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They didn't know the signs. They'd passed right by the camp by the cave, suspicious of the pale, black-haired thugs, but this technically was their land, so they'd just… passed on by.
Without a second thought.
Sky felt like he might be sick again. He should have had Fi out dowsing the whole time, but he hadn't wanted to scare anyone. What a joke. Guilt and dread played a dangerous game in his stomach, using his small lunch as the pieces.
It would be his fault if anything happened to Hyrule.
He ran with the others, near the back of the pack, and that just fed the guilt. Bile rose in his throat. The sun beat down on them all, reflecting off of the stone cliffs and the pale, dusty road. The temperature combined with the pace was punishing. But Sky didn't dare stop, even if he stayed well behind everyone else.
We have to keep a low profile, Hyrule had explained two days ago when they'd all realized where they were. And when. None of you look very Holodrumian, but you don't look Labrynish, either. Maybe half. We need to avoid people.
In Hyrule’s world, the neighboring kingdom of Holodrum had taken over and enslaved the Labrynish people. That was horrifying enough, as Sky had learned, but the fact that Hyrule had been born into it made the situation worse, boiling white-hot. Sky now knew that Hyrule had escaped as a youth, and then gone on to be the Kingdom of Hyrule’s savior, but the fact remained that many of the wealthiest Holodrumian people would be very interested in Hyrule’s recapture.
Sky felt the muscles in his legs begin to give out, so he pulled out one of the elixirs that Wild made for him and did his best to down it while still moving. The others pulled ahead even farther. Sky couldn't even see Legend and Four anymore, since they'd activated their boots and flew off. Sky wished he had something like that. It would have been nice.
Of course they'd all been dreadfully afraid when Hyrule had gone missing yesterday, though they'd taken steps to avoid people. Nobody was sure how to go about looking for him, though at least Legend could determine their location with the stars and the geography. He kept them hugging the mountains.
Closer to the Hylian border, the group had stumbled across a village full of the Labrynish. They'd been kind, if wary, and while Legend visited the fortune teller’s tent to see if he could get a lead, Sky talked with a new mother. He gave her baby one of the small figurines he carved while walking for something to do with his hands, that one in the shape of a loftwing and oiled to a sheen.
As Hyrule said, in this era, loftwings were symbols of freedom.
Sky wished he had a loftwing right about now. He'd love his own, but he'd take anything over running in this heat. He didn't think he could keep it up for much longer, but then he followed the group around a corner, and the forest loomed up ahead of them.
Sweat stung Sky’s eyes and dampened his hair, and he shuddered to think about the state of his undershirt right now. His breath came sharply, digging into the top of his mouth and freezing his throat. He bent to set his hands on his knees and tried to recover. Coughs interrupted his breaths.
They’d caught up to Legend and Four, who couldn't run through the forest quite as recklessly. Everyone paused by the forest line.
They have him, Legend had said, ripping out of the tent and startling a few children playing in the grass. They definitely have him, and they're taking him farther. Legend had looked more distressed than Sky had possibly ever seen him. They're hurting him.
“Do we need a break?” Warriors asked quietly, directing the question at everyone but looking at Sky.
“No,” Sky bit out.
“Sky—”
“No,” he repeated, more forcefully. “Leave me behind if you have to, but we have to get to Hyrule before they reach the cities, like Legend says.”
The others exchanged glances.
“We can't move too fast through the forest.” Legend's voice lowered, and his eyes darkened as he looked out. “They're in here somewhere. Close. I can feel it.”
Sky swallowed and pulled out his canteen to drink some water. When he wiped his mouth off, he answered. “Fi can help.”
“We'll need it,” Time said. His chest also heaved for breath, but nobody was worse off than Sky. Even Wind just stood there, breathing hard.
Sky tucked away his canteen, unsheathed Fi, and continued on, this time at the front.
Where are they? Time had asked.
Headed into a forest. East, I think.
A relatively short journey, one of the elders had said. He'd believed them when they said that they started with these people’s Hero, and were worried about losing him in Holodrumian territory. If you hurry, you can make it before they make it to any auction houses.
The first time Sky heard about slavery in the most abstract way, right from Hyrule's mouth, he'd vomited. He'd avoided doing so a second time, through some of Hyrule’s anecdotes as he grew more comfortable sharing, and through the journey this week, but sometimes… it was a near thing.
Auction houses. Sky grimaced, watching Fi’s light fall on fern leaves in the quiet forest. Despite the afternoon sun, the forest here was dim, dappled sunlight casting on brown earth and spreading green. Birds chirped in the distance, almost comforting. Sky’s palms grew slick, and he was grateful once again for his gloves that kept his grip on Fi secure. His boots sank footprints into the soft soil.
When Fi pulled left, Sky turned that way, focusing on Hyrule. Step by step, the sword guided him onward.
A soft cry pierced through the calm atmosphere, making several birds fly off in alarm. The Heroes around Sky pulled out more swords and made uncomfortable sounds.
“How close?” Warriors asked, voice harsh in the dim light.
“Close.” Sky followed another prompting from Fi to adjust to the right again, her blade behaving like the needle in a compass, pointing to Hyrule.
When they got close enough to see silhouettes through the trees and hear the rumble of voices, Sky paused and looked back at the other pale faces.
Legend pushed his way forward. He held a glistening white rod in one hand and his sword in the other, a heavy scowl on his face. “There can't be more than four or five. Let's rush in.”
That wasn't their usual plan. Tactics had become more and more important over the months, considering stronger monsters and bigger groups. Sky had been toying with a few information-gathering plans in his own head, but now that Legend proposed something more direct, Sky didn't want to do anything else.
“Surround them first, at least,” Warriors said. He gestured to a few of them. “Time, Wild, Sky, you go around to the other side. Wild, make that weird bird sound when you're in position.”
It took a few short minutes to do as Warriors said, minutes in which they could all hear Hyrule’s quiet grunts of pain, following fleshy smacks. Sky’s heart ached. It sounded like the slave hunters knew exactly who they had, and wanted to take some personal revenge. To that end, they seemed to be beating him, though Sky couldn't tell exactly how.
More than just guilt bubbled in Sky’s gut now. These people thought they could just do this sort of thing—to Hyrule, yes, but to any actual person out there. People were… people. Deserving of love and compassion and kindness. How come Holodrumians like this couldn't see it? Or did they simply not want to? Sky felt his expression darken as he thought about it.
He hid close enough to the forested campsite now to make out words. Well, right then, it was laughing. Several ugly laughs slid along the ground like serpents, the kind of laugh you only heard at someone’s expense.
“—colorful tattoos and new clothes won't change what you are,” someone said. “You can't hide it.”
“Why would I want to—oof—”
Sky’s mouth twisted. At least Hyrule was aware enough to speak, and relatively calm. It could be much, much worse, he knew.
A different voice spoke up, scalier than the first. “If you cry, maybe we'll go easier on you.”
“Good luck,” came Hyrule’s almost laughing response, just before another breathy grunt.
Moron, Sky thought with fondness. If pressed, he would have guessed that someone from Hyrule's background would be hesitant when it came to challenging authority, or at least unresponsive to jibes like that. Sky was positive Hyrule knew what taunting these people would do.
But Hyrule never was one to roll over.
Wild waited from his nearby perch in a tree for everyone to get into place, then raised his hands to his lips and blew out a perfect bird's warble. It didn't sound like a native bird, but Sky guessed that none of the hunters would know that.
He glanced at Legend crouched in the underbrush nearby, exchanged a nod, and sheathed his sword. No need to sully Fi with blood like that today. There were enough Heroes to deal with these slavers.
An answering whistle echoed off the tree trunks, Warriors's own signal. At that, the Heroes descended upon the clearing as one.
Sky burst from the leaves and took half a second to evaluate the scene. Two people stood over a small fire, coaxing it into a cooking height, and two hovered over Hyrule. They'd removed his tunic and shirts and shoes, leaving him bare-backed and kneeling in the dirt. Roughened rope tied his ankles together, and more of it fastened around each of his wrists, extending out either side to wrap around the bases of trees. The position left Hyrule's arms stretched out and tense, and unable to shield the rest of himself from the vindictive boots of the slavers.
His skin bore quite a few bruises already. Patches were rubbed red from the ropes and whatever else they'd done. At least nothing appeared broken.
The Heroes distracted and engaged the slavers, taking them down quickly. Sky ignored the fight and the flashes of freezing light from Legend’s ice rod. He paid enough attention to make sure that the two standing near Hyrule were distracted, but otherwise dropped to his knees.
Hyrule’s head popped up. Spots of blood leaked from his bottom lip where it had split across his teeth, and the skin around his eye had begun to swell. But he smiled, sharpness in the corners.
“I almost wanted to see which city they'd take me to,” he said, “but this is good, too.”
Sky pulled out the first sharp thing he could reach—one of his nicer carving knives that he never let anyone use for anything other than wood—and sheared through the ropes holding Hyrule down, one after the other. “They were hurting you.”
“Not that badly,” Hyrule answered, pulling his arms in to rub at his no-doubt sore shoulders.
Legend crouched nearby, rod and sword dangling from his hands. “Any amount of beating you is bad, Hyrule.”
Hyrule just shrugged, then winced. He allowed Sky to cut the rope around his ankles, then fell onto his back to stretch out his legs. His knees popped, and so did his hips. He grunted.
“Rulie,” called Twilight, attracting their attention.
Sky couldn't help but feel satisfied at the sight of all four slavers on the ground, hands up in surrender, at least five swords pointing ready at them. Some of them dropped with melted ice.
Hyrule sat up, still moving his body in a stretching sort of way.
“What do we do with them?” Twilight asked.
Do we kill them, or capture them? he meant, with a lot of unspoken subtext. We don't kill if we can help it. These people are actually awful, but do they deserve death? If we capture them, where do we take them? This land condones their actions and the Kingdom of Hyrule has no claim on them.
Hyrule shifted, and Sky tucked his knife away to help him stand, though Hyrule didn't need the help. “You might not like it, and I don't either, believe me, but what they've done is legal.”
“That doesn't mean it's right!” Wind burst, alarmingly distressed. “None of it is!”
“Well, are you going to kill them?” Hyrule asked, which was very unfair to ask.
Wind backed down, but he couldn't hide his anger at the injustice of it all.
Neither could Wild. “Maybe,” he said with an edge to his voice. Sky… had to agree. “Maybe we should. They're evil for what they've done.”
Hyrule eyed the slavers, who made ugly faces right back at him, though the blades at their heads kept them quiet. “By that logic, you'd have to kill half the population of this country. And that wouldn't help anything.”
“But if this keeps happening, not just to us, to you, but—” Sky surprised himself with his own outburst, his heart demanding to be spoken for. “Hyrule, where does it end?”
“I don't know.” Hyrule walked over to one of the slaver’s packs set against a tree and rifled in it just enough to pull out the rest of his clothes and his things.
“That's it?” Wild asked. “You just want us to let them go?”
One of the slavers snarled out. “What else did you expect of a Calatian? A spine?”
“I suggest you stay quiet,” Warriors muttered, moving his sword to touch the slaver’s cheek. “You don't have any idea how easy it would be for me to maim you.”
The slaver went silent.
Sky dug the last of his stamina fruit from his bag, beginning to go soft from their stop in his world last week, and found the right knife this time to split it into pieces. Once Hyrule had redressed, Sky handed one of the halves to him to help him stand a little taller.
Hyrule took it with a smile, then used his sleeve to wipe away the drop of blood that fell from his split lip. He bit off a piece of the fruit and didn't look at the slavers again. “Let's go back to the border fortress.”
“Just like that,” Legend sighed. He stood too, then twirled his ice rod, sending a jumble of chimes through the air. “Stand back, guys.”
Warriors grabbed Wind’s arm, realizing Legend’s aim first, and Twilight, Four, and Time stepped back as one. The slavers started to stand too, but—
Shing!
An ice block formed, encasing the slavers up to their waists, preventing them from standing or attempting to follow them. One of them who'd been reaching for his belt had his hand stuck, too.
“There.” Legend propped his rod up on his shoulder. “You'll be fine in a day or so. You might not even get frostbite.”
Sky glanced at Hyrule, wondering if this was too far, but Hyrule just shrugged back and continued munching on the fruit. He looked a little less pale already.
“Hold on, you can't leave us here!” one of the slavers protested as the group sheathed their weapons and began to go back the way they came.
Wild kicked their packs over within reaching distance and didn’t answer.
Sky blocked out whatever other insults the slavers spit at their backs in favor of watching Hyrule. He seemed fine. Unbothered. He even smiled at a joke Warriors attempted to crack. The nonchalant way he handled it would be disturbing on anyone else, but Sky had learned that this was just how Hyrule handled traumas like this. He'd wait.
Later that night, safe and secure in a village full of families and friends, Hyrule sought out Sky for a bit of silent, private comfort in the form of an enfolding hug. Sky happily provided it, breathing in the smell of Wild’s lavender bruise salve and Warriors’s nice orange hair soap.