Chapter Text
They barely had any time between Wild’s era and the next portal. Or the one after that.
Legend rants at the sky in sharp speech and a depleted patience, and Wind joins him with a sailor’s tongue. Sky normally flinches out of a deeply ingrained respect for his Goddess when she’s insulted, but today he barely has the energy to so much as turn away.
The first one opened beneath their feet and dropped them in the middle of a camp of infected monsters, and they had not five minutes rest before another portal opened up.
At least this time it wasn’t directly below their feet. Sky blinks, the thought slow as it bubbles up from the tar pits of exhaustion.
Apathy spins cobwebs to comfortably blanket his mind, and soon the voices peter out to unintelligible sound. Fuming fatigue morphs into angry arguing morphs into static as Sky stands where he is and cocoons himself in his own silence. Wild joins him at some point in time (Sky did not process exactly when), the only word he speaks is what, underneath his lethargy, he thinks is supposed to be ‘loud’, after which his soul brother is crouching by his feet. Sky’s brain kicks into motion just enough to notice Hyrule as he makes the effort to head their way as well, circling around the others to reach Sky’s back on his other side in a flighty gait.
“Do we go soon?” Hyrule asks, not looking away from the open portal, his gentle hushed voice able to slip between the cobwebs to Sky’s brain.
Sky shrugs after a delay. No words are needed, so he doesn’t waste energy using any.
“Don’t we have to anyways?” Wild adds from his feet.
“Yeah.”
Twilight in the distance throws his hands up in response to something. Sky doesn’t bother tracking the movement. He distantly acknowledges that faces are starting to blur at the edges.
Both boys hum. Sky remains silent.
Time calls for order. Warriors calls out louder. His head rings with the volume.
Voices dissolve into grumbling. Legend stomps through the portal without another word. Hyrule leaves his side to run on in after him.
Warriors placates Wind and pushes him through. Four follows, resigned and grumpy, not at all looking forward to another portal hop so soon. Sky relates. He still doesn’t move.
Twilight groans and turns to him and Wild, jerking his head at the portal. Wild obeys. Sky remains rooted. The portal starts to pull, but all it succeeds in is attracting his sailcloth.
Time chuckles. He pats his shoulder.
“Hang in there, Sky.”
Sky sighs, gathers up any remaining drop of energy, pushes back the cobwebs and the fuzziness as much as he can, and walks through the portal alongside their unofficial leader.
He is spat back out alone, in unfamiliar territory, with no sign of monsters anywhere. The portal collapses behind him.
He walks forward a step. Two. Three. Meets face-to-face with a tree and stops, resting his forehead against the bark.
He is tired.
He is exhausted.
He is smeared with mud, splattered with monster blood, and yet would rather collapse onto a bedroll without spending the few minutes it takes to wash off.
Sky stares at the twisting patterns of the wood, then closes his eyes.
He could sit down.
Sky could very well sit down right here. He could sit and take a nap. He could sit and not move for hours.
Tar shifts and a thought bubbles to the surface.
Sky straightens up and walks around the tree anyways. No, he will not sit, because he’d rather not sleep here, where there are too many exposed roots and jagged rocks. Best to find where the dirt is softer or the grass is more abundant.
One step, two steps, three. Sky wanders with sore legs and an empty mind. His shoulders raise complaints and there’s a tapping behind his eyes. He keeps walking. The trees rustle with gentle winds and birds call in the far out distance, and that is all Sky is willing to pay attention to.
It feels like home.
This is not home.
Another bubble of tar pops.
Three eras are immediately eliminated. This is not Wind’s era, for there is no ocean scent in the air. This is not Hyrule’s era, for there is too much green and songbird calls. This is not his own, for…
…
Sky whistles. (He should probably make sure, shouldn’t he?)
He counts to ten. Nothing.
Sky whistles a second time.
Again, nothing.
Yeah. This is not his own, for there are no Sky Islands nor a Crimson that answers his call.
And that is all he can really say. His legs need rest, his brain needs sleep, and the ground needs to stop being covered in pebbles that will only make lying down hurt instead of being actually useful in letting Sky shut down entirely.
The trees above rustle with another breeze. The birds sing with the current. Sky keeps walking.
Step after step after - that…
That is a child.
What looks to be a girl is left in a heap on the ground, lying on her side with her back to a thick tree, dressed in a sky blue shirt and baggy black pants, both articles decorated with orange and purple triangles. She’s scraped up, covered in dust, and the black scarf around her neck drags out in front of her, suggesting she had possibly rolled or slid backwards into the tree, as opposed to simply lying down.
He cannot rationalize why that last detail is important, why it stuck out to him in his sleep-addled mind, but it did, and so he noticed. Unwillingly.
Tar bubbles.
Sky looks around in a half-hearted attempt to locate any sign of inhabitants, any trace of friends or guardians to the girl passed out by the base of this tree.
His mind comes up empty. The cobwebs close in. There is nothing left for him to use.
He sighs, sits, and rests his head against the bark behind him. It’s still too rocky, but the dirt by the tree is comfortable enough. It’ll do.
Sky closes his eyes.
At least here, the kid won’t wake up alone.
Tar settles, having swallowed his consciousness at last.