, careful to not break the skin, and looks up at Legend.

Legend doesn't respond, only looks back down at him with that same empty look he gives everything lately. His eyes look tired and he's got dark circles to match, and his mouth pouts ever so slightly in a way it doesn't usually. It's... soft. It's soft, but it's soft in a way that just looks unsettling on the vet; like a child, almost, who is frightened and worried and doesn't know how to say it.

Twilight drops the apple and shifts. He stands next to Legend now, and bends to pick the apple back up in his hand. He brushes dirt and wolf slobber off on his pants and holds it out in an offering; Legend does not take it. Legend just looks back out and keeps humming his broken little tune.

After some time, Twilight says, quiet and careful and like speaking to a sacred scared animal, "What're ya thinkin' about?"

"Nothin'," Legend says. The accent rubs off on him a little, which Twilight always finds a little funny. (And endearing, but he wouldn't tell Legend that.)

"Can't be nuth'n', 'r else you wouldn't be lookin' off like that." He grins. "Ya'd have'ta be stupid, 'r su'mn."

Legend elbows him lightly, and he's got a little smile now, too. That's good. "'M not stupid. You must be, though, to imply somethin' like that."

"Nah," Twilight laughs. And then he says, "Really, though, what were ya thinkin' about?"

Legend shrugs, which is a bad sign already. Crud.

"C'mon, I'm just tryin'a make conversation. Watch's borin' as all hell," he says lightly. Crud crud crud, he hopes that works.

Legend chuckles. "Fine, if you really wanna know. I..." His face and general demeanor fall, together, and Twilight really can't help but frown as well. "I don't really know. ...I feel weird."

"Yer dissociatin', is what you are," Twilight tells him, and tries almost desperately to put enough humor in it that Legend won't back off. Sky would be better at this. Sky also wouldn't want to pry, though, and it feels too important to just... leave. "Makes sense 'f ya dunno, I guess."

A moment passes as Twilight tries to come up with the right words to say next, and then Legend shuffles closer as subtly as possible, just enough to reach his hand over and brush it against Twilight's arm. And then he grabs it, grip firm, and just, stands there, holding onto Twilight's forearm like a lifeline.

Twilight lets him, of course, because the way Legend seems so... uncentered, for lack of a better word, staring down at the ground with a painfully blank face, is definitely concerning.

"Y'alright?" he asks softly, and when he gets no response, he tugs his arm a bit to bring Legend closer, and wraps him in a hug. He's slow about it, in case Legend doesn't want it, but there are no protests. No anything, really. Nothing until Legend drops his head onto Twilight's chest and makes a sad little sound somewhere between a hum and a grunt, and nothing after.

"I need to make sure you're real," Legend whispers after so long, and—

...It's hard to make any comparisons, really, because that just hurts. It hurts. "'N' I need to make sure I'm real."

Twilight holds him tighter.

They're at the ranch by the afternoon after that, and Legend avoids Malon. Everybody sees it, everybody knows everybody else sees it, and nobody says a word.

A letter comes, while they're there, and it's got a pink flower stamp. It's handed off to Legend, who has made a home among the horses; he tells (threatens) the postman to be back in three days, then disappears back into the stables.

The postman, of course, does as instructed. Legend gives him a new letter, and so begins an odd interdimensional dance between Legend, the postman, and Marin.

Dear Link,

I miss you. I should be used to this feeling, but feelings aren't exactly logical, are they? I came up with a little tune, but I can't figure out where to go with it; I'll jot down what I have so far, in case a new perspective is what I need.

How have you been? How have the captain and your group been? Fought any good monster hordes lately? Don't answer that, I'll worry. I will worry regardless, but it would worry me more.

Here is a list of my worries, for your convenience:

* That you have gone and gotten yourself killed

* That you are sad

* That you miss me so horribly that you won't let yourself enjoy life

* That you are not eating well on your travels

* That you still find yourself unsure of reality (You are real, I am real, your friends are real, everything around you is real, and everything else you might think of is real. I promise.)

* That you won't talk to your friends about what bothers you

* That you aren't cleaning your teeth as often as you should (It will only take a minute!)

* That you are injured

* That you aren't healing well from whatever injury you surely have

* That you have been kidnapped

* That you are worried about me

* That something horrible has happened and I will never learn of it because you are in an entirely different time period

* That I will never go home with you because I am in an entirely different time period

How has the sailor boy been coming along with my song, do you know? I would love to hear him play it when we meet again; he played some short songs for me, and the bells are beautiful. His baton has some powerful magic.

Send your friends my regards, will you? And tell your cook friend that I miss his cooking; it's better than the cooking at the castle! His apple pie especially was my favorite. (It still hardly comes close to yours, though. ♡)

Love and dearest wishes,

Marin~

Dear Marin,

I miss you, too. I always have, but it hurts like a fresh wound now. I've written out some ideas for your song. I'm no composer, though, so I can't promise it's all good.

I've been well. I've been a bit shit. I really miss you. Everyone else has been well. I'll be fine when I see you again.

How are you? You didn't talk much about yourself in your letter, and I want to hear as much about you as possible so I might miss you less. Tell me your schedule, use these letters like a diary, tell me all the little things about yourself and your life.

I'll try to calm your worries.

• I'm alive, and I don't plan on dying anytime soon. I'm actually planning to die at 46 on a less-traveled road in Calatia of blood loss after being stabbed in the back by a moblin that got the jump on me. Or maybe 64. Haven't quite made up my mind. Depends on how bad my joints get and how quickly.
• I enjoy thinking of you.
• I eat fine, the cook makes sure of that! I think he'd be at our throats if we didn't, and I'm not too eager to find that out.
• I don't talk to anyone about anything, and it's worked out just fine for me. All that bothers me is that you aren't here. What, want me to talk to our resident loverboy? I'd hardly get a word in once he gets to talking about his girl.
• My teeth are fine! The rabbit thing  is irrelevant actually ignore this
• I'm not injured. The traveler takes care of all that.
• I wouldn't get kidnapped! What do you take me for, some kinda idiot child?
• Hard not to worry. I know you can take care of yourself. No need.

He's doing pretty well, I think. I don't hear him playing all too often. It does have some damn powerful magic, I wish he'd let me experiment with it.

Will do. Of course you do, his cooking is amazing. It's like heaven on the road. We're damn spoiled.

(I can't wait to see your flowers again.)

- Link

To Marin L. A.

From The Princess's Hero Guard Captain, Link H. W.

Hi. I'm sending this with your Link's letter, which you might want to read first. I haven't read it or yours.

I'm sending this letter because I'm worried. We've had this conversation before, yes, but he's been... OK, I can't properly word this in any other way: He's been [* * * * * * * * * scribbled out * * * * * * * * *] Sorry. That's crude.

He's been out of it. You know how soldiers get sometimes, when they hear something they don't like. You know how I get sometimes. Imagine that, but it never ends.

We had an argument. Well. I yelled at him and essentially accused you of something I won't repeat. He was not acting with regard to his safety, and I reacted. Overreacted, maybe.

What really concerns me here is that he just took it. He hardly said anything the whole time, just shrugged, until I mentioned you. He ended the conversation pretty quickly after that.

I would ask you for advice since you likely know him better, but it's pretty obvious to me that he's different from when you first knew him.

I don't know what to do. He won't sleep.

I know he thinks this is all a dream. He told me about all that back on the second day of our stay at the castle.

How do you wake up a person who isn't asleep?

They're on the road in an unknown era before long. Legend sticks close to Hyrule and talks and jokes and hits and shoves, and it feels almost... normal.

Almost.

Hyrule notices that something is off first, that hearing from Marin didn't single-handedly cure his funk. This is for several reasons; the most obvious being that his magic has settled in a low, heavy fog. Something like this usually means that the magic is experiencing disuse, but Legend is a rather avid magic user, so it could easily be something more symbolic. Magic likes to mean things.

The most damning reason, however, is the amount of physical touch. Legend is not typically a touchy person, yet here he is, holding Hyrule's hand and shoving Warriors and ruffling Wind's hair and putting an arm around Four's shoulders.

It's really not much to worry about, Hyrule doesn't think, but it feels distinctly wrong. It feels wrong when they're walking, and it feels wrong when—

When Hyrule wakes up in the middle of the night, and Legend is latched onto him. He thinks Legend's asleep, at first, but when Hyrule moves with a little hum, he startles and freezes. Hyrule rolls sleepily and buries his face in Legend's chest. He relaxes minutely and grasps the back of Hyrule's shirt.

And then Hyrule murmurs, "You okay?" and Legend makes a strangled little sound and freezes again. His grip on the shirt tightens too.

"Sorry," Hyrule says.

"Mmngn," Legend squeaks. Hyrule can't help but giggle a little.

He falls back asleep soon after, but it sticks in his mind.

—when Legend denies breakfast the next morning with some excuse about a midnight snack. He goes off to sit against a tree and watch everyone else with half-closed eyes and a resting frown.

Hyrule watches him back. He hardly moves the whole time, just stares, until he has to get up when they leave. He doesn't even make a move to help finish packing camp up, even though he always does and he always complains. They let him. Twilight mutters something to Time about not sleeping.

When they get to traveling, he's back to faking normal.

Hyrule has mixed feelings on touch. He's spent so long on his own that anything more than holding hands or a quick hug gets too much pretty quickly, unless he's too tired to really care. (When he's asleep enough, discomfort hardly means anything, because sleep on a stone floor is better than no sleep at all.) He adores physical affection, but he can only handle small amounts.

Hyrule has mixed feelings on touch, and so after enough of Legend being like this, his skin decides it needs to melt off. Skin, of course, cannot do that without help, so it opts to buzz and simulate burning. It also sparks, sometimes, if his magic reserves aren't too low. And. Well. His magic reserves are actually pretty high at the moment.

Hyrule has mixed feelings on touch, and Legend keeps touching him, and Hyrule is stuck between asking him to stop and moving away and just putting up with it, and that's an impossible decision if he's ever seen one, because who knows? Maybe Legend's mental stability is resting on being able to rest a hand on Hyrule's back!

Then Wild sprints by from the back of the group, and his arm roughly clips Hyrule's shoulder, and Hyrule feels his magic do something of a stutter and suddenly he can't keep moving.

Legend stops, too. He stops, and turns, and reaches to touch Hyrule's upper arm; Hyrule takes a kind of a quiet sidestep. He feels his magic bubbling inside him, and he lets it do as it wants as long as it's not destructive or harmful. (Because he knows that if he tries to it will be destructive or harmful, maybe both.)

And then he is gone.

Well.

He is a fairy, and he's shot up into the leaves and dimmed his glow so as not to be seen, and he thinks, ah, shoot, the veteran isn't going to like that.

Not much to do but watch, though. Not much to do as Legend goes still and as Four jumps and as Wind swears, and Wild spins around to say sorry but ends up asking wait, where the fuck? and that plus Wind's swearing catches the attention of everyone else.

And Legend remains still, eerily so, in the clamor of it all. Arm half raised, mouth half open as if to ask what the problem is; he shuts his mouth, he lowers his arm, and he says, only really audible by Hyrule's magic fairy ears, "I see."

It is so unlike him.

Hyrule drifts down with a hand loose over his chest—because seeing this and hearing this is just so wrong, intrinsically, that his little magic fairy heart goes unsteady from it—and aims himself to settle on Legend's shoulder. Then he changes his mind, and goes to Warriors instead. He taps his ear and says, "Hello." Warriors jumps a little and whips his head around, blinks, and makes a confused sound.

"Sorry," Hyrule says, rubbing his hands with each other. "This is the traveler, I, uh, have a spell that turns me into a fairy? And I got a little overwhelmed and my magic, uhm. Yeah."

Warriors hums. He looks back at the group and clears his throat in that way he does that somehow manages to catch the attention of everyone nearby and shut them up near immediately. "I think I know where he is," he says, "he's fine." He steps forward and sets a heavy hand on Legend's shoulder and rubs it, in a way that looks teasing but is really trying to help ground him. "Don't get your panties in a twist, vet. I know you're worried, don't even try to deny it."

Then he walks off. Hyrule looks back once, before Warriors turns to go and slip behind a tree and some brush, and he sees Legend staring at the ground and hears someone worrying over him and trying to be subtle about it.

"Can you change back?" Warriors asks.

Hyrule spins around and goes up to hover in front of his face and says, "I can try. Magic sometimes has a mind of its own..."

Warriors nods. "As long as you aren't stuck."

Hyrule nods in return and moves further to make room to shift, and he requests his magic do so in the way your brain requests your body to move, if your body were a wild thing like nature.

It works, he shifts back to hylian form successfully, but he stumbles. Warriors goes to steady him and he jerks away and very nearly hisses. He immediately apologizes, explains that he just doesn't want touch right now. Warriors says to not worry about it, that's alright.

They go back to everyone else after Hyrule has a moment to relax, a bit. He hovers just slightly behind Warriors; he knows somebody is going to try and tackle him, and his skin and magic are still sparking and anxious.

He gets various relieved greetings, concerned questions about where he went that he brushes off awkwardly, and...

It's what makes him realize that something's wrong, seriously wrong; it's that Legend's only reaction is a weird little smile, with his shoulders uncharacteristically loose and his head tilted a little down and his eyes like blue-tinted frosted glass. (and the curtains are blue. How lovely.)

It's midnight, and Wild is climbing onto the roof. He likes being in high places; sometimes he wonders if it's because he started on the Great Plateau, and so one of the first things he did was jump off it and glide to the ground below.

He likes high places, and he likes sleeping outside, so he's on the roof of the house of a farmer who's lent them their attic for the night because of the cold, in the middle of the night. Now, as far as he knows, he and Sky (who really just doesn't have much of a preference on where he sleeps—apparently he's slept on Beedle's literal metal box of a bed on several occasions just fine) are alone in that. As far as he knows, Legend doesn't tend to go out of his way to climb onto roofs in the middle of the night.

And yet.

There he is, standing at the edge of the roof's peak and staring vaguely down at the space below.

Wild makes an exaggerated grunt when he pulls himself up onto the roof proper in order to announce his arrival. And he steps heavy, too, when he walks over. Doesn't wanna startle Legend into falling over the edge.

A couple meters away, he stops, hums, says, "Why're you up here? Didn't think I was gonna have company."

Legend sighs with just an exhale. Says, "I made a mistake."

Wild hums in a question and tilts his head.

"If," Legend says, and Wild knows already that this won't be an answer, "I grabbed your arm and threw you off the roof, what would happen?"

Wild thinks on that for a moment. "Well. I'd probably go splat. This is a pretty tall building, 'specially with the slight hill. An' I didn't bring my paraglider up here, not much reason to. Not like I plan to get tossed off roofs much."

"Would it hurt?"

He frowns. "Yeah? 'Course it would. I've fallen 'bout that far before, it hurts plenty."

For the first time in the conversation, Legend turns his head to actually look at Wild. His face is almost eerily blank. Not a fan, Wild decides. Legend needs to either look mildly ticked off or unimpressed.

He says, "Have you ever felt pain in a dream?"

Wild shrugs with his hands in his pockets. "Dunno, I don't think I dream aside from when I sometimes get memories in my sleep. Those are always pretty vague, though."

"Not even on that island?" Legend breathes, and something about his voice there feels like he is speaking to ghosts.

"I didn't sleep," Wild answers easily. "But I probably would've felt pain if I did, because I would get beat up by monsters. There were a lot."

"Hmm," Legend hums, leaves it at that. And turns his head back to watch the ground, and he stands up straight. Wild hadn't even noticed he'd been leaning forward. "What's your favorite flower?"

Weird question, but the vet's full of weird questions tonight. "Blue nightshades," Wild says. "And marigolds."

"I'm not sure if I know those."

"Blue nightshades can be cooked for stealth, though I'm pretty sure the berries are poisonous? But I might've just gotten sick because I took a bite of a great fairy fountain. Probably the berries, though. And marigolds are just pretty. They look like the sun."

"Are you happy?" Legend asks. It's a little abrupt.

"I think so. Are you?" Wild asks. "What're your favorite flowers?"

"Apple blossoms and hibiscuses," Legend says. "I grow apple trees, and Marin liked hibiscuses."

Little things, Wild thinks, will show the most hurt.

Legend sits, Wild sits next to him. Their feet dangle off the side, with that tantalizing distance from the ground.

"Sometimes," Wild says, "I wish fall damage wasn't a thing, because I'd like to know how it feels to jump off a cliff and free fall. And maybe the impact with the ground would shock my being into not missing something anymore."

Legend hums. "I'd like to drown without drowning."

"I wanna implode then explode. Zelda says that's what making a big star-burst with her powers feels like, that she thinks it's how the universe felt being born."

"Do you think," he starts, with his voice low enough to sound like how it feels to get your face dragged against rock because of inertia or something physics-y, "that dreams feel like that, too?"

"I wouldn't know," Wild says. (That statement feels significant, but he wouldn't know that either.)

Chapter Text

Time is on watch one night, very late. Legend is somewhere off to the side half behind the tree he's sitting against, and he's singing something that sounds foreign. It's very pretty.

Very pretty, and just loud enough for Time to get lost in the gentle sort of lilt of the words. When it ends, he finds the silence of night somewhat discomforting; he takes out his ocarina, puts it to his lips, and plays whatever his fingers wish.

What comes is the Song of Healing, which he thinks fitting, in a way.

A voice joins, Legend's, humming along.

He trails off to ask Time, "Where did you learn that song? It feels..."

"Healing?" Time suggests. "That's what it is, after all. The Song of Healing."

"I was thinking more, unnerving. Or something."

He chuckles. "I could see that."

"So where'd ya learn it from?" Legend shifts against his tree a bit, hardly visible in the dark.

"I doubt you'll have heard of the place," Time says.

"Try me."

"Hm. Termina."

Legend is silent; Time can picture the way he's likely frowning, a little confused, a little frustrated, a little thoughtful. Finally, the boy says, "Hmph. You've got me there, old man. Wanna tell me about it, or are you just gonna be annoyingly cryptic?"

"It doesn't exist," Time says, "not as far as I know. It might have only existed while I was there... Or it never did at all. I'm not particularly eager to go find out."

Legend starts and leans forward at the explanation, and as soon as Time is finished he asks, "It isn't real?"

"I wouldn't say that. It certainly was real, at least to me. I kept everything I got there."

"Oh," is all Legend says. Then, "...Does the song... do anything?"

"It heals," Time answers simply.

"That's gotta be handy. Waste to not use it more."

"Ah," Time laughs, "it doesn't heal physical wounds. It heals the soul, in a sense."

Legend mutters something to himself, then says, "I'd have to see that."

"If we come across any ghosts, I'll show you."

Instead of making a disbelieving comment about how a ghost's soul could be healed, or how Time is being cryptic again, or why they would even encounter a ghost, Legend only hums.

How unlike him. Time brings the ocarina back up and plays the song again, as if it might fix something.

It all feels...

It all feels distant.

Legend hears Time playing music, feels the cool night air, all that... and it feels...

He's tired. He's so tired. When he sleeps it's not well, and when he's awake he's trying to pretend... Nothing is even real, now, so why does he try? When he looks down at his hands they aren't his hands, his hands aren't real hands. This whole quest is made up, he knows, and he's just trying to wait it out. This is his dream, it must be... And when he wakes up it will feel so short, and he won't even remember most of it. If he reached down and touched the grass he sits on it would be a false sensation. His hands feel like they're calloused all over, and so when he touches things he hardly feels them at all. It's like that, and it's like that for everything.

And. And he can hardly think, anymore, because he feels so fuzzy and tired.

And numb. But the kind where you're all cold and the air prickles. Like his leg has fallen asleep, but it's his... everything. And his brain. Like his brain has fallen asleep...

Mm. He's tired. Maybe it's just because it's nighttime, he felt alright earlier. During the day. He doesn't think he can do this much longer.

He doesn't think he can wait it out much longer.

Maybe he should sleep... That would be nice. He's so tired.

...

Legend keeps yawning, and everyone is giving him Looks about it. He can tell. Even Sky, known yawner and notorious napper—pff, that's kinda funny, he should call him that out loud some time—has joined in on the Everyone Look At The Vet With Expressions Ranging From Concerned To Fed Up party.

Fair enough, Legend thinks; the yawning is driving him nuts, too, and he's been contemplating gluing his teeth together so his jaws can't open. He'd have trouble eating, though... Eh, Ravio probably has something he's decided would be perfect to sell to people with exactly that problem. Ravio's like that.

He wonders, for a moment, how Ravio is doing, but it's a stupid thought; this isn't real, and he's asleep in that bed in Wars' castle or even further back in his bed at home and Ravio is either crashing in his house or in Lorule doing whatever the fuck he does in Lorule.

Dear Link,

I still miss you. I'm very glad you're alright. Thank you so much for the help with the music, it worked wonderfully! I'm making a lot of progress on this piece thanks to you. ♡ I can't wait to play it for you; I'm aiming to finish before I see you next so I might show you the full piece.

You are so sweet! I'll tell you all about my days, and I'm hoping you'll do the same for me? I'd love to hear all about your travels.

I've been thinking of taking up piano. Or perhaps some other instrument... I think it would be helpful for my composing. What are your thoughts?

The apple trees have been growing wonderfully. I can't thank you enough for the tips

To Captain Link H. W.

From Marin L. A.

Thank you for the letter.

I don't know what to do either

Dear Marin,

Hearing about your life has been amazing. I can't wait to hear the music.

Travel like this is hardly interesting. A lot of walking, some fighting here and there, nothing much else. Not enough to write about in a letter.

Piano would be best for composing help. You should go for it. I think you'd do beautifully. My most important advice, I think, is don't be discouraged when you don't make as much progress as you'd like. Some things come slow, and learning new instruments is one of those things.

You can't just learn eight instruments all at once on a whim. Can't play them like that either.

I'm glad the trees have been doing well

Dear Link,

I love you

Dear Marin

Dear Link,

How are you? Tell me how you've been

Dear Marin,

How I am is of no concern. Why do you worry so much?

To Captain Link H. W.

From Marin L. A.

Is he okay?

Dear Link,

Why shouldn't I? I have nothing better to do when I'm not in my garden or composing or singing or learning piano. I think of you often. I love you

Dear Marin,

I love you too. I wish you would find something better to worry about.

Are the trees doing well?

Dear Link,

I worry about you because I care, Link.

The trees give no apples. Not in season.

There is a lemon tree that is producing more lemons than I've ever seen. I'm afraid it may be gearing up to die.

The apple trees are fine, though.

Dear Marin,

I can't fathom why.

Legend dreams of Marin.

Not that he'd know.

...

It's hard to know anything for certain, when the world itself, when reality itself, is not certain. It's hard to...

It's hard to think.

Time doesn't drift by him, he drifts by time.

It's morning, in those moments of blurriness where everything is gray and misty and the only things awake are himself, the birds, Epona, and whoever is on last watch.

Sometimes no one is. On watch, he means. Sometimes they see he's still awake—when he sleeps, lately, it's usually only catnaps during breaks and around when last watch starts—and relax enough to doze off in those final hours. He may be tired and distant during the night, but he's nothing if not alert despite.

So sometimes, he's alone in the early hours. It's strange. He thinks the Lost Woods might be completely fogged up at this time; he has to wonder how it looks, if the sun reflecting on the mist is blinding despite the tree cover.

He sits in one of these mornings now. It's ethereal... dreamlike.

Dreamlike. How redundant.

He wonders, not for the first time, how he's supposed to escape. He wonders if he's trapped forever, this time. If there's no way out. Maybe they'll go to his era, and his body will be asleep in his bed and he'll have to play a song to wake himself. Maybe not. Maybe the only way out is death.

He'd rather die than live a false life.

It's not stubbornness, or anything. He just... doesn't think he'd be able to enjoy it. Or be present at all. Honestly, look at him. Who could live like this?

He'll give it another week.

Wild's era, Sky thinks, is quite pretty. Incidentally, he finds the sky the prettiest part. The colors in the evenings, and mornings, and nights by the Lost Woods, those are beautiful. He loves it. He keeps bumping into things while traveling because he can't keep his eyes off the sky.

The monsters here are... less pretty. Wild says he "finds them charming," and while Sky can certainly appreciate that to a degree, it's hard to appreciate the monsters themselves to any degree when they're trying their best to bash your skull in.

Which they're doing right now. Incidentally.

There aren't too many monsters, but they are infected; everyone seems to be holding up pretty well, thankfully. The monsters also aren't too high level, Wild had said—because his monsters are leveled, apparently—only blue and black ones. They're certainly stronger than any bokoblins or moblins Sky has encountered, even taking the infection into account, but Wild seems pretty unphased.

In his peripheral vision, Sky sees Wind kill a bokoblin and cheer. In his peripheral vision on the other side, he sees Legend make a slightly unnecessarily risky move against a moblin he's fighting alone. Wind shoots off to help him, so Sky focuses back on the black bokoblin he's taking care of.

"What the fuck, man," he hears Wind swear, and winces, "why in the Sacred Realm would you do that?"

Legend grunts vaguely in response, Wind groans, and then they cease conversation in favor of not losing. Sky decides to question them about that once they're done here.

Sky dodges, putting his back to Wind and Legend. Just as well because whatever they're doing is bound to get distracting. Those two tend to be like that as a team.

Wild cackles from whatever tree he's chosen to snipe from, then shouts something about doing a flip, and Sky gives himself a metaphorical pat on the back for his foresight.

A few minutes of fighting that would take too much mental energy to recount later, and there's a yell from behind. Then, Wind cries out, "Vet! Fuck, shit, holy crap and sacred shit, you fucking dumbass!"

Sky decides to not turn around. Someone else can handle that.

Wild calls, "Traveler! The sailor and the vet need healing, like, now!"

Sky decides to not turn around. If he does, he'll worry, and anxiety is generally not particularly helpful in battle. Bit of a design flaw.

The battle is over like that, or it feels like it, at least. Sky flops against a tree and slides to the ground to rest his eyes till Hyrule or somebody comes to check him for injuries.

There's some clamoring and general ruffling of feathers off to the side, and someone swears at the vet again. That's probably fine.

...

Sky opens his eyes and looks over, anyway. The fighting is all done with, so he's free to worry as he pleases.

...Legend is being held down against the ground by Wind, who is shouting in his face while Twilight stands over them looking generally disappointed and Hyrule takes care of a wound on Legend's arm. Not fine.

Sky pushes himself up with a tired groan and heads over to see if he has to mom Legend. That's a sort of weird dynamic he's found himself in, in this group—being the "mom friend," but mostly to Legend and Hyrule. They like to be self-sacrificial or generally stubborn about their health and such, in a way that for some reason Sky specifically is best at dealing with. (Honestly, Hyrule's alright, usually, because Legend has taken a sort-of mentor role, but since it's only sort of because Legend seems to be holding himself back from solidifying that role, Sky has to fill in the gaps to keep both of them from constant magical exhaustion.)

"Right," he says as he stops in front of the Situation, "what's going on here?"

Wind stops his yelling to look up, then gets off Legend and says, "This dumbass idiot was being stupid on purpose, plus I saw his leg get hurt but he's super insistent that he's fine. Tell him to get his fucking act together, or something."

Legend sighs. "I resent that." There's an odd tone in his voice... defeated, almost.

"Vet," Sky says.

"Bitch," Legend says. Twilight nudges his head with his foot. "Don't kick me, you ass. 'Nyways. I'm fine."

"Mmhm," Wind hums very judgmentally. The amount of judgment is impressive, honestly.

"Screw you. Fine, I got nicked a little, but it's not worth the magic. Didn't even break skin, look." He holds up his left leg. It is, notably, clear of blood. Sky nods in approval.

"I'd like to check it anyway," Hyrule tells him. "Just to make sure there's nothing you aren't feeling."

Legend groans. "I'm fine. You all are so hovery lately."

Hyrule sits back and frowns. "I'm done with your arm," he says instead of acknowledging Legend's complaints.

"Awesome," Legend says, sitting up. He stands, and he doesn't seem to falter... Sky hopes Hyrule is planning to keep a closer eye on him for a bit, just in case, because all this fuss about his leg is a bit suspicious.

"Ah," Twilight says in that way adults do when they want to keep children and teens from doing something else, but a bit less authoritative. "Hold on, vet."

Legend pauses his step away. "What."

"I'd like to know what happened during the battle," Sky answers for Twilight, and Legend turns back to look at him. "Clearly, it was something."

"The vet kept throwing himself at enemies," Wind replies, with just a bit of annoyance. "...Like he didn't care about getting hurt, or something."

Legend huffs and crosses his arms, but notably doesn't deny it. Hm.

"I'm sure," Hyrule remarks, unimpressed, "that I don't need to tell you the dangers of that?"

"No, I know," Legend grumbles.

Sky isn't sure how much he should read into that. He glances at Twilight, who is frowning thoughtfully, then back at Legend, who is stretching his arm. He... seems fine.

(His mind, unbidden, reminds him of how he'd sometimes stood on the edges of Skyloft at night as a young teen. He hasn't thought of that time in a long while.)

Dear Link,

The Princess asked me if I would like to go back to my own time. I said yes, of course, because I couldn't stand the thought of being separated from you in such a drastic way. She told me there might be a way to send me there with the help of some allies from the war. I'm very excited to see if it will work. Can't get my hopes up too much, though, in case it doesn't. Hopefully Nayru will hear my prayers and take pity...

I can't wait to see you again, whether it be in our home era or not. I'm progressing nicely in piano. I'd love to show you.

The apple trees are quite fine. I hope I can see your orchard, one day.

It's painfully obvious, now.

Painfully obvious, and near impossible to ignore, and so clear, and Sky is suddenly thankful that Zelda only found him with his feet dangling off a cliff in the night once and thought he was only there for teenage rebellion and maybe a nightmare.

He wonders if anyone else has noticed the same way as himself. He hopes not, hope they don't have that same sort of vague experience, but he also desperately hopes that someone does see it too.

As he said. It's painfully obvious.

Here's what it is. It's like how Wild behaves sometimes, but with less impulse and lapses of judgment and more purposefulness. It's like how Warriors says hubris will be your downfall, but in some sort of twisted prideless yet still sort of self-centered way. It's like how Hyrule sometimes needs to be pulled away from an injury before he strains his magic too much.

It, the thing that is so painfully obvious, and all that, is that Legend is fighting like... like he doesn't care. He is fighting like he is seeing how far he can lean over the edge before he really loses his balance. He is fighting like flying a loftwing in all the wrong ways "just to feel cool" and he is fighting like a trust fall without a person to trust. He is living like a boy who is skipping sleep to look at the clouds below and wonder if he would land or just fall forever.

It's hard. Watching Legend, and seeing a little bit of himself, and feeling something in him hurt like an old wound. Like a scar that aches when it rains.

It's hard to watch, because he really doesn't know what to do. He never told a soul, never got hurt on purpose, never explicitly hid anything. He just... thought about it, a lot. This is much more. This is so much more, and it is worse and it is serious—with every battle, Legend only gets more reckless, only hides more injuries, only slips away from the group to do gods-know-what while everyone else is tending to their wounds for longer.

And it seems like only Sky has truly noticed and seen it all, and he doesn't know what to do. He should tell someone, probably, but who would he go to and what would he say?

Somewhere to his right—he's on watch right now, sitting at the edge of camp and facing in—someone speaks.

"Sky?" they say, voice raspy with sleep. He jumps a bit and sits up straight; when he whips his head over to the source of the voice, he sees that it's Warriors, who's propped himself up on an elbow with furrowed brows.

"Oh," Sky sighs, relaxing, "you surprised me."

Warriors hums and pushes himself up to sit fully. "Sorry. Everything alright? You looked... stressed."

Sky purses his lips and looks down, past where his elbows are resting on his knees, at the ground. Then his gaze drifts over to where Legend is, for once, sleeping, and without really thinking, he says, "The veteran's been reckless lately."

In the corner of his vision, he sees Warriors following his gaze. "Yep. I've noticed. Is that," he says, as he looks back at Sky, "what you were thinking about?"

Sky nods. He continues watching Legend; it's as if he can't tear his eyes away, as if he'll find a way to make sleeping dangerous. "I think he might be trying to get hurt on purpose," he says. "Or killed."

Warriors inhales sharply. It's hard to tell if he hadn't thought of that, or if he had and was simply not acknowledging the possibility. Slowly, after a short but tense moment of silence, he asks, "...Why do you think that?"

Sky breathes in, closes his eyes, breathes out. He says, simply, "He reminds me a little of myself when I was younger."

"Oh," Warriors says.

They leave it at that. It's too late for this kind of conversation. And anyway, Sky would rather not talk about this behind Legend's back like that. He might just be looking into it too much.

He hopes.

Legend doesn't want to die, is the thing. He's always been afraid of it, even with how much of it he's seen, even with how many fairies have had to heal him from fatal wounds.

He wants to not die, he wants to stay alive. He wants to be able to die at 46, maybe even 64 if he's lucky, on a less-traveled road in Calatia of blood loss after being stabbed in the back by a moblin that got the jump on him. He wants to live till his body aches so badly he can't fight like he used to and then go out with a cherry bomb bang and be satisfied with it.

To be satisfied with his life, it needs to be real, and he needs to know it's real. This all must be a dream, because– because– because it just is. It can't be anything but. So he needs to get out. He just. He can't make himself do it.

Not that he tried. He thought about it, then freaked out, and decided he wouldn't be able to. (What if it's real? What if he kills himself for nothing?)

(Funny that now he's more afraid of this all being real than it being fake. Funny how that works.)

So he lets things kill him, because if he has a moment of clarity or omniscience in almost-death, or something, he might be pulled back into life by a concerned Link who saw what was happening before it happened. And. He almost wants someone to notice what he's doing and talk to him and tell him to stop and that he's real.

So after battles, he sneaks off and does his best to cover his wounds without doing much to heal them, and he pretends it doesn't hurt all the time, and he ignores how Sky has been looking at him with an odd expression, and he reads Marin's letters and answers some of them and tries not to think about how futile this all is.

He doesn't know when he sleeps anymore. It's all such a blur... One moment he's fighting, the next he's picking at dinner that doesn't taste like anything, the next he's laying awake in his bedroll.

Right now, he thinks it is, he's sitting by the campfire, and he thinks it's the late evening when everyone should be asleep but insomnia keeps a couple up. He's got his knees up and is hunched over them with his arms folded between his stomach and thighs, absently watching the fire. In this moment of lucidity, he tries to take hold of his senses. He feels... Mm. It's so hard to tell. He thinks he might be just tired. And vaguely sad.

"Hey, vet," says someone right next to him, with a gentle voice that he kind of wants to curl up in.

He hums an empty acknowledgment and fights to keep his eyes open.

"How are you doing?" the person asks. He still can't tell who it is...

He shrugs. He mumbles, hardly properly audible even to himself, "'M. Tired."

"That happens when you hardly ever sleep."

"Miss Marin," he admits, for some reason. He does, it's true, but he's been trying his best to not think about it. She doesn't exist. He should spare himself the grief.

"I get that," his mystery conversation partner says. "I miss my Zelda."

"I shouldn't miss 'er," he tells them, because he highly doubts any of them could miss their Zelda like this. Zelda is real.

"Why not?"

"She's not real. 'N' I'm not real 'n' you're not real... N'thin's real."

"That's not true," they lie, and put a hand on the back of his shoulder. He presses his face into his knees.

"Stop lying," he tells them, with his voice a little muffled and a little shaky, and he doesn't really feel like himself, he realizes. "Stop lying," he tells them, and he feels a little like crying, and he. He doesn't feel real. Maybe it was never the world, maybe the world is all fine and real; maybe he's the part that's false. Maybe he's not supposed to exist.

Logically, then, he really should just die. Just... suck it up and get himself out of here.

He feels himself start to panic a little again at the thought of doing it himself, though. That's... a problem. That's a problem. Something has to be done.

He's not real. That... He doesn't know how, exactly, that works, but it's true. Something has to be fake, and all this around him feels so achingly real and he's the one that's distant and fuzzy and painted. He reaches out to the person next to him and they feel solid, but he can't feel them enough. Their hand finds his and squeezes it, and it's not enough. The pressure is real, but the feeling isn't.

So obviously, he shouldn't exist. He doesn't know how to not exist. He's always liked being involved in every little thing. He named someone else's child, once, for fuck's sake. Just for that one extra connection to something.

It's that he wants to be remembered, he thinks, even after he dies, whether it be at 46 or 64 in Calatia or asleep in bed in 80 years or in battle next month or an infected leg wound next week or by his own hand tomorrow. It was all futile, because dreams will slip away no matter what.

He'd forgotten the freckles on Marin's arms, the one on the inside of her left wrist that she inexplicably shares with Zelda. He'd forgotten the way her hair felt, all rough and coarse but still so lovely to touch and play with. He'd forgotten what she smelled like, the exact combination of flowers besides just hibiscuses always escaping him. He'd forgotten what hibiscuses smelled like at all. They never grew nearby.

He wants Marin. He misses her. He misses her so badly it hurts, and that's cliche but it's true. Everything aches, and it might just be how he's been giving his wounds the bare minimum treatments on purpose, but it aches so much more clearly than it has in the past however long it's been. It's getting a little hard to breathe. There's tears lodged in his throat, and his chest is strangely tight in weird places, and his head hurts in a way that makes his cheekbones of all things throb, and. And he hasn't cried since. Since that second morning in Warriors' era. Since he was with Marin.

He doesn't want just Marin now, he wants anybody. He wants somebody to tell him he's real even if it's a lie, he wants somebody to hold him, he wants somebody to tell him it'll all be okay, he wants somebody to tell him not to kill himself because he really doesn't want to but he doesn't know what else to do. And he wants somebody to hug him and kiss him on the top of the head or something equally gentle and loving and tell him he's loved and real and it's okay and it's all real and he's okay and he's going to be okay.

But he's stubborn and he doesn't tell people things, and he distances himself from people because he doesn't want to get close and then lose them, and it doesn't work enough and he ends up just caring about these people too much but without a relationship to keep, and so he's just alone and sad and cares too much about everything.

He's stubborn, and he doesn't tell people things, and he pushes people away. So there's nobody to tell him any of the things he wants. Except Marin, but she's thousands of years away right now.

So.

He's stuck.

The tears in his throat claw their way up out of him in a broken sob, and he chokes out, "I don't know what to do," and then he is crying more than he has in years.

There are arms around him, then. "Fuck," they say, "I– Hylia, vet."

Only two people in the group swear to Hylia, he thinks vaguely. Wild and sometimes Sky, because they're the only ones who actively worship her (or whatever Wild is doing). Sky doesn't swear any more than an occasional "damn it," but Wild... this just isn't Wild, he can tell.

Mm. He pulls one of his arms out from where they're trapped between his legs and stomach and latches onto the other person's shirt. He whimpers pitifully while he's at it, because he's just completely given up, apparently.

"Shh, sh," they whisper. He only cries harder at that, because fuck, he hasn't had anyone do that in fucking forever.

... He thinks it was his uncle.

"It's- It's okay. This is real. And, and you're real... And I'm real."

His other arm is freed and grabs on. He can almost believe it.

"It's okay," Sky repeats. He can almost believe it. Sky says, then, voice lowered to a slow, soft brush, "I hope you keep living. You haven't seen Skyloft yet, and the view at sunset from the top of the academy is one of my favorite things. And flying is like nothing else..."

Legend thinks he starts falling asleep around then. He thinks he wants to die in the arms of someone who loves him.

To Marin L. A.

From The Princess's Hero Guard Captain, Link H. W.

I think he's trying to get himself killed

To Marin L. A.

From The Princess's Hero Guard Captain, Link H. W.

I'm afraid

To Marin L. A.

From The Princess's Hero Guard Captain, Link H. W.

He's trying to get himself killed. I'm sure of it. I wish this wasn't true, but now that it's been pointed out to me I can't see anything else.

To Marin L. A.

From The Princess's Hero Guard Captain, Link H. W.

I'm not sure how much longer he'll last.

Dear Link,

You tell me not to worry, and yet you worry me horribly. Please come back to me alive? I love you. I love you.

(Third time's a charm...) I love you.

The next portal puts them on a random island in Sky's time; Sky is overjoyed by this and promptly launches himself off the island, which gives everyone a substantial scare before they remember he has a giant bird to catch him.

He's back in less than ten minutes with several other of those giant birds, each with a person on them. The Links are situated to be taken to Skyloft by the birds; Wild somehow manages to convince Twilight and Sky to let him skydive, but that's saved for later.

Legend seems... okay. Like, actually, honestly, okay. Certainly not good, but. Y'know. Take what you can get.

Sky spends the day with Zelda, and he gives everyone a tour of Skyloft, and he watches the first Skyloft sunset he's seen in months, and– it all feels good. Like a pretty song. Like love, like life, like a thousand other poetic little things.

Night finds him wandering out like he used to, if only to drink in more of the fresh high-altitude air and see the stars. He remembers how the stars were always so pretty, and how in the end they were what kept him going. No stars in death, unless you became one.

He lays on his back on top of a wall and looks up at the night sky. He finds old peace in it.

Finds peace in it, till the night has him wandering again, towards the edge like he used to. To one of the spots he'd always go to, across the river and by the cave, to dangle his legs over the nothing like teasing a remlit. He goes there, and he finds someone else sitting where he often did; his heart revolts.

He steps heavy and sits as careful as he can next to them. It's Legend, he knows.

"The stars are beautiful," Sky says.

"Just because it's pretty doesn't mean it's real."

"That's true," he hums, "but it also doesn't mean it isn't."

He gets no response. That's alright. He follows Legend's gaze down to the clouds below, down to the abyss they seem to become at night.

It looks soft, he thinks. He scoots back a little.

"You can see a lot more stars than 'm used to," Legend murmurs.

"Mhm... The stars in the cook's era look so different, I can never see the constellations I know."

"...The ones on the island were different."

"The constellations?" Sky asks.

"The stars," Legend answers.

"Oh." How strange...

Presumably, Legend is talking about the island Marin is from. Presumably, that island was dubiously real, if real at all.

Presumably...

"Vet?"

Legend hums questioningly, but does not look away from the dark.

"Look up?"

He obliges, though he does so slowly. "Yeah?"

Sky smiles warmly. "Can you see any constellations you know? The ones from your era are probably very different from mine."

"Mm. Probably not," Legend says, and returns to stare down.

"Why not?"

"'S not real, obviously. Why else?"

Sky's smile fades into a frown; he lifts a hand as if to reach over and touch Legend, but pulls it to his own lap instead. "Try? Please?"

Legend huffs weakly, but looks up all the same. He winces and rubs his neck before reclining back to see with less strain. He hums, soft, as his eyes dart between stars. Sky joins him on the ground, but turns his head to look at Legend rather than the view above.

Eventually, Legend points up and says, "Those three bright stars there, that make up a triangle? They're the Triforce. There's a dimmer, upside-down triangle inside that divides the pieces." He moves his arm. "There's Din. She's sort of hard to see, usually, but I think her stars are a little brighter here. She's a wonky rectangle with a weird curvy trail off the top for her ponytail. Up over there—" he moves his arm again— "is Nayru. She's pretty bright, and easy to locate with the Triforce. She's an hourglass sort of shape with a V coming off one of the top corners. The V is her harp. Down that way is Farore. She's a big triangle with a stick coming straight up off the top and two stars on either side above that. I always thought she looked more like a snail from the front than Farore. To her left is the Four Sword, which is kind of just a line of four stars, and nearby that is the Master Sword, which is also just a line but longer and with a little perpendicular line at the top..."

Dear Marin,

I'm scared.

How are the trees?

Zelda has been given a mission.

Link has told her about how he is worried for his friend, and has explained how this friend is convinced that nothing is real. Zelda knows how real everything is, can reach out with her goddess light and feel how every bit of the world is just as alive as herself.

She has a plan. She hasn't ever done or tried this before, but! There's a first time for everything! It could turn out very badly if it fails but she is optimistic!

So after a night spent with her love and a morning spent with him too, all warm and soft and in the sky like when they were younger, she goes and talks to the boy.

He is sitting under the goddess statue. Or, as close to where it used to be as he can, on the ledge where it broke off from the island, with his legs dangling over the side. It's precarious. It makes her heart twinge with anxiety she'd forgotten she could have about heights, because he doesn't have a loftwing.

It reminds her a little of when, so many years ago, she sat with Link at the edge in the night.

Zelda says, "Hi, Legend." She keeps her voice soft so as not to startle him, and it works with moderate success. She sits cross-legged next to him.

He only grunts halfheartedly in response.

So she tries, "Link asked me to talk to you, you know? He's been worried. Such a sweetheart!"

That gets her nothing.

"He said you were having trouble with reality," she stubbornly continues, "and you haven't been sleeping, and you were sitting on a ledge like this last night."

Legend curls in on himself more than he already has, hunched over with his arms folded together over his stomach. It hurts her to see. It hurts.

And it's quiet.

Zelda frowns. She moves a little closer, and she asks, "Can I touch you?"

"Sure," Legend says, the first real thing she's heard from him so far.

She places a gentle hand on his upper arm. "Is this okay?"

He sighs; it's the closest thing she'll get to a yes, so she moves on.

"Can I– Mm," she hums, and says instead, "Would you like me to show you how real everything is? It might be overwhelming, and it will be through the Goddess's powers, so you'll probably get more magic flow than your soul knows how to deal with. It won't hurt or otherwise harm you, I'll make absolute sure of it. And you can say no. And, um–"

"Sure," Legend says, cutting her rambling short.

"Oh! Uh, oh, wonderful!" Zelda stutters. She did not expect him to agree so readily! She was told he could be argumentative, after all... "Ah– Why don't we move away from the edge? For safety's sake, you know. And so I can channel it better."

Legend nods and stands; Zelda follows, and the two of them move just a few meters back. Zelda motions for Legend to sit once more, then kneels in front of him.

"Can I touch your face? Or hands, I don't think it really matters."

He frowns. "You don't think...?"

Zelda shrugs with a little grin. "I'm kind of winging it."

He huffs a little laugh. Score! "Sure. Whatever's easiest."

"Alright," Zelda says with a nod, shuffling to adjust her position.

She takes a deep breath, reaches forward and cups her hands around his jaws where they meet his neck, inhales, closes her eyes, exhales, and summons every feeling she can feel and pours it all into his senses.

"Every feeling she can feel" is, of course, a lot. A whole lot. It is every emotion from nearby, every particle of dust and bit of soil and blade of grass and every ray of light, and it is every star in the sky and every person on the island; it is every passing thought in all of time, every strand which represents a person in that flow, it is the fabric of the universe made up of those strands, it is every note on every instrument and all the strings used to make those notes; it is every little thought of her own most of all, every sensation she feels, all the love in her heart and the way the wind plays at her hair and the way her knees ache from kneeling like this and the tears she can feel falling along the side of the heels of her palms.

Tears? There should not be tears... She mends time as much as she can, picking loose threads off from where they've fallen and sewing them back in place. She wishes she could mend minds... Oh, these are tears from crying. Who is crying...?

Ah.

Ah. Shoot.

Zelda pulls back gradually, slow enough to not shock him, and as soon as she has her eyes fly open and she asks all in a hurry, "Oh Goddess are you okay? I'm so sorry!"

Legend responds by collapsing onto her.

Link wakes up in a haze.

He hears voices; he groans and mumbles a vague "Fuck off" and hopes it's not important. The voices get louder.

"Gulley," he says, only half incoherent, "I swear t'th'golden-fuuck'ng-goddesses..."

Someone says something, someone else says something else. ...Why are there multiple people? Why are they in his house?

"Get outta my fuck'n house," he orders. The people to whom the voices belong do not leave, and instead continue talking.

Link sighs and decides to deal with it later. They can steal what they want. Their fault if they get cursed to the Dark World and back.

Mm... He'd been having the strangest dream. Something about other heroes from different eras... The Hero of the Four Sword was there, wasn't he? And he was short. Link snorts. And... Marin was there too. Funny how dreams can be.

...

Hold on. Hold on, no, that's not right. It, it–

Legend startles with a jerk and a gasp and nearly falls off the bed, only just catching himself before banging his head against the nightstand and tumbling to the floor. The sounds of his movement alert the mystery people; soon there is a face in his vision, and...

And that's Sky. Sky, who spoke to him last night and asked about constellations, who showed him (somewhat indirectly, but certainly on purpose, because that is just how Sky is) that the stars are the same here as they always were in reality, and. He's here. And this is most certainly real, he himself is most certainly real, (Marin is most certainly real, he hopes,) and he knows this because earlier today or yesterday or whenever it was he was shown through holy magic how solid and thorough the world is in ways a dream could never replicate.

The memory of that experience nearly causes him to pass out again. It does, he realizes after a moment, cause him to cry; tears slip down the sides of his face the way gravity pulls them. They soak into his skin and he feels it, and he feels the blanket that's been placed over him and the loftwing feather bed that he's laying on, and he feels...

Well. He feels overwhelmed. His chest feels a little tight and it's sort of difficult to breathe and his vision is fuzzy—through his tears and disorientation, though, he does see Sky moving away and talking, and on that note—nothing is properly audible, still, so he's pretty sure he's about to have a panic attack. Or is.

Which is. Entirely justified. He very nearly killed himself over something that was just wrong, and Marin really is real and she probably hates how distant he's been getting in his letters, and Marin is real and he has so many feelings about that that he couldn't pick out a single one and fuck. Fuck, it's– it's so much. And, and the everything, there was. So much.

It hurts. It hurts, his head hurts and his mind hurts and his soul hurts and his heart hurts.

He is so hopelessly lost... And all he can do about it is let a weak little whimper of a sob slip its way out of his throat.

One of the voices says something louder than before, and then Sun is there, and she has her hands on his face. So gently, she holds his cheeks, with so much care and concern, and he has to lift a hand to rest it over one of hers. And his face does something like a smile tangled in too many emotions; she lets him know, not by words but by some other method of communication that simply makes him aware, that he will be okay. He might feel like he is falling, but there is a soft landing waiting for him at the bottom, and it will feel like a hug and it will feel solid, and he will be able to dig his feet into the bed of the river and climb out and move as he wishes, and he will be able to die at 64 on a less-traveled road in Calatia.

Dear Marin,

I love you. I'm sorry. I'll tell you everything when I see you again; I don't think I could explain it in a letter.

I'm so sorry for worrying you. I'm so sorry for almost coming back to you dead, and for almost never coming back to you at all.

You told me I just have to trust, and I'm sorry I didn't.

I love you. I love you. Tell me all about the trees? I hope to see them as soon as I can. I hope to show you my trees. I love you.

- Link

♡

Dear Link,

Great Wind Fish, Link.

We've successfully created a portal through time from this era to our home era. If all goes well, we'll next see each other at your home. I honestly can't express how overjoyed and excited I am through writing. I cannot wait to see you again. I have been waiting so long.

I love you, I love you so much and so dearly. Please trust, and please, please, try not to worry me any more. Be well. I love you.

And yes, the apple trees are doing well. They are trees. They are sturdy and tough and stubborn, like you.

Love,

Marin

♡

"How are the stars?" Legend asks.

"They're beautiful," Sky says. "And awfully persistent."

Thank Hylia you're okay again, he does not say. He takes Legend into a one-armed hug instead and smiles, and Legend smiles back, still tired.

Another portal shows up after far too long, and Legend crosses his fingers and prays as they go through. He prays to every deity he knows in every way he can while walking through a time portal, and–

He steps out into a forest. In the distance he can faintly hear singing, and when he breathes in it smells like nostalgia. This is no forest, he knows, and he whirls to a seemingly random direction that he knows like the back of his hand and sprints.

The ground under his feet feels solid, the wind in his face and his hair feels freeing, and he skids to a stop at the clearing by where the trees start thinning for the backyard and nothing has ever felt more true than this moment.

There is Marin, singing the song she's been writing in his absence, sitting in the center on the rock he used to climb all over as a child, real as the rock itself.

Link cannot help but swear. She is beautiful. The song is beautiful. The scene is beautiful. She is beautiful.

Marin blinks her eyes open and her voice falters. She looks around for just a moment before her eyes fall on him, and she gasps; in a blur, she is standing and beaming and rushing toward him, and he does the same. She lifts him a little and spins him, strong enough from lugging around that bell all the time as a weapon now to do so. He thinks he's crying a little, and he couldn't care less if anyone is watching and sees it, because fuck, she's real and he knows it.

She's laughing. She cries, "Link!"

He pulls his arms from around her and holds her face in both hands and kisses his nose and says, "Marin," through tears. He presses into her as if more contact means it's more real. "Gods. You're real."

"Of course I am," she giggles, "of course I am."

As if it's obvious. As if it's obvious, because it is, because there's nothing else she could be, if all her freckles and the stars and the secrets and the magic and the world itself are all real. She might as well be all of those, and all of those might as well be her, whatever that may mean.

"Fuck," he murmurs.

"You just got here, be patient," she teases.

He doesn't even bother biting back, just buries his face in the side of hers and says against her cheek, "I missed you."

"I missed you too."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

From somewhere nearby, there's a very clear "grooooss!!" from the sailor.