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Four wouldn’t call himself particularly paranoid.
Even now that he travels with other heroes, it’s still good to be alert. It is only because he is alert that he notices.
Notices when his companions react in certain ways to certain situations. They are all Heroes of Courage. They are all the shining blades that accompany holy suns. Yet, Four is becoming increasingly aware that the brightest suns cast the darkest shadows, and the Heroes wading through those shadows may have stains similar to Four’s own. After all, the Hero’s Spirit is not like the mythical Triforce. It does not know good from evil, simply a never-ending journey and a duty.
It begins with Legend and Wind.
The newest portal throws them all forward, then splits like a forked tongue. Colors come in flashes. Yellow-white and blue and blue and red. Four groans into the sand he is, evidently, face-first in. A little ways away, Legend is cursing at something. Maybe the sand, or the sea. Maybe the damn sun herself. Farther away, Wind walks up from the seashore, ringing out his clothing.
Wind claims to know the island while Four is slowly getting to his feet, nausea heavy in the back of his throat.
A hand grasps his arm and pulls him upwards. Four gags and stumbles into Legend’s arms.
“Shit.” Legend stabilizes him against his torso, it’s as high as Four can reach. “You good, Smithy?”
Four nods miserably, swallowing down acid reflux and blinking the kaleidoscope of colors from his eyes. Sunspots of red, violet, blue and green disappear like ghosts. Finally, Four has his head screwed back on.
This is when things go wrong. This precise moment where Four lifts his head to the grey horizon and sees a ship heading their way. Its black flag flies free and careless in the wind, the teeth of its painted skull open as if in laughter.
Dread builds in Four. At once, the shattered pieces of his mind began to pace. It’s a large ship so there is probably lots of enemies abroad. He doesn’t know if they’re enemies yet, they might be nice? But that’s stupid, it’s a pirate ship. The three of them can take on a couple pirates.
Eyes of violet narrow at the ship. Not that it matters, because Wind puts a steadying hand on Four’s shoulder and walks forward as soon as the ship docks. Wind knows these pirates, apparently. That’s great, they won’t have to fight and maybe-kill people again. The sailor could’ve told them though, that’s annoying. It’s advantageous that he knows them. It doesn’t really matter, as long as they can find their other brothers and continue the quest.
And so they sail.
It goes fine, for a while. Until a grey horizon becomes dark, angry grey clouds.
Four tightens his grip on the railing, honestly wondering if he can tie himself to the mast. But that’s stupid. But it’s scary! It would be more dangerous. He can get through this.
Then again, Four might not have a choice. The ship rocks and slides through the water. Thunder booms above then all like a proclamation, lighting the whole world in a bright light, revealing harried faces. Half the pirates are holding onto something, too. Out of fear or lack of experience, they’re more terrified than Four. All the while, Wind and Legend are frantically running about the ship trying to do whatever you’re supposed to do in a storm.
The ship rocks and bounces, miraculously upright. Until a strike of lightning illuminates the castle-sized, near-black wave just before it crashes into the ship. Four swallows water and his grip slips, slips, slips away. Like nothing, the force of the wave rocks the ship near-sideways, sending Four sputtering and sliding across the floorboards.
His back hits the wooden flooring hard. He gasps, coughing as salt water floods his mouth. As the ship tilts, it’s not high enough to keep him inside the boat anymore. Four hears a scream of his name, thinks he sees a hand grab for his hair. It’s all too late. Four’s small body is flung off the ship.
The rest happens in flashes. Four is terrified. Terrified, terrified, terrified, terrified. Every inch of his shattered soul is afraid. All around him is darkness and muffled sounds of thunder. Water floods his lungs, probably, with all the gasping and coughing.
Four squints. A dark shape is down here with him. In the seconds he has to panic, a kind of prey-terror gives him power. It moves his arms and legs in a mad scramble, but like a fleeing mouse in a glue-trap, he does not move an inch.
The dark shape becomes large claws reaching for him. Four jerks his head back, vision blackening more and more every moment. In a blink, his head is being grabbed by cold hands, claws digging into his scalp.
Black, black, black, no more colors. The fear leaves him and he becomes a limp morsel in the creature’s arms.
A sharp pain jerks him awake in more flashes. Four shivers violently. Something hot drips down his face.
Pink, pink, pink. Pink holding his face. Wide lavender eyes swallow him whole. Four sleeps.
Four awakens to a very calm ship. For a second it might’ve been a dream. Then he looks down and finds himself in a large hammock. It’s so huge that it practically swallows him. The comparison makes his heart skip a beat. Wasn’t he swallowed already?
“Smithy?” Legend rises from a sad blanket on the floor, face pale. “Four, are you with me?”
Four croaks something that might’ve been a name or an affirmative. He shifts, sliding into the center like he weighs nothing. His fingers grasp at rough, yet slick cloth. Blunt fingernails scramble uselessly against it. He can’t move in the hammock, that feeling of entrapment comes back full force. Four twitches like some dying, suffocating thing.
Legend ends the struggle by coming right up to Four and grabbing him by the face. Two gnarled hands grip his face with an intensity that matches the worry on Legend’s pallid, too-open face. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Water.” Four rasps. “I fell off the boat.”
Legend nods, grip loosening. “Yeah, you- fell. But the storm is over, so you just need to rest.”
He mumbles, less to Four and more to himself. “You’re not dying.”
Four reaches a weak hand up to Legend’s wrist, voice a rasp. “Let me up.”
“There aren’t any beds.” Legend backs away, lavender eyes locked onto Four’s trembling hand. For some reason, something about those eyes unsettles him. “You need to rest.”
He turns over, trying to reach the edge of the hammock. Four needs to flip it, or use it as a handhold. But he can’t, his reach isn’t long enough.
Four grasps at empty air. The floorboards echo like thunder. Legend is walking away.
“Let me out.” Four coughs harshly, hand outstretched to nothing.
“You need to rest.” Legend says, voice unreadable. “The sailor and I will take care of things. Just stay here.”
Does it count as obeying if Four can’t leave?
And he doesn’t. For the rest of the day, for hours, Four lay there. He drifts in and out of sleep, dreams filled with cats and mousetraps.
At some point, Four awakens. He shifts uncomfortably in the damp air of whatever room he’s in. The moisture clings to his skin and itches like slime. Or maybe that’s sweat. He can’t even tell. The hammock is still suffocating.
Logically, he should be well-ventilated in an open cloth like this, but all he can think is how he keeps sliding back to the same place no matter how or where he moves. Always, he is in the center, surrounded on all sides by the large length of the hammock stretched upwards like unreachable mountains.
Red eyes squint as light floods the dim room. Four both hopes for and dreads Legend’s return.
Instead, a short head of fluffy, vibrant blonde hair enters Four’s field of vision. Four shivers. He’s long since rested enough to recover, if not for how damnably cold he is. It’s stupid. He misses the sun.
Wind purses his lips, expressionate face twisting in thought.
“Well?” Four snaps, a strange blue tint to his red eyes. “Can I get up now?”
The sailor sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “We’re still a few hours away from where everyone else is. It won’t be long, but me and the Vet think it’s better if you stay down here for the trip.”
Four sits up in alarm. “Wait-“ The hammock sways, shutting Four up as he collapses back into a laying position.
“You always get seasick,” Wind continues, round eyes apologetic. “so you never like the open sea anyways.”
It’s a reasonable justification, but Four can’t just let them do this, even for his own good. It’s just not who they are. “So you’re trapping me down here? As long as there’s not another storm, there’s no danger.”
Probably.
“No, there won’t be any more storms.” Wind’s face darkens, conductor’s arm twitching. “I’m taking care of that.”
Absurdly, Four is reassured. It is a heedy, thick kind of warmth that bloats his heart. Surely, he should be afraid, and he kind of is, but it’s a weird kind of fear that floats alongside the love.
“I can’t even get out of this hammock?” Four tries to negotiate, rings of violet around pupils of helpless red.
Wind runs a faint hand over the edge of the hammock, lines of stress deep on his youthful face. In the dim cabin lighting, Wind looks almost ghostly, a too-vivid phantom against a dark, damp background.
“It’s only two or three more hours.” Wind says. His hand reaches down the smallest of inches, but halts before even coming within arms reach of Four. Wind knows him too well. Without doubt, his brother knows that Four’s docility would vanish in an instant if Wind gave him something to latch onto. For all that Four is quiet, few know better than his brothers how quick he is to violence.
To be loved is to be known. Four quotes in despair. Dot’s book didn’t make it sound so … looming.
“Don’t worry.” The sailor steps away, voice light, like it’s any other day. “Once we’re all walking the land again, you can kick our knees out no problem. You’re just no sailor, Smithy.”
Wind’s eyes linger on Four’s hair, which spreads out beneath him without the headband. Idly, Four remembers their hair is nearly the same shade, almost like a family resemblance in the normal way.
Once more, Wind twitches like he wants to run a hand through it, but restrains himself. He really knows Four too well. As if a prey animal, Four is ruthless in his opportunistic nature. Any way out is a way out.
Wind shakes his head, smiling fond and sunny. He speaks with an older brother’s confidence. “Just wait, Smithy. We’re not far from home.”
Outset Island, then.
The sailor leaves. With the click of a closed door, he takes the sun with him.
Four closes his eyes and rolls over, back to the door. He’s not going anywhere, his brothers made sure of that. All that’s left to do is wait for shore, or an opportunity. Whichever comes first.