Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Soulmates are typically frowned upon in Lorule.

The world is already hard enough to worry about yourself, why do you have to worry about another person too?

Lorule is quite pessimistic in that way. 

He’s read plenty of Hilda’s history books to know it wasn’t always that way. That soulmates used to be celebrated, used to be cherished, used to be yearned for.

Hilda has a mark on her wrist that she hides underneath bracelets or clothes.

His mother hid hers under long socks. 

His father hid his under a thick scarf.

Not even he knew, as their son, if his parents were soulmates or not. He won’t ever find out, parents long gone now.

The knight who taught Ravio the way of the sword so many years ago boasted about burning his mark off.

Hilda’s maid holds her mark in comfort, hidden underneath her sleeve.

His childhood neighbour had met her soulmate. She was one of the few people who proclaimed that soulmates weren’t burdens.

His parents would close the window when she talked.

Ravio would crack one open to listen.

The rare few who meet and love their soulmates are looked upon in pity or disgust. 

In Ravio’s opinion, he envies these people. Even those who hide their marks. He drowns in jealousy that these people get to have another person to call theirs.

Ravio’s skin is pale and markless. He usually wears a robe and hood to hide the shame that he doesn’t have a mark.

His markless skin is seen as a blessing to the eyes of the Lorule citizens, a blessing to Hilda’s eyes. 

“A hero should be worried about the citizens, not some soulmate. It proves you’re Lorule’s hero. The Goddess did not give you a distraction.”

The words made Ravio’s throat clog up in bile, holding back the urge to vomit. His eyes burn in unshed tears.

A blessing to the citizens of Lorule.

A curse to the hero of Lorule.

He isn’t even a good hero. He shudders in fear at the idea of fighting. He always flinched when a sword would come swinging down towards him, even if the blade was made of wood.

He’s a coward who hides behind layers of clothes. Behind fake smiles and misleading words. Hides in the shadows, waiting until the last minute to fight because he’s hesitant to start. Scared that one wrong move will lead to his death. 

He fears death so much. It’s ridiculous. Like Hilda said. He doesn’t have anyone to distract him, to make him fear what he is leaving behind.

He is all alone in a dying world, and he doesn’t want to die with it. 

Every fibre of his being rebels at the idea of death. It’s the only reason he’s alive. At even the hint of death, he runs. He doesn’t care that he has to face Hilda’s wrath. Doesn’t care that he failed the citizens of Lorule once more.

He ducks under another swing and runs away. 

He wants to live. 

He pants as he runs, eyes snapping around as he looks for an exit, an escape route. The fight got him turned around. He’s pretty sure he accidentally went deeper into the dungeon. He tries not to think about that. He just needs a place to hide until the monster horde disperses. 

He does a sharp left turn and sees a statue a few feet away. There’s barely any room between the wall and the statue. Not enough for a monster, especially not the ones chasing him. It is big enough for a Lorulian. 

He squishes himself into the space, he shoves himself in even as the cracks on the wall scratch at his hands, even as the edges of the statue snag at his clothes.

He tries to ignore the screeching of the monsters. Ignore the way they echo in the small space. He sucks in a breath and holds it. 

The monster steps grow louder and closer. He stays incredibly still, hand over his mouth and nose to stop any possible sound from escaping. He prays to a goddess that has forsaken Lorule that he’ll remain unseen. 

The monsters look around before they finally run off, going deeper down the hallway. Ravio doesn’t move or breathe, not until the sound of their screeching fades away into nothing, not even carried by echoes. Not until the light from their torch is swallowed up completely by darkness, leaving Ravio with the single illuminated torch attached to the dungeon wall.

His breath bursts out, he tries to regain the lost air, wheezing for it, tears prickling the corners of his eyes as he coughs, trying to take in air, drool dripping down his chin. 

After a minute or so, he finally manages to get his breathing under control. He wipes his chin dry with his sleeve as he tries to keep his breath quiet, ears straining to hear if a monster heard his coughing fit.

After a minute of silence, Ravio finally decides to crawl out of his hiding spot. His tunic catches on a jagged edge of the statue, causing him to trip out of the hiding spot. He hears a sharp rip as he tumbles forward. He barely manages to stop himself from falling onto his face, catching himself on the wall.

He looks down at his tunic to see the long rip. The left side of his tunic was jaggedly ripped in the middle. It won’t be a clean, easy fix at all.

He sighs, adding another reason why Hilda will kill him when he gets back.

This is his third attempt at this dungeon, and he hasn’t made any progress. Now the tunic that Hilda paid for is ripped, and even if Ravio sews it closed, she’ll notice because she always does.

He really doesn’t want to go home. He covers his face with his hands and groans. 

Ravio wasn’t meant to be a hero. He’s told Hilda so many times, but she refuses to listen. He gets that she’s desperate, that she wants to save Lorule and doesn’t know how. She’s clinging to stories from long ago, hoping it’ll work out. 

But the stories always mentioned the Triforce, the thing that doesn’t exist anymore and led them to this. A dying world with a cowardly hero and a naive queen. 

It drives him crazy that the Lorule citizens are so pessimistic over soulmates and yet will lay all their hopes on Hilda and Ravio.

As if those same citizens didn’t hate Ravio before Hilda found him.

Despite it all, Ravio wants to help. He really does. He loves Lorule.

He loves the few flowers that still exist. He loves the wildlife that persevered. He loves the sky at dawn. He loves the citizens marked with beautiful ink meant to guide them to their other half. He loves the Queen, who tries her best in a hopeless situation.

He hates that he can’t do anything to help. 

The world has been dying since long before Ravio was born, and he is meant to fix something that not a single soul knows how to fix.

How do you save something that is destined to die?

Ravio drags himself down the way he came. Steps careful and quiet, scared of regaining the attention of monsters. 

He keeps his hand on the wall as he walks, having lost his torch in the run. He strains his hearing as he walks, ears flickering at every sound that reaches them.

It’s mostly wind or a flap of a wing from a keese. He pays close attention to that noise. The only thing he can confidently handle is a keese. He doesn’t even have to beat them, one swing and they run away. Doesn’t mean he wants to be caught off guard by it.

He doesn’t even notice when his hand sinks into the wall of the dungeon. He only notices when the wall starts shaking and a rumbling reaches his ears. He looks at the wall his hand is on and sees in his limited vision that a step away, an opening has appeared. One that was most certainly not there a second ago.

He peeks around the corner, his hand staying on the wall and the other on the handle of his sword.

For a second, there is no light, but once Ravio takes a step in. Torches start lighting up. 

It’s not a large space, definitely not enough space for a monster to hang around. Nor does there seem to be any other form of entrance. There are markings on the wall, images painted and faded by time. 

He grabs one of the torches closest to him and uses it to take a better look at the walls.

The walls tell a story. 

A story of another world, where the sky is blue and the sun is yellow. 

A story of another world, where the Triforce is pointed towards the sky.

A story of another world, where the hero is brave, the princess is wise, and the villain is powerful.

A story of another world, that is Lorule’s mirror in every way, people, places, monsters, goddesses.

A story about a world and its Goddess and the Triforce she gifted her people.

Ravio is mystified. Fascinated. His eyes dart over what he’s seeing over and over again. There are no books in the royal library that mention such a world. Ravio has been in the castle since he was twelve. He has spent four years in that library, hiding from his sword instructor, reading.

Rarely does Ravio walk looking up, so it doesn’t come as a surprise when Ravio bumps into something.

He snaps his gaze down to what he bumped into. A withered chest, barely keeping itself together, it’s covered in so much dust that Ravio is hesitant to touch it.

He’s curious, though. A chest in a room like this, full of secrets and stories. He can’t even imagine what lies in the box.

He opens the chest, the protesting sounds it makes make his ears flatten down and his face cringe in pain. Once it opens, the top half barely holds for a second before it snaps off and falls to the ground.

It collapses into pieces, leaving behind a large cloud of dust and a loud noise that makes him jump and tense. The snapping realization that he was still in a dungeon. He doesn’t move, eyes stuck on the way he came in, hoping, praying no monster comes to investigate the noise. 

A long time passes before Ravio finally decides it’s safe enough to continue investigating.

He turns his gaze back to the chest, which has two items. A scroll and a bracelet. 

He opens the scroll, a map. Immediately, he has a rough idea of where it leads. Comparing it to the maps he had memorized in the castle. 

He doesn’t know what it leads to.

He puts the map in his pack to look at properly in proper lighting. He grabs the bracelet, bringing it closer to his face to see the details he can feel. 

He flinches when he breathes in. The thing reeks, a smell similar to when the hunting dogs get stuck in the rain. 

He ignores the smell, it’s bad, but not the worst thing he’s smelled. Not even close.

He tries his best to look at the grooves of the bracelet in the torchlight, but he can’t really tell what type of spell is etched into the metal.

He’ll have to look more into magic charms when he gets back. He should be able to find something similar. Magic hasn’t evolved that much since the destruction of the Triforce.

Though considering the story on the walls, this magic is probably from long before that. 

He shakes away the pessimism. 

If there’s one thing he’s good at, it's researching. He’s sure he’ll find something.

He puts the bracelet away for now.

He takes another look at the walls, making sure he doesn’t miss anything and finally pulls himself out of the hidden room. 

It’s curious that the room had never been discovered before, it’s quite early into the dungeon. People used to adventure into these dungeons before the state of the world didn’t allow for adventures, only survival. It should have been noticed then and not now.

Ravio isn’t complaining, though. Maybe it’s finally a step in the right direction. 

At some point, he finally exits the dungeon, taking a deep breath at the clear air, free of dust and ash.

He notes that the sun is beginning to set. He’s running later than he would like. He hates travelling back at night.

He doesn’t get to wallow in the anxiety of what might happen during the journey back, interrupted by twittering sounds and flapping wings.

A white bird flutters around him, and he chuckles at the sight.

“Hi, Sheerow.”

He greets the bird, who looks unimpressed with him. Sheerow lands on his shoulder, cuddling into his neck.

“Yes, I’m sorry I ran late, but I messed up and got noticed by monsters.”

He starts the trek back to the castle as he regales his adventure to Sheerow, who tweets in reply at all the right moments as if he understands what he’s saying. Ravio thinks it’s pretty fifty-fifty if the bird actually can or not.

He likes to believe Sheerow can.

When he tells Hilda of his findings, her eyes flash with a mix of pride and something he doesn’t recognize.

He’s too happy to be finally looked at in pride to question it, though. 

He was a fool for that.

He leads the research into the bracelet and the map. Hylia sets up scholars to focus on the story that the walls told him.

There’s one researcher who sets Ravio’s instincts a flame. He always finds himself staying as far away as possible, trying to avoid being in the same room as him, and if he can’t, he always makes sure someone else is there.

He avoids letting the man touch him, avoids letting the man talk to him, but it doesn’t stop him from talking.

The words like sickeningly sweet honey. Words meant to boost someone’s confidence and trust in the man. Half the time, he takes words he heard Ravio say and throws them at people to sound impressive.

He doesn’t really care that much about that part, but it was a blaring red flag. 

No one seems to notice. Least of all, Hilda. His naive Queen, who is desperate for help, desperate to help her dying nation, her starving people.

It makes him want to throw up as she laps up what the man is saying.

One night, Ravio is pouring his attention over books on ancient charm magic, trying to find a hint on what the bracelet is.

His hood is pulled off, dangling freely down his back, hand in his hair as he reads. 

The sound of a book being dropped snaps him out of his reading, making him jump. Hilda looks down at him with a cheeky grin.

He huffs but knows better than to say anything.

“How may I help you, Your Majesty?”

He says dryly, she rolls her eyes, but also knows better. It’s a song and dance so very old at this point. To poke at each other but not to take the bait. There's no point in trying to start an argument, especially when it’s clear that Hilda was here for a reason.

“Yuga had an idea on how to save Lorule.”

The name makes Ravio internally cringe, but he schools his expression to stay the same.

Then Hilda tells him the plan. It makes Ravio feel nothing but disgust. His face morphs into disbelief and anger.

“You can’t seriously be considering such a thing?!”

He yells. 

There’s no point in starting an argument. Because all their arguments end in each other hating the other just a little more, words quickly turn sharp to hurt rather than what started the argument.

He thinks that at one point, he called Hilda a fool. She called him a spineless, pathetic coward. 

He called her a future murderer. She calls him a fraud of a hero, a freak without a mark.

The words are meant to hurt. 

There is never a winner in their arguments.

Hilda had stormed out at some point, and Ravio was quick to do the same.

He grabs his things and leaves the castle. He’s mad at Hilda, mad at himself and his words, he’s mad at Yuga for even thinking of such a plan, for telling Hilda of it, he’s mad at himself that he couldn’t choose the right words to show her why it’s a bad idea.

He’s mad for finding that room, for telling Hilda of that room and its story.

He’s terrified for that beautiful world that the story painted, and what Hilda and Yuga will do to it if someone doesn’t do anything about it.

Sheerow is twittering around him like mad in worry, but Ravio has to think, has to plan, has to get out of his own mess and deal with this mess instead.

He slams the door to his house open and shut. He throws his pack onto the table, pulls off his robe and lets it fall to the ground with a thump.

He feels tears burn at the corner of his eyes. This time, he lets himself cry.

He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. How is he supposed to stop this? How is he supposed to save his best friend from becoming a monster?

He wants to kick and scream. He wants to go back and beg Hilda to see what’s happening. That she was fed lies. He wants to turn back time and stop his reaction. 

He hates that he yelled. He hates that the fight happened. He hates that he’ll try again tomorrow, and again the next day if he must. He hates that he made Hilda cry.

He hates that Hilda made him cry.

They said they’d stop doing this.

That they would stop aiming for where it hurt. 

He doesn’t even remember which one of them did it first. All he knows is that he took it too far first, and she fought back with just as much venom.

It hurts that he doesn’t disagree with what he said. He knows that if Hilda does this, she will be a monster, a murderer who kills a whole world to save their own.

It’s not justice, it’s not altruism, it's not whatever else she said it was.

He wonders how she even convinced herself that those words even made sense in this situation.

He wipes away at his tears, taking shuddering breaths, trying to calm down.

He ignores the words she said that echo in his head. Markless freak.  

He would rather be called a coward, he thinks harshly.

He’s dragged out of his thoughts by Sheerow. He hears the sound of urgently flapping wings and struggling tweets. He turns to his companion in concern, only to see that half of the bird’s body is in his pack, trying to take something out.

He walks over to the bird, who is dragging out the map.

He stares for a shocked moment. He hadn’t had the chance to go to the marked location. He hadn’t felt safe enough to leave the castle and Hilda once Yuga came in. Fat load that did anyway. He laughs bitterly.

He opens the map, and Sheerow sings in victory. He chuckles at the white bird’s antics.

He peers over the map. Trying to remember the shortest way to the marked location.

It’d take about a day to go there and back. It’d be the usual amount of time that he and Hilda would avoid each other after a fight. So it wouldn’t be suspicious if he vanished for a day.

He takes a deep breath.

It’s the only lead he has.

The trek there is horrifying as it always is. Sheerow scouts ahead to warn him of monsters. He’ll take alternative paths to avoid them if he can. He’ll take forever to prepare for a fight if he can’t avoid it. His heart is beating rapidly in his chest. He’s terrified, he wants to go back home, but he keeps reminding himself that a whole world is in danger. Sheerow has to act as another pair of eyes, squealing at him in warning.

He barely survives the fights he does get into. 

He’s in pain, and his heart and breathing still haven’t calmed down by the time he reached the location. He slumps against a tree when he does, throwing up in a bush, it's barely anything. He only had a slice of bread that morning. Luckily, it seems it was mostly digested. 

He dry heaves, shutting his eyes close as he tries to breathe. His side hurts. It burns with extortion to even breathe. 

He wasn’t meant to be a hero. 

He feels it deep in his bones that he can’t do this. He can’t handle pain, can’t handle fights, can’t handle anything.

Sheerow pecks and pulls at his hair. He ignores it for a while longer, only when the nausea fades does he open his eyes. 

Reflex kicks in, the medic training he received early on making itself known as he scans his own vomit. Thankfully, not a spec of blood, so there’s no internal bleeding.

He takes a deep breath, and the only pain is from his side, but it’s only pain. There’s no struggle to expand and exhale his lungs.

He pokes and probs at his side and hisses in pain, his sight whitening for a moment. He screws his eyes shut, holding back a whimper.

He needs to use a potion. He hadn’t wanted to use one this early, who knows if he’ll get a chance to restock anytime soon.

He pats around his belt for his pack, opening it and rummaging around for a potion. He grabs it and pulls it to his lips, biting on the cork and pulling it out of the bottle and spitting it out on the floor. He chugs the potion and expertly ignores the bitter taste.

Slowly, the pain subsides, turning into a numbing feeling, but stops there. He probably needs a second potion for it to completely heal, but he won’t waste it even if he really wants to.

He finally brings his attention to the location.

It’s a small clearing with a small creek that goes south. He knows that an hour or so down south, there’s a waterfall and a river that it probably connects to.

He looks around for anything out of place. Anything that could be what the map led him to.

He spends over two hours looking desperately for something. At one point, he gets fixated on moving a rock in hopes that something was underneath it. All that there was were bugs.

He knows that he was being strangely optimistic about this map. It was out of character for him, but it was the only thing he had left.

Was it so wrong for him to hope for once? To hope that, for once, things will go his way? That maybe he’d finally be able to save something for once in his pathetic heroic career?

Maybe he was just meant to fail. No matter how hard he tried, it didn’t seem to matter; he always messed up when it mattered. Froze up in front of enemies, said the wrong thing, followed a map to the middle of nowhere, wasting time he could have spent thinking about how to change Hilda’s mind without it turning into a yelling competition.

He sits down on a tree trunk, letting a heavy breath go and his shoulders dropping. 

Sheerow lands on his knee, looking up at him in concern. He smiles at the bird, using a finger to scratch at his neck. The bird puffs up happily, leaning into the scratches.

After a few minutes, Sheerow shakes his feathers back into place before taking off. 

He blinks as Sheerow flies off.

“Sheerow?”

He says quietly, confused by the bird’s sudden departure, but Sheerow doesn’t return. Even after a full minute, he doesn’t return.

Ravio’s eyes widened in concern, getting up and taking off after Sheerow.

He tries his best to call for the bird without being too loud so that monsters don't hear him. His eyes scanning the sky, he looks between gaps in the trees, hoping to see a flash of familiar white and blue.

He can’t lose Sheerow. He’s all he has left. 

“Sheerow!”

He yells out by accident in desperation, slamming his mouth shut when the word travels across the woods. 

He freezes, eyes scanning the woods for monsters.

He strains his ears to listen for a hint of something coming.

All he hears is a familiar song, and his shoulders sag as he follows after the whistling song.

He finds Sheerow in front of a cave. He doesn’t remember any map mentioning a cave in this area.

Sheerow swirls around him excitedly, he chuckles, but his confused eyes are stuck on the cave.

He slowly approaches the cave entrance, investigating.

He thinks if he hadn’t spent the last two weeks poring over ancient magic, he probably wouldn’t have recognized the image on the wall. 

It’s a large magic circle, with a couple of marks that he recognizes the use of. It’s made up of three circles.

On the first and outermost circle, a protective barrier for the caster, a preservation spell meant to protect the paint that makes the magic circle. A teleportation circle in the second circle, he doesn’t recognize the third circle, but in the centre of the circle is the Triforce upside down, pointed towards the sky.

A Triforce he saw in the story on the walls.

He stares at what he can only assume is a teleportation spell, into a different world.

How does this even help him? If anything, this helps Hilda and Yuga with their plan. They can never discover this. 

He wants to scream, of course, the one time he lets himself hope, it turns out like this.

He can only pray to manage to convince Hilda that this isn’t the way.

He destroys the cave, using his hammer to make sure the circle is turned to dust.

He ignores that the magic spell inside it is now seared into his mind. Most likely, a side effect of the preservation spell. Probably a way to protect the magic circle from ceasing to exist.

This way, Ravio knows exactly what the spell does and what it needs; the instructions were written directly into his mind. 

A moonless night and a source of magic that might vanish forever in consequence.

A spell to go into another world that mirrors Lorule.

As he suspected.

He ignores it. 

He arrives back at his home that night and starts planning what to say to Hilda to convince her.

The first day, she doesn’t listen to a word he says.

The second day, she yells at him, but he tells himself not to take the bait.

The third day, she hears him out but doesn’t listen.

The fourth day, she tries to convince him it’s the only way.

The fifth day, she asks Yuga to convince him.

The sixth day, he thinks that the moonless night is approaching.

The seventh day, Hilda comes running in with news of progress.

The eighth day, a small fixture appears in the world. 

The ninth day, it grows larger, she’s convinced this is right. She wants him to help. He needs to go.

The tenth day, the tear is even bigger. He watches helplessly as Yuga feeds her more lies. He needs to prepare.

On the eleventh, the fixture in the world is large enough for Sheerow to slip through. Sooner or later, it’ll be large enough for an army. Hilda won’t listen to him, no matter what he says or how he says it.

He tries not to yell. He doesn’t want the last time he sees Hilda to be a yelling match. 

He’ll save her from this. He won’t let her become a monster that dooms another world.

On the twelfth day, Ravio has all his things in a magic sack swung over his shoulder, Sheerow on his head, rabbit hood up with his robe on. 

He leaves Lorule, the world he loves and hates all at once, behind.

Chapter Text

The story goes something like this.

Hylia created Hylians. She loved her creations so much that she blessed them with the ability to find their other half.

‘Hear your name in their voice. Only then would you know that you’ve met your other half.’

All Hyrulians introduce themselves the moment they meet, it doesn't matter if you're passing each other on the road, or trying to ask for directions.

They start every conversation with an exchange of names. Then the other repeats your name back to you. It’s a part of Hyrulian culture. 

They have an event once a year in Castle Town for people to exchange names. It’s a giant event that celebrates soulmates and to thank the Goddess for giving them the ability to find their perfect half.

Link was raised with this tradition. It’s basically a habit to introduce himself the second he meets someone new and repeat whoever name back to them.

He has been doing it since the day he could talk, just as everyone else has. He’s nearly sixteen now, a blacksmith’s apprentice who doesn’t get many chances to meet new people outside of the festival.

He doesn’t let that discourage him. He knows plenty of people who hadn’t met their soulmates until they were well into their adult years. 

‘Hylia has a plan for you. You will meet them one day.’

Everyone says and repeats to impatient children whining about not meeting their soulmates after the festival.

He agrees for the most part, but Link knows there is no guarantee. 

Link knew someone who passed before ever meeting their soulmate. Link wonders if that means they didn’t even have a soulmate to begin with, or if their other half is doomed to be alone.

He hopes that they didn’t have another half. He doesn’t like the idea of being left behind without meeting his soulmate or learning what happened to them.

Link is pretty optimistic that he’ll meet his soulmate one day. He’s a blacksmith apprentice. He has to have good patience to even consider the career.

He isn’t really in a rush either. He might have romanticized his first meeting quite often.

He likes to think it’ll happen once he finishes his apprenticeship, where he’ll be able to go off and maybe visit another city to learn more from another blacksmith, maybe start his own forge.

Maybe he’ll meet someone during the trip, maybe he’ll meet them when he introduces himself to his new neighbours, maybe he’ll buy something from them in the morning market.

He wouldn’t mind if it happened sooner, though, but he isn’t in a rush.

He’s finished cleaning up at the forge, closing it for the day. Starting up the trek to his home. It’s pretty far from the forge, so he gets to spend a lot of time thinking.

Most of the time, he’s either planning his week, reviewing the things he learned that day, or imagining what his soulmate will be like.

He walks his usual path, cutting through the sanctuary to cut his walk by ten minutes.

He stumbles upon a horrific scene. It happens so quickly, he takes out his sword, meant to defend himself against monsters, not a hylian, but here he is now. Then suddenly it’s dark.

He wakes up in his own bed.

There’s a stranger in his house staring at him. It's habit to introduce himself first before even questioning anything.

The stranger in a bunny hood that hides his face pauses, tilting his head a little as if he’s confused, before he returns to his monologue, ending it with an introduction of his own.

“Ravio.”

Link repeats by habit, Ravio doesn’t react in any way, so Link can forgive the fact that Ravio didn’t say Link’s name back to him. 

Despite Ravio not being his soulmate and being a complete stranger, Link still lets him live there.

He had a feeling he wouldn’t be home much anyway, with a dangerous man running around that Link needs to stop.

That feeling turned out to be completely wrong because, surprisingly, he comes home pretty often. Because no one else but Ravio has the things he needs for his quest.

And he can’t afford to buy any of it, so whenever he faints, Ravio’s bird comes to rob him of his rented items.

It makes him more careful, he makes sure to be properly prepared for a fight, and makes sure that he’s rested before entering a dungeon. It makes him cautious, scared of fainting and having to pay to rent items he’s trying to save money to buy.

Sometimes he thinks Ravio is doing it on purpose, to make sure he thinks things through, but then the merchant will make a comment about his love for money, and Link thinks maybe not.

He returns home often enough that he slowly gets to know the stranger in his house. At some point, Link starts making notes of the facts he learned about his mysterious roommate.

1. He always wears his hood and robe.

2. His bird’s name is Sheerow.

3. Sheerow and Ravio have been together since he was a kid.

4. Ravio isn’t from Hyrule, but he didn’t mention what country he is from.

5. He left his home to be a travelling merchant.

6. He’s the same age as Link.

7. He laughs with all his body.

8. He refuses to call anyone by their name, but doesn't stop them from saying his name back to him.

9. He loves rabbits. Link had replied that the hood made that obvious. He called it good branding.

10. He loves rupees, but he’s stingy about spending them. Very Stingy.

11. He’s protective of his bag.

12. He loves sweets. 

13. He doesn’t know the names of flowers.

14. He loves magic items.

15. He reads when Link isn’t home.

16. He refuses to call Link by name.

17. He doesn’t like talking about soulmates. At all.

18. He has never been to the Soulmate’s festival.

19. His shoulders hunch up, and his hands don’t move as much when he’s nervous or scared.

20. He explodes in movement when he gets excited, hands and arms moving around, bouncing on his heels as he talks about whatever got him excited.

21. He holds Sheerow like he’s the only thing he has. 

22. Sometimes he stares at Link when he thinks Link wouldn’t notice. He never says anything, always looking away when Link looks towards him. Link has no idea what the stare means.

23. He doesn’t like thunderstorms. Jumps every time lightning strikes, flinches when thunder follows. Sheerow cuddles close to him to comfort him. He tries to pretend it doesn’t affect him.

24. He is so nervous about getting robbed that Link wonders if robbery is common where he used to live.

25. He avoids leaving the house if he can. He doesn’t dislike the town, though. He seems to love it, actually, but he’s also so hesitant to go out.

26. His hands are gentle but skilled when he cleans and wraps Link’s injuries. Like he’s used to dealing with injuries.

27. He hides his real smiles behind his hands, but whenever he’s laughing, Link can see the cute flash of buck teeth if the hood moves just enough.

28. Whenever he gets flustered, he stutters and looks away, covering his face as if Link can see it. 

29. He’s smart, insanely smart. Link half wonders if he had a noble education.

30. He taught himself magic. He doesn’t have any magic, though. Ravio doesn’t tell him why he taught himself magic if he doesn’t have any to begin with.

When Link purchases all the items, Ravio claims he fulfilled his dream of retirement. The words sound wrong to Link from all that he learned of the merchant, but he doesn’t say anything.

He stumbles home one day after an exhausting trip into a dungeon. Ravio is still in his house.

He talks to him, Ravio is calmer in a way, but the exact same. As if Link having all his items took a weight off his shoulders. 

Maybe he was nervous that Link would find himself in a situation where he really needed an item he didn’t have.

Link finds the counterpart of his home and finds a way inside. There’s a diary with only three entries. He wonders what happened to the owner of the home and where they went.

He comes home one day exhausted, and Ravio cheerfully welcomes him home. Link stares at the merchant before tears start pouring out, falling down his cheeks in giant drops. Ravio snaps off the floor, running to him in worry, asking him if he’s hurt in a panic.

He almost died, he almost died, and he still hasn’t met his soulmate. He might die in this, and he might be leaving behind his soulmate. He was selfish about worrying about being left behind. He should have been terrified of leaving someone behind. And now he is. He is so, so scared.

He cries harder, clutching onto Ravio, who awkwardly hugs him back.

31. Ravio sucks at comforting people, and he acts like he’s never been hugged.

32. Ravio has an accent that shows up when he’s not paying attention. Link can’t pinpoint it. It’s calming, though he wishes Ravio slipped more often.

33. He hates mornings, it’s obviously because he stays up late reading most nights, but Ravio always disagrees. He always crosses his arms with a huff at the idea that his sleep schedule was the culprit. Link can only imagine the expression of offence.

34. He likes cooking, and he gets excited when he learns a new recipe or when Link compliments his meals. Link can't bring himself to tell Ravio that he puts too much sugar in his sweets because that's how Ravio likes it, and how can Link tell him to stop?

35. He hates cucumbers. Wait no. Ravio despises cucumbers. Glares at them at the market. And Link can't even see his face, and he can tell Ravio is glaring at the cucumbers. Ravio refuses to explain his hatred.

36. He has the stupidest hiccups. Why are they so dramatic? It's full body and loud. Like capital ‘L’ Loud. Link will always make fun of them.

37. He knows a weird number of facts on knights and the knight order. Link can only assume that Ravio has a close relative who’s a knight.

38. He’s strong, like really strong, like he carried three giant sacks of flour from town all at once with ease. Link had asked for his workout routine, and Ravio had just laughed in his face and told him it would cost him a very pretty penny. Link backed out quickly. 

39. He spoils Sheerow. Ravio denies it, but that bird is spoiled rotten. Ravio won't buy himself anything unless he haggles down the price to his liking, but offer him a premium bird perch at full price, and he'll throw his money and a tip in without hesitation.

40. He likes to play pranks, nothing damaging. Sometimes, he just hides Link’s shoes and makes him pay a rupee for a hint on where to find them. Said it would cost Link all his rupees if Ravio outright gave them to Link. That’s one of the more common pranks.

41. He unexpectedly likes dogs despite being skittish around cats. He'll always coo at a dog and go out of his way to pet one if he sees one, but when he sees a cat, he'll make sure to put Link between him and the cat. 

42. He has a really good memory. Extremely good. He once wrote down a giant list of things he wanted to buy, but didn’t even bring the list, yet didn’t forget a single item on the list, down to the right weight and amount. He swears there were like forty items on the list.

43. He loves history, he loves buying stories of Hyrule’s history and even books on the neighbouring countries. He always gets excited when he tells Link about something new he learned from the books. 

44. Despite his love for history, he always acts weirdly about the legends of past heroes. No matter if the very first one was the founder of Hyrule.

45. He has warm hands. Very warm, Link almost worries if he's running a fever under all those layers.

46. He snorts if you really catch him off guard with a joke. It's cute, and when it happens, Ravio always acts so embarrassed that Link can never bring himself to tease him.

47. He’s ticklish. He only learned this when he grabbed one of Sheerow's shredded feathers. He only meant to use it as an example that Ravio needed to clean up after his bird, but the merchant was so focused on his book, Link had poked his feet with the feather to get his attention. He is very ticklish.

48. He sometimes talks in his sleep. Mostly incoherent mumbling, but Link had once heard him curse out a cucumber in his sleep, and Link was laughing so hard he woke Ravio up.

49. He has nightmares, but he’s so quiet that Link rarely notices them. His only hint at something being wrong is that Ravio will curl up in a ball.

50. He isn’t Link’s soulmate. Link wishes Ravio were.

Link bursts into his house, startling Ravio enough for him to drop the book he was reading on his face. The sound a loud thump and then a yelp of pain. Link can only cringe in sympathy and apology when Ravio looks towards him in what he assumes is a glare.

He shakes off the interaction, though. Smile quickly returned with all his excitement.

“I’m finally ready to beat him!”

Ravio stays quiet for a long moment, long enough for Link to notice it, acknowledge it, and get nervous about it.

Then Ravio suddenly jumps off the floor from his spot on the carpet and rushes at Link with words of encouragement and congratulation, and then Link is being hugged.

Ravio is still terrible with hugs. He wonders if Ravio is shaking because he’s nervous about hugging Link. Maybe that’s too optimistic of Link to hope. 

He spends the night at home, it’s a quiet night where the weather is clear and all the stars in the sky are visible. Link had dragged Ravio to sit outside with him to admire the stars.

A mug of hot chocolate in their hands. The taste is overly sweet on his tongue, but he still compliments Ravio on it because Ravio always reacts adorably to compliments.

Ravio seems to love how sweet it is. The sweet-tooth owner that he is. 

Sheerow is on Ravio’s lap, sleeping, one of Ravio’s hands is always on the bird, gently petting it. The retired merchant movements are subdued, small and quiet rather than the usual explosion of movement and sound. He's nervous. 

“Ravio?”

Link says in a whisper, the quiet of the night making it feel appropriate. Ravio pulls his attention away from the sky, turning it towards Link.

“What’s wrong?”

Link asks softly. Ravio flinches at the question and turns his gaze down to Sheerow.

“Nothing is wrong, Mr. Hero.”

He says after a moment, looking at Link once more. Link doesn’t believe his words one bit. He puts his mug down beside him and takes the mug out of Ravio’s hand, putting it down beside his.

He doesn’t listen to Ravio’s small protest at his drink being taken. He grabs Ravio’s hand.

“What’s wrong?”

He asks again, looking at him. Ravio's voice dies off. There’s a slight shake in his hand. Then a shuddering breath escapes Ravio, followed by a hiccuping laugh.

“You’re very persistent, Mr.Hero.”

Ravio says in a wet chuckle. Link squeezes his hand in comfort.

“I… I’m scared.”

Ravio says, looking down at their interlocked hands. Link keeps staring at Ravio even if he can’t see his face.

“Scared?”

He repeats after a long pause, trying to encourage Ravio to talk.

“You… you’re going to fight the big bad tomorrow.”

Ravio says and doesn’t add anymore. Is it selfish for Link to be hoping that Ravio cares about him more than as a friend? Is it selfish that he wants to pull off that rabbit hood and pepper kisses to his face in reassurance?

“I’m scared, too.”

Link says in a quiet voice. Ravio snaps his head up to meet his gaze.

“Y-You are?”

Ravio says in disbelief, and Link huffs a quiet chuckle.

“Of course I am. I’m terrified. What if I lose? What happens to Princess Zelda? To Hyrule? To Lorule? What would happen to you?”

Ravio's grip is tight on his hand, but he doesn’t react, only gently rubbing his thumb on Ravio's hand.

“I’m scared of what and who I’ll leave behind if I lose. But I don’t plan on losing.”

Link says with a grin that Ravio stares at silently. He wonders what Ravio’s expression looks like. The stare reminds him of when Ravio stares at him when he isn’t paying attention.

“How… can you fight even though you're scared?”

Ravio hesitantly asks, his voice quiet and barely audible. Link turns his gaze to the sky, staring at the stars.

“Because I love this world, I love its people, I love the sky at night, I love the flowers that bloom on the trees, I love the festivals meant to unite people, I love that this world has you.”

Link flushes red. He hadn’t meant to say that last bit. He tries to pull his hand away, but Ravio’s grip is too strong to break free without hurting himself.

Ravio is silent. Link is too scared to look away from the stars, but after a full minute of silence, Link finds the courage to look at Ravio.

The second he does, Ravio surges forward, and there are lips on his. It’s a violent movement.  He swears he heard a thump when their lips met. He’s sure he’ll have a bruised lip from the impact. He hears Sheerow twitter in offence at the movement before seeing him fly off into the house in the corner of his eye.

But none of that matters. Only the clumsy lips that are on his and the hands in his hair matter.

Link is quick to press his lips back onto Ravio’s lips, closing his eyes. He wishes he could put his hands into Ravio’s hair, but settles for wrapping his arms around his waist. Their kissing is clumsy and immature, obvious to the other that they are each other's first kiss, but it doesn't stop them. They kiss like there's no tomorrow, but Link will make sure there is.

He doesn’t really know how long they stay like that, but Ravio is the first to pull away, and Link can’t help but whine at the lack of contact. The sound makes Ravio laugh. 

The sound makes Link’s heart swell, a fond smile on his face. 

“You still have a big day tomorrow.”

Ravio whispers. Link pouts and Ravio laughs at him again.

“Come on, Mr.Hero.”

Ravio stands up, holding his hands to drag him up, but Link refuses to move, staying on the ground. From this angle, he can see Ravio’s lips. They're glossy, pretty and kissable, and there's a pretty smile on them with a show of adorable buck teeth. 

“Mr.Hero.”

Ravio says, and Link stares at the movement of his lips.

“Kiss.”

Link says. Ravio's mouth drops open a little in shock before a fond sigh escapes them. There’s a smile being formed, but Link doesn’t get to see more of it when Ravio crouches down and kisses his forehead.

“Bedtime.”

Ravio says. Link stares up at Ravio, and he is sure his face shows all his love because one of his hands is dropped, and Ravio covers his face to hide a flustered expression that Link prays he’ll get to see someday.

“Bedtime.”

Link finally agrees, pulling himself off the ground using Ravio’s hand. 

Ravio tries to let go of his hand to pick up the mugs, but Link doesn’t let him. He grabs one while Ravio grabs the other with a laugh. Ravio drags him into the house, putting the mugs on the counter to deal with tomorrow.

Link drags Ravio to his bed.

“Just sleeping.”

He reassures Ravio, who freezes up and relaxes at the words. 

They’re underneath his blanket. Hands interlocked, facing each other.

“You’ll really be fine tomorrow?”

“Of course I will. I have to come home to you.”

Chapter Text

In a way, this story begins here.

A cowardly hero learns about his Queen’s plan to destroy another world to save theirs.

The cowardly hero begs and pleads with his queen to rethink her plans.

The cowardly hero fails to get her to see the wrong she is about to commit.

The cowardly hero forsakes his world, fleeing into the other world to try and warn them.

The cowardly hero spends days lost in another world that’s just like his own, running away from monsters he bumps into. He finally escapes into a sanctuary.

The cowardly hero stumbles onto a stranger collapsed on the ground, who shares his face but in different colours. He brings the stranger to his home, assuming that they live in the same house.

The cowardly hero spends hours debating how he would convince the stranger of the threat that is coming.

The cowardly hero, just like his title, takes the coward's way out and lies to the stranger.

This is how the cowardly hero meets the courageous hero.

The first thing he notices about Mr.Hero is that he has his face but not his voice, not his freckles, not his scars. The very first thing Mr.Hero does is introduce himself, despite the fact that a stranger is in his home and that he was knocked out outside.

His name is Link. 

Ravio introduces himself, and Mr.Hero repeats his name and waits a long pause that Ravio expected to be filled with questions, but it isn’t. Ravio goes on to say he was a travelling merchant and that he had rescued Mr.Hero and brought him to this abandoned home. Mr. Hero speaks up and says it is his home. Ravio knew that, but he didn't want Mr.Hero to know that.

Ravio somehow swindles his way into living at Mr.Hero’s home. He gifts the blonde the bracelet in hopes that it might be of help to him. When Mr.Hero leaves for the first time, Ravio finally lets himself freak out.

“How is Yuga here? The fissures aren’t big enough for a person to cross over safely. It makes no sense. Was there one that they didn’t tell me about? There’s no way. Hilda was showing off the progress of the biggest one as if it would change my mind.”

Ravio is pacing the hero’s home, rambling to Sheerow, who watches him perch on the back of a chair. Every possibility running through his head of hows and what ifs. He thought he had at least four months before Hilda and Yuga found a way to safely pass through. 

More before any sort of attempt was made, more before any sort of invasion started. 

Ravio had taken everything that Hilda had given him from the royal armoury to aid his conquest as a hero. He had taken every item he had made. All his research notes were burned to be on the safe side. Any prototypes broken to pieces, melted into scraps. 

There’s no weapon that should be a threat to a world that has a Triforce and a hero. Ravio made sure of it. 

Ravio comes to a stop in his pacing. Lorule doesn’t have any weapons to fight with, but Mr.Hero doesn’t have any weapons to defend with either.

Ravio does. Ravio has plenty of weapons and items. Wouldn’t it be suspicious if he just gave them to the Hyrule hero?

He did say he was a travelling merchant. Ravio looks around the Hero’s home, at one point locking eyes with Sheerow. 

“Why not? I’ve been doing crazier things lately.”

Ravio says with a nervous chuckle as he starts. Sheerow’s flying around, singing in encouragement.

Mr.Hero comes home to his house remodelled with a shop sign, and all his furniture pushed to the side to show off the weapons and items that Ravio has put out for sale.

He doesn’t question it. He doesn’t ask many questions in general, it seems. 

The hero mentions his encounter with Yuga and the power the bracelet possesses. Ravio doesn’t need to fake his shock. While Ravio talks and explains the equipment he has on display to Mr.Hero when the hero asks, his thoughts are whirling around. 

Dots finally connect, every piece of information he had read to learn about the bracelet finally makes sense. A reflection charm inverted, meant to copy and retain a spell. A very old version with very blatant differences and changes that mean there’s more to it, but the core of the spell was clearly there. It’s obvious now to Ravio. It wasn’t obvious at all when it was in his hands. 

Ravio's fingers itch with the want to research, but he hides them in long sleeves as he chirps a thank you to the hero for renting his items. He pushes away all his wants. He swears to himself that he will focus on supporting the hero of Hyrule. 

A day passes by before he realizes there isn’t much to do when the hero is out adventuring. Another half a day passes with Ravio on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and wondering if this is how Hilda felt while waiting at the castle for his return. He pushes that thought and all the emotions that came with it away.

The next day comes, and Ravio finally drags himself out of the hero’s house, telling Sheerow to let him know if the hero comes back. He nervously goes into town, rupees kept close to his body, eyes scanning people underneath his hood to make sure no one tries to take his wallet. 

He gets to the morning market, and it's bustling with an energy Ravio has never seen before. Everyone is cheerfully greeting each other as merchants yell out sales, trying to lure in customers, stall owners who let kids look at the ware, trusting them not to take off running with something. 

It’s beautiful. It’s overwhelming. It’s everything Ravio and Hilda want for Lorule. 

Despite not being from town, he is greeted with enthusiasm by passersby. They came up to him to introduce themselves before welcoming him to town and leaving. He only looks around at first until he’s lured in by the sweet smell in the air. He stops in front of the bakery. He stares at what he knows is one of the bars in thieves' town. He walks in, and it's full of food. An assortment of freshly baked goods is sitting on display to pick from. 

Ravio can’t help but ask the name of everything he doesn’t recognize. The baker doesn’t seem to mind the questions, nor the follow-up questions about what is in them.

“You know, if you’re so interested in baking, I don’t mind giving you some basic recipes to try for yourself.”

The baker says with a friendly grin. Ravio stares wide-eyed at such a suggestion.

“Oh, no! I don’t have the budget to pay for such a thing. Thank you, though.”

Ravio says with a nervous laugh, hands waving off the words. The baker looks confused before they laugh off his words and start writing something down and handing the note to Ravio with the cookie he bought.

“It’ll come with every new purchase. Come back anytime!”

The baker says with a wink. Ravio stares down at the recipe for the chocolate chip cookie he bought. He grips it tightly. He glances up at the baker, who smiles at him kindly before they resume baking more goods. Ravio can take a hint that he won’t be able to say no to this, so he thanks the baker and leaves. 

The cookie was delicious.

It takes Ravio until he gets through half of the market before he realizes everyone keeps introducing themselves to him and repeating his name back to him, and that he can’t convince himself anymore that it is simply out of friendliness. Despite clear expectations that he doesn’t understand, Ravio never says anyone’s names back to them, because he knows their faces with different colours, different names, and it is strange to him.

He doesn’t know why until he gets to a bookstore and finds a book on Hyrule history.

It starts with a story. Some could argue it’s fiction rather than history; others would argue it was blasphemy to argue fiction. It’s a story about a goddess and the gift she had given her people. The ability to find your other half by hearing them say your name.

“No wonder.”

Ravio mumbles to himself in the history section of the small bookstore. It explains why everyone expects him to say their names back, why everyone keeps introducing themselves to him, why they repeat his name back to him and wait for a reaction. 

Lorule residents would have lost their minds long ago if something like names were not safe from soulmates. Ravio could argue they’ve lost their minds long ago.

He shuts the book and purchases it. Slipping it into his pack as he leaves the bookstore, noting to himself the location. He’s pretty sure this building is a criminal hangout in Lorule. 

Someone approaches him and introduces themselves. Ravio makes a show of giving them a nickname that has nothing to do with their names. 

It’s not like he has a soulmate anyway, why should he bother with a Hyrule tradition?

Another day passes before Mr.Hero returns. He doesn’t hear him enter. The door was already open to deal with the smoke. 

“What in the world?”

Mr.Hero says walking into his home probably confused by the smoke. Ravio perks up from his spot at the kitchen, turning around wearing his robes and hood with an apron on top of it. 

“Mr.Hero! Welcome home!”

The hero stares at him for a moment before he looks down to see the tray of burnt cookies.

“I… need to rent something.”

The hero says, instead of questioning what he sees. Ravio puts down the tray and takes off the apron. He claps his hands together.

“How can I help you?”

Mr.Hero is quick to grab what he wants, eyes glancing towards the burnt cookies every so often. Just before he leaves, he glances at the cookies again.

“My oven is a bit broken. If the recipe says 250, you have to drop it by 30.”

Ravio blinks, tilting his head a little at the hero who isn’t really looking towards him.

“So, minus 30 degrees in any recipe?”

Ravio asks, Mr.Hero nods and takes off. Ravio glances back at the oven, staring at it for a long moment with a calculating thought.

“I’m fixing his oven.”

Ravio declares to Sheerow, who chirps in reply. Ravio can only guess that means he supports that plan.

He hadn’t thought much of that choice. It was a pretty easy fix that didn’t involve any need for magic that Ravio didn’t have anymore. It simply needed to be carved in once more, the heat of the oven making the charm fade away slowly. 

When Mr.Hero returns, Ravio mentions the importance of upkeeping maintenance on magic items if he wants them to last. It prompted the hero to ask him what he was talking about. 

Apparently, Mr.Hero is a blacksmith apprentice who has no clue how magic charms work. Ravio explained the basics that he is certain are the same in Lorule and Hyrule. Noting to himself to buy magic books to compare the two.

“Mr.Hero, if you ever end up needing maintenance on a rod after purchasing it, you’re free to pay me 30 rupees for maintenance work.”

Ravio says as Mr.Hero inspects the work he did on the oven. Curious gaze stuck on the notches that Ravio had fixed, but once Ravio finished talking, Mr.Hero’s gaze snapped up to him. 

“Really?”

Ravio stares at Mr.Hero’s bewildered expression, and he wonders if that might have been too cheap. Too suspicious. 

“I don’t have any magic, but if it’s only carving maintenance, I can do it.”

Mr.Hero looks confused at the comment of having a lack of magic, but doesn’t question it. 

“I’ll make sure to do that then.”

Mr.Hero says to him with a boyish grin. Ravio stares for a moment, the smile strange to see on a face so much like his own, before he snaps out of it.

“Always happy to be of service, Mr.Hero.”

That one choice led Mr.Hero to stay longer after getting what he needed to talk. Some days, he stays the night to rest up before tackling a new area. 

And so, the Cowardly Hero of Lorule slowly gets to know the Courageous Hero of Hyrule.

He is Ravio’s age, same birthday, but the seasons are reversed here. Mr.Hero is a spring child rather than an autumn one. It suits him.

The shape of Mr.Hero’s eyes is slightly different from his. They pull up rather than down like Ravio, but not by a lot. Not noticeable at all at a first, second, or third glance.

Mr.Hero’s house is an inheritance from his family, just like Ravio's. Ravio doesn’t ask what happened to his parents.

Mr.Hero is good with a sword, but not formally trained. Sometimes, Ravio will wince at the blonde’s swordsmanship. He’s just thankful his hood hides his expression.

He is stupidly kind. It’s a kindness that Lorule could never cultivate in a young boy, lest you sign your death certificate yourself. Ravio wishes he were anywhere near that kind.

Mr.Hero loves the idea of soulmates. He never talks about it, but it’s obvious in the way he introduces himself, full of hope, to strangers passing through town. Ravio learns that there’s a festival in Hyrule dedicated to finding your soulmate and the existence of soulmates. The idea is surreal and scandalous and amazing, and Ravio burns with a want for something he doesn’t have.

He has a habit of humming while doing maintenance on his sword. 

He likes apples. A lot. He always gets excited if Ravio makes apple tea.

He doesn’t have buck teeth like Ravio. They’re slightly crooked with some small gaps, but that’s it. The smile they make is bright.

Mr.Hero taps when he isn’t actively doing anything with his hands. If he can’t, he’ll tap his foot. The faster he taps, the more worked up or anxious he is.

He moves a lot in his sleep, kicks his blanket off himself and snores like a taros. Ravio made sure to tease him about it.

Mr. Hero's laugh starts as a hiss before he barks out laughing loudly.

He always gets excited about blacksmithing techniques. It’s similar to Ravio’s interest in magic. He gets even more excited, eyes sparkling, smile wider, if Ravio asks questions.

He pouts when he doesn’t get what he wants. Gives big puppy eyes that strike Ravio in the heart, and gives up his slice of pie. At least Ravio doesn’t fold when it comes to merchandise.

He isn’t picky, but when he doesn’t like something, his eyes widen after the first bite before he puts a smile on his face and lies that he likes it.

Mr.Hero doesn’t really complain. It might be a little mean, but Ravio always adds a touch too much sugar to his desserts. Just to see when he’ll finally crack and tell Ravio it’s too sweet with his mouth rather than his expressions. He only ever compliments him.

One day, Ravio finally got sick of apples and found a love for peaches. He started experimenting with recipes with them quickly enough. Mr.Hero would eat it slower than he would an apple-themed version, but Ravio can tell he likes them all the same. Mr.Hero tries to sneakily suggest a recipe with apples, and Ravio will indulge him when he throws a puppy look, but Ravio continues with the peaches.

He mentioned his experiments to the seller in the market when they asked him why he was purchasing so many peaches in bulk. They eagerly gave him a recipe for tarte tatin that they vow will make anyone fall in love with his cooking. Ravio had barely heard the last few words, thankful for his hood for hiding the growing blush. 

He doesn’t try the recipe for a few days, too busy making the ones he wanted to make or the ones Link nearly demands to be made. When he finally runs out of recipes on his list, he takes out the paper the stall merchant gave him.

It's a project that nearly takes a whole day to make, having messed up a few times along the way. It’s only when Mr.Hero comes home that Ravio has a version he is proud of. Ravio excitedly gave him a slice, then realized he had given a version with the proper amount of sugar and frowned a little at his ongoing plan being disturbed, but the frown dropped as he watched Mr.Hero’s reaction. 

Mr.Hero pauses for a second after the first bite, his eyes brightening up brighter than Ravio had ever seen them, and he quickly starts devouring the plate. Mr.Hero demands seconds and thirds after. Compliments slipping from his lips in between a couple of bites. He casually slips out the word love, and Ravio's mind echoes the words the merchant had said and hides his flustered face behind his hands, even if Mr.Hero can’t see it.

He makes sure to make it when Mr.Hero is feeling down, and he doesn’t add any extra sugar. Link loves it every time.

Mr.Hero likes cats. His smile softens when he sees one in town, but he doesn’t approach when he’s with Ravio because he noticed Ravio was scared.

Mr.Hero can play an ocarina very well. He owns a few, gave one to Ravio and offered to teach him. Ravio can’t possibly say no to free things. So when Link is stuck at home resting, he’ll squeeze in a lesson.

When Link purchases all his items, Ravio and Sheerow dance and cheer over their retirement. Mr.Hero looks skeptical over it all, but that doesn’t stop him from helping Ravio cook up a feast to celebrate his retirement.

“You can still purchase a maintenance job, of course.”

Ravio says as they eat, and it makes Link snort. Mr.Hero stays the night, and they drink hot chocolate while watching the setting sun as Link tells him about what he’s seen in Lorule. Ravio can’t help but think about how the colour of the sunset reminded him of the sky in Lorule. There’s not a single cloud in the sky. It reminds him of his markless skin. The hot chocolate was bitter on his tongue. He notes to himself to add more sugar next time.

One day, Mr.Hero comes home, and Ravio welcomes him home as always. What he doesn’t expect is for Link to start crying. Ravio stayed there on the floor, frozen in shock like an idiot for a long moment before he finally threw himself off the floor.

Link is good at hugs, even while distressed. Link knew what to do with his arms. Nothing like Ravio, his arms wrapped in an awkward angle and the words that he wants to say never make it out of his mouth, so he only holds the hero of Hyrule awkwardly.

Ravio never finds out why Link cried. He doesn’t ask.

He has cold hands. He likes to abuse this fact by touching any exposed skin Ravio has, and while Ravio isn’t looking, he’ll touch him and make Ravio jump.

His blue eyes will flash a pretty gold if the light hits them at the right angle.

He loves kids, and he’ll always humour the village kids if they bother him. If they ask him to find them a certain flower, then it's certain Link is going to keep an eye out for it and give it to them once he finds it.

He smiles brightest when they have hot chocolate underneath the starry sky, while Ravio tells him about what constellations he’s read about and then he’ll gently correct Ravio if he points to the wrong one.

Link comes home one day and exclaims he successfully freed all the sages. The words are barely audible to Ravio’s ears, his eyes stuck on the mark on Link’s hand.

He has mixed feelings about seeing the Triforce of Courage on Link’s hand. He is filled with despair that Lorule destroyed theirs, and happiness for Link for obtaining it. He is filled with so much jealousy, he hides his hands in his sleeves, his naked hands, even though they are clothed, they feel naked. He cheers for Link, makes a proper banquet of his favourites in celebration.

He ignores the fact that this means that soon Link will have to fight Yuga. Ignore that this means that the fissures will close and he will never see Hilda again. He celebrates the accomplishments of the hero of Hyrule because that’s all that matters right now.

He has a slight crook in his pinkie finger from when he broke it as a child.

He loves wild flowers rather than the ones the florist sells. He has a soft spot for irises. They mean hope and faith. Link said as he gave one to Ravio. Ravio later learned they also meant courage and wisdom. He wonders if Link knows that. If he knows of the irony of it being his favourite.

Link is much better with a sword now; the clumsy boy who didn’t have much experience only months ago no longer exists, and the sight is bitter and painful for Ravio.

Link still has that boyish smile, full of youthful charm and kindness, despite the horrors of the past year. Every time it shows itself, Ravio feels his heart flutter.

He looks at Ravio like he matters, like he is something worth looking at, even though he is hidden underneath a thick robe and hood.

Link has always been open about changing in front of him. It's scandalous to a boy raised in Lorule, but Ravio can praise himself for barely reacting outside of frozen shock and turning away in a panic the first time it happened. Now Ravio can’t help glancing at the blonde as he changes, watching markless skin and pretending it's supposed to match his.

Link doesn’t introduce himself to strangers now. Ravio doesn’t understand why.

Link has a soulmate out there, and Ravio doesn’t. He thought he was once jealous of the fact that the hero of Hyrule got a soulmate. Now he hates that he isn’t Link’s soulmate.

Ravio lies sleepless beside Link, watching the hero sleep, kicking, twitching and snoring as usual. Ravio would smile if he could.

He can’t bring himself to smile, to cry, to sleep, to move, to look away.

There’s a whirlwind of emotions inside him that he wishes he could use his wind rod to send flying. To free himself from their clutches. It is selfish that he wants to do that.

He should be feeling this. 

This painful, numbing guilt. This earth-shattering grief. This burning anger. This overwhelming self-hatred.

He deserves it, but he just wants to nurture the beautiful, warm love buried underneath it all. He wants to be selfish and pick himself. Pick Link.

All that he ever is is selfish. 

He lied to Link, over and over again, in the past year. He continuously sent him off with a cheery tone to a battle that is supposed to be Ravio’s. He should have been the one fighting, the one coming back covered in wounds. The one who cried in Link’s arms. The one who faced death over and over again. 

Ravio should be the one facing Yuga tomorrow. He caused all of this. He found that room. He told Hilda about it. He couldn’t manage to convince her. This is all his fault.

Now the only thing he was decent at is gone, a price that he paid to enter Hyrule. His magic is gone, just a hollow core sitting inside him. Like a dried-up well. It was never big, never deep, but Ravio was clever with what he had. 

There's only one way to enter Lorule now, and it’s on Link’s wrist. The bracelet that he gave him, which he had no clue what it did, but he just knew that it would prove useful on the quest. 

He wonders if he had known it could copy and power a spell, would he have kept it?

He has thought about it since Link had told him about the bracelet. That it was probably meant to be used as a way to transport between Lorule and Hyrule if you had used the spell that Ravio used to get here on it.

How was Ravio supposed to know that? How was he supposed to know that he could have had a way back? 

He can’t regret it, though. Because that bracelet saved Link. He will never regret that.

He will always regret pushing this task onto Link. That it was cruel, Link wasn’t a hero yet. He was a simple blacksmith’s apprentice before Ravio showed up and ruined it for him. 

Ravio’s been carrying the burden of being a hero for years now. He knew what he was pushing Link into, and he hadn’t cared. He was too cowardly to afford caring. 

He didn’t deserve to touch those lips. He didn’t deserve to touch that blonde hair. He doesn't deserve to lie beside Link.

Ravio doesn’t deserve Link, who has a soulmate out there waiting for Link to say their name.

Morning comes faster than Ravio wants it to, and slowly Link wakes up. His eyes slowly open, then close again, slowly turning onto his side towards Ravio, pulling his blanket up more, grumbling at the light coming from the window. Ravio can’t help the small laugh that escapes his lips. Link opens his eyes and sees him. There’s a moment of confusion before there’s a bright smile on his face with a slight flush to it, and Ravio hates himself even more than he did a second ago.

“Good morning.”

Link says in a sleepy voice. Ravio forces himself to pretend he hadn’t been awake all night in self-loathing.

“Good morning, Mr.Hero. It’s a big day today. What do you want for breakfast?”

Ravio says cheerfully, but it seems to have the opposite effect.

“You’re unusually chipper this morning.”

Link says with a questioning tone. Ravio freezes. He thinks about all the mornings waking up to Link getting ready and being grumpy at being woken up. Never was Ravio the first one awake, and if he was, he was never in a good mood. Ravio messed up, but he can fix that.

“I guess Mr.Hero’s bed is just that comfortable.”

Ravio says in a teasing tone, Link flushes red. The blonde scrambles out of bed in a rush while Ravio laughs. Ravio gets up, walks towards the kitchen and puts the apron on top of his robe.

“You never answered my question, Mr.Hero.”

Ravio says as Link runs around gathering his things, the question makes Link stop.

“Apple pancakes, please.”

Link says with an eager smile. Ravio can’t help but snort at the predictability.

“Why did I even bother asking?”

Ravio replies fondly before he starts making the batter.

The conversation they have doesn’t once mention last night, nor does it even mention who Link is about to fight. They talk about the morning market, they talk about the village kids, they talk about the farmer’s dog having a litter recently. Ravio jokes about how he wants one, and Link mentions he wouldn’t mind a dog in the house.

Ravio nearly drops everything he is holding. He pushes down the emotions and laughs it off like it was a joke. Link, as always, doesn’t push. He wonders if that’s a good thing or not. 

Ravio, as usual, adds a touch too much sugar in it, and as usual, Link doesn’t complain about it even though his face says he wants to.

“Are you sure you have everything? I should double-check your equipment. Maybe you should bring another potion?”

Ravio rambles anxiously as Link buckles his boots. Link gets up and grabs Ravio by his robe, pulling him forward. Half of his lips catch on his hood, the other half on his jawline.

“I’ll be fine, Ravio. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Ravio swallows hard and nods.

“Of course you will, you’re Mr.Hero.”

Ravio exclaims in false confidence, Link smiles so fondly it hurts to see.

“Ravio.”

Link says and waits for a long moment. As if waiting for something to happen. 

“Good luck, Mr.Hero.”

Ravio replies despite the obvious expectation on Link’s face to say his name. Link's smile dims a little, but he nods and leaves.

Ravio stares at the closed door for a long time. Long enough that the leftovers have gone cold. Long enough that Sheerow demands attention.

Ravio turns on his heel and starts packing. He doesn’t have much compared to what he came with. 

A spare ice rod that he made back in Lorule, which wasn’t nearly as powerful as the one he sold to Link. A couple of potions that he bought for himself, just in case, over the past year. A sword that he hasn’t used in a year, hidden away in his bag, only taken out to do maintenance on, to be on the safe side. A white hammer with white rabbit ears, one of the first items Ravio made and continued to perfect. The ears, a joke Hilda suggested that he decided to go along with.

The rest he sold to Link. 

He doesn’t really have a plan. He doesn’t have much of an idea of what he should do. He just knows he can’t allow himself to make Link face this alone. Not when this is all Ravio’s fault. He turned Hilda into a monster. He turned Link into a hero. Link said he was always scared. He thinks back to the night Link cried in his arms and knows Link wasn’t lying.

Ravio is always scared, but Link doesn’t use that as an excuse like him.

“It’s not like I can even go to Lorule.”

Ravio says in a dark chuckle. Why was he getting so worked up when he’s stranded here? Why was he packing as if he could go anywhere? Why was he acting like he would be of any help anyway?

His self-deprecating thoughts are interrupted by Sheerow’s struggling flaps. His gaze snaps to the bird to see him drag a map out of his pack. A map he hasn’t seen in a year. A map that led him to this world.

“Sheerow, you’re a genius.”

Ravio says with a growing grin as he grabs the map from the bird, opening it. Sheerow lands on his head with a victorious and proud song.

Ravio thinks back to the paintings on the walls. The story the paintings told.

A story of another world, that is Lorule’s mirror in every way, people, places, monsters, goddesses.

Ravio has seen plenty of evidence of that fact in the past year living in Hyrule. He can only help that this part is also reflected.

With his pack full, a table full of dishes and leftovers long forgotten, a white and blue bird singing encouragements flying around his head, hood and robe on as always. Ravio looks at the home he shared with a courageous hero for the past year, he smiles up at Sheerow and steps out the door.

The cowardly hero, for the first time, willingly goes on a quest.

Past a town he always knew and yet grew to know well, through familiar woods, he once spent days lost in, now the steps he takes are familiar. A path taken in woods in another world reflects the path he is on now. 

He arrives in front of a familiar dungeon entrance. Sheerow flies off to hide in the leaves of a tree. He puts down his bag full of rupees at the base of the tree, trusting Sheerow to protect it. Ravio grips his sword tightly as he stares at the mirror of a dungeon that started this all. Despite how long it’s been, Ravio remembers running. He remembers the group of monsters he was running from. He remembers hiding in a tight spot, he remembers holding his breath and praying.

He remembers stumbling around in the near darkness, terrified. He remembers a wall opening up, and he remembers a room.

The path is the same. The things on it are different. It's obvious that Link had conquered this dungeon. The lack of strong monsters to avoid. The lack of puzzles that needed to be solved. Ravio is thankful he doesn’t have to worry too much about it. He doesn’t have the time to focus on doing all that on top of everything else.

He remembers that it was the deepest he ever went into a dungeon, and it was only out of desperation for his life. In hindsight, after hearing the things Link said about these dungeons, it wasn’t deep at all.

It might be almost an hour into the dungeon when Ravio finds the statue. It looks slightly different then the one in Lorule, but it might be because now he has a source of light to see it.

Ravio puts his hand on the wall beside the statue and starts walking back the way he came. His ears flicker for any sounds, knowing better to let his guard down. His hand drags against the wall. It takes maybe more than ten minutes of walking before he feels his hand dip into the wall and for it to start shaking.

At first, there is no light, but once Ravio enters, the torches on the wall flicker to life.

The room isn’t large. It only has one way in and one way out. The walls are painted with a story that’s faded by time.

Ravio steps closer with his torch. The paintings on the wall brighten up in the light.

The walls tell a story.

A story of another world, where the sky is purple and the sun is red.

A story of another world, where the Triforce is pointed towards the ground.

A story of another world, where the hero is wise, the princess is brave, and the villain is powerful.

A story of another world, that is Hyrule’s mirror in every way, people, places, monsters, goddesses.

A story about a world and its Goddess and the Triforce she gifted her people.

Ravio stares at the history of his home world. He stares at the story that is different from the one he was told. The story of a brave hero and a wise princess does not match the story on the wall. His eyes scan the painting over and over again. He steps closer and feels his foot collide with something. He drags his gaze to the floor.

A treasure chest. Old and brittle, covered in a layer of dust that was shifted when Ravio's foot collided with it. Ravio stares down at the chest, snapping out of his thoughts. Right. The whole reason Ravio came here. He crouches down and opens the chest.

The chest creaks as it's opened. He’s gentle with it, making sure to open it slowly in hopes that it wouldn’t break on him. The sound it makes is slowly dragged out, making Ravio cringe. He slowly lets go of the lid and lets out a sigh of relief when it doesn’t fall off the hinges.

Inside lies two familiar items, a mirror to a map he has in his pack and a silver bracelet to Link’s gold.

Ravio grabs the map first, not bothering to open it in the dim dungeon lighting, putting it away beside the other map in his pack. He hesitantly reaches for the bracelet.

He pulls it out of the chest, thumb tracing over familiar carvings. It’s definitely the same carvings. He brings it closer to his face, and it smells just as much as a pack of wet dogs as the other one.

It's the exact same. 

Ravio feels a grin overtake his face in joy and relief. He wants to jump around in celebration, but holds it in, reminding himself that he is still in a dungeon. He slips the bracelet on.

He turns to leave. He purposely avoids looking at the paintings again, but he mentally notes what he learned and what that could mean for Lorule.

Ravio exits the dungeon, eagerly greeted by Sheerow.

“I’m fine, Sheerow.”

Ravio reassures as the bird twitters around. He crouches on the ground as he takes out the maps, laying them beside each other. The same map. He quickly shoves the maps back into his pack. He grabs his bag of rupees, throwing it over his shoulder.

“Let’s get going, Sheerow, we don’t have much time.”

The trek there is a lot more peaceful than the one he remembers in Lorule. That is, if he can ignore the fissures all around him. Monster-wise, there’s only one close call, and Ravio comes out of it with a sprained ankle that heals easily with a potion.

The map leads him to the same clearing as last time, but Ravio knows better now and tries to find his way to the cave Sheerow had found.

It takes him a while to find it, but he finally stumbles onto the cave. Undestroyed. Thankfully. He was a little nervous that it would somehow end up destroyed because Ravio destroyed the one in Lorule.

Ravio stares at the cave entrance for a moment, swallowing nervously. Sheerow grows impatient and starts pulling at his hood’s ears. 

Sheerow pulls before letting go and flying around the cave entrance. Ravio watches as Sheerow sings in encouragement and impatience. 

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

He opens them and walks into the cave. 

If Ravio didn’t have this spell magically engraved into his mind, if he hadn’t spent weeks researching ancient magic, he wouldn’t have recognized the image on the wall.

On the first and outermost circle, a protective barrier for the caster, a preservation spell meant to protect the paint that makes the magic circle. A teleportation circle in the second circle, he still doesn’t recognize the third circle, but in the centre of the circle is the Triforce, pointed towards the ground.

A Triforce Ravio knows well, has dreamed about, has read about, has cried about.

He stares at his way back to Lorule.

It’s been over five hours since Link left. He can’t waste any more time.

He pulls out the ice rod, while weak in comparison to the one he gave Link. This one was made with Ravio’s magic. It still retains a decent amount of it, having never been used. He knows exactly how to manipulate the magic stored inside it.

Sheerow lands on his shoulder, gripping tightly to his robe.

The wind picks up as the mark on the wall starts to glow, glowing with the silver bracelet on his wrist.

The wind grows stronger, pushing his hood off, revealing a grin with terrified eyes.

“Let’s go save Lorule.”

Ravio finds himself on the ground in the woods. Sheerow is fluttering around on top of him. He groans as he pushes himself up, sitting up. He looks down around him for his things and finds his ice rod broken beyond repair near him, and on the other side, his bag with a few spilled rupees. 

He tiredly picks himself up and picks them up, putting them back in.

He takes a deep breath, and the air is harsh, the smell of decaying magic.

Smells like home. Ravio thinks. He looks up, and the sky is purple; the red sun is starting to set.

Ravio’s eyes widened. How long has he spent passed out? That hadn’t happened last time. Was it because it wasn’t a proper source of magic? He shakes his head. Ravio doesn’t need Sheerow to snap him out of his thoughts. Hilda and Link are waiting for him.

“Where?”

Ravio mumbles, looking around in a panic. 

He pauses as he sees the castle in the distance. He flips his hood on, grabs his bag and runs for it. 

His gaze barely moving away from the castle walls, Sheerow has to warn him of the upcoming enemies. He wants to yell at them for getting in his way. For wasting his time. Sheerow tries to lead him away, around. 

That would take too much time. Link might already be- Hilda might be- He can’t run away anymore!

He pulls out his hammer and jumps, swinging down on the mini-moldorm. He doesn’t stop, he swings down again and again. Until it vanishes in a flash of light and is replaced with rupees. 

Ravio stares down, panting. Grip tight on his hammer. 

He did it? He killed something? Him? Ravio the coward? 

Sheerow flies by him in a hurry, and Ravio's feet start moving again. In one hand, his bag of rupees, in the other, his hammer is held in a tight desperation.

Ravio doesn’t bump into any soldiers on his way through the forest. He bumps into two more mini-moldrum, killing them before they notice him. He finally gets to the castle gate. He pants for air, regretting not keeping up with his training routine properly. His stamina is not at all what it used to be.

Sheerow is fluttering around, ready to get going again.

“You can’t come with me.”

Ravio says, Sheerow squawks in protest. Pulling at his hood to get him going.

“Sheerow, it’s too dangerous. You can’t come.”

He holds his hand out. Sheerow lands on it.

“I’ll be fine, I’ll have Mr.Hero looking out for me.”

Sheerow chirps worriedly. Ravio kisses the top of Sheerow’s head.

“We’ll be fine. Stay safe, and please stay away from any fissures.”

Sheerow doesn’t move for a moment, staring up at him before he whistles and takes off. He flies around him a few times. Ravio chuckles as Sheerow pulls on his hood once more and takes off. Ravio watches for a moment. It’s been so long since he’s seen Sheerow’s wings illuminated by a purple and red sky.

He glances down at the bracelet on his wrist. He can’t sense any magic in it. The magic that was used on it didn’t stick like it did for Link. Definitely not a strong enough source of magic then. He ignores the implications.

He turns his gaze back to the door. He grabs his bag, puts his hammer away, puts the bracelet away, takes a deep breath, he ignores his racing heart, ignores his shaking hands.

“It’s okay to be scared.”

He tells himself as he walks in.

Walking through the halls of the castle he spent years in should cause some sort of emotional response. 

But Ravio doesn’t recognize this place anymore. They turned it into a dungeon. Why? This beautiful castle, the very last standing history of Lorule, the castle Hilda was desperate to keep intact, the last symbol of hope, she wouldn’t do this. The Hilda he has known since they were 12 would never do this.

He shouldn’t have left. He shouldn’t have left her alone with that monster. It’s his fault. He did this.

A chirp snaps him out of it. His gaze snaps up to see Sheerow. He laughs wetly.

“You silly bird. Mr.Hero is right, you are spoiled.”

Sheerow flies around him. He pushes down the tears threatening to prick his eyes. He follows the carnage, the evidence of Link’s presence. He tries his best to ignore the castle that he once knew like the back of his hand. 

Don’t think about it. Later. Cry, scream, break down, later. 

Ravio chants in his mind on repeat.

This isn’t about Ravio, this is about Hilda, this is about Link, this is about Hyrule, this is about Lorule. 

He hears Hilda before he sees her, he hears another voice that he doesn’t recognize, and he hears Link.

Relief washes over him. Both alive. Thank the goddess.

Then the words register. 

Ravio doesn’t think. He jumps in, yelling.

“Please! This has to stop!”

He trips and lands on his face, but that doesn’t stop him from scrambling himself off the floor and putting himself between Link and Hilda. 

And a woman behind Link. With Hilda’s face, in different colours. Princess Zelda.

Ravio doesn’t give himself time to think. He doesn’t think about Link, he doesn’t think about last night, he doesn’t think about this morning. He thinks about the years by Hilda’s side.

He takes off his hood. 

He watches the shock on Link’s face, but he doesn’t say anything. He replies to Princess Zelda. And the words Ravio says are an underestimate of the past year with Link, but he doesn’t have the time or the words to explain it.

This isn’t about Ravio. This is about Hilda. This is about Hyrule. This is about Lorule. This is about finally being useful as a hero.

He turns around and meets Hilda’s eyes. It’s been a year since he’s seen his best friend. She looks like she hasn’t been sleeping or eating well. Ravio knows he looks better than he ever has, spoiled on the bountiful lands of Hyrule.

“Your royal highness…”

The words Hilda that spill out of her mouth are bait, he reminds himself. He reminds himself that he knows that he doesn’t need to yell. He is a merchant now. He is good with his words. He tries to be rational, calm. 

“Hilda, I just wanted to save you from all this! You spend nights awake, worried about the people of Lorule, and skip meals if it means the children on the street have something to eat. You constantly worry about the fate of Lorule. Please…”

Ravio swallows, looking at Hilda with wet eyes.

“Please, let’s make the right choice, don’t doom another country to our fate. If we are doomed to fall, at least we fall with the pride that we didn’t condemn this country by stealing their Triforce.”

Hilda stares at him for a moment, face stoic to others, but Ravio has known this girl for years, and he sees the fear, the hesitation, the hurt, the acceptance, before she nods solemnly.

“You’re right.”

It happens quickly. Ravio is doing his best to ignore Link for now. He stays with Hilda as they lead them forward. Link stays with his own princess. 

The fissure is much bigger than when he last saw it. He paused at Hilda’s explanation, the lie, Ravio should be getting the blame. He’s the one who found out about Hyrule. Hilda sends him a look to keep his mouth shut.

Hilda asks for Link’s bracelet. Link looks at him in a panicked glance. Ravio smiles and nods.

Link hands over his only connection between Lorule and Hyrule.

Ravio walks over to Link, and he grabs Link’s hand with both hands. He grins despite the look of heartache on Link’s face.

“It’s been an absolute pleasure. I got to meet a real, live, genuine hero.”

Ravio smirks, Link tries to say something, but Ravio keeps talking.

“And hey, maybe some of that courage of yours rubbed off on me. So… Thanks for everything. Seriously, for everything.”

Ravio says with a wet grin, Link's eyes grow wet.

“Ravio.”

He says in a shaky voice and waits. Ravio shakes his head.

“I don’t have a soulmate, Mr.Hero.”

Link surges forward, lips colliding with his. The bruise from yesterday’s kiss protests it, but Ravio doesn’t, leaning into the kiss. Link pulls back first this time. Forehead against his, fingers in Ravio’s hair. 

“Ravio.”

Link stubbornly says again, voice stronger this time, looking straight into Ravio’s eyes. Ravio laughs wetly.

“Link.”

Then he’s gone.

Ravio stands his ground, forcing himself not to cry. Break down later, he reminds himself. Then the world is shaking, sending Ravio back onto the ground, and the fissure grows bigger and explodes into light. He shuts his eyes, covering them with his arm. He pulls his arm down, and his eyes widen as he stares up at a shape being formed in the sky. 

The Triforce. 

Hilda breaks down crying after a few moments of shocked silence. Ravio hugs her as tears fall down his face. Hers are out of relief and gratitude. His are out of sorrow and heartbreak.

In a way, this story ends here.

Chapter Text

The flame of the candles flickers but stays lit. The room is filled with the sound of a quill scraping against paper. Piles of papers surround him. Piles of books that reach even higher surround the papers. Some of the book piles rest on the floor around him. Sheerow is sleeping on one of the taller book piles.

A sudden loud slam makes Ravio jump and snap his gaze up from the paper. A thick book, with a bejewelled hand resting on top of it. He follows the arm connected to the hand and stares up at Hilda.

“You won’t find anything if you don’t rest.”

Hilda says in lieu of a greeting. Ravio doesn’t let that stop him.

“Oh, greetings, your majesty, how can this humble peasant help you this fine evening?”

Ravio says in over-exaggerated movements, dragging his words to make it just a tad more annoying.

“It’s dawn.”

Hilda’s words cause all his movements to stop. Hands dropping back to rest on the table.

“Oh.”

The library grows quiet. Ravio turns his gaze downward, gripping his quill tightly. He hears the sound of a chair scraping against the floor, then a small shuffle. 

Ravio keeps his gaze locked on the papers in front of him.

“Ravio.”

“Hilda.”

Ravio replies, not looking up. He hears a sigh, then quiet again. It stays that way long enough that Ravio considers resuming, but before he commits, Hilda speaks.

“I apologize.”

Ravio snaps his gaze up, looking at the queen across him in the eyes.

“For what?”

Ravio asks, confused. They’ve done plenty of apologizing already in the past two weeks since he came back. He thought they were finally done with them. 

“I pushed a role onto you that you clearly did not want. I pushed you to do tasks that could have ended in your death, all because of a history that my ancestors lied about. I should have been the one to have done those tasks. To have risked my life.”

Hilda says, bowing slightly at him in apology. Ravio stares wide-eyed in shock. He can’t help but snort in disbelief.

Hilda snaps her gaze up to his, confused and offended by the laugh.

“Sorry, I just… I did the same thing to… to Link.”

Ravio bites his lip. He shakes his head.

“It’s not your fault. Your belief in a history we were all taught doesn’t make you a villain. It is the fault of the ones who purposely altered it.”

Ravio says, he takes a deep breath, putting his hand on top of Hilda’s.

“I could have run away whenever I wanted, you know? Life may have been a little scary and dangerous, but it was comfortable and safe in the castle. You couldn’t find that anywhere else on Lorule. So thank you for giving me a comfortable life even though I kept proving to you over and over again how I was not the hero you and Lorule needed.”

Ravio says softly. Hilda frowns.

“You were the hero we needed, that I needed. You saved Lorule and Hyrule. Do not doubt the deeds you have done for the people and this world.”

Ravio and Hilda stare quietly at each other. Ravio gives a small smile.

“As long as you don’t blame yourself?”

Hilda's eyes widen a bit for a moment before she returns the smile.

“You’ve become quite the businessman. It’s a deal.”

She says. Ravio grins.

“You’ve noticed? I am quite the talented merchant. You should let me open up a shop in the castle.”

Ravio exclaims brightly, and it makes Hilda chuckle, shaking her head fondly. 

Hilda stares at him for a contemplative moment.

“It’s interesting, looking back now, it should have been clear as day that you were the holder of wisdom and not I. Yet we were all so blinded by stories of the past that we missed it.”

Ravio pulls his hand off of Hilda’s, scratching at the top of his other hand. A piece of the Triforce is buried underneath his skin. The mark is hidden underneath his clothes. He can’t help glancing at Hilda’s hand. She wears hers out in the open, so all can see that the Triforce has returned. 

“I could say the same to you, your majesty. It should have been obvious that the princess who tried to sneak into sword lessons and go into thieves' town without guards would be the holder of courage.”

Hilda looks down at the triforce piece in the back of her hand. She looks up to meet his gaze, a smile on her face.

“It is indeed fascinating how things can be so clear when we look into the past.”

Ravio hums in agreement. He leans back on the chair, letting the room go quiet again. It’s nice to spend time with Hilda, to reminisce even in this strange way. It’s nice that it hasn’t led to a fight, but none of their talks in the last two weeks have led to a fight. That’s only because they were walking on eggshells around each other, though. 

Now this feels like them to him, maybe a bit older, a bit smarter, a bit kinder, a bit bolder. Still, Hilda and Ravio thought.

“You really should rest, Ravio.”

Hilda’s concerned tone cuts him off from his thoughts. 

“I…”

Ravio starts but stops. He should rest; he is aware of that. He is also aware that his house haunts him, a house that looks so much like his, without him in it. It’s like living with a ghost.

“There’s still so much to do. I need to calculate the budget for the restoration efforts.”

Ravio manages to say. Hilda looks at him, and he knows she doesn’t believe him, but she doesn’t point out the lie. She’s kind in that way.

“There’s a guest room with your name on it. I won’t take no for an answer. Go rest.”

Hilda sternly says. Ravio opens his mouth to protest, but she raises a brow, and he promptly shuts his mouth. He reluctantly nods, and he gets up, pulling his hood up. Sheerow twitters at him, landing in his scarf to continue to sleep.

“Sleep well, Hero of Lorule.”

Ravio blinks, glancing at Hilda. She smiles victoriously at him. He sighs fondly.

“Have a good day, your majesty.”

Ravio walks down the halls of the castle, the halls slowly being turned back to the castle he knew and loved. It’s a slow process, but Ravio has to remember it’s only been a week since they started fixing the castle. 

Ravio absentmindedly gives scratches to Sheerow, who leans and purrs into the touch. Ravio smiles softly at the sound, but the smile drops just as quickly as it formed.

Two weeks of being back in Lorule, and Ravio can’t help but think it’s been much longer. It feels like forever since he looked at Link, since he talked to him, since he touched him, since he kissed him, since he said his name.

He should have said it sooner. Maybe then this pain wouldn’t exist, because maybe that night would never have happened, maybe those looks wouldn’t have been shared. If Link knew that Ravio saying his name would do nothing.

Now Ravio knows what it feels like to have those lips on his, those fingers in his hair, those blue eyes full of love and kindness looking at him and only seeing him. 

He bites his lip, stopping in his steps. He takes a shuddering breath.

This is why he didn’t want to stop. He doesn’t want to think, he doesn’t want to think about him. 

Sheerow chirps in concern. He takes another deep breath. 

He’ll just take a nap and get back to work. Hilda can’t complain if he gets some sleep.

-

Three months after the return of the Triforce, Ravio finds himself stuck in a cycle of self-neglect.

He is well aware that he should be concerned about it, but he isn’t. He’s tired, but he can’t bring himself to try to sleep. He’s hungry, but everything tastes like ash on his tongue. He hates even trying to make something to eat; he spent weeks accidentally cooking for two before he just stopped cooking altogether. So Ravio doesn’t eat if he’s at home, but that’s a rare occurrence nowadays. Ravio spends most of his time in the castle or doing inspections around Lorule. He only ever goes home now to grab some tools or notes. He would just get rid of the house altogether if it weren’t the one thing his mother left behind for him. So Ravio doesn’t go home much, but even if he is at the castle all the time, Ravio only bothers to eat when he has people around him to dine with.

It’s gotten to the point that Ravio is aware he looks terrible, and so to avoid worrying people, he starts to avoid them. He hides away in a corner of the library, working. All Ravio does is work. He never stops until someone kicks him out. Hilda used to be able to send maids to tell him to rest, but he’s gotten to the point where he doesn’t care. At first, he listened; he didn’t want to worry Hilda. Then he couldn’t sleep, and he didn’t want to sit on a bed alone with his thoughts with nothing to distract him. So he started sneaking back into the library. Nowadays, though, he just ignores the maids altogether. Hilda has to come down herself to drag him out.

He neglects everything just so he can avoid having time to think.

Finally, Hilda puts her foot down.

“Nothing is urgent, Ravio. You don’t have an excuse anymore.”

Hilda says, arms crossed, blocking his way into the library. Ravio is thankful that he was wearing his hood, because the glare he sent Hilda would have started a fight he did not have the energy for.

“Excuse? I don’t need an excuse for anything, my dear queen. I am simply trying to do what is best for the kingdom's needs.”

Ravio says stubbornly. Hilda's eyes narrow at him.

“Do not dare use my kingdom as an excuse to not take care of yourself.”

She hisses sharply. Ravio sucks in a breath, stiffening.

“I’m not-“

“Take off your hood.”

Hilda cuts Ravio off. Ravio doesn’t move to do it.

“That’s an order, Sir Ravio.”

Ravio takes a deep breath, hesitantly raising his hands to pull down his hood. 

He stares at Hilda without the hood as a shield. The sternness washes off Hilda’s face, leaving only concern. Her hands gently land on his cheeks, and he leans into the touch. He knows he looks terrible. There’s a reason he kept his hood on these days. Large and dark eye bags, pale complexion, and greasy, tangled hair. He looks and feels like a mess.

“Oh, Ravio. What are you doing to yourself?”

She says in a quiet, soft voice. It makes the tears Ravio has been holding back for three months spill, his shoulders shaking. He grips onto Hilda.

Hilda wraps her arms around him. Hugging him. It’s terrible. It makes him laugh, he pities the children they were, the ones who had the world on their shoulders and couldn’t afford asking for a hug lest they appear weak. They don’t know how to comfort people because no one comforted them.

He wails and screams as Hilda holds him. Everything he has been holding back is exploding out, every hurt and ache he has pushed down, ignored, finally forcing its way out of his chest. He is overwhelmed with it all, but he can’t find the willpower to push it back down. He misses Link, he misses Hyrule, and he’s so stressed about the reconstruction of Lorule. He hates going home, he hates cooking and eating without someone there to lie about whether he likes the food or not, and he wants to eat the peaches from Kakariko and cook with the apples that Link loves. He hates thinking about what he can’t have, what he can't see again.

At one point, they end up on the floor of the halls, leaning back on the door to the library.

It reminds him of the night Link cried in his arms.

He tightens his hold on Hilda, letting out a shaky breath. Fingers are running through his hair. It must feel gross. Hilda doesn’t complain, though, just keeps holding him.

He doesn’t know how long it takes before he settles enough to pull away. He feels empty, drained of tears and emotions. He feels exhausted both physically and mentally. He feels gross, his face sticky and warm from crying. He rubs away at the drying tears. 

Hilda gets up during that and pulls him up with her. She doesn’t let go of his hand. Starting to drag him down the hall. He doesn’t protest, letting her lead him. The occasional sniffles escape him as he walks. His head is pounding from the crying. He wants to pull his hood back up to block out the light, but can’t bring himself to bother doing it. 

When Ravio becomes aware of his surroundings again, they are in Hilda’s room. She leads him to her sofa, pushing him down to sit. She leaves his side, out of sight, and Ravio doesn’t watch to see where she’s going. He stares down at his hands holding Sheerow. Sheerow tilts his head to the side as he looks up at Ravio. Ravio takes a deep breath as he watches the way Sheerow moves, the way his feathers shine in the light, and he feels the purrs that Sheerow is making.

He hears the sound of a door closing, then the sound of heels. He hadn’t even noticed Hilda had left the room. 

There’s a basket of cookies placed down on the coffee table. Ravio stares at it for a while. Hilda doesn’t push or say anything. She sits down beside him and waits. Slowly, Ravio shifts Sheerow onto one hand, then reaches out to grab a cookie. 

He takes a bite. 

“I… can make better cookies than this.”

Ravio says slowly as he takes small bites of the plain cookies. Hilda leans forward and grabs a cookie for herself, eating it at a similar pace to his.

“Really? These are quite good.”

Hilda says softly, not quite asking. More like letting Ravio decide if he wants to add to the topic.

“I took up cooking in Hyrule.”

Ravio starts, letting Sheerow take a bite of the cookie he was eating.

“I mostly baked, though. You know that one building in thieves' town, the one with the crossed-out pumpkin logo? Yeah, it's a bakery in Hyrule. I was really curious about the goods. Goddesses, Hilda, there were so many different types and flavours. It- it was like a dream. Smelled divine, too.”

Ravio says in a wobbly voice. He feels like he’ll start crying again, yet he doesn’t have the energy to commit to it. Hilda hums in reply, leaning back on the couch with him. He sucks in a breath, trying to calm down. After a moment, Ravio resumes.

“And well, you know how I am. I asked about everything: names, ingredients, etc. The baker offered me the recipes. I… thought they were asking if I wanted to buy the recipes, so I said no. They didn’t try to correct my assumption. I think they knew I wouldn’t have trusted goodwill like that. So every purchase came with a recipe.”

Ravio says with a soft smile. Kakariko town was so full of kind and generous people. Full of energy and enthusiasm for life. The longer he talks, the easier it gets, strangely.

“The whole of Hyrule was very kind to me, even if I never showed my face or said their names.”

Ravio says, scratching Sheerow’s neck. The bird leans into the scratch. Hilda is quiet; he glances at her and sees a thoughtful expression.

“You didn’t say their names?”

Oh, Ravio never explained soulmates in Hyrule. He turns his gaze away from Hilda. The topic will always make him queasy, but he is the holder of wisdom; it's his duty to educate his queen.

“In Hyrule, soulmates are not found by a mark on the skin but by your other half speaking your name.”

Ravio explains, trying to separate himself from the words coming out of his mouth. He tries not to think about the blue eyes and blond hair that haunt his mind.

“I see… Lorule would be a much worse place if that’s how soulmates were found.”

Hilda says without much hesitation. Ravio finds a snort escaping him, his shoulders shaking as he chuckles.

“I thought the same thing.”

Hilda laughs with him for a bit before they go quiet again.

“Why didn’t you say anyone's names?”

She asks. Ravio looks at her with a sad, hurt smile.

“That’s a cruel question.”

She winces at his words, looking away from him. She doesn’t push. They sit in the silence. Ravio eats three more cookies before Hilda decides that's good enough.

“Go take a shower, I left a change of clothes in the ensuite.”

Ravio snaps his attention to Hilda. The words snap him out of the fog in his head.

“Are you crazy? We aren’t children anymore, we can’t do that type of thing without your nobles-”

“Go take a shower, Ravio. Don’t think about the outside world right now. It’s just me, you, and Sheerow. Just like when we were kids.”

Hilda cuts him off, but her words calm him down. He lets out a long breath. Hilda is right, he shouldn’t care about images. It’s just Hilda, him, and Sheerow. His gaze trails down to Sheerow, who is resting on the tail end of his scarf. He should at least leave his scarf in here for Sheerow.

He apologizes to Sheerow as he sets the bird aside for a moment, unpinning his scarf and taking it off. Folding it in the way he knows Sheerow enjoys sleeping on, he puts it down, and Sheerow is quick to jump into the makeshift nest and take a nap. 

He turns to Hilda, who’s squinting at him. Ravio tilts his head at her, confused by her expression. She shakes her head, waving whatever her problem is off. He notes to himself to ask after his shower if she still looks bothered. Hilda gives him a small wave as he enters the ensuite. Ravio nods to her as he closes the door.

Ravio takes his sweet time in Hilda’s shower. It’s been a while since he has washed himself, and rarely is it with hot water. Never is it with a hot shower. It's one of five showers with running hot water in the kingdom; he’ll enjoy it as long as he can. Only when the water starts getting cold does he finally bring himself to turn it off. 

The clothes that Hilda left for him are one of the few high-quality tunics he owns that she had commissioned. He glances at his robe and sighs. It has been a long time since he cleaned it. He should do it now before he decides to push it off again for who knows how long. He leaves his clothes in the hamper and leaves the ensuite.

Hilda isn’t in her room when he walks out, but Sheerow is napping exactly where he left him. Ravio can’t bring himself to take his scarf back. He walks over to Hilda’s bookshelf and grabs something random to read. Who knows when Hilda will be back, and he knows if he tries to leave, she’ll cut off his limbs. So he gets comfortable on the couch as he reads some random fairy tale Hilda liked enough to keep in her room. 

As he reads it, he slowly remembers Hilda hates this book, but 12-year-old Ravio was in love with it, but wasn’t able to read yet. So Hilda would read it for him. He traces the crinkles in the old, well-loved book. 

He understands why Hilda would hate it; he understands why his younger self loved it. Hilda was full of hopes and ambitions, and Ravio was full of fear and dread. 

He would be the type of kid to find enjoyment in a story about a young bird who was scared of flying. He doesn’t really remember the ending, so he wonders if he always fell asleep before hearing it. He remembers the bird that couldn’t bring itself to try to fly, to leave its nest. He remembers all its friends and family trying to convince it that the world wasn’t that scary. He doesn’t know if the bird ever flew. 

He wonders if he knew the ending and he forgot it on purpose because he couldn’t manage to fly, no matter how hard he tried.

Before he can finish the book, Hilda walks in. His back is facing the door, so he doesn’t see her walk in; rather, he hears her walk in. He hears the door opening, followed by her gasp, then he hears the sound of something metal being dropped. He throws himself off the couch, turning to her in a panic, looking around for a threat, but Hilda is looking at him with wide, wet eyes. Hands over her mouth. Ravio glances down in front of her to see a tray of food dropped on the floor. A waste, but he doesn’t say anything about it. 

“Hilda?”

He says, worried. Hilda sucks in a breath, stepping over the split food, uncaring if her dress gets dirty. She marches over to Ravio, ignoring his repeated attempts at getting her attention. She grabs his shoulders and forces him to turn around, facing his back to him.

“Hilda. You’re kinda freaking me out.”

Ravio says, but Hilda doesn’t say anything. Touching the back of his neck. He jumps at the sudden touch, trying to lean away from it.

“Ravio, you-”

Hilda’s voice breaks; she takes a sharp breath.

“You have a mark.”

“WHAT?!”

Ravio snaps his neck back to see her eyes wet but so full of joy for him. She isn’t messing with him. He touches the back of his neck; he needs to see it. He snaps around, and he rushes over to Hilda’s vanity. She has to have a hand mirror. He pulls open drawers, desperately searching. He finally opens the right one and takes out the mirror. He sees his own face. Full of fear.

How can he have a soulmate now? How can he have a soulmate when the one he loves isn’t his? He doesn’t think he could ever love another like he loves Link.

A hand rests on top of the one holding the mirror, giving a gentle squeeze. He looks up, meeting Hilda’s gaze.

“Together.” 

Hilda says, with a determined face. He takes a shuddering breath. Hilda takes the hand mirror from him. He looks into the vanity mirror. Hilda angles the hand mirror to show him the reflection of his mark.

A flower, two flowers actually, the stems curled around each other. The flowers are purple, he leans closer to the mirror, and Hilda follows him. 

“An iris.”

He mumbles in disbelief. 



“You know, irises mean hope and faith.” Link said, bending down in front of the flower patch, Ravio hummed in reply. Hands on his knees, leaning down to take a look over Link. “Every time I see them, I remember to have hope and faith that the goddesses know what they are doing.” Link says plucking an iris out of the patch. “All I can do is hope and have faith that things happen for a reason and maybe one day… we won’t have to fight anymore, we can live in peace.”

Ravio stays quiet at Link’s words; he stares at the flower. A purple iris. Link smiles up at him and hands him the flower. Ravio twirls the flower slowly. “It’s a pretty flower.” Ravio says softly. Link grins.

Out of curiosity, he looks more into the flower later. He doesn’t know if Link knew but didn’t want to acknowledge the irony or if he simply didn’t know. Ravio doesn’t mention to Link that an iris also represents wisdom and courage.

Ravio doesn’t need the mirror to tell him he’s crying. He knows for a fact that mark represents Link and Ravio. Courage and Wisdom, intertwined together. He refuses to believe it could be anything else, anyone else. Hilda is talking to him, but Ravio can only manage to babble words that don’t make sense to his own ears.

“It's irises! Courage- Wisdom and and faith and hope and-”

Ravio sucks in a harsh breath, cutting himself off, looking at Hilda. Who stares back with wide, confused eyes.

“It’s Link.”

He says in a quiet, shaky voice, before the tears of happiness turn into tears of anguish. He hears Hilda’s gasps of shock, but he doesn’t care to explain how he knows. He just cries, and cries. He cries for the soulmate that he knows and loves, but will never see and touch again. He cries about the unfairness of it all. That only now does he learn about this. He doesn’t even know how long he has had the mark. He will never know if he had it by Link’s side.

Hilda grabs onto his shoulders, shaking him.

“Don’t you dare give up before you even try!”

She yells. He looks up at her with teary eyes. 

“You are the Hero of Lorule, you are the holder of the Triforce of Wisdom. You are Ravio, the man who figured out how to go into another world. You are NOT giving up before you even try!”

Hilda says with conviction, looking him in the eyes as she speaks. Ravio swallows.

“Now then, use that brain of yours for something other than self-pity!”

Ravio nods slowly, intimidated by the sheer force of will Hilda uses. He wipes away the tears on his face. 

“But first, you need food and sleep.”

Hilda says firmly, clearly not taking no for an answer. Ravio sighs fondly.

“Okay.”

He says softly.

-

Ravio tries to balance helping Hilda with the restoration efforts and finding a way back to Hyrule. One that won’t be a one-way street. He refuses to leave Hilda behind again. Most of the time, Hilda tells him that he doesn’t need to help, that he has done enough already, but he knows she needs his support, his words, his title as hero to have a true effect on the citizens. 

The citizens of Lorule are strangely attached to Ravio; he knows it's because he didn’t have a mark. That they thought he was the beginning of freedom from marks. Hilda and he didn’t even have to discuss the fact that his mark shouldn’t be revealed. Not for a long, long time at least.

So now, rather than just a memento from his father, Ravio wears his father’s scarf to hide his mark, just like his father used it for.

It’s strange, he is so hyperaware of the mark now that he knows about it. Whenever he is doing something, he finds one of his hands resting on the back of his neck. He finds comfort in it. It's the closest thing he has to Link in this world.

Whenever he hits a roadblock in his research, he has a hand on his neck as he curls up and cries. He likes to imagine it's Link’s cold fingers comforting him.

He doesn’t get anywhere. He has deconstructed and reconstructed the magic charm that he used to get to Hyrule a multitude of times. He has to fight the urge to tear apart the bracelet because he needs it to come back to Lorule, to Hilda.

“I’m not getting anywhere.”

Ravio says in frustration, scribbling over the magic circle. They are in Hilda’s office. She had a desk brought in just for him to use weeks ago, when she got sick of having to find him in the library and after Ravio refused to accept an office of his own. Sheerow even has his own stand in the office.

Hilda looks up from her letters. He’s pretty sure half of them are nobles begging for a tax break they don’t need. The other half are marriage proposals that Hilda burns in glee. Hilda puts down the letter, resting her chin on her hand.

“Explain to me why again, you cannot use the method you used the first time?”

Hilda asks, and Ravio rolls his eyes. Hilda has been trying to get him to just do that, but he can’t.

“It needs a source of magic to sacrifice, and I don’t have any magic of my own to use anymore. I only managed to return here because my ice rod hadn’t run out of my magic.”

Hilda hums at Ravio’s explanation. She stares at him thoughtfully. Ravio's gaze is stuck on the paper on his desk, trying once again to make a magic circle. His free hand rests on his neck.

“Shouldn’t you fix that first, then?”

Hilda suddenly asks, Ravio blinks at the question, looking at Hilda, confused by what she’s asking. She notices his unasked question. She sighs, like a disappointed mother. Ravio squints his eyes at her. He hadn’t heard that sigh in a long time.

“How on Lorule will you get there if you don’t even have any magic?”

Hilda says. Ravio stares dumbly at Hilda. She’s right. Ravio has been focusing on the wrong thing. He already knows how to get there; it's engraved in his head. He just needs the magic to sacrifice. He leans back on his chair, hands on his desk as he thinks. Finger tapping, as his mind rushes through everything he knows about magic. He leans back even more on his chair, so that he is balancing on the back legs only. 

Hilda goes back to her letters as she lets Ravio think in peace. 

About fifteen minutes pass before a loud thump happens, then Sheerow is twittering in a panic, and Hilda snaps her attention to the source to see Ravio on the floor. He isn’t moving; he didn’t even make a noise when he fell. Ravio stares up at the ceiling for a moment before he slowly sits up. Hilda is in front of him, looking at him worried.

“Do we still have Yuga’s notes?”

“Excuse me?”

-

Ravio pushes off the stacks of books from the desks, the plume of dust rising that he ignores easily enough, but Hilda complains about. He hears Sheerow chirp about it from Hilda’s shoulder. He hears the sound of a window being opened, but he doesn’t say anything. Eyes scanning a stack of papers

“Where is it?”

Ravio mutters as he throws booklets after booklets behind him. 

“What exactly are you looking for?”

Hilda asks. Ravio throws another stack to the side.

“Yuga once mentioned magic transfer.”

Ravio says, grabbing another two booklets and skimming them. Hilda makes a confused noise.

“I’ve never heard of this.”

Hilda says curious. Ravio hums, moving on to another stack.

“Because it’s considered forbidden. It’s unnatural to take the magic of another being and give it to another. That is not how Lolia and the three goddesses intended you to be.”

Ravio explains, all sounds from Hilda stop; he glances at her. She looks puzzled but mostly amused.

“And you're still looking for it?”

Ravio grins widely.

“It’s considered forbidden, not that it is forbidden. I’ve always found it funny that we have magic recovery potions, and that we only stopped there. Magic recovery potions take the magic from plants and monster parts and turn it into a potion. So what is the difference between the two?”

Hilda sighs fondly as she picks up a booklet and starts flipping through the pages.

“You always get like this when it comes to magic.”

She says, bumping her shoulder against his. He pushes back gently as he takes another for himself.

“I could say the same about you.”

Ravio says with a huff of a laugh. She slyly grins at him.

“Last one to find it is a rotten cucco egg.”

Ravio gasps and grabs another from the stack in a rush.

In the first ten minutes, they are competitively rushing through the piles, but they slowly lose steam. Hilda had claimed the only chair in the room, going through the stacks around the desk while Ravio was sitting on the floor against a bookshelf, going through the stacks on the floor. Sheerow had left through the window at one point.

“He was truly an insane man.”

Hilda breaks the silence. Ravio snorts, glancing up at her in time to see her drop the booklet she was reading through on the floor.

“Your majesty, you’re only now learning that fact?”

Ravio teases, Hilda rolls her eyes at him, and grabs from the stack. He can't help but smile. He knows Hilda has better things to do than sit in a dusty room reading a madman’s research notes. But she is still here, helping him.

“I’m simply saying that if I had known about some of the research he was conducting, then perhaps I wouldn’t have-“

Hilda stops and sighs. She shakes her head. Ravio watches her with concern.

“Maybe you wouldn’t have, maybe you still would have.”

Ravio decides to say, seeing as Hilda refuses to continue.

“But I like to think you would have done the right thing for certain. It might just take you a while to see it sometimes.”

Ravio says softly. Hilda lets out a deep breath; she flashes him an appreciative smile and nods. They return to reading. Ravio thinks an hour passes because Sheerow returns from whatever adventure he flew off on. He lets the bird land on his head, singing to him happily. Ravio likes to think Sheerow is recounting his flight to him.

Ravio hums along for a bit before coming to a full stop. A slow-growing grin on his face as he looks up to Hilda, who is focused on reading.

“Guess you’re the rotten egg, your majesty.”

Ravio says lazily, swinging the research papers in his hand. She looks up at him and, despite losing, she still smiles brightly. Full of happiness for Ravio, for finally making a step towards reuniting with Link.

Ravio grins back, with just as much joy and excitement. He turns his gaze back to the research papers in his hands.

It’s mostly theory, Ravio notes as he properly reads through the papers. Half of it sounds so far-fetched that he knows that it’s the reason Yuga had given up on the idea. Yuga couldn’t make it plausible.

Ravio thoughtfully stares at the stack, Hilda reading over his shoulder.

“Think it's possible?”

She asks. Ravio hums in reply, closing the booklet.

“Definitely.”

-

Ravio and Hilda spend weeks on it, well, mostly Ravio, but Hilda, when she had the time, would come to help him brainstorm. There are some advantages to the both of them being raised with the same education and sharing an interest in magic. Though Hilda enjoyed learning it more than researching it, she enjoyed new things, while Ravio enjoyed creating those things. She’s still another perspective that one can never complain about while secretly researching something frowned upon.

Ravio understands why it's frowned upon, he does. It goes against what everyone is taught.

He always understood that reason, but as he researched it, he slowly realized another reason why people didn’t get far in their research.

While mana potions are made from the magic found in monster parts and plants, they are meant to temporarily replace the magic inside a drained well, which is the only reason it is compatible with Lorulians.

There is no way to take the magic from a monster or plant and to permanently give it to someone. Because while you can manipulate a small amount of magic out of those items, it wouldn’t be enough, and it still belongs to a dead source.

It is not something that can be used to make a new well. Magic is too full of life to come from a dead source. Ravio doesn’t even want to think about the side effects that could emerge from such an idea.

The only safe way to get the magic to make a new magic well is to get it from a living person.

Which Ravio is well aware he is unable to do. His research is a secret, and he would never risk someone else on something that isn’t proven to be safe. 

He sighs as he puts down his quill, leaning back from his desk and stretching. During that, Hilda takes his notes. He doesn’t think much about it, letting her read it as he takes a bite of the sandwich Hilda had placed on his desk. 

After being forcibly banned from the library, the only place he could work was at the desk Hilda had brought into her office for him to use. Which meant when Hilda ate, he ate, when Hilda took a break, she strong-armed him into doing so as well, and when Hilda finished for the day, he would be kicked out and locked out of the office. 

It helped. A lot. To have someone else with him while he works, to have someone else to eat with, to have someone remind him to take breaks and rest.

It’s also helped to have the hope that he’ll be seeing Link again. He needs to be healthy so that when he reunites with Link, he won’t worry him by looking like a miserable mess.

He finishes half of the sandwich when Hilda puts down his notes tapping her finger on them. Obviously, trying to get his attention. 

“Do you have something to say, your majesty?”

Ravio says, turning towards her on his chair. She crosses her arms as she looks down at him. Ravio tilts his head, waiting for her to talk.

“Use my magic.”

She says. Ravio blinks, then stares, then he chuckles, shaking his head.

“Very funny, Hilda.”

Ravio says, turning his attention back to his food, but jumps when Hilda slams her hand on his desk.

“It’s not meant to be funny.”

Ravio stays quiet at Hilda’s words.

“You already have a solid plan and magic circle, you’ve already worked out every twist and turn that could mess it up and have fixed it. This is the safest it will be without actually doing it to see what happens.”

Hilda continues while Ravio is frozen, unable to say a thing.

“You’ve been running around in circles at this point because you refuse to apply it.”

“I’m not using you in an experiment, Hilda!”

Ravio yells as he stands up, looking at her face to face. Her face scrunches up in annoyance at being yelled at, brows furrowed.

“Then what are you going to do then?! Stay stuck here?! Hoping that somehow your research will turn out different?! How much more time are you going to waste?!”

Hilda yells back, Ravio tenses, hands clenching into fists.

“It doesn’t matter! I am not using you!”

“Why not?! I want to! I will happily do this for you!”

Ravio takes a sharp breath.

“I know I barely act like it, but I am still a knight! I took an oath to protect you!”

Ravio yells, Hilda's eyes widen for a moment before she frowns again. She takes a step closer to him, finger on his chest, poking him with it as she speaks.

“AND BEFORE YOU ARE MY KNIGHT, YOU ARE MY BROTHER!”

She yells loudly enough that Ravio thinks the whole castle heard it, but he’s stuck on the words and the look on her face. She looks desperate.

“For once, let me help you, please.”

She says with teary eyes, thumping her head onto his shoulder. He instinctively wraps his arms around her. Holding her tight.

“Please, Ravio. I know it's just adoptive, but please let me be your older sister for once.”

Ravio swallows hard. He closes his eyes and thinks back to that little girl he met in a throne room. The little girl who took his hand and welcomed him warmly. The little girl who read to him and let him sleep in her room when he missed his parents. 

“You’re only a year older than me.”

Ravio says in a wet chuckle that's interrupted with a yelp of pain as Hilda pinches his side. Ravio huffs a laugh and sighs in defeat.

“Fine, if my oh so wonderful and generous older sister wishes so badly to be a science experiment with me, then who am I to deny her true calling?”

Ravio says dramatically, just to annoy Hilda. It gets Hilda to squirm her way out of his arms, and he easily lets her go, but she catches his hands, holding them in her own. She looks into his eyes.

“We’ll be fine. I trust you. There’s not a smarter person in Lorule.”

She says confidently. Ravio smiles softly, looking at his older sister and best friend fondly.

“How can I deny the confidence of the holder of courage?”

“Exactly. You can’t.”

-

“Are you really sure?”

Ravio nervously asks for the tenth time. Hilda rolls her eyes, pinching her brow and taking a deep breath. Ravio shrinks into himself a little, whispering out an apology and turns his attention back to the magic circle, making sure every single line is perfect. 

If Hilda insists on doing this, then Ravio will make sure everything about it is safe. Not a single thing will go wrong that can put Hilda in danger. Ravio will make sure of that.

“Ravio, you’ve already checked it enough.”

Hilda says with a shred of impatience that Ravio wants to say is unwarranted, but even Ravio thinks that spending almost two hours looking for errors is pushing it. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly as he stands straight.

Hilda is in the centre of the magic circle, expectantly waiting for him to join her. Ravio swallows. He opens his mouth to ask if she’s sure once more, but decides against it.

“First step?”

Ravio says instead, Hilda blinks.

“Feel for my magic and grab a handful of it.”

Hilda replies. Ravio nods as he carefully walks towards the centre to join Hilda.

“Step 2.”

He prompts her to continue.

“Slowly let my magic flow into you, like pouring magic into an item.”

Hilda says as Ravio joins her in the centre, he grabs her hands and takes a deep breath. She gently squeezes back in reassurance. 

“Step 3.”

Ravio says, trying to hear himself and Hilda over the nervous pounding of his heart.

“Don’t give too much, only give enough to fuel a powerful spell.”

Ravio and Hilda nod at each other. They close their eyes.

At first, Ravio doesn’t feel anything; it takes a while for him to notice his hands tingling. He reminds himself of his own steps. Step 1. Use the first of the magic to fix the holes in his magic well. Step 2. Guide the rest of the magic into the well. Step 3. Don’t let Hilda give too much.

All the steps are overly simplified. The process has to be extremely slow, so as not to let either of them go into shock. They can’t go too fast for either of them; too fast might lead to too much magic being given, or to Ravio’s body rejecting the magic.

It took them weeks to clear their schedules for this day and to gather the materials for it. Ravio had to make the charm the same day as the ritual, so all of his morning was spent making it. They were aware that the process itself could take hours, so Hilda made sure that all the meetings she couldn’t reschedule to another day were done in the morning. Then Ravio spent two hours making sure everything was perfect despite Hilda’s impatience.

But it has to be perfect. Because Ravio doesn’t think he could do this again, risk Hilda again if it fails, and then that would mean he would never see Link again. He takes a deep breath. Focus. He reminds himself.

It feels strange to manipulate magic that isn’t his own into doing his bidding. While the feeling is strange, it isn’t that difficult once he gets the hang of it. He’s pretty sure it’s because Hilda’s magic recognizes him, and it’s aware that Hilda is doing this willingly. If anyone is doing it even a touch unwillingly, it's Ravio. 

Slowly, Ravio uses the first of the magic to patch up the holes in his well, the ones made by the teleportation spell he used over a year ago. It takes him a while; he makes sure every crack is filled before he even thinks about letting the well start to fill up. Finally, he slowly guides the magic into his well. Letting the magic flow around his body before he lets it rest in the well.

He doesn’t know how long it's been since they started, but the tingling in his fingertips comes to a slow stop. He lets the last of the magic make its way into the well before he slowly opens his eyes.

Hilda and he stare at each other for a moment before Hilda manages to say something.

“Did it work?”

Ravio swallows hard, the moment of truth. 

Ravio frees a hand from Hilda’s hand, holding it out away from them. The two of them stare intensely at his hand. 

Ravio takes a deep breath and pulls gently at the magic well; it rushes out into his arm, then into his fingertips. Ravio snaps, and there’s a spark, then suddenly a flame. It dies off immediately, but it was there. 

Hilda jumps into him, hugging him as he hugs back just as tightly. 

“It worked?”

Ravio says in disbelief.

“Of course it did!”

Hilda says excitedly. Ravio laughs in shock. He did it. Holy Lolia, Ravio did it. He snaps out of the shock.

“Do you feel fine?”

Ravio asks worriedly. Hilda nods and reassures him. Ravio insists on them resting, and they learn they were in there for 7 hours. Hilda gets food brought up for them. Sheerow is fretting over them, worried in Hilda’s room. Ravio and Hilda chuckle at the fretting bird, which causes Sheerow to give them the silent treatment that they have to bribe him out of.

Not long after they ate and pacified the bird, the three of them lay on Hilda’s bed. 

They stay quiet for a while. Hilda turns to her side toward him, and Ravio follows her lead, facing her.

“Are you going to leave soon?”

Hilda asks in a whisper. Ravio hums.

“I need to get used to having magic again first, plus I need to keep an eye on you, too.”

Hilda huffs, looking annoyed at the idea.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I just want to be sure, if I left and you got sick all because of me, I’d never be able to call myself your brother again.”

Hilda grabs his hand. 

“That’ll never happen, no matter what happens.”

They fall asleep like that, and they sleep in the next day, missing two meetings. Hilda laughs it off while Ravio scrambles to fix it.

Two weeks passed with rigorous practice before Ravio himself grew impatient. He can’t distract himself with practice, work, or Hilda anymore. All he can think about is how he could be by Link’s side. So he starts packing. He starts with his house. He packs the things in it and seals his house closed once again. Hilda asks if he’s sure, and he is. 

Maybe he is getting ahead of himself, maybe Link doesn’t want them to live together again, maybe he should have a backup plan. 

He doesn’t want one, though. For once, Ravio wants to go in without a bunch of fail-safes because he wants to believe that Link misses him just as much as Ravio misses him.

Ravio walks around his home one last time before he seals it close. He stares at the room that was once his parents. Now, a workshop, full of tools to make magic equipment that he hasn’t made in over a year. He hasn’t gone in since he returned. He doesn’t go in now. 

He walks around his house and thinks about his childhood. 

He thinks about his parents.

He thinks about soulmates.

He thinks about his childhood neighbour.

She was 26 when she found her soulmate. It was a girl from a neighbouring village. She used to babysit Ravio when he was young. Before she found her soulmate and his parents refused to let him near her. Ravio doesn’t really remember much about either of them. All he remembers is how hard she tried to convince others about the goodness of soulmates.

She and her soulmate were driven out of town.

He never understood his parents' decision. It wouldn’t have mattered. It’s not like Ravio would have been able to look for a soulmate.

Now though, Ravio wonders. Would they have been happy with him finding his soulmate? Would they support him in being with his soulmate?

He’ll never know. 

Ravio leaves his house, locking the door. He stands at the front door, for a moment, he looks up to the purple sky and lets out a long breath. The breath shows in the chilly air, the cold biting at his nose. Winter is slowly taking over the land of Lorule. He stuffs his face in his scarf and pulls up his hood. 

He leaves his childhood home.

Ravio packs whatever he needs from his office and the room he has claimed as his in the castle. Hilda pushes a bunch of things onto him. Potions, food, and more clothes that he didn’t need, but she refuses to take no as an answer.

Hilda and Ravio spend the last day together. They go on a walk through the castle, they sneak away from the guards and walk around thieves' town. Ravio points out the differences between thieves' town and Kakariko. Hilda fights off a pickpocket. They buy a ridiculous amount of cheap alcohol.   

The two of them get drunk in her room, giggling and reminiscing.

“No way! You’re remembering it wrong!”

Hilda protests, but the seriousness of her tone is cut short with a snort. Ravio grins widely.

“I am not! You totally said that! You called him that right to his face!”

Ravio stands his ground. Hilda is full-on giggling, and Ravio laughs with her.

“Wait, was it on your birthday?”

Hilda asks, and Ravio blinks, tilting his head back as he thinks about it.

“I think so?”

“I remember now!”

Hilda says, clapping her hands together.

“You also called him very colourful things after he left.”

Ravio snorts. He takes another sip of his wine. When he had taken his first sip of it earlier in the evening, he had cringed at the taste. Now, Ravio thinks it has a strange sweetness to it.

“Oh, speaking of, it’s your birthday soon.”

Hilda says, and Ravio blinks. She’s right, winter is slowly closing in. The first sign that Ravio’s birthday is coming up.

“Turning 18, aren’t you?”

Ravio nods.

“Well, don’t let people know I let you drink before your birthday.”

Hilda says with a tease. Lorule technically had a drinking age written down in the laws. It isn’t followed by anyone, not commoners, not nobles, not even the knights. It’s hard to stop people from drinking when alcohol was one of the few things safe to drink in recent years. Ravio huffs a laugh.

Link will be turning 18, too. Maybe this year, Ravio and he can celebrate both of their birthdays together.

“I’ll miss you.”

Hilda says in a soft, sad voice, snapping Ravio out of his thoughts.

“I’ll come back.”

“I’ll still miss you.”

Ravio stares at Hilda, her face flush from the alcohol. She’s staring down at the cup in her hand. Ravio smiles softly.

“I’ll miss you too.”

They spend the night exchanging promises in soft whispers until they pass out on the couch together.

The next day, after his hangover passes, Ravio gets ready to leave. Hilda gives him a small wrapped box.

“Don’t open it until your birthday.”

Ravio wants to tell her that he’ll be back, that she can give it to him then, but he understands the anxiety. So he doesn’t say anything, he takes it, hugs her, and leaves, Sheerow by his side.

He doesn’t need to do this; he could do this spell anywhere. He doesn’t want to take any sort of risk, though. 

So Ravio travels back to a destroyed cave. 

The journey isn’t a peaceful one. His hammer is tight in his grip, but he doesn’t flinch at every sound anymore. There’s still a shake in his hands that he does his best to ignore. The fights would be easier if Ravio used magic, but he didn’t want to waste a drop and have to wait for it to refill.

He just wants to see Link already.

Finally, Ravio arrives at the cave. It looks just like it did last time he was here: completely and utterly destroyed. Ravio stares at it for a moment; he really had done a thorough job in destroying it. The spell is still engraved in his mind, and there it will live for the rest of his life.

Ravio tightens his grip on his pouch. Hilda had given it to him while he was collecting material for the charm. It holds ten times more than his old one. He no longer needs his giant bag for his rupees and equipment. It made the trip into Lorule Forest much easier and safer.

He opens the pouch and pulls out a silver bracelet. He slides his thumb over the engravings. He slips the bracelet on. Sheerow lands on his shoulder. Ravio takes a deep, long breath.

“Let’s get back to Hyrule, shall we?”

Sheerow chirps in agreement. Ravio grins as he pulls at the magic inside his well. He shuts his eyes and begins. He makes sure to push the spell into the bracelet rather than around himself like he had done the first and second time.

Ravio feels his well drain quickly as he feels the spell devour his magic. Just before the world around him turns white, he feels a crack deep inside his core.

He wakes up on the ground, Sheerow fluttering around him in worry. The sky behind Sheerow is blue, and the sun is yellow. 

He’s back. 

He’s back, and yet Ravio is struggling to move. His whole body is sore, as if he had been in swordsmanship lessons for a few hours. He slowly drags himself to sit up, and the world spins with the action. He sucks in a breath as he clutches at his head. Did he hit his head when he arrived?

After a moment, Ravio feels comfortable getting up. He feels like a newborn deer, trying to stand on wobbly, weak legs. He finally manages to stand still without tipping over. Sheerow is flying around him, fretting over him. 

“I’m fine, Sheerow.”

Ravio says, but the words feel like a lie. He should be fine. He clearly isn’t. This is bad. He’s in the middle of the woods. He is just begging to get killed by a monster. He takes a deep breath, trying to stay calm.

“Sheerow, can you fly around and make sure no monsters are near?”

Sheerow stays for a moment, hesitant to leave Ravio, but still does as asked and takes off. While Sheerow does that, Ravio looks around, taking in his surroundings. He landed beside the cave. The Hyrule version that isn’t destroyed.

He looks up at the blue sky and grins. He really is in Hyrule.

Sheerow returns and leads him in a direction without monsters. Ravio follows slowly, tripping over his own feet first. 

As he continues walking, he starts to feel worse and worse. 

Ravio stumbles through Hyrule forest, his whole body hurts, he feels clammy, he’s nauseous and dizzy, but he keeps going. He listens for Sheerow's chirps to guide him, a hundred percent certain that if he hadn’t had Sheerow with him, he would have gotten lost. Far too weak to make sense of where he is, the only comfort is the blue Hyrule sky, constantly reminding him of what land he walks.

He follows after Sheerow’s frantic chirping; he can tell that Sheerow keeps coming back to check on him before he continues leading him. He wants to reassure the bird that he’ll be fine, but he can’t bother wasting that energy. He needs to get out of the woods at least. Hopefully, someone will find him if he does pass out and recognize the merchant who lived in Link’s house for a year.

Maybe it’ll be the reverse, and Link will be the one to find him passed out, and he’ll wake up in a house he hadn’t seen in six months, then Mr. Hero will claim he’s a merchant and that he found him in the woods just to mess with Ravio. It would be funny. 

Goddesses, he still can’t believe it worked. Can’t believe he’s on the same land as Link once more. The thought makes him want to cry and cheer in relief, but he’s well aware that's a waste of energy that he can’t afford.

He pants for air as he continues to push himself to walk. 

It worked, but something went wrong, a part of him reminds him. 

Hilda looked fine. Ravio didn’t leave her side for two weeks just to make sure. Ravio was also fine, the magic was usable, he was able to do simple spells again, and it would refill naturally.

It looked like it was an overwhelming success. 

He can feel the magic on the bracelet, so he knows the spell worked and was properly stored this time. His well is empty and broken again, but that was meant to happen, and last time it did not do such a thing to him.

Yet Ravio feels terrible.

He slumps against a tree as he tries to catch his breath, eyes squeezed shut, feeling sick from the spinning vision.

Something wet touches his hand. He jumps, startled, snapping his eyes open to see a dog in front of him. Ravio stares at it in shock before his brain catches up. It has a collar, so it can’t be a stray, which means either someone is nearby and can help him, or he and this dog are both lost in Hyrule forest. 

Ravio prays it's the former and not the latter.

“Hi buddy, where's your owner?”

Ravio barely manages to say between pants. The dog barks in reply, not quite jumping but bouncing for a moment as its tail wags. The dog goes a few steps ahead, barking again as it lies down and stares at him. 

Ravio stares back. Sheerow comes back looking concerned and confused that Ravio has stopped following him. The bird and dog notice each other, the dog’s tail thumps excitedly on the forest ground, while Sheerow lands on the tree Ravio is leaning against. 

The dog’s gaze follows Sheerow for a moment before it snaps back to Ravio and barks again. Ravio relaxes a little, relieved that the dog didn’t try anything with Sheerow. He wouldn’t have had the strength to stop the dog if it had.

Ravio takes a deep breath. Follow the dog? Follow Sheerow? One has a higher chance of reaching a person sooner. He sighs.

“Why not?”

Ravio says and pushes off the tree to follow the dog. The dog jumps off the ground and barks excitedly, spinning once before it starts leading him. Ravio follows the dog while Sheerow follows him, a little nervous around an unknown dog.

He trails after the dog’s path, slowly and clumsily. His head is pounding stronger than ever. He really hopes this isn’t a waste of energy because Ravio doesn’t think he’ll make it out of the woods at this rate. 

Ravio doesn’t know how long he spends following the dog. He feels terrible; he can barely walk anymore. The dog starts barking obsessively, and Ravio tiredly tries to look up from the floor and sees the dog jumping around a person. 

Ravio slips down the tree he was leaning on in exhaustion, and the person rushes over, the dog following.

“Ravio!”

Ravio blinks through blurry eyes and slowly tips his head to look up. 

Blonde hair, blue eyes, a face so similar to his own, but with a touch of difference if you knew what to look for.

There are hands on his face. Ravio leans into the touch. Ravio smiles tiredly but oh so full of relief and love. He has missed him so much in the past six months. So very much.

“Hey there, Mr. Hero, I hope you don’t mind me crashing at your place again.”

Ravio manages to say before the world goes dark.