Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The river below roared as nine swordsmen lingered outside a cliff-side cave, shifting uneasily. Despite the bright afternoon, the mouth of the cave loomed dark and foreboding, as if the sun itself had turned away from the riverside bluff. Even the birds seemed to have abandoned the nearby grove of trees, leaving only the thunder of rushing water and the group’s faint murmurs and shuffling to break the silence.

Hyrule stood near the back of the group, watching the dark mist curling from the cave’s entrance with trepidation. Something deep in his core had tightened the closer they came to their destination, twisting into a knot as the cave came into view. The thought of the task ahead of them turned his stomach more than the smell of rot emanating from the cave.

“Is this it?” the eldest of their group, Time, asked.

“Yup.” Legend stood with a hand on his hip, looking at the cave with a grim expression. “It’s a shame. She helped a lot during my first adventure.”

Hyrule’s eyes flicked toward him. “You knew her?”

Legend nodded towards the mountain range beyond the cave. “My first dungeon is up there. This fountain’s fairies are half the reason I survived. It kind of feels wrong to repay her with...well, this.” He gestured toward the fountain’s entrance.

Pulling his scarf over his mouth, Warriors stepped closer to the cave. “Anything we should know about the terrain in there, Vet?”

Legend shrugged. “It’s pretty standard as far as underground fountains go—or it was. A couple statues and the pond. I don’t know what else to expect in there since.... In any case, it may be tight. These things aren’t roomy.”

“Should we split up?” Sky asked, eyeing the darkness apprehensively. He had never been one for caves.

Hyrule, on the other hand, would have been ecstatic to go spelunking in his predecessor’s time period, if not for the solemn nature of their task.

Killing a Great Fairy.

She’s already gone, Hyrule told himself, a lump lodged in his throat.

They had arrived in Legend’s Hyrule a few days prior and, as was their usual mode of operation, immediately sought problems to solve and monsters to slay (after a brief stop at Legend’s home, of course). A rumor from traveling merchants had brought them here. Farmers from the eastern plains and travelers from the distant oceanfront both stopped by this fairy fountain to leave offerings, but recent visitors were attacked by invisible monsters upon approaching the fountain. The rare few who could use magic found themselves utterly drained by the time they escaped.

What was once a place of blessings had become a curse, so the nine time-traveling heroes from across the ages were called upon to end it.

Link, Hero of Hyrule, tried to think of it like he often thought of his first adventure. The land was already desolate by the time he arrived, abandoned and overrun by Ganon’s monsters. There was nothing left of Old Hyrule to save. His job was to remove the poison so the land could finally heal.

Such was their job now: removing the corrupted Great Fairy so a new Mother could take her place. It wasn’t a natural way for a Great Fairy—or any fairy—to die. Their task didn’t sit right with him, but it had to be done.

“Rulie?”

“Hm?” Hyrule blinked, pulled from his thoughts by the sound of his nickname.

Legend stood in front of him, a cloth tied over his mouth and nose, scrutinizing Hyrule with a raised eyebrow. “Are you good? We’re about to head in.”

Hyrule glanced past him and realized the others had already moved closer to the cave, all wearing similar face coverings.

“What? Oh. Yes.”

Legend folded his arms and leaned closer, lowering his voice. “You’re sure? You look kind of pale.”

Hyrule squared his shoulders. “I’m—I’ll be fine. Let’s go.” He drew his sword and pushed past Legend.

“Hold on, Traveler,” Warriors said, stepping into his path. “Do you have something to cover your nose and mouth? You probably shouldn’t breathe this mist—whatever it is.”

Hyrule froze and twisted to dig through his bag. His medicine kit had plenty of bandages, but none large enough to cover his face. “Um...”

“Here,” Legend said, holding out a length of green fabric.

Hyrule took it gratefully and wrapped it around his face. “Thank you.” As he adjusted the makeshift mask, he glanced at the others. “What’s the plan? Sorry, I was...thinking.”

“There isn’t much of one,” Four muttered from where he lingered by the cave entrance, his eyes a darker shade of violet than Legend’s. “We’ve never encountered a corrupted Great Fairy. Based on the travelers’ reports, there’s likely a number of anti-fairies in there, as well. Don’t expend too much magic.”

Hyrule grimaced. He was a good swordsman—albeit far from the best in the Chain—but magic was his true forte. And if anyone got hurt, it was his role to heal what he could before they fell back to potions, Warriors’ field medicine, and their general inclination to “walk it off”.

He really didn’t like anti-fairies. Unfortunately, they found his magic particularly tasty.

Legend waved his bag in the air, which Hyrule now recognized as containing his magic powder. “I’ll handle the anti-fairies. You all focus on the Great Fairy.”

Hyrule nodded, the lump in his throat only growing. He forced himself to focus on their task, watching the others’ backs as they entered the cave’s mouth. The mist coiled around their feet like snakes as they left the sunlight’s warmth behind.

Time and Twilight led the team, shields raised and swords drawn. Legend followed close behind, a hand tucked in his bag of magic powder, with Sky and Warriors flanking him. Hyrule, Wind, and Four stayed at the back, guarding Wild with his bow.

The smell of rot thickened, even through the filter of their masks. Hyrule’s stomach turned with every breath, and the knot in his core twisted tighter. He caught himself glancing at the ceiling, expecting to see glowing skulls bouncing towards them. The ceiling was dark, but there was a faint red glow ahead.

“Remember, everyone, this is my era,” Legend said. “My anti-fairies are invulnerable to everything but magic. Just dodge and focus on taking down Datura.”

“If you think about it, we’re sort of rescuing the little fairies, right?” Wind asked. “Since your powder can turn ‘em back to normal.”

Hyrule chuckled weakly. There was that, at least. “Yeah, you’re right.”

The mist took on a red cast as they rounded a corner, swirling around their legs up to their waists. Hyrule caught movement out of the corner of his eye, but it was gone in a flash, leaving spirals of fog in its wake.

“I don’t like this one bit,” Twilight growled, his ears pinned against his head. “I feel ‘em watchin’ us, but I ain’t seen a damn thing.”

“Easy, pup. They’ll show themselves. They always do,” Time said.

They emerged into a wide chamber, the thick miasma reflecting the red glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Two statues stood on either side of the crumbled stone walkway, their forms melted into unrecognizable shapes.

Beyond them lay the fountain, and the sight ripped the breath from Hyrule’s lungs.

The fountain’s once-pristine waters were black and viscous, bubbling like a witch’s brew. Ink-dark stains stretched from the pool, tracing jagged cracks on the cave floor.

Standing waist-deep in the tainted water was the Great Fairy Datura—or what remained of her.

Gray, oil-slick skin stretched over a huge, corpse-bloated figure. Ragged, stringy hair fell over her face in an uneven curtain, barely concealing her glowing red eyes. Her long, boneless arms reached limply toward the group as if pleading for help, her mouth open in a silent wail.

For a moment, no one spoke or moved. The only sounds were the Great Fairy’s rasping breaths and the distant, rhythmic drip of water.

“By the Three,” Sky whispered.

Hyrule’s grip tightened on his sword as Datura’s eyes snapped toward them. A chorus of piercing shrieks echoed throughout the chamber and dozens of tiny skulls appeared all over the ceiling, dropping towards the heroes like wasps protecting their hive.

“Overhead!” Warriors yelled, raising his shield. A skull pinged against the cold metal, followed by a dozen more, sounding like hail on a tin roof.

As one, the Chain braced their shields against the anti-fairies and rushed towards the fountain. Datura lurched back and slammed down an arm as thick as a tree trunk, forcing the group to split in two to dodge the impact.

Hyrule dove to the right, rolling back to his feet just in time to see chaos unfold.

“Shields up!” Time barked, raising his shield as the Great Fairy’s arms slammed down again, sending thick sludge splashing across the floor. Twilight joined him, bracing against the impact as they forced her arm back.

Warriors rushed in, sword carving into the rotting flesh of Datura’s wrist. “Go for the arms!”

Beside him, Sky lunged forward, the Master Sword biting deep into her other arm. Datura screeched and lashed out wildly.

“Legend!” Wild called from behind, unable to draw his bow with anti-fairies swarming around him.

“I’m working on it!” Legend shouted back, scattering magic powder in a wide arc. The powder crackled like fireworks against the anti-fairies. Their red glow shifted to pink, skulls turning into translucent wings, only to shift back an instant later.

“It’s not sticking!” Four growled, smashing an anti-fairy with his hammer and sending it careening into a wall.

“The fuck is changing them back?!” Legend shrieked.

“You better find out!” Time yelled.

Hyrule yanked an anti-fairy off Legend’s back and signaled for Wind and Four to come closer. “We’ll cover you!”

Wind scrambled to his side, sliding under a cluster of anti-fairies and pulling his oversized hammer from his bag with a wicked grin.

“Sailor, there is not room for that!” Warriors called over his shoulder.

“Four’s using his hammer!”

“Four’s hammer is half the—whoa!” Warriors suddenly slipped to the ground as Datura swept his legs out from under him. “Shit!”

Time and Twilight shifted to cover their downed brother, leaving Sky to continue his assault against the fairy, his sword striking like lightning.

Hyrule grit his teeth, pushing magic into his shield as another anti-fairy lunged towards Legend. Behind him, the veteran muttered curses under his breath as he worked through the problem and Wild fired arrow after arrow at the Great Fairy. Wind and Four’s hammers batted anti-fairies away from the group until Four hissed, a tiny skull biting into his neck.

“Four, watch—wait, give me that!” Legend sprinkled powder onto the anti-fairy. It screeched and released its grip as it began to transform, and Legend thrust the half-shifted fairy into Hyrule’s hands. “Hold on to her.”

The fairy’s dim pink glow was already blooming red by the time Hyrule had her safely cradled in his hands. Through her faint glow, Hyrule could see her exhausted, terrified expression before her light crystalized into a skull once more. Before the reformed anti-fairy could escape, Hyrule pinched into its cheekbones with his thumbs and the creature bit down on the fleshy bits of his palms. He sucked a breath between his teeth as magic flowed down his arms, through his blood, into the anti-fairy.

“Good, good, hold her steady....” Legend drew close to watch as he sprinkled more powder over the captured anti-fairy. As before, the skull melted, revealing the fairy within. She immediately covered her mouth, straining to...

To hold her breath.

“It’s the miasma,” Legend and Hyrule gasped at the same time, followed by Legend cursing. “What are we supposed to do about—?”

“Oh, hells! Watch your feet!”

The warning came too late as a wave of black ichor swept over the entire cavern floor, thick and warm. Hyrule gagged as the rotten smell increased tenfold and he took a step back, slipping on the muck and dropping the fairy. She fell with a distressed squeak, transforming again before she could hit the sludge.

“Switch to ranged!” Warriors yelled. Behind him, the Great Fairy heaved over the side of the pool, the last of the sludge dripping from her mouth.

“Oh, that’s fucking foul!” Wind’s face screwed up in pain as muck splashed onto his bare calves. “Ow, briny ball sacks, that stings!”

“Twilight, get Wind out of here!” Time barked.

“On it!” Twilight’s clawshot fired and he scooped a protesting Wind out of the melee in a blur of blue and green.

Datura swiped at the heroes, narrowly missing Time as he covered his protégé's escape. Warriors and Sky, knee-deep in the muck, hacked at her limbs until the Master Sword cleaved through her left arm entirely. The Great Fairy’s bloated form listed to the side as three arrows embedded themselves in her neck and shoulder.

“That’s it!” Warriors yelled. “Keep it up, Wild!”

A fresh wave of anti-fairies burst from the dark corners of the room, diving straight for Wild and Legend. Hyrule moved instinctively, swiping three away with his shield while another two latched onto his tunic, kept from his flesh by his leather armor.

In the chaos, he didn’t see the sixth anti-fairy until it was too late. It swooped in, tearing through the cloth covering his nose and mouth.

Hyrule’s breath caught as the miasma’s full, rancid force hit him. The air set his lungs on fire and his knees buckled, his bare hands hitting the sludge.

“Hyrule!” Four shouted, rushing to his side and slamming his hammer into the anti-fairy hovering above him.

“Everyone, out!” Time’s voice cut through the Great Fairy’s dying wails. “She’s down! Regroup outside!”

Hyrule’s vision swam as he felt himself being hoisted onto Time’s shoulders. His stomach lurched as plate armor dug into his torso. Burning sludge dripped off his hands, sapping the magic out of him like ice water steals warmth.

They burst out of the cave, skidding to a stop before the river overlook where Twilight and Wind were waiting. Time gently deposited Hyrule on the ground, and Hyrule squeezed his eyes shut against the bright sunlight. He almost covered his eyes before remembering the foul muck all over his hands and bracers.

“Legend, is the river accessible from here?” Time asked urgently.

“Yeah, there are steps down—”

A beep and a series of taps interrupted him—Wild’s slate. “Hold on, I’ve got splash fruit.”

“What are—oh, that’s.... Yeah, that’ll work. Hyrule, let me see your hands.”

Hyrule sat up, grimacing as he braced his burning palms on the grass. He held them out and winced as Legend squeezed blue gourd-like fruits over them. A surprising amount of water spilled out, rinsing the sludge from his skin. Hyrule flinched as the muck slid away, exposing reddened flesh beneath.

“Do you need a potion, or can you heal?” Legend asked, already reaching into his supply bag.

Hyrule stared at his raw, trembling hands, uncertain. Heal them? How? His thoughts slid away like oil over water, refusing to stick. Each breath rattled like burrs in his lungs and the putrid stench lingered in his nose and on his tongue.

He should heal himself. He had to. But....

 “Wait, Wind—” He squinted at the younger swordsman, whose legs were being doused with water by Twilight and Wild. The sailor’s calves were just as blistered and raw as Hyrule’s hands. That should come first.

 Legend pushed Hyrule back down as he tried to stand. “Hold on, Rulie. You breathed in a lot of miasma. Are you okay?”

Oh. Right. The cool river breeze stung Hyrule’s hands, the pinpricks of pain clearing his mind. Blood beaded in his palm where an anti-fairy had bitten him. In his own world, he would have healed the wound on the spot, and he habitually rooted around for a thread of magic and found only scraps.

“Not enough magic,” he said, his voice rough. “The sludge....”

“Yeah, the shit absorbs magic,” Legend muttered, pulling out a blue potion and uncorking it. “Here.”

Hyrule took the potion gingerly and nursed it down, feeling the burn in his throat ease with each swallow. He sighed in relief as the potion—normally unpleasant—replaced the foul taste in his mouth.

“Better?” Legend asked.

“Yeah.” Hyrule flexed his hands experimentally. They were sore, but he could work with that. His boots and bracers, however, were still covered in sludge. He set aside a bit of the potion in case he contacted the muck while removing his clothes.

The majority of the blue potion settled in his stomach, a pool of artificial magic to burn while his natural magic recovered. Hyrule looked over his brothers for any injuries that hadn’t already been dealt with. Wind had been given a red potion, which he was sipping with a look of unmasked disgust. Warriors was frantically struggling out of his filthy clothes, giving off little curses of pain as his reddened, bare fingers touched sludge.

Hyrule pushed himself to his feet, steadying himself against a wave of nausea, and went to help Warriors, keeping the tainted fabric from touching the captain’s face.

“Thanks, Traveler,” Wars breathed as he escaped his tunic, recoiling as he sucked in the stench. “Ugh. That was thoroughly disgusting.”

“We’re not done yet,” Time said grimly, knocking muck off his boots like he might kick off manure. “Not until we figure out how to restore the fairies and the fountain—or seal it off. Legend?”

Legend yanked off his own filthy boots with a deep scowl. “Really? This better not fuck with the enchantment.... Yeah, I have an idea. Watch.” He pulled out his bag of magic powder and sprinkled some on his boots. The sludge sticking to them turned into clear water, running off harmlessly. “The powder works on the goo, too. The problem is distribution. I only have this much powder, and I can’t cover everything just sprinkling it.”

“And the goo is letting off the miasma,” Four added, gesturing to Warriors’s discarded clothes. The pile gave off faint wisps of dark mist, and the grass beneath was browning.

Warriors, now wearing only his pants and undershirt, frowned at his things. “Right.... Whatever dispersal method we use, we should use it on our clothes as well to avoid spreading the contamination.”

“What if we put the powder in a bomb?” Wild suggested.

“No, Champ, we are not blowing up a fairy fountain.” Time turned back to Legend. “Are you able to get more powder?”

Legend shrugged. “Yeah, the witch who made it lives on the other side of the mountain. I want to stop there after this anyway—we can buy potions from her as well.”

“Is the powder fine enough to spread with wind?” Four asked.

Legend turned to the smith, mouth open in realization. “Oh. Gust Bellows?”

Four grinned. “If you think it will work.”

He did, so the members of the team with Gust Bellows—Legend, Sky, and Four—gathered again at the mouth of the cave with Wind and his magic baton and Time for defense. The group disappeared into the darkness, dragging along a blanket in which they had wrapped all their contaminated clothing.

Hyrule, divested of his soft leather underlayer and boots, sat watching the entrance to the cave with his knees tucked under his chin. He sipped the remainder of the blue potion, having spent most of his magic touching up the minor burns and scratches everyone on the team had. Physically, they were all healed, and their mission would soon be over.

But Hyrule’s stomach still churned.

Whatever had happened to Datura was unnatural—unholy, even. Hyrule had seen hundreds of monsters over the course of his adventures, and he was no stranger to the smell of death and decay.

But nothing before had hit quite so close to home.

He chewed on his lips, the medicinal taste of potion still lingering. Legend’s era was centuries before Hyrule’s, and the geography had changed over the years, but they weren’t far from where another fairy fountain would lie in the future—not in a cave, but tucked deep into the withered forests. The Great Fairy who lived there, Spryte, had been like a mother to him when he first arrived in the desolate country, a ten-year-old with a sword too big for his hands and a mission too heavy for his shoulders. He spent many days basking in the sun-warmed waters of her fountain, healing from wounds or even just finding peace in a world filled with monsters and death.

Fairy fountains were a place of healing and life, not what had become of Datura’s.

What had happened to corrupt her, Hyrule wondered. It would have taken powerful magic—Ganon’s perhaps, although Legend had defeated the demon king thrice over. More likely, it was the Shadow the Chain had been chasing through time. If it could corrupt not only monsters, but creatures of light as well....

Hyrule bit into his lip too hard, the taste of copper on his tongue. He winced and ran a thumb over the nick, habitually stitching the skin with magic before reprimanding himself. His magic reserves were too low—lower than he expected. If any of his brothers got injured now, he would scarcely be able to heal them.

Fortunately, they were unlikely to see more danger for the day. It was late afternoon by the time they arrived at the fountain, and time to find a place to camp. The other heroes would spend the evening discussing their theories over dinner, plan their next move, and leave the fountain behind.

That was part of being a hero—always moving, never staying to actually rebuild what they had saved. Removing the poison from the wound, but leaving others to do the healing.

Hyrule was a healer. What if he wanted to take part in rebuilding for once?

He was chewing on the thought—on his lip again, too—when a quiet voice broke the silence.

“You okay?”

Hyrule flinched, glancing up. Wild stood just out of reach, leaning over to meet his eyes. Hyrule sniffed and wiped his face before showing Wild his healed palms. “All patched up.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Wild said, crouching beside him.

Hyrule swallowed, the words he wanted to say—that he was fine—catching in his throat. Even if he could lie, the truth must have been written all over his face. He pulled his knees closer to his chest and rested his forehead against them.

They sat quietly for a few minutes, listening to the river and the faint shuffling of Warriors and Twilight pacing outside the cave. Had Hyrule not been exposed to the miasma—and he still felt a bit nauseated for it—they all would have gone back in together. He hated making the team split up.

“Do you have Great Fairies? In your time?” Wild asked softly.

“Mhm.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

Wild didn’t say more, but Hyrule could guess at his thoughts as the champion drifted back into silence. If Great Fairies still existed in Hyrule’s time, they and their children hadn’t all died in this era; the corruption wouldn’t spread further. There was some relief in that, at least.

“There are four in my time,” Wild said eventually. “I guess they were around before the.... They’ve been around a long time. I don’t know if they’re this old, but—sorry. I just.... It’s not right. What happened. She deserved better.”

Hyrule’s breath hitched. He nodded, his forehead scraping against rough fabric. Datura deserved more than to be corrupted, left to rot, and killed by the same hero she once saved.

“We should do something,” Hyrule blurted, the words spilling out before he could stop them. “We can’t just leave like this. I know we have to keep moving. The Shadow’s getting away, and there are monsters we need to fight, but...I want to stay, just for a little while. I want to do something for her. For the fountain.”

Wild tilted his head, his hair spilling over one shoulder. “Like what?”

Hyrule chewed on his lips, careful not to draw blood again. “If the magic powder works...maybe a funeral.”

“A funeral? Do fairies have those?”

Hyrule nodded. “They’re long-lived, not immortal. It’s just....” He hesitated, staring into the dark cave. Mist no longer spilled from its depths, but their brothers hadn’t yet emerged. “Normally the Great Fairy would lead the keening.”

Wild rested a hand on Hyrule’s back. “Maybe Time or Legend will have ideas. We can ask when they get back.”

The knot in Hyrule’s chest loosened for the first time all day, and he leaned gratefully into Wild’s touch. Doubt still poked at his heart—insisting that the others wouldn’t waste time on something so selfish, so personal—but the thought of leaving Datura’s memory behind, unacknowledged, was unbearable.

When the others returned, he’d bring it up.

Minutes later, movement stirred within the cave. Their brothers finally stepped back into the light, smiles on their faces and their arms and shoulders absolutely covered in tiny pink lights—the fountain’s fairies, restored.

Chapter Text

“Good news—the fountain’s clean,” Legend announced, the usual edge in his voice softened by relief. Half a dozen fairies clung to his shoulders, their translucent wings drooping with exhaustion. In one hand, he carried the damp red fabric of his outer tunic, and in the other, his Gust Bellows and a very empty cloth bag.

Wind ran ahead, cackling, his entire front coated in a fine layer of glitter—from the magic powder or the fairies clinging desperately to his shirt, Hyrule wasn’t sure. The sailor launched himself at Warriors, smudging glitter across the captain’s armor with a triumphant grin. Four, Time, and Sky followed, similarly dusted with powder but graciously refraining from inflicting it on anyone else—at least for now. Hyrule had a strong suspicion some of it would find its way into everyone’s bedrolls before the night was over.

Hyrule exhaled, his shoulders sagging as tension drained from his body. “All of it? Even the pool?”

“Yup. But it took all of my magic powder.” Legend stuffed the empty pouch and his bellows into the bigger-on-the-inside pack attached to his belt. “I want to visit Syrup and get more before the next portal shows up.”

“Syrup?” Twilight asked, tilting his head.

“The witch,” Legend clarified. “She’s on the other side of the mountain—two days’ walk, depending on how hard we push.”

Warriors approached, brushing powder off his front with little success. “We should report to your queen as well. I doubt this is the full extent of the corruption.”

Legend's brows furrowed in some internal debate. “Yeah.... Yeah. It’d add a day, but we can stop by the castle.” He gently scooped a fairy off his chest, letting them flutter away into the fading evening light.

“If we were to press on, is there a good place to make camp on the way?” Time asked, making no motion to eject the dozen fairies that had settled into the valley between his pauldrons.

Before Legend could answer, Hyrule cut in. “Could we stay here for the night?”

Several heads turned to face him and Hyrule shrank under the sudden attention. The question hung in the air while the others exchanged glances, their expressions ranging from curious to mildly surprised.

“Here?” Warriors repeated, glancing towards the cave’s entrance. A few fairies lingered in the cavern mouth, chiming sadly amongst themselves. “Are you sure? After...all that?”

“The fountain’s clean,” Hyrule said quickly. “And the fairies are back. It’s safe now.”

Legend raised an eyebrow but didn’t immediately object. Instead, he studied Hyrule for a moment, looking for any sign that he was worse off than he was letting on, then shrugged. “It’s not a bad idea. If we keep going, we’ll be in the boulder fields come nightfall. I’m sure Time’s old bones would prefer sleeping on grass.”

Time rolled his eyes at the comment. “We’ll camp here then. But remember, the fairies of this fountain have just lost their Mother. Please be respectful.”

The decision set the group into motion, clearing rocks from the site, unpacking bedrolls, and preparing for dinner. When Hyrule rose to join Sky and Twilight in collecting firewood, Wild pulled him back down, pressing a knife and a cutting board into his hands.

“You’re going to ask them, right? About the funeral?” Wild asked.

Hyrule hesitated, glancing toward the others as they worked. He had just asked for one thing, and he wasn’t sure if he could manage another request while his heart still thumped from the anxiety of the first. “Yeah. After dinner.”

Wild gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. With a few taps on his slate, the cook withdrew his cooking pot and an apple for Hyrule, who took it gratefully. His expended magic had him craving something sweet to replenish it.

A fairy wandered over while Hyrule sliced and snacked on the apple. He cut one of his slices into smaller chunks to share and she settled on his shoulder, nibbling at the fruit while Hyrule processed the parsnips and onions.

By the time Hyrule finished helping Wild prepare ingredients, a dozen other fairies approached. With a soft chuckle, Wild pulled more apples out of his slate for Hyrule to distribute. The fairies perched on Hyrule’s legs and shoulders held low conversations in Sylvan, their glows barely visible—their magic drained by their transformations and their spirits dampened by their loss.

The fairy who claimed Hyrule’s shoulder, with dark hair and a rose-gold glow, was named Iris. While the other fairies discussed how to restore their home amongst themselves, they went to her for the final approval. She must have been the eldest, Hyrule realized—the daughter who would succeed the Great Fairy.

“May I ask a question?” Hyrule asked under his breath, the flowing Sylvan words clumsy on his tongue after speaking only Hyrulean for so long.

She tensed on his shoulder. “You may.... In exchange, I would ask how you know our words.”

“I apologize. I haven’t been listening closely, although I could understand what was said,” Hyrule said, and Iris relaxed; no one could lie in Sylvan. He licked his lips, loosening the seal on a secret he had kept for months. “My mother was a fairy. I learned from her.”

Hyrule winced as Iris chimed loudly in surprise close to his ear. Wild looked over, startled by the sound, and Hyrule waved him down with a reassuring smile.

With Wild no longer absorbed in his cooking and possibly listening in, Hyrule asked his question in Hyrulean: “If you would permit it, I would like to ask my brothers if we may assist with Datura’s last rites. May I?”

Iris tilted her head to the side, her bemused expression only visible for her diminished glow. She looked out at the camp, at the men and boys finishing their evening tasks. It was uncharacteristically quiet, the silence broken only by Warriors stopping by each member of the team to check for injury. On a happier evening, Twilight might have tackled Warriors by now, to get the captain to relax and let everyone else be. Four would mutter to himself while sharpening Wild’s sword and Wind would tell stories. There would be playing and sparring and bickering and laughing and music.

The fairy’s eyes settled on Legend, who was sitting on his bedroll, cleaning powder from his Gust Bellows’ engravings in dour silence.

After a long moment, Iris answered. “Yes. You can join us. Link was a friend to Mother Datura. As are you, Sapling.”

Hyrule smiled gently. “How would you like us to contribute?”

“Do you have more apples?” one of the fairies on Hyrule’s legs chirped.

Iris made an amused sound. “If you would like to offer food, that is customary. And....” She looked down at Hyrule’s hands. “I am too small for some things.... Our Mother....”

“I understand,” Hyrule said when Iris’s voice petered out. “If you tell me what to do, I can help.”

“You and your brothers are very kind, Sapling.”

Motion in the corner of Hyrule’s eye caught his attention. He turned just as Wild came into view, holding out his slate. “Take whatever food you need for the funeral,” he said as Hyrule took the device. “I can’t leave the rice alone or it’ll burn.”

Hyrule blinked at Wild, holding the slate securely with both hands like it was a precious artifact—which it was. Wild rarely let anyone else handle it and the gesture left him momentarily speechless.

“Thank you...” he said, but Wild was already gone, stirring his risotto with the same fervor he used to spar Warriors on happier evenings.

Turning his attention to the slate, Hyrule tapped the screen and scrolled tentatively through Wild’s inventory like he had seen the champion do. It may as well have been a diary of his adventure, full of food and ingredients, gems and ores, but also bits from bokoblins and moblins and hinoxes and far more Lynel horns and hooves than Hyrule expected. There didn’t appear to be any logical order to the items, and Hyrule didn’t dare move things around.

Iris flitted closer, peering over his shoulder with keen interest. “Oh, so much fruit.... I have never seen many of these. What are those?” She pointed to a red fruit with pale-tipped petals.

Hyrule asked Wild about the fruits he couldn’t identify (like the voltfruit) and mentally catalogued what Iris deemed appropriate as offerings. In addition to the raw fruits and honey, Wild offered to cook something sweet and Iris turned her attention to helping him decide on a dessert.

While Iris and Wild spoke, Hyrule idly scrolled through the champion’s inventory, looking for...something. More sweets to offer at the funeral, perhaps? But as he scrolled through the list, his gaze slid off the screen absently. His mind wandered until the sound of approaching footsteps pulled him back and he glanced up just as Legend crouched beside him.

“How are you feeling?” Legend asked.

Hyrule shrugged. “A bit better. Tired, low on magic. Some food and sleep will help. Are you okay?”

Legend searched Hyrule’s face again before finally relaxing and settling on the ground next to Hyrule. “Yeah. I didn’t get exposed to the miasma directly like you did, but that air made us all queasy, even with the masks. I think the rancher’s about to stuff flowers up his nose.”

Hyrule snorted at the mental image, though he did feel bad for Twilight; his sense of smell bordered on superhuman. The cave must have been miserable for him—more miserable than it already was, anyway.

“How are the fairies?” Legend asked softly. He nodded towards the three fairies curled up in the hammock made by Hyrule’s tunic across his legs. The others, besides Iris, had left once Hyrule ran out of apple pieces to share and lingered near the cave’s entrance.

“They’re grieving,” Hyrule murmured. “This came as a shock to all of them. They don’t remember how it happened, just that Datura fell ill and then....”

Legend frowned, his ears tight against his head. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Have you?”

“No. Things like that don’t happen.” Hyrule shook his head like he could dispel the memory of Datura’s final moments—her death cries, the smell, the biting corruption in the air. “Something dark corrupted the fountain.”

Legend tapped his foot against the ground, his lips pressing into a thin line. “It might be related to the black blood somehow.”

“She wasn’t a monster,” Hyrule snapped.

“No,” Legend agreed. “But something’s changing monsters, making them stronger. Maybe it can change other creatures too.” His foot tapped faster in agitation until he caught himself and stifled it with a hand. “Whatever it is, Wars’ll want to talk about it later. But for now, is there anything we can do?”

Hyrule hesitated. He hadn’t worked up the nerve to bring it up to the group yet, but if it was Legend asking.... “They’re performing Datura’s last rites tonight. I was going to ask if we could join them. Iris said we could.”

“Last rites?” Legend tilted his head. “Fairies have those?”

“Not often. Fairies do die, though.” Hyrule glanced at Iris, who was hovering protectively over Wild’s cook pot. Their cook, for his part, was currently swatting Twilight’s hands away from the skewers roasting over the fire. “Sometimes, after a few centuries, they want to put down roots. Return to the earth, you know? But the funeral is supposed to be a celebration of their life, not....” He gestured vaguely towards the cave.

Legend followed his gaze to the mouth of the cave. “Not this,” he muttered, chewing his lip. “What are they going to do without a Great Fairy? Will they be okay?”

Hyrule nodded towards Iris. “Iris is their eldest. She’ll take Datura’s place eventually. She’ll need time to gather magic before she can take over though.”

“Would rupees help?”

Hyrule paused, considering. Rupees were crystallized magic, easily broken down in the waters of a fairy fountain. Legend’s era had plenty, too—Hyrule had been astounded by the wealth in the other Heroes’ eras compared to his own time.

“They would.... But I’m not sure Iris would accept them if it would put her and the fountain in your debt.”

“I’m not Ravio. It wouldn’t be a debt.” Legend scowled at the fountain’s entrance. “I know fairies have a—a thing about even trades, but I don’t like leaving them defenseless like this. There’s a dungeon just up the pass, and monsters could come down any time. Or what if some traveler decides to bottle them all up without a Great Fairy around to stop them?”

Hyrule grimaced at the thought. “That’s fair.... We can ask if Iris would accept before we leave.”

“If she allows it, I can ask Zelda to send rupees as well,” Legend added, shrugging. “Fairy fountains are basically infrastructure. That’s just taxpayer money doing its job.”

Hyrule laughed, drawing sleepy complaints from the fairies in his lap.

A soft chime announced Iris’s return. She settled onto Hyrule’s knee, her rose-gold glow pulsing gently. “I heard you speak of rupees,” she said. “As our Sapling has said, I cannot accept an offering without something to offer in return.” She paused, her smile taking on a conspiratorial glint. “But it would be appropriate to offer rupees during the funeral. It would honor Mother’s passing.”

“Then consider it done,” Legend said, tipping his head to her respectfully. When he looked up again, his gaze lingered on the fountain. His expression had softened, something distant in his eyes. He was silent for a moment, like Wild when the champion was lost in a memory.

Suddenly, Legend exhaled sharply, clapped his hands on his knees, and stood.

“Alright, enough of this,” he said, his voice lightening.

Hyrule blinked. “Enough of—what?”

Legend turned towards Wild. “Hey, Champ, do you have a lot of those water fruit?”

Wild looked up from the fire, his ears perked defensively at the implication of his hoarding habit. “Yes?”

“Can I have one?”

A brow lifted, Wild nodded assent towards Hyrule, who tapped the slate’s screen, materialized a splash fruit, and handed it over.

“They don’t really taste like anything,” Wild warned.

“Nah, I wasn’t going to eat it.” Legend tossed the fruit between his hands, testing the weight. “The juice doesn’t stain, does it?”

“No?”

“Perfect.” Legend wound up for a pitch and launched the fruit directly at Warriors. It exploded across his back, sending a spray of water and pulp splattering across his tunic and Warriors shrieked.

“LEGEND!”

Face alighting in a mischievous grin, Legend clicked his heels, and ran, his pegasus boots against Warriors’s long legs and uncommon speed. They crashed all over the camp, sending up cries of protest and yells as they tripped over equipment and bedrolls.

“Oh, come on, food was almost ready,” Wild groaned, no longer defending the skewers as Twilight rushed into the fray. “Guys—!”

Hyrule watched, aghast, as Four tackled Warriors—surprisingly effective, given the size difference. Twilight took up the pursuit against Legend and the veteran screeched in terror, looking for all the world like a rodent fleeing a wolf.

Something touched Hyrule’s shoulder, and he turned to see Wind looking down at him with a grim expression. “I need twenty of those water fruit,” he said, with all the gravitas of a commander requesting materiel, a hand outstretched.

Iris howled with laughter. Dumbly, Hyrule tapped the slate and handed as many fruits as he could hold to Wind. Wind saluted and rushed off, immediately throwing a fruit at Time’s unarmored head.

“Well, fine, if the risotto burns—” Wild clapped his hands and took his slate from Hyrule before running into the chaos himself. “Last man standing does dishes!”

Hyrule thought that would probably be him stuck on dish duty, as he could only watch in shock as pandemonium descended on their camp. Iris sat on his knee, her shoulders quivering from giggles—at least, he hoped that’s what it was.

“I’m sorry about this,” he said weakly.

“No, no, it is lovely.” Iris sniffed and wiped her eyes. “Datura would prefer this.”

She adjusted her position on Hyrule’s knee so she could properly watch the fight. The other fairies in his lap had awakened and were raucously cheering their chosen Links on. They gasped as a stray fruit hit Sky, who had settled down for a nap.

Iris patted Hyrule’s knee, drawing his attention back. “Link—the one you call Legend—was but a child when he first visited our fountain.” Her eyes tracked Legend as he circled the awakened and angered Chosen Hero. “He had run across the country, alone, chased by knights and monsters. He had no one left—no one he knew he could trust.

“Our Mother.... She pulled him into the fountain as soon as she laid eyes upon him. ‘You have not bathed in weeks, young one,’ she said. That may have been true, but it would not have mattered to us. But she saw a young man in need of care, the way humans do. She gave him food and shelter and what comfort he was willing to accept.”

Moisture gathered in Hyrule’s eyes and his chest pulled tight.

Iris pulled her knees to her chin. “Link returned, years later—older, weary from his travels abroad.... Mother took one look at him and pulled him into the fountain again.” The fairy laughed lightly at the memory. “She found his feigned protests amusing. He made her laugh so.”

Her eyes glistening, Iris looked up at Hyrule. “Mother would prefer laughter in her demesne. Humans mourn in sadness—we know this. For human lifetimes are but fleeting moments. We embrace our return to the earth after a fulfilling life, with nothing left undone.”

Together, they watched as seven of Hyrule’s brothers circled the last like they might surround a boss monster. Wind threw a fruit and Sky parried it with the Master Sword straight into Twilight’s face. Four, in a surprisingly traitorous move, took the opportunity to squish a fruit against the back of Legend’s neck.

“Sapling, would you like to join the keening with us?”

With a start, Hyrule looked down. Iris was watching him intently, ignoring the chaos behind her except to gesture in their direction. “Link can help with carrying the offerings and gathering the seed.”

Hyrule swallowed and shifted in his seat, to the protests of the fairies in his lap. “I’m glad for your offer, but I....” He chewed on his lip as he watched his brothers. “I haven’t told them.”

Iris tilted her head. “Why have you not?”

Because I’m a coward, he thought immediately. He wanted to, sometimes—to share more of himself with his brothers who already shared his soul. With Legend and Wild particularly, the hero he looked up to and the wanderer in whom he had found a kindred spirit.

But it was just another thing that made him different from the others. He couldn’t relate to their experiences of having companions on their adventures, of having a warm home waiting for them, of feeling safe among other people, of access to plentiful food and magic and sweets.

Even by his place of birth, he was an outsider—not just to the villages that ostracized him, but to the country itself. The spirit in Sky’s sword must have seen the irony when she gave the name Hyrule to a foreigner from Calatia.

Hyrule tried to distill those feelings into an answer he was willing to give, that he could put into honest words. “I’m afraid of losing this.”

Iris’s gaze softened. “I see.... That is your secret to keep then. But I think your brothers will be more accepting than you expect. Link has a kind heart, though he may show it strangely at times.”

She turned to watch Legend tackle Sky, followed by Wind and Wild in a tangle of limbs. Time and Four had escaped the melee and were watching from a safe distance. Hyrule thought he saw rupees changing hands between them.

“I understand you were exposed to the miasma as well,” Iris said after a moment, looking back over her shoulder to meet Hyrule’s eyes. “I’m relieved to see you were not affected. Perhaps your Hylian blood protects you.”

Hyrule smiled weakly. He wasn’t going to dwell on the irony of his blood protecting him from anything. “Maybe so. I’m glad you recovered, too.”

Eventually, Wild cut the others off from his rapidly dwindling supply of splash fruit. Even still, most of the Chain was soaked to their skin. Muttering irritably and scratching at his arms, Legend rushed to his things to find a dry cloth. The others, even Sky, grinned and laughed as they hung off each other’s shoulders on their way to get food.

As Wild feared, the risotto had formed a crust of dry rice along the bottom and the meat-and-veggie skewers were dry, but they inhaled the food regardless. Hyrule wished he could stomach more, but nerves and lingering nausea hampered his already small appetite.

But he wasn’t a Hero of Courage for nothing, and as they finished their meal, he finally asked if they could join the fairies in their funeral rites.

An hour later, they carried Wild’s cooking pot into the cave, the sweet smell of pudding driving out the last traces of stagnant air. Dozens of fairies flocked around them or perched on their shoulders as they once again approached the fairy fountain.

Hyrule’s heart was firmly lodged in his throat, where it had been since his brothers had emphatically answered “yes.”

The fountain chamber was no longer slick with black sludge. Instead, clear water covered the walls and floors, flowing towards the pool in thin rivulets. The faint remnants of Legend’s magic powder shimmered across the damp stone, catching the soft glow of the fairies and the pond itself. Though the water of the pond appeared clean, a thin layer of fairy dust floated on its surface—what remained of Datura.

At the center of the pond, Iris hovered just above the surface, her feet barely touching the water and her eyes closed as she sang the opening elegy.

The fairies that accompanied the Chain flew forward, setting down their offerings along the rim of the pool and joining their voices to the song. Each sang their own tune, layering low hums and bell-like chimes beneath Iris’s flowing melody.

Wild stepped forward to deposit the pot of pudding and Hyrule grabbed his arm. “Not yet,” Hyrule whispered. “Family first.”

As the last of the fairies set down their offering of a large acorn, they joined their quiet voice to the dirge. Together in song, the fairies flocked together and flew in circles around the fountain, spilling sparkling dust upon the still waters.

Iris joined at the tail, circling the fountain three times—once for Din, once for Nayru, once for Farore—before breaking from the spiral and diving into the pond with the smallest splash. The fairy dust coating the pond rippled away from the hole she had broken in the middle, creating a glittering ring all around her.

With another splash, Iris emerged, covered in faint glitter and glowing brighter than she had before. She shook the water from her eyes, disoriented by the spiraling dance and the plunge, before searching for Hyrule in the crowd. With a smile, she beckoned for him to approach.

Hyrule took a deep breath and broke away from the Chain, cradling the large leaf he had picked out for the task. He knelt by the edge of the pool, in a gap the fairies had left for him, and dipped the leaf in the water. Slowly and carefully, he scooped the dust off the water’s surface. Iris followed behind his hand, symbolically accomplishing the task she was too small to do herself.

When he had gathered all the dust from the surface, Iris divided the collected dust onto other leaves prepared with small piles of compost. Once complete, she deftly stitched the edges of each leaf together with spider silk, creating tiny, neat packages.

Iris carried the last of the packages to the Chain, stopping in front of Legend and setting the leaf delicately in his hand. “Far Traveler, take this on your journey. Plant her where you see fit, so she may bring life to the land again.”

“I will,” Legend said, his voice catching in his throat. “Thank you.”

With a bow, Iris returned to the other leaves, which she tasked other fairies with distributing later. Hyrule wiped his eyes, smudging his face with dust and dirt, before picking up the packages set aside for himself and the group. His legs protesting from exhaustion, he rose and returned to his brothers.

“You can offer the pudding now,” he told Wild. “And if anyone else would like to leave something for the fountain, you can now.”

Legend rushed forward to help Wild with the pot, asking about the apples they had stored in the slate when last they visited Legend’s home and orchard. Four and Warriors stepped around them to get to the pool, each pulling something from their bags—half of a green coin and a round red fruit—and laying it at the fountain. The others followed a little slower, looking bashful about their offerings. It was hard to find something adequate on such short notice and from what they had on hand in their travels across eras.

Time hung back, his armor making him appear like a statue against the wall. Hyrule dipped into his shadow and slid to the ground, resting his head against the wall.

“Are you okay?” Time asked.

Hyrule hummed ambivalently. “Tired.”

Their leader chuckled softly. “You did well. Thank you for requesting an invitation.”

Hyrule looked up at Time. The older man’s face was nearly concealed by his armor from the downward angle, but Hyrule saw the moisture in Time’s eyes and the tightness in his expression. Time watched the others distantly, as if caught in a memory, his arms crossed tightly in front of his chest.

“We have spawn to distribute,” Hyrule said gently. “Iris wants us to take some to another era. That’s as far as we could possibly go, I think.”

Time nodded, a wistful smile crossing his lips. “Near and far. The custom hasn’t changed in all this time, has it.”

Hyrule raised an eyebrow at Time.

“A friend of mine told me about it.” Time shifted uneasily, his mouth opening and closing as he searched for words. “She was—is a child of the forest. I...I wasn’t allowed to be part of the custom directly, but she let me accompany her to the deep forest. She told me the others were taking spawn to all parts of the woods, near to home and as far as they dared go. Saria chose a place near the temple, near the fairy fountain.”

Hyrule turned the packages over in his hands. They were starting to wilt along the creases and where spider silk punctured through. He tucked one into his pouch and held the other up to Time. “I think you should choose where to plant her.”

Time’s arms unfolded slightly in his surprise. “Are you sure?”

Instead of answering, Hyrule raised the package higher, holding it there until Time finally took it.

“Thank you, Traveler.... This means a lot.”

Hyrule smiled, lowering his arm and pulling his legs close to his chest.

After a few minutes, Time left the wall to offer a bottle of milk to the fountain and returned with two small bowls of sweet rice pudding, one for himself and the other for Hyrule. The others sat in a circle around Wild’s cooking pot, mingling happily with the fairies as they ate.

When everyone had had their fill, Wild filled several empty bottles with the remaining pudding to leave with the fairies. He dematerialized the empty pot back into his slate and the Chain slowly filtered out of the cave, chatting in soft voices about the funeral. Coronach songs drifted through the air behind them as fairies flew by, carrying their packets to their chosen planting grounds and disappearing into the night.

It was dark as they stumbled back, their camp lit only by the lingering embers from their dinner fire hours before. Hyrule flopped onto his bedroll without ceremony, his very bones aching from the day’s travels and battle. He didn’t think he had exerted himself that much, but the potion he drank earlier was almost spent. In the stillness of night, he could almost feel the sugar in his system burning into magic, healing muscle strain and mild injuries he wasn’t fully aware of.

He was asleep before he could think on it any further.

Morning carried a cool river mist across their camp on the bluff. Hyrule shivered as he slipped out of his blankets, his body no less sore than it had been the night before. His head was stuffed with cotton, muting the sounds of the Chain packing up their things.

It didn’t take long for him to pack with how little he carried, leaving him to sit on the bluff edge above the river, rubbing sleep from his eyes while the others finished packing and planned their route for the day. Hyrule winced at the sunlight when he looked in their direction to see if they were ready to go, a dull ache in his skull throbbing in time with his heartbeat.

Perhaps the miasma had affected him more than he thought, he considered. His throat felt scratchy, probably from breathing in the toxins, and his magic reserves were nearly empty. He must have been subconsciously healing himself all night. The headache and fatigue were certainly magic exhaustion—easy enough to fix with a potion.

Hyrule sipped a green potion as they left the area, the palpable relief of restored magic confirming his theory. Immediately, his limbs felt lighter and, with a tiny burst of magic, he healed the last vestiges of soreness in his throat. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the fresh, clean air of Legend’s era and unwinding the tension knitted into his shoulders.

Finally, he could appreciate the sights of his predecessor’s era properly—they didn’t call him the Traveler for nothing. He followed along, watching the trees shaking in the breeze, scanning the familiar-yet-not mountaintops, feeling the soft earth beneath his boots. Legend’s world was beautiful and full of life—exactly what Hyrule hoped his own era would become again in time.

Legend led them to the west, through the boulder fields he had warned them about previously. A few monsters patrolled between the rocks, but nothing more than a few lone, uninfected moblins or octoroks, which the swordsmen dispatched quickly. The local Hero and Four took the lead, the violet-eyed smithy interrogating Legend about the other fairy fountains in his era and the regional differences between them.

Hyrule, Wild, and Twilight walked together, mostly because Hyrule or Wild would find any opportunity to wander away to investigate a rock or a bug or a plant. Twilight was always close behind, ready to herd them back to the group.

But over time, Hyrule found himself wandering less as his focus narrowed in on putting one foot in front of the other. Twilight called Wild down from a boulder, and when Hyrule glanced up to see, a splinter of pain lanced through his head. The morning’s headache had returned with a vengeance.

Grumbling, Hyrule massaged his head. He hadn’t cast anything since the little bit of healing earlier on, but it felt like magic exhaustion all over again. It was like something had punctured a hole in his chest and all of his magic was draining away like water through a sieve.

He habitually dug through his bag for another green potion, but stopped himself. Clearly he was casting something, albeit subconsciously. If he didn’t get it under control, the drain would continue and he’d be back in this situation in a few hours. Taking a deep breath, Hyrule reached into the core of his magic and wrapped it up tight, leaving no room for any to escape. If he was sick, he could sleep it off once they made camp. He wasn’t going to slow the group down because he was a little tired.

An hour later, the first wave of dizziness hit. He shoved it down and kept walking. Only a few more hours.

He ended up near the back of the group, walking alongside Sky, who shot him a concerned look. Hyrule returned the look with a bemused smile, as if questioning the reason for Sky’s worry, and hoped it was enough to keep Sky’s mother-hen tendencies at bay.

Hyrule kept a hand in his pack while he trudged along, rubbing his thumb against the cork of his second and last green potion. It would raise questions if he drank it after no apparent magic use, and he wouldn’t need it once they made camp. He would ask Wild to cook something with lots of sugar again and it would be fine. He could sleep off whatever sickness was draining his magic.

He just wished he knew what was draining it. No matter how tight his control of his magic—and he considered himself a decent, if not expert, magic-wielder—it slipped through his fingers like water. It had to be the miasma, but surely it wouldn’t affect him like it had the trueborn fairies—would it?

When his hands began to tremble, he tightened his grip on the potion bottle to steady them. They would stop for a lunch break soon. He could probably sneak away to drink the potion when they stopped and then he would be fine again. He counted the seconds by the scrape of boots against stone.

The sun came out from behind a cloud and suddenly the ache in Hyrule’s head sharpened. He whimpered as the bottom of his magic fell out, the last dredges vanishing like smoke.

“Hyrule?” 

Hyrule wasn’t sure whose voice called for him. He shook his head, unable to feign nonchalance anymore. It was all he could do to keep walking—

—except he wasn’t. His legs had stopped at some point and he couldn’t gather the strength to lift them.

Gentle hands rested on his shoulders. “Hey, Hyrule—”

The same hands caught him before he hit the dirt. White flooded his vision—Sky’s sailcloth as Hyrule slumped against the Chosen Hero. Concerned voices rose around them, but the words and their meaning slipped by.

He would be alright. He just needed to replenish some magic. A green potion and he would be right as rain.

The empty core of his magic, scraped clean and empty, felt like ice in his chest. Before he could ask for someone to take the potion from his bag, the last of his strength gave away and he fell into darkness.

Chapter Text

Legend should have seen the signs.

He knew what he and every one of his brothers was like. A few traits ran deep in the Hero’s Spirit, besides courage (or lack of self-preservation): nosiness, mischief, and a complete inability to ask for help. Each of them was inclined to press on far beyond most people’s limits before finding a place to lick their wounds in solitude.

It was Warriors and Hyrule that changed things. They quickly cemented themselves as the team’s healers, and both of them would hound the others—and each other—if they sensed any possibility of injury. Yes, the Heroes still tried to push through their wounds, but it was hard to walk it off when Warriors was chasing you with a first-aid kit.

Hyrule was even worse. He had a nose for blood like a gyorg and a talent for popping out of nowhere even a wallmaster would find unfair. Unless he was out of commission himself, Hyrule would appear at the side of any injured Hero, hands glowing with forest green magic and wearing an expression that said you were getting healed or else. Not even Legend, with his pegasus boots and years of experience running from knights and monsters, could escape.

But their healers had their blind spots.

The swordsmen were following the river upstream—past the glacial boulder fields and through the central plains, on the way to Legend’s house and eventually the Castle beyond—when Legend heard a thud and startled cries behind him. Four’s half-uttered questions about Holodrese fairies died and they both looked back to find Hyrule limp in Sky’s arms.

“Rulie?” Legend lunged through the rest of the group, skidding to the ground next to his successor, his hands going to—he didn’t know, he was panicking. He put his hands against Hyrule’s face and patted his cheeks. Why was he so pale? So cold? “What happened?”

Warriors rushed in and crouched by Legend’s side, echoing his question, while the others gathered behind them. Instinctively, Legend bristled at the knight’s proximity, but forced his gut reaction down. Swallowing his hesitation, he backed away for Warriors to examine Hyrule, bunching his outer tunic in his fists against his legs. Warriors moved with calm precision while Legend watched, checking Hyrule’s pulse and brushing aside his messy bangs to feel his forehead.

“No fever,” Warriors muttered, a crease forming between his brows. “But his pulse is all over the place.”

Legend’s stomach dropped. “What does that mean?”

“It’s likely not an infection....” Warriors lifted Hyrule’s eyelids to check his pupils. “Not a concussion. He doesn’t seem dehydrated, either. Did he eat anything this morning?”

“Not much,” Wild said quietly, standing behind Warriors with wide eyes, his hands gripping his slate like a lifeline. “He said he wasn’t very hungry. He had some fruit.”

“I saw ‘im drink a green potion earlier,” Twilight said. “Figured he was still runnin’ low after yesterday.”

“What do you mean, ‘running low’?” Legend snapped. “He hardly used any magic and he had a blue potion yesterday.”

Twilight backed away, hands raised. “I’m just sayin’ what I saw, Vet.”

Warriors tugged at the hems of Hyrule’s clothing to check for tightness. “Magic exhaustion fits the symptoms. He must have used more magic than we realized. Who still has green potions?”

Gritting his teeth, Legend dug through his bags. Of course it was magic exhaustion. He knew what it looked like—what it felt like. He’d seen Hyrule acting sluggish, seen the color washed out of his successor’s skin, watched Wild run off to climb rocks without him. He’d known something was off, but he hadn’t pushed.

Legend wanted to shake Hyrule awake and chew the traveler out for not saying anything, knowing full well that he would have done the same damn thing. Most of them were idiots who refused to slow down the others. Even Sky, with his breathing problems, pushed himself harder than he should have. Clamping down his frustration, Legend pulled a potion from his bag and set it on the ground next to Warriors.

Warriors clapped his hands in front of Hyrule’s face and, when Hyrule didn’t immediately respond, yelled for him to wake up, causing Sky to wince and lean backwards. Hyrule’s head lolled to the side with Sky’s movement and his eyes fluttered half-open.

“Hey, hey, Hyrule, wake up,” Warriors said, patting Hyrule’s cheek. “I need you to drink something for me, alright?”

With a little groan, Hyrule’s hazel eyes drifted to Warriors and he winced at the daylight. Warriors took the chance to pop the cork off Legend’s potion and hold it up to Hyrule’s lips. With some adjusting from Sky to tilt Hyrule’s head back, they eased some of the potion into him, and then they waited. Warriors’s fingers rested against the pulse point on Hyrule’s wrist.

After what seemed like an eternity, Hyrule’s eyes opened again. He looked at the Chain gathered around him, his face regaining color both from the potion’s effects and a blush when he realized what had happened. He pushed weakly against Sky to sit up, only to immediately slump back over, a hand going to his head.

“Take it easy, Hyrule. You have magic exhaustion.” Warriors glanced at the others, reassuring them—the green potion had worked, so their diagnosis was right. “You passed out on the road and we gave you a potion. Is there anything else you need?”

Hyrule rubbed his eyes and leaned against his palms, elbows braced on his thighs. “I’m—I’m better. Just...dizzy. Maybe some food?” At the sound of Wild’s slate beeping, he quickly added, “something small. Easy to eat. Maybe the pudding from last night?”

While Wild handed over a bottle of leftover pudding, Time drew Legend’s attention. Legend climbed to his feet, batting dirt off his tunic, and stepped closer to their leader.

“How far are we from a stopping point?” Time asked quietly. “Hyrule will need to rest today.”

“I know how magic exhaustion works, old man,” Legend hissed. Glaring, he glanced up at the sun and the surrounding road. The dirt trails of the eastern hills had given way to paved but worn roads lined with granite pillars. Hyrule Castle’s spires stood visible in the distance, surrounded by city walls and the wide moat glistening in the sunlight. Legend nodded in that direction. “There’s a bridge ahead, maybe half an hour, and my house is a few hours beyond that. The roads past the bridge should be safe, but if we can press on to my house all the better.”

Time looked in the direction Legend indicated as if he could see the bridge from this distance with his one eye. “What about the castle?”

“About an hour past my house, through Castle Town.” The easy way, anyway—Legend wasn’t going to inflict the shorter but more treacherous path on Hyrule in this state. He glanced back at the traveler, who was looking far better with a potion in his system. Hyrule had enough energy back to complain about Sky’s mother-henning (that is, keeping the squirrelly traveler from bolting while Warriors poked and prodded him for further ailments and concealed injuries). Legend mentally voiced an apology in Hyrule’s direction as he said, “he won’t like it, but you or the rancher should probably carry him.”

A corner of Time’s lips twitched upwards and he called his own protégé over with a wave.

Hyrule refused to be carried, of course, until Legend insisted. He muttered weak protests into Twilight’s wolf pelt the whole way to the bridge, but never actually made an effort to get off Twilight’s back.

Wind, always empathetic to the latest victim of the Chain’s protective instincts, distracted Hyrule with stories about his ocean’s fairies, drawing Four’s interest. But as they continued on, Hyrule’s questions and comments grew less frequent. After a particularly long pause, Legend glanced back to see Hyrule’s eyelids drooping. Legend would have assumed Hyrule was just resting his eyes or taking a nap—magic exhaustion would have left him with a migraine—if not for the pallor of his skin.

“Hold on, Rancher,” Legend said, stopping and turning. His comment drew Warriors’s attention again, but Legend beat him to checking Hyrule; the traveler was unconscious again. “Shit.”

Warriors repeated his checkup, brows furrowed in confusion. “Again? But he wasn’t casting anything—was he?”

Twilight shook his head. “Nah, nothin’ I noticed. He usually”—the rancher made a vague motion with one hand, the other holding Hyrule’s wrists against his chest—“glows or does some sort of motion, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he does,” Warriors answered, eyes narrowing. “Who else has potions?”

Legend stood frozen as Time and Wind dug through their bags. The potion they gave Hyrule was Legend’s last—he was hoping to restock when they visited Syrup. Hyrule wasn’t casting anything, as far as anyone could tell. It couldn’t have been magic exhaustion then, but Hyrule’s condition improved with a green potion before. How was he out of magic again?

“Check him for anti-fairies,” Legend said, the words coming to his mouth before his brain could fully catch up to the idea. “Under his clothes. They drain magic.”

Warriors shot Legend a surprised look before shrugging and patting Hyrule on the cheeks again. Hyrule came to, his eyes unfocused.

“Hyrule, you passed out again. We need to make sure you don’t have any anti-fairies stuck on you, okay?”

Hyrule scrunched his face in confusion. “No anti-fairies. Just...not feelin’ good. Must be...healin’ something....”

“You’re casting healing magic without meaning to?” Legend asked incredulously. Despite Hyrule’s claims, he moved closer and started gently patting Hyrule’s clothes, checking for tiny skull-shaped lumps. He couldn’t believe one of them wouldn’t notice a flaming skull clinging to their brother like some sort of bur, but what else could it be?

Hyrule only muttered a vague response and buried his face in Twilight’s shoulder. He groaned when Twilight crouched to let him off, the traveler’s protests cutting short as Wind pressed another green potion into his hands.

Meanwhile, Warriors had stopped fussing over Hyrule and moved away to speak with Time in a muted argument. Legend sidled over to butt into the conversation before they made any decisions without him.

“We should let him rest. Legend said this area is safe enough,” Time was saying.

Warriors had his arms crossed, a finger tapping his bicep anxiously. “We don’t know what he’s sick with. I don’t see any sign of injury and if he’s truly healing himself so much he should be improving, not getting worse. He burned an entire green potion in an hour without us even noticing.”

“If I run ahead to my house, I can get to Syrup fast,” Legend cut in.

“Alone?” Time asked, turning to Legend with a brow raised.

“It’s my era, old man. I think I can make it to my own house.” Legend bristled again, his shoulders climbing.

Warriors tilted his head. “Would Syrup know what this ailment is?”

“She’s the best witch in this era.”

Time and Warriors shared a look, some unspoken communication running between them as they weighed their options. After a moment, Warriors gave a small shrug, deferring to the group’s eldest member. In response, Time sighed and turned back to Legend. “We should stick together. The roads may have been safe before, but perhaps not with the black-blooded monsters.”

“I can take Four,” Legend growled. “He has pegasus boots, too. I just need my bell—”

“The two of you aren’t enough to take on a group of black bloods,” Time said, a little louder—loud enough for a few others to look in their direction and quickly look away again, acting as if they weren’t listening, the nosy fuckers. Quieter, Time continued. “I know you’re worried about Hyrule—we all are. Wind and I have a few more potions. Once we reach your house, we can decide what to do then.”

Legend gestured broadly toward the north, toward the witch’s cottage. “And then what? We carry him all the way to Syrup from there? She’s halfway across the country.”

“How can she help then?” Warriors asked.

“If you would just listen,” Legend snapped. “Once I get my bell, I can get a ride with Syrup’s apprentice. I’ll be there and back home in an hour at most.”

“Would you be able to take Hyrule with you?”

Shoulder slumping, Legend groaned. “No, not safely. But I can bring back whatever remedy Syrup prescribes. Irene can take me straight to her and back—no detours, no chance to run into monsters.”

Time stared Legend down—their leader’s relative height adding to the intimidation already granted by his singular eye and armor. Legend puffed his chest in response, as ineffectual as it was. A moment into their stare-down, Time finally said, “We’ll stick together until we get to your house. After that, yes, please go to Syrup. The rest of us will wait at your house with Hyrule.”

“Half of us could go to Hyrule Castle to report to the queen,” Warriors offered, stepping back with his hands raised when both Time and Legend shot him a glare.

“It can wait until after Hyrule recovers,” Time said sternly before turning back to Legend. “When you meet with Syrup, you should restock on your dust as well.”

“The magic powder?” Legend asked, raising an eyebrow.

Time nodded. “We can’t rule out this being a side effect of Hyrule’s exposure to the miasma.”

Confused, Legend glanced back at Hyrule. His successor was standing steadily again with a bottle of pudding in hand, chewing on the spoon and looking miserable—less from the illness and more because of the group fussing over him. Sky, ignoring Hyrule insisting he was plenty warm, had the traveler wrapped up in his cape. Twilight was looking dejected near Wild; Hyrule had probably declined the offer to be carried again.

“I guess so,” Legend said, running a thumb over one of his rings. Somewhere in the back of his mind, in a space reserved for solving dungeon puzzles, he felt a piece clicking into place. There was a pattern emerging, although he wasn’t sure about the shape of the puzzle yet—just that he had stumbled on a piece of it.

To Hyrule’s chagrin, Twilight carried him the rest of the way to Legend’s house—for the best, because Hyrule fell unconscious again during the final stretch, once again awakening with a potion. Before they set off again, Legend yanked two rings off his fingers—his whisp ring and a heart ring—and pressed them into Hyrule’s hands.

“Wear these until you’re feeling better,” he said, rushing away before he could let any more of his frustration show. He watched from a distance as Hyrule hesitantly drew the rings over his thin fingers.

It had been a long time since Legend had dealt with magic exhaustion—since his first adventure, in the depths of the Ice Palace. From then on, he used every demon-taught trick he knew to reduce his magic consumption, especially if he didn’t have a surplus of green potions. He knew what it felt like to have the insides of his very soul scraped dry. The headache, fatigue, and hunger were the milder symptoms—the body burning all its resources to replenish what was lost, and would continue burning until Hyrule had some magic to fill that void.

If they didn’t figure this out, Hyrule would die.

Legend refused to lose another friend on this adventure.

Coming home was always special for anyone in the Chain. In their own eras, there was always the option—as hesitant as they might be to take it in the middle of a dungeon or the like—to return home. Being adrift in time, however, put a hard restriction on their ability to sleep under their own roof.

Legend had traveled farther afield than most of his brothers (he refused to believe Time had actually been to the moon) and was accustomed to sleeping in remote places in distant lands, but after his last few adventures, he welcomed the sight of his house. Especially now, with Hyrule looking worse by the minute.

Twilight was in his wolf form, the fully unresponsive Hyrule draped across his back. He plodded along as evenly as he could, his ears pinned down with concern and flicking back occasionally as if listening for Hyrule’s breathing. All the others stayed close, ready to help if Hyrule fell off—or got worse.

“We’re here!” Legend yelled as soon as they came to the steps leading up his hill. He took the sunken wooden steps two at a time, racing to his front door before the others were even halfway. The door was locked—Ravio was likely out shopping—and Legend fumbled with the keys trying to get in. Leaving the door hanging open for the others to enter on their own, he jogged through his living room and to the cellar door in the kitchen.

He was digging through his collection when he heard the others enter the house, their footsteps heavy overhead. They had been there just a couple days prior; they could sort themselves out, Legend reasoned as he slid around a pile of boxes.

Fortunately, the bell Legend sought wasn’t buried too deeply in his hoard. It had come from one of his more recent adventures and from a good friend, so it was neatly placed on a cabinet shelf rather than stashed in a box somewhere. He pocketed the bell and, shoving aside a box of fabrics from Hytopia, grabbed a few more bottles from the dedicated Bottle Box.

He climbed out of the cellar, pushed open the door, and almost slipped back down the stairs when he ran into Sky on the other side, startled by the unexpected presence.

“Matrons’ tits, Sky, you spooked the shit out of me,” Legend gasped. “What?”

Wringing his hands nervously, Sky backed away, giving Legend room to leave the cellar. “What do those rings you gave Hyrule do?”

“What?”

Sky grimaced. “Maybe you should come—”

Legend pushed past Sky and Wild, who had commandeered the kitchen to make tea, and rushed to the front room. The others were crowded around the couch where they had deposited Hyrule, Warriors kneeling on the ground by the traveler’s side.

Shoving and shooing the group away, Legend crouched next to Warriors. Hyrule’s face was tight with pain, his breath catching in his throat. His skin had, somehow, grown even paler—except for his right hand, which had flared an angry red. It grew worse closer to his fingers, to the rings Legend had given him.

“Is this normal, Lege?” Warriors asked.

Legend placed a hand on Hyrule’s, feeling the searing heat of the skin below his. “Does this look normal to you? Fuck no.” The inflammation seemed to be worse around Hyrule’s ring finger—around the whisp ring. Brows furrowed, Legend eased the ring off Hyrule’s hand. The skin directly beneath it was blistered white.

“Shit,” Legend breathed.

“Talk to us, Vet,” Time said, still in his armor and standing closer than the others but just far enough away to not feel suffocating. “What are you thinking?”

Legend’s mouth felt like sandpaper. He rolled the ring between his fingers. “This is a whisp ring. It counters the anti-fairy curse—the one that keeps you docile so you can’t fight back.”

“Okay...that’s a clue. He was exposed directly to the anti-fairy miasma yesterday. The only one—right?” Warriors twisted to look at the others, his glare daring any of them to hide their injuries and ailments now.

The gathered Links shared looks, waiting for someone to answer, when Twilight raised a hand and waggled it ambivalently. “I mighta got some when I was takin’ Wind out. Not like Hyrule did, though.”

“But you’re not affected,” Four said, violet eyes narrowing at Twilight.

That opened the door to all of them putting forth theories—that it was the more extensive exposure, that it was Hyrule’s ability to use magic when Twilight couldn’t, that Twilight’s dark crystal protected him—and Legend filtered them all out. They didn’t need theories, they needed a cure. He held Hyrule’s hand tight, tracing his thumb along the edge of his successor’s leather bracers, watching the tension fade from Hyrule’s face and the redness from his fingers.

Before Legend could tear himself away, Hyrule’s eyelids fluttered. Legend sucked in a breath, focused on that miniscule movement like he was tracking a dungeon trap. No one else seemed to notice, caught up in their futile discussion as they were.

“Rulie?” Legend whispered, giving Hyrule’s hand a gentle squeeze, his mind whirring to solve the puzzle. It didn’t make sense. Hyrule hadn’t had anything to eat nor any green potions to drink since he last fell unconscious. He should be completely out of magic again.

With a languid expression, Hyrule’s eyes, half-closed, found Legend’s, drifting to meet his gaze like autumn leaves on a calm stream—red leaves.

The hope building in Legend’s chest died and plummeted through his stomach. “Rulie, you’re—I’m leaving to see a witch,” he said. “You’re in my house. You and the others rest here, and I’ll be right back, okay?”

Legend gripped Hyrule’s hand too tightly, but the listless traveler didn’t flinch. Instead, Hyrule placed his other hand on Legend’s, slowly lifting them both. Legend watched, mesmerized, as Hyrule slowly and deliberately raised their joined hands to his mouth, easing Legend’s hand open—

—and bit down.

Legend barely felt Hyrule’s teeth break the skin around his first knuckle, as shocked as he was, and then the pain came rushing in like fire. With a hiss, Legend ripped his hand away, canines and incisors scraping harsh red lines into his skin and leaving a trail of blood.

Suddenly everyone in the room descended on them, pulling Hyrule away from Legend. Warriors grabbed Legend’s hand with clinical urgency, yelling at someone else to retrieve a potion and dropping into a string of curses as he examined the wound. His own customary curses caught in his throat, Legend stared at the semi-circle of red beading around his knuckle, stoppered by the weaker of his two heart rings, incidentally worn on that finger. He tore his eyes away from his blood and looked up at Hyrule, barely upright on the couch with red smudged on his lips, Twilight and Sky’s hands gripping his shoulders, and no light in his crimson eyes.

“Rulie,” Legend started, trying his best to keep his voice even. “Did you just bite me?”

A slow blink, then a faster one as life returned to Hyrule’s eyes, clouded with confusion. Brows knitted together, he licked his lips, wiped his mouth with his bracer, and stared at the red stain on the leather with dawning horror. “What...?”

“Hyrule, what in the hells was that?” Warriors dabbed a potion-soaked rag over the injury, which the ring had already healed over. Legend watched the red crescent fading as if nothing had ever happened.

But the heart rings couldn’t restore magic, and Legend felt a tiny bit of his missing.

“You drained my magic,” Legend said, voice flat with realization.

Hyrule’s widening eyes darted from Warriors to Legend to Legend’s hand and the blood on his bracer to the rest of the Chain gathered around them. “I—what?”

The puzzle pieces in Legend’s head fell into place. “You...you’re an anti-fairy.”

Hyrule’s shoulders jumped to his ears. “What? No, that’s not—”

“Hyrule, you bit me. You drained my magic,” Legend said. “Your eyes are red.”

“So are Four’s sometimes!” Hyrule pressed himself against the couch's back.

Four, whose eyes had indeed shifted to a campfire-warm red, stepped closer. “Hyrule, it’s okay. We’re worried about you and we want to help. If this is the miasma’s doing, we know how to fix it.”

Legend’s hand flew to the empty pouch on his belt. “Shit, the powder—”

“The powder wouldn’t, like...turn him into a fairy, would it?” Wind asked suddenly, behind the others crowding around the couch. The group collectively looked in his direction, the plausibility of that idea crossing their faces with varying levels of alarm and mortified curiosity.

“It’s better than an anti-fairy,” someone suggested meagerly.

Unless...

Realization hit Legend like a cold ocean wave. The truth—the true shape of the puzzle—had been staring him in the face the whole time. Hyrule’s extraordinary magic proficiency, his insatiable need for sugary foods, his immediate welcome in Datura’s court; it all clicked together.

Legend looked at Hyrule, whose shoulders were climbing toward his ears, hands clamped tightly around his arms. “Rulie...are you a fairy?”

Hyrule’s expression cracked open, the sharp fear in his eyes stinging worse than the bite. His lips parted, but no words came—just a strangled sound of panic.

Fairies couldn’t lie.

Hyrule recoiled back when Legend lifted a hand, moisture gathering in his eyes, hugging himself tighter. Chest heaving, the traveler wheezed out a broken, “I’m sorry—”

“Shut up,” Legend snapped, taking Hyrule by the arms and pulling him into a tight hug. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“I—I hurt you!” Hyrule sobbed into Legend’s shoulder. “I’m not like the rest of you! I lied!”

“We all have secrets, Hyrule,” Time said gently from above. Legend twisted his head just enough to shoot the old man a glare. Hyrule didn’t seem to notice, shaking in Legend’s arms with his face pressed into his predecessor’s tunic, but it was enough to get the rest of the Chain to back off.

Eventually, Hyrule’s sobs faded into quivering breaths. He sagged heavily in Legend’s arms, exhausted, and pulled back to rest his forehead on Legend’s shoulder. “You should let me go,” he mumbled, his voice rough.

“Only if you’re ready.” Legend murmured, not loosening his grip.

Hyrule hummed weakly in response. “I’m not, but...I really want to bite you again.”

Legend blinked. He leaned back just far enough to look Hyrule in the eyes.

“I want to bite you again,” Hyrule whispered, horrified, licking his lips despite himself. Were his canines always so pronounced? “Your magic. You have so much and I feel like I’m starving. I just want....”

There was a beat of stunned silence. Then Legend burst out laughing. Something about the tension, the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, his relief in knowing what had happened to his brother and how to fix it, hit him in just such a way that all he could do was laugh.

“I’m serious!” Hyrule buried his face in his hands. “I’m out of magic! I just—” He stopped and pulled his hands away from his face, color draining from his skin in a sudden rush of terror. “I’m out of magic. How am I alive?”

Time moved closer and tapped a green potion bottle against Hyrule’s shoulder. With a quick double-take, Hyrule grabbed the bottle like he had been offered water in a desert. He ripped the cork off and downed the entire potion in one go. Licking the remainder from his lips, he leaned back, closed his still-red eyes, and breathed a long sigh of relief.

“How are you feeling now?” Time asked, kneeling by Legend.

Hyrule swallowed, Adam’s apple visibly bobbing from the angle of his head. “Better?” he croaked. “Weird. It’s like—ugh, I’m trying to hold on to my magic, but it’s like—like I’m full of holes. I thought I was casting something, but...”

“This is fascinating,” Four said, hand to his chin in thought. The analytical side of him that surfaced anytime his eyes shifted purple was back in force. “Anti-fairies must not be able to produce their own magic, forcing them to take it from other creatures.”

Hyrule groaned and draped an arm across his eyes.

Squinting at Four, Legend asked, “So if they run out of magic...?”

Four tilted his head. “Hmm...considering they can be found, apparently alive, in the depths of dungeons far from other creatures, they seem capable of surviving without magic. I know fairies normally can’t; something else must keep anti-fairies alive.”

A thread of worry that had wound around Legend’s heart unraveled. “Okay.... Time, was that your last potion?”

“It was.”

“Right.” Legend looked to the others clustered in his living room. “I’m going to go to Syrup’s. Give me your bottles and I’ll get refills on the potions and the powder.”

“W-wait,” Hyrule stammered, sitting up as Time took the bottle from his lap and handed it to Legend. “I can go, too.”

“Not on a broomstick, you can’t.” Before Hyrule could argue, Legend added, “Irene can only carry one person.”

“He’s right,” Time said. “We discussed this while you were unconscious. We’ll all be staying behind. Legend will be there and back before nightfall.” He looked to Legend for confirmation, receiving a nod as Legend produced Irene’s bell from his pack.

Legend stood to leave and Hyrule slumped on the couch. A curious hand went to his mouth, poking at his sharpened teeth, and he shuddered. He pulled his shoulders in, taking as little space on the couch as possible. “I’m…sorry, everyone. This wouldn’t have happened if….”

Sky plopped on the couch next to Hyrule and put an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay. You all take your time for me; we don’t mind taking time for you. You’re our brother, too.”

Biting his lips, Hyrule leaned against Sky. “Thank you,” he muttered.

“We don’t have to sit here doing nothing while we wait,” Wild said, standing away from the group. He gestured towards the kitchen with a thumb. “Legend, do you mind if I use your kitchen for mad science?”

Legend was about to shut down that idea when Wild continued with a cheeky grin. “The only potion I don’t know how to make is a magic potion, and I’m going to figure it out.”

Chapter Text

Legend left the rest of the Chain in his house with little ado, summoning his friend Irene and holding tight to her waist as they flew off on her broomstick. As their bickering faded into the distance, the rest of them trickled back into the house, cocooned Hyrule in a blanket they found in a drawer, and deposited him on the couch while they set about their tasks. Four curled up beside him with his notebook and pen in hand—either to keep Hyrule company, or to prevent him from trying to help when he ought to be resting.

Wild and Sky, who had some experience supplying his local potion shop with ingredients, took over Legend’s kitchen and dining table. With some hesitance, Wild eyed the available counter space in the kitchen, grimaced, and pushed the small dining table to the side.

“Before we start,” he said, clutching his slate close to his chest, “no one is allowed to ask why I have anything I’m about to pull out of the slate. Okay?”

Time, seated cross-legged on the floor with Twilight, Warriors, and Wind for a card game, looked up. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally said, “We understand, Champion. I’m sure we’ve all picked up…things of dubious origin in our travels. As long as nothing damages Legend’s house.”

Squinting in thought, Wild looked down at his slate. “Probably not,” he said after a moment. “The, uh…bugs and lizards are still alive though. I’ll just, um, list those instead of withdrawing them.”

With a concerned glance at the others around the game circle, Time stood, bracing himself on Warriors’s shoulder, and went to help Wild.

“How are the things alive in there?” Warriors mouthed, his back to the kitchen and a distressed look in his eyes.

Crouching on the kitchen floor, Sky, Time, and Wild withdrew items from the slate one by one and set them in piles according to Wild’s descriptions of their pharmaceutical properties. Several of the items looked disturbingly fleshy, some still pulsating faintly, but no one said a word about them outside of asking what they were for the sake of categorization.

Hyrule watched blearily, hands tucked under his thighs to keep himself from fidgeting, as the piles grew and spread to claim floor space in the living room. Some items had a bit of magic to them—Malice, mostly; the smell of it bittersweet—but none could compete with the magic emanating from everywhere else in the house.

Legend was known as the collector for a reason. He had gone on too many adventures, unearthing more magic items than anyone even knew existed. He kept some on hand, but some were too precious or cursed to risk carrying or their functions too specific to keep in his day-to-day inventory. Then, of course, Ravio added to the treasure hoard with items of his own creation, waiting to be rented (or, rarely, sold), and enchanted the house itself with protective runes.

As a result, Legend’s house was full of magic.

And Hyrule could smell all of it.

He felt like he had been dumped in a bakery after spending a week starving in a dungeon. Without meaning to, he licked his lips, nicking his tongue on his new fangs and accidentally drawing blood. Once he got past the initial rush of panic over cutting himself, he realized he couldn’t taste magic in his blood like he had in Legend’s, only the faintest bittersweet trace.

He didn’t like knowing what Legend’s magic tasted like (chamomile, with a hint of sea salt that seemed alien to the veteran’s innate magic). Yet, glancing at Four sitting by his side, Hyrule couldn’t help but wonder….

He shut down that thought immediately. He was not going to bite Four. (Would the smithy’s magic taste like smoke and iron? Like fertile earth? Spring winds or biting frost? Each scent fluctuated around him like an active debate between the elements.)

Hyrule looked away, trying to breathe through his mouth and shoving the craving down. It was much easier to do now with a green potion still in his system, although he felt its pool of magic actively fading. But at least now he knew what had happened and what this magic-hunger felt like. He could deal with hunger.

His wandering eyes landed on a spiky, heart-shaped mask hanging on the wall. Of all the magic items in the house, even the cascade of magic emanating from behind the cellar door, it was the most overpowering. Its bright orange eyes stared back, almost alive, daring him to come closer.

What if he just…licked it? Just a taste to see if its magic was as sweet and spicy as it smelled.

With a groan, Hyrule clenched his teeth and curled tighter under the blanket. He was not going to lick anything. Even if he really wanted to, and even if resisting made his stomach churn and his teeth hurt. He could control himself, but that didn’t make the situation comfortable.

“Are you alright?” Four’s voice was soft. Hyrule startled, not realizing he’d leaned into him.

“I’m…managing,” Hyrule muttered. “Just overwhelmed.”

Four hummed. “Do you mind if I ask you some things? It might take your mind off it.”

Hyrule watched as, across the room, Sky snatched a floating purple organ that had escaped the piles off the ceiling with his bug net. “Sure, I guess.”

Four shifted slightly, angling his body towards Hyrule without leaning too close. “Have you always been a fairy?”

There was no judgment in Four’s question, just curiosity. Even so, it struck like a thrown rock. Hyrule flinched, his shoulders curling inward like he could take the secret back and hold it tighter this time.

But what was the point of hiding it now? The secret was out, the damage done. There was a changeling in their midst.

In for a green, in for a gold, he decided.

“That’s what I’m told,” Hyrule sighed. “Half-fairy, actually. I’ve always been one, I just…didn’t know at first.”

Four tilted his head, brows lifting in quiet interest. “You didn’t know?”

“I mean, my parents were Hylian—I’m pretty sure. But I knew I was different, and I think they knew, too…. I was always running off into the woods instead of playing with other kids. I could always use magic, too, even if I couldn’t really control it,” Hyrule said quietly. “During my first adventure, one of the Great Fairies, Spryte, sort of…took me in.” He huffed a soft laugh. “I thought she was just being nice to a lost kid.”

Four smiled warmly, encouraging him to continue.

Hyrule tucked his knees under his chin. “When I left on my second adventure, Dawn and Impa thought I should learn to protect myself better. They sent me to find the old sages, and they taught me how to control my magic. How to bolster my defense, evade monsters….

“The third sage…. He taught me how to heal, and when he saw how easily I picked it up, he sent me to the fourth, in Mido Harbor. That’s where, I….” Hyrule shrugged. “After that, a lot of things started making sense. Why magic came so easily. Why lying didn’t. Why touching iron burns. Why I felt more at home in Spryte’s fountain than with my actual family.”

Four’s magenta gaze softened. “Did Spryte not tell you?”

“She might have, but I was just a kid at the time. I was more focused on surviving than learning what I was,” Hyrule said, smiling faintly at the memories of Spryte’s fountain. “And…I didn’t really stay anywhere long enough for anyone else to figure it out.”

With a fond chuckle, Four looked towards their brothers making a mess of Legend’s kitchen. “Too busy adventuring to have an identity crisis? Yeah, that sounds like one of us.”

Hyrule blinked as something warm and fragile settled under his ribs.

One of us.

Their conversation paused as they listened to the sound of something dubious bubbling in Wild’s cook pot. Time sneezed into a pile of flowers. Wind slammed a card on the floor, just under Warriors’s hand, and yelled “Pounce!” while Twilight sighed and started counting his cards. Sky offered Wild an amber, comma-shaped stone for the next potion attempt, which Wild took one look at before going pale and telling Sky, in no uncertain terms, that it was not going into anything consumable, no matter how magical it was.

Hyrule’s eyes passed over the other ingredients scattered across the floor. He wasn’t keen on consuming most of them (and he wondered if these ingredients went in the potions Wild had already made for them) until he spotted a pile of light-blue globules. Hyrule sat up suddenly. “Wait, are those botseru?”

The potion-makers looked up from the pot and the pouncers from their game. Tilting his head in confusion, Wild looked over the scattered ingredients. “Botseru? What’s that?”

“Bot…uh, flesh? The slimy balls from the monster?” Hyrule pulled his hands out of the blanket and mimed squishing something soft.

With the complete lack of familiarity for the word evident in his brothers’ faces, Hyrule realized his mistake—another secret door cracked open. The monster was common, and he had seen it in other eras. For them to not know the word….

They must know the monster by its Hyrulean name; bot was the Calatian word.

Wild searched the piles, mouthing the word, and eventually landed on the globules. “You mean chu jelly?”

“Yeah, that,” Hyrule laughed nervously, noting the words for later use. “Sorry, the chu jelly. I, uh, think that might be useful.”

“You think so? They don’t make very strong potions, in my experience.” Wild frowned thoughtfully.

Hyrule shook his head. “Not on their own. But if you get a bunch and boil them down….” It had been how he survived several dungeons in his second adventure. The palaces oozed Malice, burning his skin where it dripped from the ceiling. But sometimes, enough rainwater condensed around the liquid Malice to form monsters—bots and bits.

In the depths of a dungeon, you ate what you could, and Hyrule quickly learned that the globules left behind by a slain bot could be boiled down into something like a potion, restoring just enough of his magic to sustain himself on days-long expeditions.

Wild stepped carefully over the piles of ingredients and scooped up the jelly. “It’s worth a shot.”

“Oh! I’ve got green jelly, too!” Wind scrambled to his feet, grabbing his bag and shoving his arm in deep. He skipped over to Wild and deposited a handful of green jelly in his arms. “A guy on Windfall makes potions with them. I don’t know how but maybe you can figure it out?”

Compared to the plump jelly stored in Wild’s slate, Wind’s were pruney with age. Hyrule wasn’t sure they were safe to consume after being stored in Wind’s bag, rolling around loose with feathers and seeds and fish bait for goddesses know how long.

Nevertheless, Hyrule had to wipe the saliva from his mouth after seeing them; they emanated magic much more strongly than Wild’s jelly. He never liked the sickly sweet and bitter taste of botseru before, but he thought it might taste like ambrosia now.

“What language was that?” Four asked, suddenly pulling Hyrule out of his hunger spiral.

“Oh, um….” Hyrule pulled the blanket back up to his shoulders and leaned into the couch, glancing away from both Four and the kitchen as he answered. “Calatian. The, uh…chu monsters, they’re called bots in Calatia. And bits. Depending on the color.”

Enthusiasm spread across Four’s face. “You speak Calatian?”

Hyrule considered melting into the couch, slipping between the cushions, never to be found again. “I’m…from Calatia, actually.”

Four’s lips parted in surprise, his eyes flickering between colors before landing on reddish amber, his surprise melting into a broader smile. He leaned forward, casting aside his notebook. “That’s so cool! What’s it like?”

Hyrule glanced towards the kitchen, where Wild was unceremoniously dumping the jelly into his cooking pot. “It’s…been a long time,” he admitted, kneading the blanket with his thumbs. “I sort of stumbled into Hyrule when I was ten. And then there was the first quest, and…well, I haven’t been back.”

Four’s smile faded, but didn’t vanish. “Still, I’d love to hear what you remember.”

Hyrule swallowed nervously and cast his mind back. “It’s windy,” he started, the single word failing to capture just how windy it was. He remembered imagining, sometimes, that the wind would pick him up and carry him away—an irony, when he later learned how to make the wind do just that with a magic flute.

“Not as flat as Hyrule, though,” he added, and laughed when Four made a face. “Your mountains are tiny compared to Calatian mountains. Hebra’s a proper Calatian mountain. The rest of yours are just little hills.

“It’s not as easy to travel, though. Especially in the winter, when the mountain passes fill with snow…but the fishing was good in the spring run-off. And every summer, everyone would come out of the foothills for a festival….” He closed his eyes, smiling fondly. “Ma and Pa would let me run off to play around the canals instead of dealing with the crowds. I’d get the best stick I could find and pretend to be—gods, I’d pretend to be Legend.” A blush climbed Hyrule’s face all the way to his ears. He was a little glad Legend wasn’t home to hear this.

Four listened with rapt attention, pen and notebook abandoned entirely. Across the room, Sky and Time stopped what they were doing and leaned against the counter, and Twilight, Warriors, and Wind had left their game half-played as they turned to listen. (If Wind slipped a card or two out of his pounce pile, no one but Hyrule noticed.)

“Did they have food?” Wind asked, eyes wide and sparkling. “Grandma always made her soup for festivals and we’d have a big crab boil.”

“Yeah.” Hyrule smiled. “There’s a breakfast, and they’d dig a big pit to roast meat in. But Ma and I liked the fried bread, with a big scoop of honey-butter.” Especially now, the thought made Hyrule’s mouth water. Honey was a rare and indulgent treat in Calatia, but even more so in Hyrule. When he crossed the mountains, he couldn’t find honey anywhere in the eastern country, the land too poisoned by Malice for pollinators to survive.

“Was it just fried bread dough?” Wild asked from the kitchen. “Yeast bread?”

“I’m not sure?”

Wild hummed thoughtfully and took a few other ingredients out of his slate, setting them on the counter far from the potion experiments.

“We have somethin’ like that in Ordon,” Twilight said, rubbing the back of his neck as the others looked his way. “Prob’ly a lot more cheese and drinkin’, though. There’s a goat-shearin’ competition an’ all that.”

The others started sharing stories about their eras’ festivals and Hyrule relaxed into the couch, content to just listen for a while. As Four described the Picori Festival, Hyrule noticed Wild ladling syrupy blue liquid into a bottle. Hyrule’s ears perked in interest—the conversation had been a good distraction, but his magic was starting to run low again.

Soon after, Wild emerged from the kitchen, stepping around the piles of items and the Heroes sitting on the floor, and handed the bottle to Hyrule. Silence fell as the others stopped talking to watch, and Hyrule shrunk in on himself in embarrassment.

They’re just worried about you, he told himself. But a more insidious voice wondered if they worried about him biting them.

“You know,” came Time’s voice from the kitchen, “it was at a Carnival of Time that I fought the moon.”

Half the room groaned in unison, and Sky jabbed an elbow into Time’s side. “They had a whole festival about you?”

Time, with a chuckle, began explaining the carnival and its history. Hyrule thought the old man might have winked in his direction, although Time’s one eye made it hard to tell.

With the others distracted again, Hyrule accepted and uncorked the bottle. The familiar licorice-sweet scent hit him instantly, flooding his senses. Without thinking, he drank it all in one go.

He was right—it did taste like ambrosia, sweet and cool and refreshing and not nearly enough. The sudden stop when he reached the end of the potion felt like a betrayal. He tilted the bottle back harder, trying to coax the last few drops out, as if they would stave off the growing hunger.

“How is it?” Wild asked gently.

“It’s a start,” Hyrule rasped, handing the bottle back. As Wild took it, Hyrule’s fingers twitched. Wild had a little magic too, after all, and he wasn’t using it, so why not—

Hyrule clapped a hand over his mouth. His jaw tensed, itching to bite down.

“Was it the flavor?” Wild clutched the empty bottle. “I can’t risk adding a lot of extra—”

“No.” Hyrule raised a hand, waving Wild off as he fought for control. “Thank you. It’s…it was perfect. But it’s not strong enough. Can you make more?” He swallowed hard. “A lot more?”

Wild frowned, his brows knitted with concern. “I’ve got Wind’s jellies in the pot now. We’ll figure it out.” He gave Hyrule a pat on the shoulder as he turned back to the kitchen.

Time’s story about the Carnival of Time ended, and the room settled once more into a tense silence. Heroes were perceptive by trade, and they knew Wild’s potion hadn’t worked as well as hoped. Hyrule couldn’t help but notice the occasional furtive glance his way. Even Four had withdrawn, his eyes back to their usual storm-cloud gray as he chewed the tip of his pen with worry.

“Hey,” Wind said, nudging Warriors, who was busy sorting their cards on the ground. “Do you think Legend’s been to Calatia?”

Warriors scoffed. “Of course he has.”

“He’s been to another world, way Ravio tells it,” Twilight added, leaning against a dresser and biting his nails idly. “Calatia ain’t that far in comparison.”

“Do you know, Hyrule?” Four asked.

Hyrule opened his mouth, thinking back to the tales he heard growing up—and then quickly shut it again. “I think it’s more fun if you guess.”

Grinning, Four flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. “Alright. Ten rupees says he didn’t.”

The tension broke as Four started taking bets, half the Chain debating over what little the veteran had let slip about his adventures and the other half combing the room for Calatian souvenirs. After a few minutes of this, the door opened and everyone froze in place, staring guiltily towards the entrance.

Ravio entered the room, a large bag slung across his shoulder and his bird perched atop his rabbit hood. He stopped mid-step at the sight of several swordsmen rummaging through his living room.

“Hi, Rav!” Wind chirped unabashedly, arm in a dresser drawer.

The merchant let out a long sigh of relief as he glanced around, his grip tightening on the bag as he failed to find his Link in the room. “Link?”

“Legend is getting supplies from Syrup,” Time explained, and the tension building in Ravio’s shoulders relaxed.

Wind shoved past Twilight, knocking the startled rancher over. “Also, quick question: has Lege been to Calatia?”

Ravio squinted in confusion, mouth opening slightly, and then his gaze fell on the notebook in Four’s hands. A few conclusions visibly fell into place behind his eyes. “That’ll cost two hundred rupees.”

“Two hundred?!” Warriors squawked.

“Why, Mr. Captain Hero, you know information doesn’t come cheap,” Ravio teased, his sing-song tone belying his scheming expression.

Twilight picked himself up and grinned wolfishly. “C’mon, Ravio, none of us have bet more’n twenty.”

Ravio gave Twilight a conspiratorial look. “But not knowing will drive all of you nuts. I know you Hero types.”

“A purple and Wild cooks dinner,” Sky said, digging into his wallet.

Wild looked up from the pot, frowning. “Hey. I mean, I was going to anyway, but—”

The Chain tried and failed to broker a deal with Ravio for the next several minutes, when the merchant finally announced he was going to have a bath before Legend got back. He hooked his bag on a coat stand and crossed the room, passing by Hyrule and Four, where he suddenly stopped short, his rabbit hood slowly turning to face the couch.

“Hyrule, are you—” Ravio paused and glanced around, as if he sensed something was amiss and but he wasn’t sure if the others knew. “Are you alright, buddy? Your magic is…um. How do I put this?”

“We had a run-in with a weird anti-fairy curse,” Four explained quickly. “Legend is getting magic powder.”

Ravio tilted his head, his hood’s ears flopping to the side. “Huh.”

“You can tell something’s different?” Hyrule asked weakly.

“Just a bit,” Ravio said. “Everything here tends toward Light, elementally speaking. But you took a strange turn to Dark, and not like Mr. Rancher over there.” Ravio gestured in Twilight’s direction. Twilight grabbed the leather cord of his dark crystal protectively.

“Is that…all you can sense different?” If Ravio could pick up that much, Hyrule wondered, could he sense fae magic?

Ravio shrugged. “My homeworld runs on Dark magic. I’d recognize it anywhere. It’s probably not good for you Light-worlders, though….” The artificer leaned over, the rabbit face on his hood looming too close for comfort. Hyrule thought he heard sniffing from under the hood—was Ravio smelling for magic? Was that a thing people could do normally?

After a moment, Ravio straightened and said, “You’ll probably be fine? As long as you don’t touch anything strongly Light-oriented, anyway.”

Several of the Chain glanced towards Sky and the sword on his back.

Sky glowered. “She wouldn’t hurt one of us,” he said firmly, oblivious to the distant, unreadable expression on Time’s face.

“Well! Better safe than sorry!” With that, Ravio continued on to the other room, humming merrily to himself and leaving Sheerow with the Chain. The bird eyed them menacingly any time they seemed inclined to dig for Calatian souvenirs again, but otherwise occupied herself with pecking loose potion ingredients.

Luckily, it was only a few minutes later that Legend returned, shouldering the door open with a grumble and his hat in his hands. He opened his mouth to say something in greeting when his gaze fell to the piles of ingredients scattered all over his floor and Sheerow making a nest of herb sprigs.

“The fuck are you doing, Champion?” he asked. “Did your slate explode?”

“Hey, you said I could do mad science—”

“Legend!” Wind interrupted, sitting up suddenly from where he had plopped on the floor. “Have you been to Calatia?”

Legend blinked in surprise. “Why the—What does that have to do with anything?”

“Because Hyrule—oop.” Wind glanced towards Hyrule with a stricken expression. “Uh. Never mind.”

That, of course, only made everyone turn to Hyrule, who was trying to merge with the couch under the blanket.

“I’m from Calatia,” Hyrule muttered, face burning red. It was one thing for everyone else to know, but Legend was his predecessor.

Legend stared at him. “Oh. Neat.” He unclipped his potion pouch from his belt and carefully stepped over the piles to reach the coffee table in front of the couch. “Knowing my luck, I’ll end up having an adventure that way sooner or later—”

“HA!” Twilight crowed. From a stool behind him, Time smirked while Wild and Sky groaned from the kitchen.

Warriors looked scandalized. “Betrayal? From my own brother?”

“Yeah,” Twilight said, grinning unapologetically. “Pay up, Captain.”

Warriors threw a pouch of rupees, which Twilight intercepted before it could smack him in the face and passed it along. Sighing, Wind added a red rupee before handing it to Four, who started divvying up winnings and pocketing some of it for himself.

Legend pinched the bridge of his nose and gave a long-suffering sigh. “Why do I put up with this?”

“They’re just excited you’re back,” Time said diplomatically, though he was definitely holding a few more rupees than he started with.

As the winners tucked their earnings into their wallets, Legend pulled several green potion bottles from his bag and set them on the table. Hyrule’s eyes locked onto them, the usual fatigue of magic exhaustion replaced with a predatory hunger. The magic from Wild’s first potion was dissipating all too quickly.

Once everyone settled, Legend looked up, expression shifting from irritated to analytical. “Alright, how did your ‘mad science’ go? Anything workable?”

From the kitchen, Wild raised a bottle of his second attempt, made with Wind’s jelly. A rupee, which he was experimenting with adding, clinked softly against the glass. “I think we have a working green potion recipe, but hopefully we won’t need it?”

With a small hum, Legend’s eyes flickered to the couch. “Well, I’ve got two bits of bad news. But first—Rulie, how’re you holding up?”

“Other than being out of magic again, I’m okay,” Hyrule said quietly.

The words came easily and honestly, with no fae tricks to obscure the truth. He didn’t know what he had expected—distance, wariness, maybe even anger—but none of it had come. Legend hadn’t so much as blinked when he learned Hyrule was from Calatia, hadn’t flinched when he realized Hyrule was half fairy, and hadn’t hesitated to help restore Hyrule’s magic. The others hadn’t either.

And now they were bickering over silly bets and inventing potions and accepting his truth like they had known all along. Hyrule’s throat tightened again—not from hunger this time—and he bit down on the rising emotion. He hadn’t realized how much he had braced for rejection until it never came.

“What’s the worse news?” Warriors asked, scooting closer to the coffee table.

Legend, mercifully oblivious to Hyrule’s damp eyes, passed him a green potion. “They’re both worse, actually. First, I bought all the potions Syrup had in stock. If we can resupply her with ingredients, great. But she was out of the magic powder.”

“Shit,” Twilight muttered under his breath.

“She can make more, just—again—we need to get the supplies for her,” Legend added quickly, waving a hand to stave off the rising worry. “Honestly, I expected that. I’m the only one who buys the stuff, so she doesn’t keep it on hand. The problem is that the mushroom she needs for it is rare and over-harvested. The only reliable place to find them is deep in the Lost Woods.”

Several of the swordsmen around the room grimaced, familiar with their own eras’ Lost Woods.

“I assume you’ve been to your Lost Woods before,” Time said, folding his arms across his chest, a flicker of concern in his eye.

Legend scoffed and leaned back on his hands, narrowly dodging a loose bokoblin liver. “More times than I can count. That part’s not the issue. The second problem is that Irene and Syrup think a monster has holed up in there, probably black-blooded.”

Mail and leather rustled as everyone in the room subtly drew themselves to attention.

“What sort of monster?” Warriors asked. “Do they know?”

Legend shook his head. “They don’t. But I have a hunch it has something to do with Datura. There’s a trail of corpses leading straight from Datura’s fountain to the Woods, all of them sucked dry of magic.”

“The Lost Woods are a powerful source of magic,” Time said, his eye narrowing. “And close to Datura’s fountain.”

Legend let out a sharp, sardonic laugh. “You’d think, wouldn’t you? No, my Lost Woods are on the other side of the country.”

Hyrule sipped his potion, watching a perplexed expression travel across the room as they adjusted their mental maps of the country. His own Lost Woods was in the southwest, although he had heard from old stories that it had been in the northwest once (and southeast before that).

“Why go all that way?” Twilight asked, looking baffled. “If it’s stealin’ magic, there’s gotta be sources closer’n the Lost Woods.” Wind emphasized his point by gesturing broadly to Legend’s house.

Legend rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well. If I had to guess, it followed the leyline.” That earned Legend another round of confused looks. “You know, a dragon vein? It’s like a…a river, but for magic. A lot of temples and dungeons are built over places where it pools.”

“Fairy fountains, too,” Hyrule added quietly.

“Exactly.” Legend’s face lit with a proud smile. “The one under Datura’s fountain used to be connected to the Lost Woods, but whatever asshole god transplanted the Lost Woods northwest didn’t clean up after themselves, and whatever corrupted Datura likely followed the leyline there.”

Sky leaned forward on his stool with a smile. “That works in our favor then. We can get the mushroom for Syrup and take out the monster in one go.”

“If it’s along the way, we should also report the situation to the Queen,” Warriors added. “How far are the Woods from here?”

“Two days,” Legend replied. “The shortest path cuts through Castle Town, so yeah, we can stop by the castle. Just for you, Captain.”

Time frowned, silent, his gaze drifting toward Hyrule. After a beat, he looked over his shoulder and asked into the kitchen, “Wild, how many potions can you make?”

Wild looked up from the dough he had started while the next potion simmered. Shaking flour off his hands, he tapped his slate’s screen and muttered a few numbers under his breath before answering, “About thirty-three? That’s of Rulie’s potion, with the plain chu jelly. I think Wind’s jelly made something closer to a normal potion, but we only had enough for one.”

“My potions aren’t very effective,” Hyrule confessed. “I would need about eight of them to restore all my magic.”

“Okay…and it takes, what, about an hour for your magic to drain?” Legend looked to Hyrule for confirmation, and Hyrule nodded gravely. Sitting up, Legend tapped his fingers on the table while he sounded out the math. “I got nine potions from Syrup—eight now. So that’s…”

“Thirteen hours,” Four murmured.

Thirteen.

Hyrule felt the number land like a dungeon door slamming shut behind him.

Forget making it to the Lost Woods; it wasn’t enough to make it through tomorrow, and he had no idea how sleep would interact with the magic drain—if he even could sleep.

And when they ran out of potions, what then?

“I’m going with you,” Hyrule said, failing to keep the desperation out of his voice. He didn’t trust himself in Legend’s house alone—not like this. “Please.”

Time sighed. “We might not have a choice.”

“I can still fight,” Hyrule pleaded, a little louder. “I don’t need my magic—”

“We know you can.” Sky fidgeted uncomfortably on his stool. “ You’re one of the best swordsmen I know. But…I’m sorry, Hyrule. If you run out of magic, you’ll collapse. Or….”

“Or bite one of us,” Four said, mercifully refraining from adding ‘again.’ Even so, Hyrule flinched, his hand going automatically to his mouth. “But would that be so bad? Most of us have magic we don’t regularly use in combat.”

“Absolutely not,” Warriors snapped. “Bite wounds are not to be trifled with, and we can’t burn through our red potions with our best healer out of commission.”

Wind scooted closer, next to Warriors, and rested his arms on the coffee table. “But we can’t leave him here. We’ll be gone for days.”

“So you need a way to restore Mr. Traveler’s magic, yes?” came Ravio’s voice from the kitchen.

Wild jumped as Ravio suddenly appeared at his elbow, now without his hood and with a towel draped around his neck. The merchant leaned over Wild’s latest potion—another of Hyrule’s recipe—and before anyone could stop him, stuck a spoon in and stole a taste.

“Oogh….” Ravio made a face at the pot and tossed the spoon into the sink. “Mr. Champion, I’m afraid this is a bit bland. Maybe if you added some seasoning?”

“It’s potion, not soup!” Wild swatted him with a spatula.

“Oh.” Ravio looked at the pot again owlishly, undeterred by the utensil abuse. “…Maybe some seasoning?”

Legend rolled his eyes. “Rav, let the man cook.” He paused, scowling as an idea came to him. “Unless you have an item for transferring magic to someone else?”

“Nuh-uh,” Ravio said. “Unless you would like to commission one? I can make it a rush order, but I’ll have to charge—” He ducked under the counter as Legend picked a tchotchke off the table and hucked it at him.

Meanwhile, Wild was staring intently at a pile of chu jellies he had prepared for the next potion, spatula frozen mid-swing. “They’re bland….” he muttered vaguely.

Sky gave him a sympathetic look. “Wild, they’re potions; they’re not meant to taste good. Your regular cooking is great.”

“No, no, it’s—” Wild stammered, practically vibrating as an idea formed. He swung the spatula like a conductor’s baton, flinging bits of jelly. “They’re unflavored. This is just their base form. If you hit them with fire, they become fire jelly—they store it. Like they—”

“Like they absorb energy….” Four gasped, sitting bolt upright. “They’re not weak, they’re inert! We can store magic in the jelly!”

“And then make potions out of ‘em?” Wind asked, bumping the coffee table as he jumped to his feet. “So we can take Hyrule with us?”

“Probably?” Wild picked up a jelly and juggled it lightly between his hands. “I’m not sure how to put non-elemental energy in these, though.”

Ravio snatched the jelly out of the air. “That’s basic enchantment! I could show you.” He glanced to the side, caught Legend’s glare, and quickly added,“for the low, low cost of you cooking breakfast tomorrow.”

Laughter rippled through the room, light and genuine, for the first time since Hyrule first collapsed. Rolling his eyes, Legend dragged Ravio over to the kitchen table, where the merchant cheerfully launched into an explanation of storing magic in an item rather than channeling through one. The others lingered nearby, waiting their turn but listening closely.

From the couch, Hyrule watched in quiet awe as his brothers—and they were, truly, his brothers—worked together to help him. Warmth and comfort slowly unraveled the knot in his chest, like easing into the waters of a fairy fountain.

After a few minutes of bickering over magical theory, Ravio stepped back and let Legend make the first attempt. The veteran set a jelly on the table, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused. The scent of sea salt and chamomile filled the air as the jelly took on a faint glow. When Legend opened his eyes, the glow faded, leaving behind a bright green jelly—the same as Wind’s.

A lopsided grin stretched across Legend’s face. “Rulie, I think we have a solution.”

In a rush, the other unoccupied magic-wielders in the Chain jumped to their feet. They crowded into the kitchen, grabbing jellies of their own to convert, until someone bumped into Wild at the stove and he shoo’d them all out with his spatula. Exiled from the kitchen, they squeezed around the coffee table with Ravio and his less-than-helpful makeshift diagrams.

Hyrule leaned back into the couch cushions as the group poured magic into the jellies, his eyelids fluttering as the heady blend of energies saturated the air. He was glad he had drunk a potion before they started; the overlapping scents of grass and moss and sea breeze and smoke and steel made his head spin.

Once they’d built a modest pile of enchanted jelly, Wild scooped them up and returned to the stove, humming contentedly as he set to work distilling them into potions.

“Let’s hold off on converting any more,” Time said, smiling despite himself. “We need to make sure this works before we expend all of our magic.”

Four held a jelly up to the light, examining its glossy surface. “There must be some latent energy in these; we seem to be getting more magic out of them than we’re putting in.”

“So if we had enough jelly, we could have infinite magic?” Wind said, eyes gleaming with mischief in the making.

“Let’s not press our luck,” Legend said, glaring at Warriors’s surprisingly large pile of converted jellies. “You’ll get sick if you drink too much. Chus are finite, anyway. Probably.”

Warriors ticked off numbers on his fingers, counting the jellies they had converted. “I don’t think we’ll be able to convert all of them tonight, but we should be able to do more on the road. If they make potions of the same strength as Wind’s….” He muttered numbers under his breath, shaking his head. “I’m not sure it’s going to be enough.”

Wind let out a long, loud groan. “What do you mean? That’s so many potions!”

“Forty-one,” Warriors said. “In ideal circumstances, we can ration them and maybe it would be enough, assuming Legend flies the mushroom to Syrup, but we need to account for magic exhaustion. Either we carry Hyrule, which will slow us down, or he walks while fatigued. In either case, we add hours to the journey, if not another day.”

Hyrule’s rising hopes plummeted like a stone dropping into his gut. After everything his brothers had done for him, to hit one more hurdle….

No. He refused to let their efforts go to waste.

“Wait, I have an idea,” Hyrule said suddenly, shrugging off the blanket. “You’re right. When I run out of magic, I’ll slow you down or lose control. But I, um, can make it easier to carry me if that happens.”

“Oh?” Warriors raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Another spell of yours?”

“Something like that?” Hyrule chuckled, a little too nervously.

He gauged his magic reserves left over from the last potion and found it to be just barely enough, as long as he got another potion soon after.

“Give me some space,” he said, standing shakily. The others exchanged glances and backed away from the couch in a loose semicircle.

Hyrule reached deep into his core, past the hunger, into a tangle of magic ingrained in his very blood, beyond the reach of the miasma’s drain. Gathering the remains of his workable magic, he fashioned it into a tool to pick the knot apart like the fourth sage of Mido Harbor had taught him.

Unleashed, the fairy transformation came quickly, his insides lurching with the sensation of falling as he suddenly shrunk. Cartilaginous ribs threaded through new muscles on his back, wings forming just quickly enough to catch him before he fell.

“Whoa!” Hyrule pitched wildly in midair, his wings feeling cumbersome and awkward. The magic exhaustion must have affected his fairy form more than he expected. He glanced over his shoulder instinctively to check his wings for injury—

Hyrule’s heart seized in his chest.

Where there should have been translucent, silvery butterfly wings were leathery membranes, dark and veined like a bat’s. Like an anti-fairy’s.

A ripple of revulsion twisted his stomach. Those weren’t his wings; they were wrong. He had to get rid of them, to turn back into a Hylian, anything to feel like himself again, but the transformation had taken almost all of his remaining magic. He needed to get away.

The alien wings faltered and he fell out of the air, landing clumsily in Legend’s hands as the vet swooped in to catch him.

“No, no, let me go!” Hyrule thrashed, looking for the quickest way to escape his brothers’ sight. “This isn’t—I’m not—”

“Rulie. Rulie, stop.” Legend’s ringed fingers curled inward, not enough to trap Hyrule but to keep him from stumbling off. “It’s okay, calm down.”

Hyrule backed into the curve of Legend’s palm, folding the wings out of his sight (his real wings didn’t fold like that). Holding onto Legend’s thumb ring like it was a lifesaver, he forced his breathing back into a regular rhythm, in and out, in and out.

When he finally thought he could breathe again, he sagged against the vet’s thumb. “I’m sorry,” he sighed and looked around, wincing to see his brothers and Ravio in a circle around him and Legend. There was no hiding his warped fairy form from them.. “This…this isn’t what I’m supposed to look like. I didn’t know—”

“It’s okay, Hyrule,” Sky said, ever gentle, smiling reassuringly. “It’s probably from the miasma. The powder restored the other fairies, remember? I’m sure it will work on you, too.”

Hyrule nodded, his throat loosening slightly. Sky was right—he just had to put up with this corrupted form until they got the powder. A part of him still wanted to shift back and forget he had ever seen his wings look so wrong, but he bundled the feeling up and buried it. Two days. He could deal with it for two days.

“It’s so cool that you can fly, though,” Wind said, eyes wide in wonder and a bit of envy.

A hesitant smile tugged at Hyrule’s mouth. “Yeah. Flying’s pretty great. Just…” His wings drooped behind him, the tips scraping Legend’s palm. “I don’t like you seeing me like this. These wings aren’t—aren’t me.”

“We can’t restore your wings yet, but...would it help to have company?” Four asked suddenly from the couch. All heads turned towards him in surprise.

Twilight’s face fell in disbelief. “Don’t tell me yer a fairy too, Smithy.”

Four laughed hard as he dug into his equipment pack. “No, not quite.”

He pulled a floppy red cap out of his bag and looked to Hyrule for approval. Curiosity overriding his current distress, Hyrule nodded. Four smiled, put on the hat, and vanished.

The other Heroes in the circle yelped, jumping backwards in shock and searching for the disappeared Hero.

“Down here!” They looked down to find a tiny version of the smith, no taller than a thumb, standing proudly on the cushions with his hands on his hips.

Warriors sighed into a put-upon laugh, both amused and exhausted. “Right. Does anyone else want to reveal a conveniently portable form before we leave tomorrow?”

Sky rubbed his chin. “Well, there is—”

“Shut up.” Legend shot Sky a death glare and gently set Hyrule next to Four. “Anyway…good idea, both of you. We’ll get the mushroom and then Rulie and I can fly to the witch together straight from the Woods.”

Pleased and a little smug, Four laughed and pulled Hyrule into a side-hug.

The group gradually drifted back into motion, setting about their final preparations for the night. Wild eventually finished the first potion made using the enchanted jellies, offering it to Hyrule to replenish the magic used in his transformation spell. Hyrule accepted it gratefully, dunking himself directly in the green liquid, to Wild’s horror. The potion vanished, absorbed directly into Hyrule’s pool of magic, and he fluttered back out of the empty bottle, his normal fae glow appearing as sickly green flames (to his discomfort).

But it was a success: they had the materials for forty full-strength potions. They were going to the Lost Woods together.

Tired from all the brewing and dough kneading, Wild opted for a simpler dinner of sauteed vegetables (and a few berries for Hyrule) before returning to the potion pot. The dough, once sufficiently risen, went into the slate for the morning along with all of his scattered, unused ingredients.

Hyrule broke a raspberry into drupelets and shared them with Four, who had remained with him on Legend’s couch over dinner. They watched the others mill about, cleaning and organizing their gear for the next day in comfortable companionship.

“You know,” Four said eventually, “after my adventures, people weren’t…. They didn’t really know what to make of us, when we came back different. It was like…Link left, and someone else took his place.” He huffed a short, dry laugh. “They weren’t exactly wrong, but….

“Eventually, I stopped trying to be who they thought I was supposed to be. It mattered more being who we actually were.” He looked sideways at Hyrule, his eyes flickering between colors. “All that to say, I think all of us know what it’s like to be different. We’re in good company here.”

Hyrule smiled softly at his brothers scattered throughout the room. Sky, already asleep, curled up with his sword in front of the fireplace. Legend and Ravio, talking quietly by the back door. Wind and Warriors helping with Time’s armor. Wild bribing Twilight into cleaning the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Hyrule said with a soft smile. “We are.”

Chapter Text

It turned out anti-fairies could not, in fact, sleep.

Not for want of trying. Hyrule lay in the nest of blankets he and Four had claimed for the night, waiting for sleep to take him—ideally before the hunger did. He rolled himself into a cocoon of fabric, the leathery wings surprisingly soft against his back, and listened as Four’s breathing grew softer and slower nearby.

Eventually, after what seemed like hours, Hyrule gave up and opened his eyes to the darkness.

The green flames that had replaced his fae glow had faded during his attempt at sleep, although activity brought them flickering gently back to life, casting his immediate area in a sickly light. They didn’t seem to harm anything, fortunately; the others had already tested and found the flames to be no more material than his glow had been. If anything, they felt cold.

Wind thought the flames and wings were awesome; Hyrule might have agreed, but they weren’t his.

With a stifled groan, Hyrule rolled out of the nest. The room was dark, with six bedrolls spread across Legend’s living room floor—Legend himself, of course, taking his actual bed in the other room. The others had offered to stay up with Hyrule in case he couldn’t sleep, but he refused. He was still one of their healers and he wasn’t going to let them squander a full night of uninterrupted rest on his account.

They were all exhausted anyway; the Chain had spent all evening pouring magic into Wild’s jellies. Although it left them tired, it had a surprising upside: they no longer smelled of magic, so Hyrule was less tempted to bite anyone. But now, as they slept, their natural regeneration had restored just enough magic for his teeth to ache at the scent.

Picking up one of the fairy-sized green potions—shrunk by Four’s Gnat Hat—Hyrule fluttered out the back window into the quiet dark of the orchard.

There were little pockets of magic among the trees, where fairies had created little hidey-hole homes in hollows and abandoned bird nests. Hyrule gave them a wide berth as he passed by. He wanted so badly to introduce himself to the fairies living in Legend’s orchard, but with one whiff of their pure, sweet magic, he knew he couldn’t risk it.

Flying wide arcs around the fairy homes, he found a tree far enough away and perched on a branch. He laughed a little at the situation; it had been a while since he felt the need to spend a night in a tree, since early in this adventure with the Chain.

His green flames faded again as he settled into an almost-meditative state, leaning against the trunk, listening to the crickets and leaves rustling and owls hooting in the distance. A faint breeze drew swirls through the fallen apple blossoms on the orchard floor.

Ignoring the hunger was easier away from any sources of magic, but not sustainably so. With the thick canopy above blocking any view of the night sky, Hyrule’s only sense of time came from the craving rising in his gut. A subtle ache in his jaw spread slowly through his body, winding every muscle tight until he was ready to spring, to dig his teeth into something warm, to consume. He drew himself in tight as uncontrollable shivers crawled up his spine.

When he worried his trembling might send him falling out of the tree, he finally ripped the cork off the potion bottle and downed it in one long swallow. He had no idea how long it had been since his last dose, but he hoped it was long enough. He wouldn’t last as long with his brothers constantly nearby on the road.

Thirty-nine potions left, he thought glumly, licking the bottle rim clean and settling against the tree once more.

The potion ran out in the early hours, just before the first light of dawn. Without another to tide him over, Hyrule sank into the feeling of hazy emptiness, the light breeze tugging gently at his hair and wings.

He stirred as the sun rose, painting the trees in strokes of golden light, and a familiar creak of hinges reached his ears. A moment later, footsteps padded into the orchard, the rustling leaves giving way to a long yawn. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know who it was; the morning breeze carried the scent of chamomile and sea salt, warm and familiar and full of magic.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was diving for the exposed flesh just under his victim’s chin, and nearly collided with a bottle of green potion raised like a shield.

“G’morning, Rulie,” Legend mumbled, voice thick with sleep, and tipped the open bottle towards Hyrule.

Without thinking, Hyrule threw himself into the magic-rich liquid, sighing in relief as the potion disappeared into his fae form and his flames flared back to life. With a groan, he slumped against the glass walls and slid to the bottom. He wasn’t keen on the idea, but it might have been better to pull the cork on over his head and stay in the bottle for the whole trip. (The idea had come up in conversation the previous night before Warriors vehemently shut it down without further elaboration.)

Making no move to rise, Hyrule croaked a quiet “thanks” to Legend.

Legend lifted the bottle to eye level, brows furrowed in concern. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then hesitated. After a moment, he turned and walked deeper into the orchard instead, carefully ferrying Hyrule in the open bottle.

“Rav’s bird saw you come out here last night,” Legend commented idly. “If you’re planning on staying out here, you can come with me to check on the bees.”

So Hyrule stayed in the bottle while Legend followed a worn path between the trees, stopping at one of the wooden hives scattered throughout the orchard. Legend knelt, rested the bottle on the dewy grass, and covered the opening with his cap to prevent any curious bees slipping in. Working in silence, he pried apart the wax-and-honey-laden boxes, carefully avoiding the workers as they emerged to investigate the disturbance. A new medallion hung from Legend’s neck, enchanted with honey-sweet magic—something to placate the bees, Hyrule guessed.

Little sparks of magic within the hive caught Hyrule’s attention, and he stood for a better look. When he couldn’t see over the frame, he fluttered out of the bottle to land lightly on Legend’s shoulder. He tugged on his predecessor’s long bangs, grinning and gesturing, until Legend looked where Hyrule was pointing.

Nestled deep in the queen’s brood were a few nascent fairies, mimicking the appearance of nearby larvae and barely differentiable if not for their coloring and abundance of magic. Legend stared in awe as Hyrule explained how newborn fairies were adopted by other creatures, and how the local fairies likely cared for Legend’s bees without his knowing.

 A soft smile spread across the veteran’s face. He pulled a tiny packet from his tunic pockets—the leaf-bound spores from Datura’s rites.

“Here?” Hyrule asked, barely above a whisper.

Legend hummed a quiet confirmation, holding the packet reverently. “It’s not far, like Iris might have expected from me. I hope it’s okay.”

“Yeah.” Hyrule smiled and patted Legend’s cheek. “It’s perfect.”

They planted the packet deep in the shade of one of the orchard’s oldest trees, where the wards around Legend’s property would keep the growing mushrooms safe. They lingered there for a while, dew soaking their tunics and boots, until Wild’s voice called them in for breakfast.

Back in the kitchen, Wild handed Legend a plate and directed Hyrule to a smaller serving of fresh fried bread, topped with butter from Time’s ranch and honey from Legend’s stores. Hyrule couldn’t waste magic transforming back and could only eat a tiny portion in his smaller form, but it was the most delicious thing he had eaten in years. Pleased with the reaction, Wild tucked a bigger serving into his slate for later—for after they got the powder.

After breakfast, the house filled with the usual hustle and bustle of departure. They checked and rechecked their gear, with Ravio giving all the enchanted items a quick once-over, and counted their potions. Those who finished packing first spent the extra time offloading magic for the next batch of potions.

Four shrunk the finished potions and promptly crashed in Warriors’s scarf, content to be carried after enchanting more jellies than was probably healthy. Sitting on the windowsill, Hyrule sipped the last of a green potion while the others made their final preparations.

After waving their goodbyes to Ravio and Sheerow, the group set out on the road curving north around the orchard to the capitol. As was tradition, Legend grumbled about going to the castle and meeting with Fable—the Zelda of his era—with the same fond exasperation he usually reserved for Ravio.

Trees gave way to wagon-worn roads and farmlands lush with late spring growth. Hyrule watched the landscape shift, unrecognizable with the centuries separating Legend’s era from his own, yet familiar as if pulled from the stories of his childhood. Roads turned to paved stone and fields to old fortification walls as the distant castle loomed closer.

By mid-morning, the Chain passed into the castle’s shadow. The castle guards, upon seeing Legend, let the group pass by unimpeded. Navigating the winding halls with ease, Legend led them to a private parlor where, with minimal ceremony, all but Sky and Twilight collapsed into the nearest couch or chair.

Fable appeared shortly afterward, stepping into the room with a bright smile and stopping short. She took one look at the swordsmen draped across the castle’s furniture like old blankets and gave a long sigh that sounded too much like one of Legend’s.

Had they been Heroes of Wisdom, they might have foreseen a problem with the jelly-enchanting plan.

“So,” Fable started after they explained the situation, fingers steepled at her chin and her eyes sparkling with dry amusement. “Your solution to Hyrule suffering acute and persistent magic exhaustion was to drain all of your own magic—thus rendering the entire lot of you exhausted—before embarking on a two-day trek?”

Lying on a couch with his cap over his face, Legend raised a finger as if to offer a defense. After a moment’s pause, he lowered it again.

“Yes,” he said flatly. “Yes, that sums it up. Thank you for your insight, Your Majesty.”

Fable scoffed and pulled the cap off his face. Legend hissed and shielded his eyes.

“I admit we didn’t think of this,” Warriors said, hunched over on a chair and pressing his forehead into one hand. “We apologize for our current state, Your Majesty.”

“Please, it is no trouble at all.” Fable tossed the cap back over Legend’s face. He made no move to adjust it. “While you’re recuperating, you’re free to make use of the kitchens. I’ll have food brought in for lunch as well—something light for traveling—and I’ll send for potions, which should cover the time you spend here, if I understand correctly?” She glanced to Hyrule, who was sitting on a plush cushion alongside Four.

“Yes, thank you,” Hyrule said.

Wild—one of the least magically inclined and therefore one of the first to recover—peeled himself off a chair and followed a maid to the kitchen. Meanwhile, Fable debriefed the others, shooting concerned glances in Hyrule’s direction all the while. He was, fortunately or not, getting used to the others’ fretting, but there was something else in her expression, sharper and searching—the same look Legend wore when solving a puzzle.

Eventually, a servant arrived with trays of little sandwiches and fresh fruit, met with murmured thanks and groans of appreciation. Fable stood then, stepping towards the door to leave. Pausing at the door, she turned back to Hyrule with a gentle smile.

“Hyrule, would you join me for a moment?”

He startled, fumbling the grape in his hands. Eyes wide, he looked around to make sure she wasn’t addressing Legend or Time or Warriors to meet with her, but her eyes remained on him. Legend finally pulled off his hat, tilting his head to give Fable a questioning look. She met it briefly, some unsaid communication running between them, before returning her attention to Hyrule.

Swallowing his nerves, Hyrule set the grape back on the plate for later and fluttered awkwardly into the air after her.

Fable led him through a quiet side hall, half-lit by narrow arched windows, to a window seat far out of earshot. She sat and patted the cushion by her side with a reassuring smile. 

“I wanted to speak with you privately,” she said as Hyrule landed beside her. “Not because I don’t trust the others, of course, but...I know they can be overbearing sometimes. They worry about others—far more than they worry about themselves.”

Hyrule tilted his head, an ear perked in curiosity.

Fable folded her hands in her lap. “I need to ask—what you told me earlier, about the anti-fairy curse. Was that truly the full extent of it? Or is there anything you haven’t told the others?”

His wings tensed at the question, folding in a way that still felt alien. He picked absently at a loose thread in the cushion’s fabric. “I—I think that’s everything. The other fairies transformed fully, but I guess because I’m part Hylian the transformation only went this far.” He hoped, anyway. “And then there’s the magic drain.”

Fable nodded slowly. “I see.... Yet Ravio sensed Dark magic?”

Hyrule hummed a soft confirmation.

She turned toward the window, gazing down at the distant courtyard, her expression tightening with concern. For a while she was silent, turning some invisible puzzle over in her mind.

At last, without looking back, Fable said, “As a person proficient in magic, you may know.... Magic doesn’t simply vanish—not invisibly. Magic returns to the world when we cast spells, which has a noticeable effect, even if the effect is subtle. I don’t believe your magic is lost, but rather...has changed aspect into one you cannot access.”

Hyrule put a hand to his chest as if he could touch the magic buried somewhere behind his heart. “It’s being converted to Dark magic?”

Fable nodded. “That is my theory, yes. I believe you feel a hunger for magic because your body is accustomed to raw, unaspected magic. It doesn’t realize you already possess an enormous amount, just in an unfamiliar aspect.”

“Oh.” Hyrule gave a weak laugh. He wasn’t terribly worried about his magic being converted to Dark—after all, Twilight’s magic crystal was concentrated Dark magic and Ravio had apparently come from a world replete in Darkness. Despite the common associations, magic alignment wasn’t inherently good or bad. Somehow this information was easier to stomach than his changed wings—likely because he couldn’t detect the change himself. “What can I do then? If I don’t replenish my magic, I...I lose control. I tried to bite Legend again this morning.”

Fable’s smile was sympathetic but tinged with concern. “That is what worries me. You instinctually try to replenish your reserves, but in doing so you add to an already abundant supply. In humans, too much magic can become toxic. I’m not sure how it affects the fae, but I imagine the effects are similar?”

Hyrule froze as realization settled over him. He did know how excess magic affected fairies—it turned them into Great Fairies, with all the responsibility that entailed. It wasn’t a path he had ever envisioned for himself. “It—it’s not toxic to us, but.... I need some way to tap into the magic. To spend it.”

“Yes,” Fable said. “If, for some reason, you and the others cannot restore your true form soon, I would recommend speaking with Ravio again. He may be able to devise a spell or item for you to cast Dark magic safely until you find a more permanent solution.”

With a grimace, Hyrule pulled his knees to his chest. Dark magic was more or less outlawed in his era, relegated purely to Ganon’s servants. It brought to mind the fallen wizards of the Maze Island. He supposed his Fire spell could be fueled by Dark magic, but....

“I don’t think Dark magic can be used to heal,” he said glumly.

Fable watched him for a moment as he shrunk into himself, then reached out and rested a hand gently on the cushion beside him, palm up. After a moment’s hesitation, Hyrule stepped into her gloved hand and let her lift him.

“I know this is a lot,” Fable said softly. “But you’re not alone in this. You mean the world to Link—to Legend—and to all of them. You’re not just their healer. You’re their brother, and brothers take care of each other.”

Hyrule looked down, wings shifting uneasily against his back. “I don’t know how to help them. They’ve already given me so much, and now all I can do is—” He cut himself off before he could say ‘drain them.’

Fable’s expression softened with understanding. “Your worth is not measured by what you can do for others, especially not when you’re hurting. You’ve spent your whole life helping people, haven’t you? Let us help you for a change, Hero of Hyrule.”

After a moment’s pause for permission, she brought him close to press a kiss to the top of his head. “Just promise me you’ll take care of yourself, too. Not just for them. For you.”

Hyrule smiled weakly. “I’ll try.”

Returning the smile, Fable lowered her hand to her lap, just high enough to give Hyrule a view of the courtyard outside. They sat there for a quiet moment, watching the hedge shadows shrink in the noon sun.

Eventually, Fable gestured for him to move and stood. “Go on. I’m sure your brothers are worried. I will meet with you all again before you leave.”

By the time Hyrule returned to the others, they had finished eating and were milling about the parlor. As expected, they swarmed Hyrule as soon as he fluttered in the door, curiosity and concern writ large on their collective faces. To assuage them, Hyrule explained Fable’s theory of his magic being converted.

“Our plan stays the same then,” Warriors said. “Our best option is to get the magic powder.”

Legend gestured, his hat flopping loose in his hands. “It wouldn’t hurt to ask Rav to look into a Dark spell Rulie could cast. We may be able to get a message to Hilda, too.” With a glance at Hyrule, he added, “Just in case. We’re going to get that mushroom, even if we have to hop eras for it. I just want a backup plan so we don’t get bitten in the ass if we take too long.”

Wind choked. Four’s eyes went wide and he clapped a hand over his mouth, barely catching a laugh as he buried his face in Warrior’s scarf. Twilight and Sky glanced at each other in confusion.

“What?” Legend shot Four and Wind a look.

Time hummed, lips pursed with effort in maintaining a straight face. “Perhaps not the best way to phrase that....”

Legend squinted at him, confused, before replaying the words in his head. His face flushed. “Oh, fuck—Rulie, I didn’t mean—”

Hyrule wheezed, doubling over in midair. Between giggles, he gasped, “Lege—Lege, I promise—I will not bite your ass.”

The room broke into full-blown laughter around Legend, who stood rooted in place, face as red as his over-tunic. Wild returned from the kitchens to find the rest of the Chain giggling uncontrollably and Legend waiting for them to calm down, arms folded and an affected scowl across his face.

Fable and the servant she had sent to buy potions appeared soon after, loading more green potions into Wild’s slate and giving one to Hyrule. While the Heroes collected themselves for departure, Fable took a basketful of Wild’s chu jellies and poured her own chamomile and lemon-balm magic into them—handily beating all the swordsmen in jellies enchanted at once.

Tired after donating so much magic, Fable drowsily gave each of them a hug—or a gentle pat on the head, in the case of Hyrule and Four—and wished them safe travels. “Keep each other out of trouble,” she said, her gaze lingering on Legend and Hyrule before she left.

A little later in the day than they originally intended, the Chain made their way out of Castle Town, crossing the moat and into the western fields.

Hyrule drank a potion every time the urge to bite someone grew too great, counting down the hours almost as reliably as Time. When they stopped for breaks, someone would grab a jelly or two from Wild, carefully banking magic without overtaxing themselves like they had that morning.

Although they made what potions they could on the road, their supply steadily dwindled.

A little over halfway to the Woods, where the plains started climbing out of the central lowlands, they stopped by a forested river. Following their usual routine, they set up camp in a clearing, albeit with a simpler dinner to relieve Wild of cooking duties for a while.

Hyrule took a shift in the watch rotation, as usual, although he was awake for all three shifts anyway. He watched the campsite from his perch in a tree, diligently drinking a potion every hour and patrolling the area when the scent of magic grew too tempting. At one point deep in the night, Sky woke up from a nightmare and Hyrule cuddled against the Hero—one of the few he could risk coming near, given Sky’s limited magic. He wasn’t sure if the contact was more comforting to Sky or to himself.

After some debate over breakfast, Warriors and Time came to a compromise that the Chain would push a little harder than they normally would, ensuring they would get to the forest before sunset.

By the time they arrived at the Lost Woods, Hyrule’s bag felt unnervingly light. He traced his thumb across the corks of the last four green potions as Legend explained his era’s Lost Woods.

“To be honest, the Woods aren’t that bad,” Legend was saying. “They lost a lot of magic during the War. There used to a seal over the deepest part, but....” He nodded towards the reforged Master Sword on his back. “After I retrieved the sword, there wasn’t anything else to hide away. These days, it’s mostly just spirits causing mischief.”

Twilight folded his arms across his chest, wary. “What sorta mischief?”

“Nothing harmful; just annoying.” Legend waved a hand dismissively. “They try to mislead you or trick you with illusions, but at worst you’ll be turned around for a few hours.”

“We don’t exactly have a few hours...” Four muttered. He had returned to his usual size, his ability to fight taking priority over keeping Hyrule company. The forest already cast long evening shadows over the group, dispelling the day’s warmth and replacing it with the last spring chill.

Time stared into the woods, his grip tight on the hilt of the greatsword resting on his shoulder. “The Lost Woods are a dangerous place to get lost in.”

“Three centuries ago, maybe. As long as we keep an eye on Wild and Rulie, we’ll be fine.” Legend shot the two wander-prone Heroes a look and continued, pacing at the end of the path. “The mushrooms will probably be a couple hours in. As for the monster—no idea. Maybe Wolfie can pick up the scent.” He pointedly raised an eyebrow at Twilight, who shrugged and shifted into his wolf form in a shower of geometric black sparks.

With Wolfie in the lead, the Chain crossed the threshold into the forest proper, past the first trees. They followed a narrow game trail, fallen twigs and leaves crunching under their boots. Fading sunlight bathed the woods in a hazy orange-green glow, shifting in the light breeze. The cool air was thick with the scent of moss and decay.

To Hyrule, however, the forest smelled of old magic—of sweets left in a tin too long, sugar gone stale with a hint of rust. It barely overpowered the ambient smell of the Chains’ magic, and only because they had expended all their magic enchanting the last jellies.

Wolfie kept his nose to the ground, ears flicking toward every distant animal noise. Perched between his shoulders, Hyrule scanned the darkening trees for the faint glimmer of the mushrooms they needed. Now and then, a flicker of pure magic reached his over-tuned senses—faint traces of mushrooms already harvested.

“Is that one?” Wind’s voice broke the silence, too loud for the quiet woods.

Wincing, Legend squinted in the direction Wind was pointing. A cluster of pale mushrooms glowed faintly in the hollow of an old stump. Wind darted towards them, only for Time to snatch the back of his shirt.

“Hey!” Wind squawked, stumbling back. “It’s a mushroom, innit?”

“Nope,” Legend said, popping the ‘p’. He had a hand on a hip, looking utterly unimpressed by the fungus. “Fake.”

Wind groaned in disappointment as Wolfie padded over to give the mushrooms a sniff. The moment his nose brushed the mushroom caps, they disappeared in a puff of dust. He sneezed violently, nearly buckling Hyrule off, but also giving the fairy a good whiff of the illusion magic—sweet, but cloyingly so, and nowhere near as strong as he expected real mushrooms to be.

The illusions grew more elaborate the deeper the group went. Mushrooms appeared in carefully arranged spirals or growing in conspicuous trails up the sides of trees. Others grew in hidden places, only visible by their glow, as if proving their realness by how well-concealed they were.

“They’re overdoing it a bit,” Legend muttered when a vine dropped right in front of him, dangling a mushroom in his face. He sliced it in half with his sword and it vanished in a cloud of glittering mist, sending him into a fit of sneezing.

Sky frowned thoughtfully at the fading mist. “But why? We know they’re illusions, and surely the spirits know we mean no harm here.”

“Because the illusions aren’t for us,” Four said from somewhere behind the group. They turned to find him crouching a little way off the path, picking at something buried in the leaves.

Wolfie turned, heading towards Four, and a cloud of lingering magic hit Hyrule like a wave. He doubled over, coughing—overwhelmed by the intense smell after so long without—and fumbled a potion from his bag.

As he drank and the haze receded, his eyes landed on what Four had uncovered: torn chunks of mushrooms scattered across the forest floor, their glow dim and fading. Four turned one over, revealing deep gouges clawed into the loam beneath. Wolfie's prodding nose uncovered more disturbed soil and shredded mycelia.

“Is that...?” Wild asked, looking at the scene through his slate’s camera.

Legend knelt beside Four, picked up a mangled piece, and squished it between his fingers. “I think so. Something got to this one before us.”

“Animals?” Warriors suggested.

“No,” Time said, eye narrowed as he studied the claw marks and what was left of the mushrooms. “Animals in the Lost Woods know better.”

Suddenly, Wolfie pricked his ears, peering deeper into the woods. With a short bark, he bounded off into the undergrowth, just slow enough to not dislodge Hyrule and for the others to follow.

“Twi’s got a lead!” someone yelled behind them, followed by the din of seven heroes crashing through thick vegetation.

Hyrule clung tight to Wolfie’s fur, staying low to avoid getting swept off by a low-hanging branch, so he didn’t see where they were going until Wolfie suddenly skidded to a stop. A low growl rumbled in Wolfie’s throat.

Ahead of them, at the base of an ancient tree, a robed figure knelt by a patch of softly glowing mushrooms. One by one, it plucked them with long, bone-thin fingers. It raised a mushroom to its mouth and its long nose twitched like it was sniffing a fragrant delicacy.

Hyrule clapped his hands over his own nose, the smell of magic overwhelming his senses. His stomach turned, but his teeth ached.

The rest of the Chain broke free of the brush behind Wolfie and Hyrule, weapons drawn.

“Oh, fuck, of course it is,” Legend groaned.

“Wizzrobe,” Four and Wild said in unison; Four raised his shield as Wild nocked an arrow.

Hyrule thought it might have been one from his own era, but the thick haze of magic made it impossible to focus. His vision spun. He couldn’t speak.

The wizzrobe turned towards the intruders, its face cloaked in shadow save for its too-wide grin, little bits of mushroom stuck between its teeth. It tilted its head with a giggle and suddenly vanished, the half-eaten cap falling to the ground.

“Eyes out!” Warriors barked and the Chain fell into formation. Hyrule landed on Warriors’s shoulder, burying himself deep in his brother’s scarf.

They didn’t have to wait long. With a chorus of unhinged giggling, half a dozen copies of the wizzrobe appeared midair, wands raised high. Bolts of fire, ice, and lightning shot toward them.

Mirror shields snapped up just in time. Spells ricocheted in all directions, blasting through tree trunks, setting branches alight, and exploding in showers of sparks and ice.

“Shit—no mirrors!” Legend yelled as fire caught on a thicket behind him.

“It’s either that or eat it!” Four shouted back, bracing as a lightning orb crashed against his shield and bounced into the brush.

“Wild, water fruit!” Wind waved frantically for the champion’s attention. Wild ducked into the defensive ring beside him, materialized armfuls of splash fruit, and set to lobbing them at the spreading fires with gleeful abandon.

Time played something on his ocarina and a pulse of magic washed over the group, full of petrichor and ozone. Thunder rolled in the distance. “Keep the fires under control,” he said evenly. “Rain is on its way.”

“Because that’s just something you can do. Yeah, okay,” Legend said, a little hysterically, and raised his mirror shield again.

Meanwhile, Wolfie tore around the perimeter, teeth bared, snapping at the ankles of one wizzrobe in particular. The wizzrobe floated away from every bite, almost playfully. Sky followed with his bow, sending arrow after arrow through the wizzrobe but never seeming to hit.

“That’s got to be a fake!” Warriors drew his own bow and took aim at a different monster. His arrow passed through just the same, but the one he hit vanished with a pop.

“No, it’s real,” Hyrule choked from within Warriors’s scarf, one hand raised to point at the same target Wolfie was harassing. “That one—only that one smells real.”

Sky nodded, drawing again. “I’ll take the fakes! Twi, Wars, pin down the real one!”

Arrow after arrow flew from Sky’s bow in rapid succession. With each shot, a duplicate disappeared along with its magic. The first raindrops fell, dousing the last fires, freeing Wild to join with his own bow. Slowly, the Chain’s phalanx of mirror shields relaxed as they narrowed their focus to the final, real wizzrobe.

Suddenly alone, the wizzrobe vanished in a puff of smoke.

Undeterred, Wolfie followed the unseen enemy to its mushroom stash. The wizzrobe reappeared, snatched up a glowing mushroom, and screeched as Wolfie’s jaw suddenly closed around its neck.

“Yeah, get ‘im, Twi!” Wind cheered.

Wolfie shook violently, the wizzrobe shrieking and flopping like a rag doll, the mushroom held tight in its bony hand. After several seconds of thrashing, Wolfie finally stopped, his chest heaving for air and the wizzrobe limp in his mouth. Black blood dripped from between Wolfie’s fangs.

Before anyone could ask if it was over, the wizzrobe twitched, then cackled. Its head snapped upright, and it screamed.

An unholy noise swept over the group, awash with bittersweet magic so caustic it singed Hyrule’s nose hairs. In a dizzying drop, Hyrule’s meager pool of magic evaporated like water in a desert.

Hunger surged within him.

All around Hyrule, the others reeled.

“Shit, my—” Legend staggered, clutching his head. “What—what did it do to my magic?”

Wind buckled, bracing himself on his sword. “Oh, I don’t like that.”

Four dropped his sword with a clatter, clutching his skull. Sky, apparently unaffected, rushed forward to keep Four upright.

“It drained our magic?” Time groaned, rubbing the marks on his forehead.

Hyrule trembled and pressed Warriors’s scarf to his mouth. Nausea roiled in his stomach, not from hunger but from the sickening, bittersweet smell pervading the air.

He could smell exactly what had happened. The Chain reeked of it.

“No,” he rasped through the cloth. “Look—the mushroom.”

They turned.

The mushroom in the wizzrobe’s hand was dissolving. Black sludge oozed from between its fingers into a tar-thick puddle.

Wild cursed, a hand flying to the scars around his right arm. “It didn’t steal our magic—it changed it!”

The wizzrobe giggled menacingly, even as it dangled from Wolfie’s jaws, but its laughter soon faltered. Its wide grin fell and its eyes widened in confusion. Something wasn't right.

“Oh.” Legend braced his hands on his knees and let out a low, maniacal laugh. “Oh, I bet you thought that would work a lot better, didn’t you?”

“Lege?” Sky asked, his grimace deepening with concern.

Four, supported by Sky and barely upright, gave a short, strained chuckle. Violet eyes flickered from beneath a curtain of hair. “Oh, I see. It converts raw magic into Malice. If we had more magic left, that would have been fatal.”

Dawning horror swept over the Chains’ faces as one by one they turned to face Wolfie and the monster still trapped in his jaws. The wizzrobe blinked back at the nine Heroes it expected to be dead or dying.

It squeaked in panic and vanished in a puff of smoke. Wolfie’s teeth snapped shut on empty air and he spun in place with a frustrated whine, trying to catch the scent. The others lunged, but no one knew where the wizzrobe had gone.

Except Hyrule.

Amidst all the bittersweet Malice emanating from the Chain, the invisible wizzrobe’s raw magic lit his senses like a lighthouse in a storm. He untangled himself from Warriors’s scarf, wings unfurling.

“Hyrule, wait!” Warriors started, reaching a hand toward him, but Hyrule was already well out of reach.

He shot forward like a green fireball, weaving through branches and falling rain. The escaping monster flickered into view for just a moment, just long enough to scream in surprise at the fairy giving chase. It vanished again, uselessly.

Brush rustled below. Wolfie barreled after them, the rest of the Chain following close behind, their movement dragging a cloud of corrupted magic with them. It only pushed Hyrule onward, starving for pure, sweet magic. Hunger tore a growl from his throat.

The wizzrobe reappeared at the base of a gnarled tree, turning to face its pursuer in panic, wand half-raised.

Hyrule collided with it in a blur of leather wings and green flames.

He dove into its hood and sank his fangs deep into its flesh. The monster’s scream vibrated against his teeth. It writhed and its cloak twisted around him, cutting him off from the dying sunset light.

“Hyrule!” someone yelled.

Hyrule ignored the voice and drank. The monster’s blood was full of magic. It was so rich and sweet, offset by the bitter iron of its blood. It felt like fire settling in his stomach but he couldn’t get enough. Warm blood spilled down his chin.

With a final wrenching pull, the wizzrobe’s screams cut off.

The monster collapsed in a heap of cloth and rot, its body steaming and slumping to the ground below with a wet thud.

Hyrule tumbled free, landing hard on his back. He lay stunned, his breath coming in short gasps. The forest around him spun.

“Rulie!”

Boots thundered through the underbrush. Legend skidded into the mud by Hyrule’s side. The others rushed in and Wind stabbed the wizzrobe’s corpse a few times for good measure, even as it dissolved into purple smoke.

Twilight barked something, and Wild said, “Look, there’s more mushrooms. It must have been going for its stash.”

“Good. Harvest what you can,” Time said from somewhere out of Hyrule’s eyesight.

Rain fell through the trees with a soft susurrus. Hyrule watched the swaying canopy in a daze, Legend’s worried face above his. Legend raised a hand, not quite touching, as if unsure whether contact would help or hurt.

“I’m okay,” Hyrule rasped. Dazed and certainly not great, but alive and relatively unharmed. He pushed himself up on shaking arms, sore wings pulling out from under him. Legend’s eyes lit with relief.

Nausea struck like a hammer.

Hyrule doubled over, one hand to his mouth, but it wasn’t fast enough. Hot, black liquid spilled between his fingers and splattered to the ground below, hissing where it touched moss and leaves.

Thick, smokey miasma wafted off the expelled sludge.

Oh. That’s not good, Hyrule thought.

And he fell sideways into the mud, unconscious.

Chapter Text

For Legend, time slowed.

Thinking felt like wading through a swamp. His magic-depleted body left no resources for his mind to process what he was seeing.

One moment, Hyrule seemed fine—scuffed up and tired, as were they all. And the next....

Black sludge hissed on the ground next to Hyrule’s mouth, inches from Legend’s fingertips. The sharp, acrid stink of miasma burned Legend’s throat with every breath. If he had any magic left, he imagined the miasma would steal it away—or convert it, apparently. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could feel the dark magic within himself like spiderwebs laced through his veins.

And Hyrule had drained an entire black-blooded wizzrobe of its magic.

Legend carefully scooped the fairy’s limp, too-light body off the ground, wincing as his fingers grazed the expelled Malice. Hyrule was fully unconscious, his chest rising with small, shuddery breaths. Ignoring the sting, Legend gently wiped the black streak of blood off Hyrule’s chin.

It was like watching Ceres vanish into a painting. Irene’s broom appearing without its rider. A door between dimensions closing forever and an island disappearing into white.

Another friend slipping away faster than he could chase.

Mushrooms. They needed the mushrooms. Now.

The world snapped back into focus in a rush of noise. A light rainfall fell into the clearing, suffocating the last of the fires (and irritating the hell out of Legend's exposed skin, had he the wherewithal to care about that right now). Somewhere nearby, Warriors called for a potion inventory and injury triage. Sky and Wind eased Four to the ground. Wild, Time, and Twilight were kneeling around a cluster of mushrooms.

“Wait,” Legend said, too quietly.

He cradled Hyrule close to his chest and stood, fighting the sudden wave of dizziness. His head throbbed and his stomach felt like it was ready to climb up his throat. He swallowed the nausea and repeated himself, louder. “Wait! The mushrooms. Don’t—”

Wild froze mid-harvest, knife held at the ready, and looked up at Legend like he had been caught stealing.

Legend braced himself against a tree, all of his joints resigning in protest. “Only the biggest mushroom. Leave the rest. Try to not hurt the roots.”

Little ‘shrooms for little fairies—the mantra Datura had taught him so long ago repeated in his head.

Wild swallowed and nodded, shifting the angle of the knife in his hand. With delicate care, he cut only the largest mushroom low on its stem and held it up for Twilight to pass along.

Meanwhile, Legend dug one-handed through his pack, feeling around blindly for the smooth metal of Irene’s bell.

“Legend, wait.” Warriors approached, eyes weary as they dropped to the fairy cradled in Legend’s arms. “What’s the plan?”

“Fuck plans,” Legend hissed. He pulled the bell from his pack and thrust it in Warriors’s face like a talisman. “I’m taking Hyrule to Syrup’s right now. That’s the plan.”

He raised the bell overhead and rang it, long and clear, and Warriors winced at the noise. Legend recalled, with a pang of guilt, that he, too, was dealing with magic exhaustion and the resulting headache. The captain didn’t make frequent use of his magic, but he had contributed just as much to Wild’s homebrew potions as anyone else.

“I’m not stopping you,” Warriors said evenly. “But there are seven of us—including you—with acute magic exhaustion and Malice poisoning. It’s not just Hyrule’s life at stake now.”

Legend wanted to yell at Warriors to figure it out himself. They were all Heroes; they had all been caught in worse situations with fewer resources—Legend certainly had. But his traitorous eyes drifted past the captain to the rest of their team.

Behind Warriors, Twilight was steadying Wild as the cook struggled to set up his cooking station. Time sat hunched on a fallen log, massaging his face, while Sky paced uselessly. Bundled in Sky’s cape, Four and Wind were slumped against a tree. Four’s face was unnervingly pale, his teeth chattering in the drizzling rain.

Some terrible thought wormed its way into Legend’s heart. By leaving, would he sacrifice one brother for another? Was this the event that laid the foundation for that dark dungeon in his first adventure, to Four having succumbed to Malice?

Legend’s grip tightened on the bell. “Wars,” he said, voice hoarse, “if I don’t get Hyrule help now, he’s going to die, or worse. I can’t wait. I need to go.”

Warriors’s mouth tensed, his jaw working behind clenched teeth, but his eyes fell to the hissing puddle of miasma and then swept across the others. Legend watched the field medic run the calculus, landing on the same conclusion: there was a difference between dying in hours versus dying in minutes.

“...Right,” Warriors said at last, his voice tight. “Okay.”

Wild tapped a spoon against his pot, drawing their attention. “I have something for the Malice, I think,” he said. “I just need time to cook.”

“There’s still the magic exhaustion,” Sky said, stepping closer to join the conversation, wringing his hands anxiously. “I think that hit Four the hardest. He’s conscious, but just barely.”

Warriors muttered numbers under his breath. “Hyrule should have two potions left.”

Legend inhaled sharply, remembering. He shifted Hyrule in his arms and tugged the packs off Hyrule’s belt as gently as he could—silently promising to mend any tears later. “Four will need to unshrink these, or tell someone else how to use that hat of his.”

Relief washing the tension off his face, Warriors accepted the packs, but his eyes drifted back to the bell in Legend’s hand. “What about you?”

“I’m fine,” Legend lied. It felt like a whirlpool had opened in his chest and if he stopped moving he would sink into it. “I can get something at Syrup’s.”

“You bought all of her potions the other day.”

“Yeah, and Wild brewed forty since then. She can restock.”

Warriors’s eyes narrowed, searching for the lie. It was true Syrup had likely replenished her stock of green potions—but something to cure Malice poisoning was a different story.

Legend would deal with it. He always did.

Warriors sighed, his willingness to debate dwindling as the migraine set in. “At least drink some potion before you go.”

Legend scowled like he was bartering with Ravio. “If Four recovers enough to unshrink them before Irene gets here.”

“Fine. That’s all I ask.” Warriors’s expression softened as he looked down at Hyrule’s tiny, unmoving form tucked in Legend’s arms, the fairy’s hair plastered against his face from the rain or sweat. “Take care of him, okay?”

Legend opened his mouth to snap something glib, but the soft worry in Warriors’s voice stopped him short.

“Yeah,” he said instead, quieter. “I will. If I’m not back by morning, meet me at the castle.”

It took a painstakingly long time for Irene and her broomstick to dive into the clearing, her mood as stormy as the weather. The moment she appeared through a break in the canopy and her eyes locked on Legend, a chill ran down his spine. The witch’s broomstick tilted into a steep descent, winding through the branches and stopping short just above the ground. Her wide-brimmed hat had protected her face from the rain, but the same couldn’t be said for her sopping-wet robes.

“Greenie, I swear to Din, if you make me fly through another—” Irene’s eyes fell to the fairy cradled against Legend’s chest, barely visible in the sputtering campfire’s light. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” Legend huffed, lowering the shield he was using as an umbrella.

Irene swallowed whatever sass she had prepared as she looked around the Chain, each looking worse for wear. “Yikes, Greenie, you guys look like shit. Was it the monster?”

“Yup,” Legend replied, and Irene rolled her eyes at the terse response. He climbed onto the broom behind her, shifting his grip to keep Hyrule tucked securely to his chest. Quieter, he added, “thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, waving dismissively.

The rest of the Chain formed a loose semi-circle around Legend and Irene—other than Wild, who was stirring some sort of vanilla-scented soup, and Four, who was sitting with his face over the pot, face in the steam. Legend’s eyes passed over all of them before landing on Warriors, who had taken the lead with Time barely holding onto consciousness himself. Four had unshrunk the potions, but splitting them six ways barely took the edge off.

“Promise me you’ll all be okay,” Legend demanded.

Warriors gave a little lopsided smile. “We’ll manage, Vet. Go.”

Legend glared, expecting the captain to crack, to show that he didn’t have things under control, but Warriors held firm as Irene lifted off. Legend lurched backwards at the sudden movement and held on tighter to both the broom and Hyrule.

Hyrule hadn’t moved since he had fallen unconscious. He was still breathing, which Legend had checked multiple times while waiting for Irene. Legend did so again once Irene leveled out in the sky above the forest, resting a finger lightly on Hyrule’s chest. There was the barely perceptible rise and fall, but something else hummed beneath Legend’s finger, like the subtle vibration of a freshly enchanted magic item.

“Hey, Link?” Irene said, voice unusually subdued. Legend’s ears pricked at the lack of a nickname. “Why does your.... Your friend’s got a lot of magic. Like, a scary amount.”

Legend wasn’t nearly as magic-sensitive as Irene—or Ravio or Zelda, for that matter—but even he could feel the magic emanating from Hyrule now.

“I know,” he said. “Please, just hurry.”

Irene laughed nervously, panic barely concealed, and muttered something to her broom. With a sudden burst of speed, they rocketed into the night, leaving the localized storm in their wake.

Flight spared them days of travel, but even then it felt too long. The moon was high in the sky before the little forest in the foothills of Death Mountain came into view. Irene dove into the trees dangerously fast, sending Legend’s already nauseated stomach into his throat, and pulled up precisely in front of the steps to Syrup’s cottage.

Legend hit the ground running, his fatigued legs nearly giving out beneath him, and scrambled up the stairs to Syrup’s door. He didn’t bother knocking, only shouldering the door open as Irene hurried to keep up behind him. The pungent, herbal smells of the apothecary hit him like a wall.

“Syrup!” Legend shouted into the dark room.

“What in this godsforsaken hour—?!” the witch yelled back, stomping into the storefront in a nightgown and brandishing a ladle like a club. She froze when she saw Legend and the fairy clutched to his chest. The ladle dropped. “Oh, you’ve really stepped in it this time, boy.”

Syrup turned toward the workshop in the back, and Legend hopped around the cauldrons and tables cluttering the witch’s storefront to follow. Irene followed behind, lighting lamps and candles with little snaps of magic.

“How many potions has he had?” Syrup asked without looking back. “I know I only sold you nine.”

“At least forty.” Legend couldn’t remember the exact number, and he knew Hyrule had had a few before they started counting the hours. “And then he, uh, ate a wizzrobe.”

Syrup did a double-take, her bonnet whipping with the motion. “Nayru grant us wisdom. Girl, get the mortar—wood with the inlays, you know the one. You, clear a space and get those rings off. Can’t have him takin’ on any more magic.”

Legend used his free arm to shove piles of ingredients and tools aside to make room on the workbench. He gently rested his friend in the cleared space and started yanking rings off his fingers and shoving them haphazardly into his bag. While he had it open, he dug out the mushroom, set it on the bench next to Hyrule, and finally got his first good look at the fairy in hours.

Hyrule was mostly dry, spared the worst of the rain, but that was the only improvement. His breathing was still uneven and his green flames were barely visible, like mirages in the dim lighting. His skin, however, had taken on a grey—almost blue—cast.

“What’s happening to him?” Legend asked, his voice strained with worry.

Syrup pulled jars of reagents off the shelves along the back wall. “Looks to me he’s fightin’ off the transformation.”

“Into what? He’s already an Anti-Fairy.”

Syrup looked over her shoulder, her expression grim. “Think about it for two seconds, boy. If that boy takes on any more magic, you’ll be askin’ him to enchant your bags.”

Legend blinked. Why would...? Too much magic was toxic to humans, of course, but for fairies....

Hyrule mentioned Iris needed to gather magic before she could succeed Datura—before she could become a Great Fairy.

The words almost fell from his mouth when the second realization struck. It wasn’t just raw magic Hyrule was unintentionally hoarding, it was Dark magic. Legend looked again at Hyrule, at the purple-blue tint creeping beneath his skin, and noticed for the first time the claws forming at the end of his fingers.

Memories of his third adventure boiled to the surface, of the sorceress tormenting the country of Labrynna—Veran, a Dark Great Fairy.

“Shit.” Legend wrenched the last of his magical jewelry off like it was cursed, shoved it all in his bag, and flung the whole bag out of the room. He tore off his outer tunic and cap—both also enchanted—wrapped them around his baldric, and set those down a little more gently, but well away from Hyrule. He wasn’t going to let a single thaum of extra magic get to his brother if he could help it.

He just wished Hyrule had mentioned this as a possibility.

While he was doffing his gear, Syrup had settled on her chair at the workbench, mincing the mushroom into a coarse meal. Irene returned with the mortar, a dark oak bowl inlaid with labradorite veins, and hurried back and forth between drawers and potted plants, trimming bits of herbs and measuring powders.

Legend took a seat at the workbench and tried to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. He had learned many years ago to not get in the witches’ way. He had also seen the process enough times to predict the next steps, although the witches were acting with far more haste than usual. Into the mortar went dry moss and flower petals and ground gemstones and talc, each added after grinding the mixture three times.

Finally, Syrup took a pinch of the powdered compound out of the bowl and rubbed it between her wizened fingers. She grunted disapprovingly and said, “it’ll have to do.”

Despite the pronouncement, Syrup remained seated, watching the fairy on the table with hard, evaluating eyes. Irene stood beside her, hands curled into white-knuckled fists on the bench. Her gaze flitted between Syrup, Hyrule, and Legend.

“What?” Legend snapped, fear bleeding into his voice. “What are we waiting for?”

Syrup sighed through her nose. “I’m assumin’ he’s never spoken to you about the possibility of becoming a Great Fairy.”

Legend shook his head. “We didn’t even know he was a fairy until three days ago.”

Clicking her tongue, Syrup worked her jaw before she finally looked up from Hyrule, fixing her gaze on Legend. “The powder’s ready. It’ll stabilize and realign his magic to its natural state. Keep him from goin’ through what Lady Datura did. But there’s no way to do that without exposin’ him to a bit more magic. Where he’s at, even a little might put him over the edge.”

“Turning him into a Great Fairy,” Legend said.

Syrup nodded. “Could be a Lightworld Fairy, could be Dark. Depends on if the powder outpaces the transformation.”

Legend’s stomach turned. He set a hand next to Hyrule—feeling the magic radiating off his small frame, even while unconscious—and gently nudged the fairy’s arm. Still no response. No way to ask what he wanted.

“Are you willin’ to take responsibility for what happens?” Syrup asked quietly.

“Yes,” Legend said immediately. “He’s my brother. I just—”

Was it selfish to want Hyrule to live no matter what form he took? Would Hyrule want this? If he became a Great Fairy—Dark or Light—could he still travel with the Chain, or would their Traveler be chained to a fountain like all Great Fairies seemed to be? He didn’t know the right answer, or if there even was a right answer.

He just wanted Hyrule to live.

“It...might not happen,” Irene said, a little desperate hope in her voice as she traced circles on the worktop surface with a finger. “We modified the recipe so it’ll restore less magic. It won’t be as good for other things, but....”

Legend knew better than to grasp onto that thread of hope.

He pinched the bridge of his nose with a ragged sigh. If they had more time, Ravio or Hilda might have found a way to let Hyrule spend the excess magic. Ironically, the fastest and easiest solution would have been another anti-fairy—something to steal away a little of the Darkness within Hyrule.

Or seal it.

Like the Master Sword.

Legend’s eyes flew open. His head snapped up from his hand, thoughts whirring.

But they had left the sword with Sky in the forest. All Legend had was his—

“Oh, I’m an idiot,” he muttered, and then lunged back to his pile of discarded things.

“Link?” Irene asked, startled.

Legend ripped the tunic off his baldric and pulled his sword from her sheath, the blade catching the workshop’s flickering candlelight. Unlike Sky’s sword, his sword’s blade was a deep sunset orange, dyed by the Lorulean ore from which she had been reforged. Her winged crossguard, rusted with age and neglect, had been replaced with a simpler semi-circle of polished steel. But her core was the same godsteel—the Master Sword, reforged.

The wizzrobe had converted a little of Legend's own magic to Dark. If he was right....

Experimentally, he rested the flat of the blade on his right hand.

Pain struck instantly. He hissed through his teeth as the blade cut straight into his heart, excising the Dark magic within. It burned like a fire with too much air, hot and fast. Within a second, the sacred blade incinerated the Malice, leaving only the meager pool of raw magic restored by the green potion.

Legend stood, catching his breath and hesitating. The sword stirred in the back of his mind, distressed and confused. She had hurt him, even if just a little.

And now he was planning on using her on Hyrule, with his ridiculous pool of Dark magic.

Slowly, Legend turned back to the worktable. The witches’ eyes went wide at the unsheathed blade cradled in his hands.

“Clever boy,” Syrup said in a hushed tone.

Irene looked back and forth between them, aghast. “Wait, wait, he’s not like, a monster. What are you gonna do?”

“Seal the Darkness,” Legend answered hollowly, measuring the sword against the fairy lying on the workbench. The blade was wider than Hyrule was.

“It’ll hurt.” Syrup watched the tip of the blade, eyes narrowing. “She wasn’t forged to seal Darkness gently.”

“I know. She burned me just now.”

The sword’s consciousness continues to fret in the back of his head, the shock of hurting one of her own waking her from her long slumber. When faced with Darkness, she would have no choice but to burn it out. The Master Sword was, for all the good she did, a weapon of Light.

As Legend held the sword over his best friend, the weight of it felt like an executioner’s axe.

A soft noise came from the workbench below.

Legend wrenched the sword away, fearing he had touched Hyrule with it too soon. On the table, Hyrule stirred with a weak groan, and Legend’s gut fell through the floor. Was it too late?

“Rulie?” Legend breathed.

Hyrule blinked up at him through half-lidded eyes, his face flushed except for the blue-ish ombre climbing up his neck. Red eyes drifted to the blade in Legend’s hand, and he made a soft noise somewhere between a moan and recognition.

“Ledge, don’t,” Hyrule said, brows furrowed. “It’ll hurt you.”

Legend huffed a short, pained laugh. On the cusp of a life-altering transformation, Hyrule was more worried about his predecessor than himself. “She might hurt you. But if we don’t do something....”

Indecision flickered across Hyrule’s face, mirroring Legend’s. Hyrule’s gaze moved from the blade to the hand holding it, eyes hardening with resolve, when he suddenly faltered, lips curling in anguish.

“I don’t—” Hyrule stammered, screwing his eyes shut. “I don’t want to hurt you again.” His voice cracked, shaking from more than the strain of holding back the transformation.

“I’ll be fine,” Legend said, trying to sound at ease. “If she burns me, you can heal me up once you’re back to normal.”

Hyrule huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. “That—that’s not very reassuring.”

“Sorry, I should have brought Sky.” Legend smiled weakly. “I don’t do reassuring. Snark only.”

Hyrule chuckled—for real this time—before curling into a full-body wince, his wings twitching before falling limp against the table. He breathed hard through the tremors wracking his body.

Finally, after a painstaking moment, he wrested his lungs under control. “Ledge, I’m scared,” he whispered. “I don’t want to change.”

Legend’s hand tightened on the sword hilt. “I know. I’m here with you.”

At last, Hyrule’s eyes opened again, glowing faintly in the candlelight. He nodded once.

“Okay,” he breathed. “Do it.”

From the corner of his eye, Legend saw the witches spring into their final preparations, loading the magic powder into some sort of container. He exhaled slowly and turned the blade in his hands, centering the sword over Hyrule.

In the back of his mind, the sword’s spirit stirred again—calmer this time, more aware of what was happening.

With an unspoken prayer, Legend lowered the flat of the blade onto Hyrule’s chest.

Hyrule and the sword screamed.

The hilt flashed white-hot in Legend’s grip. Fire tore through his palms, simultaneously rebuking him for turning the blade against Hyrule and biting into Hyrule’s Malice like a wolf at its prey. Legend felt the sword spirit trying to soften the blow, to act against her programming, but she was, above all else, a weapon. She couldn’t dull her blade against the very thing she was designed to purge.

Under the sword, Hyrule arched off the worktable with a strangled cry. Black miasma issued from his mouth with each gasp, curling around the blade like it was being sucked into the steel. The sound wrenched Legend’s heart and almost made him rip the blade away, but he held fast. His arms shook with the effort of holding on, even as his instincts screamed to let go.

The Master Sword shuddered in Legend’s hand, burning hotter with every second. At a point, it no longer felt like a rebuke, but like her anguish pouring red hot through the steel.

The ordeal lasted no more than a minute, but it felt like an eternity. Hyrule writhed beneath the blade, cries of pain clipped short; Legend knew Hyrule was holding back for his sake, hiding what pain he could.

Then, without warning, the heat faded.

The smoke thinned. Hyrule’s body fell slack.

Legend tore the blade away, sending it clattering irreverently to the floor. With a hiss of pain, he stumbled back, hands burning.

Syrup shoved him to the side, brandishing what looked like a tin mug full of the sparkling powder. “Get some potion on that. Girl, help him with the bottle.”

Irene was already there, guiding him away. She dabbed a potion-soaked cloth over his blisters as Legend twisted around, trying to look back at the worktable.

Syrup raised the container above Hyrule, pulling some lever in the handle. Glittering powder poured evenly from the container’s base, like—

“Is that a fucking flour sifter?” Legend asked.

The witch cast a withering glance over her shoulder. “Oh, pardon me, boy, did you have somethin’ for distributin’ powder in your bag? Did you want to make a mess of my house with your damn bellows?”

Legend snapped his mouth shut.

Irene tutted as he kept fidgeting, trying to look around her hat to check on Hyrule—was he still even alive? With a roll of her eyes, Irene handed Legend the rest of the potion and stepped aside so he could watch.

Sparkling powder fell from the sifter onto Hyrule like a fine snowfall, disappearing into his skin on contact. Bit by bit, the blue tint in his skin gave way to his usual warm, tawny coloring.

It was working. Hyrule was going to be okay.

Legend backed against the wall and sank to the floor, relief sapping the last of the strength from his legs. The Master Sword lay discarded by his feet. He reached out, curling his tender fingers around the hilt—cool again, thankfully—and apologetically rested the sword beside him. Its spirit had fallen silent again—not asleep just yet, but pensive. Grieving what she—what they both—had done.

He took a moment to inspect the damage to his hands. The potion had mostly healed them, leaving just a layer of dead skin to be debrided. His fingers were swollen from the inflammation, and he was glad he took his rings off before this. Healing magic or not, his hands were going to hurt like hell tomorrow.

It was probably nothing compared to what Hyrule had been through—what Legend had put him through.

He did it to help Hyrule, but his friend’s screams would be the subject of his nightmares for a few weeks.

Sighing, Legend bumped his head against the wall, watching Syrup work through half-closed eyes. He couldn’t quite see over the table, and he didn’t have the energy to stand again. 

But he trusted Syrup.

They had made it, and Hyrule would be okay.

Legend dozed off at some point, and he woke to all of his joints putting in their complaints. His hands hurt like he had dipped them in lava, and it took him a second to remember why.

The memory snapped him to full consciousness, and he bolted upright with a hiss.

Syrup and Irene were gone—probably back to bed, but his mind immediately conjured worse explanations; that something had gone terribly wrong. Where was Hyrule?

Bracing against the wall, he staggered to his feet and looked around the room. Syrup’s alchemy tools and components had been put away, leaving the worktable clear save for a pile of blankets bundled into a nest.

Legend lurched forward, gripping the edge of the table for balance, his breath catching in his throat.

Nestled in the blankets lay Hyrule, fast asleep.

His chest rose and fell evenly, his expression relaxed. His wings, leathery and batlike, had been replaced with those of a butterfly—translucent and rimmed in russet brown, with a single band of white as if someone had smeared paint across his wings. The anti-fairy flames were gone and he glowed faintly with a soft green light, growing in strength as if sensing Legend’s presence.

Hyrule’s blinked open hazel eyes, heavy with sleep. They met Legend’s awestruck stare, and Hyrule smiled, lopsided and weary.

“Hey Ledge,” he croaked. “Do you think Wild still has that bread?”

Chapter Text

Two months and five portals later.

Hyrule was vibrating as he led the group uphill through the trees, his excitement only slightly dampened by the ever-present danger of his era. The Chain stepped cautiously in the dry forest, hyperaware of every stick cracking beneath their boots when a horde of moblins could be hiding behind any bush. Even Wild was on his best behavior, to Twilight’s relief. He stuck with the group, trading his usual clothes for fitted Sheikah garb and passing around potions he promised muffled their steps somehow.

It wasn’t their first time in Hyrule’s era, but it was the first time Hyrule had been so happy about it. The portal had dropped them in Old Hyrule, just north of Lake Hylia—far from the Lynel-infested western drylands, at least, but still too dangerous to stop and set up camp anywhere.

Fortunately, it put them within a day’s travel of one of the safest places in his era.

Spinning to face his brothers, Hyrule walked backwards up the slope with a broad grin. Legend had his face buried in a map, muttering curses about geological drift while Wind critiqued his cartography. Time was carrying Four, who was conscious for the usual portal-induced migraine and mad about it. Sky, Warriors, and Twilight formed the flank and rearguard, scanning the forest for enemies with their swords drawn. Wild, banned from exploring and less inclined to sneak off without Hyrule anyway, kept himself occupied by taking photos with his slate.

“You guys are going to love this,” Hyrule said, nearly bouncing with each step.

“We might love it already if we knew what ‘this’ was, Traveler,” Warriors replied with a patient smile. “I thought everywhere in your era was dangerous.”

“Oh, it is.” Hyrule turned again to face forward, gesturing as he spoke. “But there’s a few safe places, if you know where to look.”

Or if you stumbled upon them after running from monsters for days, but that was years ago. He was much better at this now.

They reached a rock wall, too tall to see over. Hyrule scrambled up onto the ledge with none of Wild’s rock-climbing grace and turned to help the others up. The summer sun, breaking through the ever-present clouds for a moment, baked their shoulders as they rose above the tree line. Hyrule gave Four a sympathetic smile as the smithy groaned and pressed his forehead against Time’s pauldrons.

“Are we close, Traveler?” Time asked. “I think our smithy would appreciate shade and rest.”

Hyrule grin split even wider and gestured to the plateau behind him.

The cliffs of the Lost Hills curled around a natural alcove, sheltered on three sides and open to the skies above the forest. Uncharacteristically for the era—particularly Old Hyrule—the shelf was lush with plantlife. Trees, full of green leaves, rustled in a gentle breeze. The air felt cleaner than anything they had breathed in hours.

At the center, a pool of clear, unpoisoned water shimmered in the brief sunlight.

“Water!” Wind cried, running towards it like a man lost in a desert.

Warriors chased after him. “Sailor, get back here! Don’t jump in random pools!”

The others relaxed at the sight of actual healthy vegetation and clean water. Legend lowered his map, squinting at the area.

“What is this place, Rulie?” he asked.

Hyrule couldn’t contain the surprise any longer. “It’s a fountain!”

Legend blinked, and then sighed in relief. “Oh, thank fuck.”

“Thank the goddesses,” Sky said with a matching sigh. Exhausted from the day’s march, he sheathed his sword and followed after Warriors, who had tackled Wind to the ground.

Beaming, Hyrule grabbed Legend’s hand and pulled him towards the pool. Legend gave a startled squawk, but made no motion to resist.

“I have to introduce you to someone,” Hyrule said. “You’ll love her. Or you’ll want to kill each other after an hour. You’re both sort of snarky.”

Legend scoffed, cocking an eyebrow. “What, are you setting me up to fight one of your friends?”

“You’ll see!” Hyrule tugged him along a worn path around the edge of the pool. The others were already spreading out on the shelf, setting up camp a respectful distance from the pool itself.

Hyrule sat Legend down by the poolside and plopped down next to him, sitting cross-legged. He dug through his bag, pulling out a small wooden recorder, and played a few sets of slow, descending notes. Legend tilted his head, entertained but confused, when movement from the trees grabbed his attention. His ears pinned against his head in alarm and his hand went for his sword.

Dozens of fairies were hiding among the branches, barely visible from their hidey-holes as they stared, wide-eyed and wary, at the large group of armed men. Smiling through his playing, Hyrule changed tunes to a short little whistle—his signal that it was him, and it was safe.

Dozens of little lights burst out of the trees, darting and swooping towards Hyrule and Legend like a swarm. Legend yelped in surprise, and Hyrule’s laugh squeaked through his recorder.

“Link!” a fairy cried—Lieta, with a yellow glow and dragonfly wings—bumping into his shoulders as aggressively as a person four inches tall could. “You’ve been gone for so long!”

The twins, Risi and Rili, pushed each other out of the way to get their question in first. “Who are these people?” “Where did you go?” “Did you bring presents?”

Hyrule chuckled, watching Risi latch onto Legend’s streaks of pink hair like it was the most interesting thing they had seen in months. “I’ve been traveling! You know that!”

“You could at least visit!” Bright blue Dalia landed on his head with a huff. “Or send a message! Spryte’s been so worried about you!”

“I can yell at him myself, Dalie.” Spryte pushed to the front of the crowd, damselfly wings buzzing sharply. Hyrule wasn’t sure if the intensity of her pink glow conveyed happiness or irritation at seeing him after so many months—probably both. “Let me guess—you got lost.”

“You thought I was lost for months?” Hyrule squawked.

Spryte sneered, putting her hands on her hips as she leaned into Hyrule’s space. “Need I remind you how long you were stuck in Death Mountain? Maze Island?”

Hyrule flushed and glanced guiltily at Legend, who had a sly grin slowly spreading across his face.

“The Princesses and Miff had no idea where you had gone! Even the Eyes lost track of you—not that that’s a bad thing, but still—”

“Spryte,” Hyrule cut in. “I’ve been traveling through time.”

Spryte froze in mid-air with her mouth open and she stayed like that for a moment as she processed the words.

“Oh,” she said, dipping in the air slightly. Her glow flickered as she turned and looked at Legend as if seeing him for the first time. “Oh.”

It was a stronger reaction than Hyrule expected, and he filed that away to ask her about later. Tucking his recorder back into his bag, he said, “I’ve been traveling with them for a few months, and…well—”

Hyrule glanced between Legend and Spryte, both listening attentively, and took a deep breath. Reaching into his pool of magic—still a little more expansive than it had been before the anti-fairy incident—he picked apart the knot of transformation magic and let it envelop him.

With a soft pop like air rushing into a vacuum, he shrank. His butterfly wings unfurled instinctively as he gracefully caught himself in midair.

Spryte gasped, darting forward as if to shield him before noticing Legend’s lack of reaction. He was completely unsurprised, only watching with a knowing smile. She looked between the two of them, her eyes going wide, and brought her hands to her mouth.

“They know?” she asked softly.

Hyrule smiled and nodded.

Tears welled in Spryte’s eyes. She zipped forward, tackling Hyrule in midair and squeezing the breath out of him.

Hyrule buried his face in her shoulder, breathing in her familiar sweet scent. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Legend looking away, suddenly engrossed in polishing a bit of jewelry. Beyond him, the others were setting up camp and chatting amicably with his fae siblings.

Something unwound within him, relaxing after months—years—on the road, on the run, mostly alone.

Here he was, between his old and new families. 

He was home.