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Four sat on a log with a stick in his hand, poking the dancing fire and sending little fairy-like sparks fluttering through the evening. His other hand propped up his head, and he tapped his fingers on his cheek, watching everyone else bustle about the new campsite like tired little bees.
The day had been a long one, with several complex fights and a disorienting portal shift that left them in an unknown part of an unknown world. Time and Twilight both thought it could be theirs, but without a few key markers, they couldn’t be sure. For now, they were lost in a blank part of the map.
Four himself was resting a chewed-up leg out in front of him, since he’d run out of arrows in the middle of the last fight and couldn’t do more than hold his shield up and brace himself when the impact came. He’d refused to be carried after it, but had to lean quite heavily on a tall stick and Wind, who, thank the Golden Three, hadn’t been injured at all.
Most of them had been. Hyrule had done what he could, but magic and potions could only go so far—Four’s injury had stopped bleeding and the bone had been repaired with a potion, but his bandaged leggings were toast and he could still feel some of the pain. Even now, Warriors chewed out Time while checking on a bandage around his bicep, and Sky helped Wild with a slice on his leg. Wind had passed out against Twilight like an exhausted kitten, and Legend was the only one working on dinner.
Hyrule… hm. Four hadn’t seen him in a little while. He’d gone off to clean up or something, and hadn’t yet returned. Four stared at the base of the fire, straining his ears, and he heard what sounded like stifled pain somewhere in the woods behind him, somewhere near the river they’d found.
Hyrule probably wouldn’t appreciate a visitor, but… maybe he wanted one. Four would happily buzz off if Hyrule told him to, since he wasn’t always very good with comfort anyway, but he had decided to try and be a bit more conscious of the others. This was, perhaps, a good opportunity to do the whole practicing-being-a-friend thing.
So Four dropped his fire-poking stick, grabbed his walking-height stick, and pushed himself to his feet.
Legend immediately looked up with narrowed eyes. “Where are you going?”
“To the bathroom,” Four hedged. “What, want to come with me?”
After a moment of hesitation, Legend waved with the knife glinting in his hand. “I mostly trust you to not do anything stupid.”
“Thanks. I’ll be back in a bit.” Four rolled his eyes, but used the stick and his uninjured leg to make his slow way into the calming woods. He had to be careful in the dying light, but he’d always had pretty good vision in dusky conditions, so he managed to not trip over any roots or his own feet. His boots crushed fallen leaves and his leg’s soft bandages caught on ferns more than once.
Four eventually found Hyrule at the edge of the nearby babbling river, bending over the water with the willows, his tunic and undershirt hanging over a branch nearby. He looked focused on something that Four couldn’t see. A single drop of ruby-red blood fell into the moving water and was swept away.
As he limped out of the trees, Four grunted a little, and Hyrule whipped around at the slight sound, hands held up in a guard position. His bare torso was blessedly free of dangerous injuries or any sign of blood.
When he saw it was just Four, he relaxed, and put his right hand over his heart. “Oh, Four,” he laughed, somewhat hysterically, “you startled me.”
Four began to smile back, relieved that Hyrule wasn’t hiding a mortal wound, but his eyes caught on the back of Hyrule’s hand. It was unusual for a number of reasons, the foremost being that it was actually uncovered. Hyrule’s usual long sleeves attached around his middle finger, and even when he took those off, he always found something else to wrap his hands with. Four could honestly say that he’d never seen the skin on the back of Hyrule’s hands. And now he had an inkling why.
Hyrule noticed Four noticing immediately, and put his hand down to hide it, opening his mouth to say something.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Four said, tearing his eyes away from the colors to fix them on Hyrule’s face. He noted faint tear lines there. The air felt thick, harder to breathe. “Are you?”
“I… am.”
Four nodded and put his weight on the stick as much as he could, which turned him vaguely back the direction he’d come. “Then I’ll leave you alone. Sorry.”
“You aren’t going to ask?” Hyrule said. He held his hands behind his back, and Four didn’t like the wary glint in his eyes. He didn’t like what it implied.
“No,” Four said. “Unless you want me to. Look, I know what a burn scar looks like, and I might think it’s a little odd that there’s a tattoo on top, but it’s not like I got a good look, or know what it could mean, or why you might hide it.” He said used such detail so Hyrule would know exactly what Four had seen and what he thought, so he wasn’t left wondering in anxiety.
Hyrule’s mouth angled in a mixture of guilt and shame, and he glanced back at the river. “I don’t think you’d know. But Legend—”
“I won’t mention it,” Four interrupted. “Like I said. You aren’t the only one keeping secrets.”
“Even still?” Hyrule half-joked in an attempt to thin the air.
“Definitely not.”
The viscous silence stretched long enough that Four’s good leg began to ache. He shifted, and the movement drew Hyrule’s attention back to him.
“Sorry, I should… probably…”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Four asked on impulse.
“I owe you an explanation.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you want to explain?”
“Maybe I do!”
“Okay then!” Four rolled his eyes and rubbed at his face. But he’d asked three times, and been answered.
He took a few awkward steps toward the river and dropped down to sitting to get weight off of his legs. He glanced back at Hyrule, who hesitated just a moment longer before joining him. Hyrule lifted his knees and wrapped his arms around them. In the dusk, the few faint lines crisscrossing his bare back stood out more. Four had wondered about those evident whipping scars, of course, but Hyrule wasn’t the only one with them. Four himself, Time, Warriors, Legend… They spoke volumes, and still somehow nothing at all.
“You really don’t have to say anything,” Four said, picking up a rock and turning it over in his fingers so he didn’t mess with his bandages or his tunic.
Hyrule exhaled and rested his chin on his knees. He almost smiled. “I know I don’t have to. You’d never ask it, would you?”
“I intruded on your privacy.”
“I think… I think I was waiting for someone to do that. I don’t really…” Hyrule seemed to be struggling for words. “I want someone to know. Don’t I? I want everyone to know so I don’t have to hide it. All the royal advisors told me to keep it quiet, so I’ve never really been honest with anyone. I mean, I saw the way everyone else reacted to Twilight, and to you. Maybe I’m selfish for wanting some of that, too.”
Four stacked his pebble on another. “I’ll listen. You know I will. And I’ll keep secrets as best I can, even if I suck a little at it. I’m not very good at this, but I can listen and try to understand.”
“That’s all I’d ask for. I don’t want sympathy, and I don’t need worry, and that’s maybe the reason I haven’t told Legend anything, yet. He’ll be upset. I think he’s suspicious, anyway.”
“You said he’d know what the mark was,” Four remembered.
Hyrule nodded, then, as if moving through deep water, he unwrapped his hands from his knees and extended his right hand. The light caught ridges and knuckles. Hyrule held still to allow Four to get a look at the marks on top of his right hand. It didn’t escape Four’s notice that Hyrule kept his left out of sight, but he didn’t comment.
A dark red tattoo in the shape of the bird in the Kingdom of Hyrule’s crest spanned the top of his hand, facing the knuckles, and ran over the raised bumps of a clear scar beneath it. The scar was difficult to make out with the tattoo on top, but Four picked out a diamond shape with another symbol that could potentially be a letter. It wasn’t detailed, but it sure conveyed enough. A dried smear of blood marked a spot where Hyrule must have been cut in a fight.
Four’s hip itched.
“What does it mean?” he asked into the dense space between them. Part of him wanted to reach out and touch it, but he kept his hands to himself. “I recognize the Hylian Crest. What’s such a secret?”
“It means I’m an escaped Calatian slave,” Hyrule said with a wry tone. “I prefer the term Hylian-freed, or just Labrynnan, but those aren’t quite as descriptive. The brand is where I was born. The tattoo is what I choose to be.” He pulled his hand back.
“Oh.” Four took a second to digest that.
He wasn’t much interested in the dense philosophy books his Grandpa seemed to think he liked, but Ezlo liked pontificating about philosophies and approved when Four pulled out some of those to attempt to read. A lot of it had gone over his head at the time, but Four would admit that he had learned a lot from those discussions about faraway lands and history and schools of thought. Ezlo’s favorite topics had to do with abstract concepts like souls and morality, and he’d made an effort to educate Four in economics, which was particularly useful in his line of work.
All to say that Four had heard of other kingdoms and nations using the term “enslaved” in a variety of contexts, some better than others. He hadn’t heard of Calatia, though, even though he knew of Labrynna.
Four leaned back on his hands and decided to treat it logically, though multiple parts of him raged in disbelief and no small amount of horror. He knew how to keep his cool, and Hyrule seemed nervous about his reaction anyway.
“I know what that is, but slavery has meant so many different things over the years. Where you come from, is it… bad? I mean, it’s always bad. I don’t know how to ask what I’m thinking.”
“It’s bad,” Hyrule confirmed quietly. “One out of ten or twenty of us die every few years, even in the better places. I’m not actually Hylian. I don’t know why I’m a hero, I’m just some random runaway.”
“I think a lot of us feel that way, honestly. I was just some random kid that happened to be in the woods when the princess came running out one day. What a coincidence, for us to end up being best friends, right? Anyway, I don’t have any of the prejudices you might think I have. You’re Hyrule, and my friend.”
Hyrule sent him a faint smile. “I just don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that didn’t already know. So this is a little new.”
“For me, too.” Four hesitated, feeling his pulse pick up, but he went ahead. “Can I share something with you, then?”
“Only—” Hyrule smiled a little wider, and the pressure lifted slightly from Four’s ears. “I’m going to sound like such a hypocrite, but only if you want to.”
Four remained sitting, but lifted up the edge of his tunic on the left, hiking it up until he could pull up his shirt and push down the waist of his torn leggings, too, all to bare a patch of skin at his hip.
Hyrule immediately saw the scar there. “Wait, you—”
“No, no, it’s something different,” Four assured him, “though I guess it is worth noting that soldiers in my time tend to get permanent tattoos identifying them as such, which I guess is kind of similar. I enlisted as a knight, so I didn’t get one of those, but this doesn’t have anything to do with that.”
He let his layers back down and continued. “There was… how do I summarize it? You know that I can split into four bodies, and sort of four consciousnesses.” He waited for Hyrule’s nod. That had been a big deal a little while ago. “During my last adventure, one of me pretended to betray the others and went to work a little with Vaati the mage. I meant to do some sabotage, but I got caught, and it was a few days before I could rescue me.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Hyrule said with a short laugh.
“So those few days were not fun, in a lot of ways,” Four finished. “Vaati had his big floating keese demon form, but he also had a Hylian form, so he took his anger out on me himself. He said that the brand was to remember him by. I think he always suspected that I would outlive him.”
“That’s awful.” Despite everything, Hyrule could still look at Four with an expression of sympathy.
Four shrugged and smoothed down his tunic again. “It is what it is. I’ve gotten over it, most of the time. Anyway, I kind of like the idea of putting a tattoo over the top, maybe I’ll do it someday, too.”
“Let me know, I’d be happy to give some advice.” Hyrule took a deep breath, as if expelling a dark cloud and exhaling clear air. “Sorry for dumping all that trauma on you.”
“Nah, I volunteered. Need anything else?” Four asked. He grabbed his stick.
Hyrule glanced at him, then stood and offered his hand out to help. “Do you think I could tell someone else? It might be a while until I want to, but…”
Four smiled and took the help to stand, though he leaned on his makeshift crutch again soon after making it to his feet. “I don’t think anyone would do anything but feel upset and angry on your behalf.”
“Even Legend?” Hyrule went to grab his clothes, and started to pull them all on. “He's… he might have prejudices.”
“Biases, maybe,” Four allowed. “But you’ve heard him talk about Lorule, right? I think he’s okay. I think he’d want to know.”
Hyrule tightened the laces over his long sleeves and recovered his hands. “You’re probably right.”
“Usually am.” Four’s smile lingered as he waited for Hyrule to redress entirely, and then they walked back to camp together.
Or, well, limped, in Four’s case.