Chapter Text
Coming out of a portal is never a pleasant experience. It takes time and skill to land on your feet after the frankly disorientating experience of being tumbled through the dark. Wars manages to mostly stick the landing at least, stumbling only slightly as his knees buckle, but keeping his feet underneath him.
Some of the others are not so lucky.
Sky lands on his face rather than his feet, and Wars hears someone, Wild he thinks, yelp before there is a significant splash, indicating he had the unfortunate luck to be spat out right over the river the portal is hanging half over.
“I’ve got him,” Hyrule calls out, sounds more put out than he probably should at having to fish Wild out of a river. But someone always seems to wind up in a river or stuck up a tree or some other inconvenient place. All of them are more than a little tired of it at this point.
“Don’t fall in,” Wind contributes from where he is laying on his back.
“I’m not an idiot,” Hyrule snaps. And then there is another splash as Legend starts to cackle.
Wars already has a headache.
“Sound off,” Time says, the only one of them other than Wars who managed to land on his feet.
“Here,” Four calls as he picks himself up, rubbing slightly at his back. Wars decides in that moment that Four gets to be his favorite of the day.
Sky, who still has not lifted his face up from the dirt, makes a loud, muffled noise that confirms both his presence and his consciousness. Wars is pretty sure nothing is broken from the way that Sky is laying, but he will have to double check once he decides to lift himself up.
“Wild is dragging Hyrule to the bank,” Wind says, like he is commenting on how blue the sky is today.
“I’d help them, but with the way Hyrule is floundering, I’m worried I might get dunked too,” Legend offers.
“Here,” Wars says, mentally preparing himself already.
There is a moment of silence after he calls out. And then the moment stretches longer.
“Twilight?” Time snaps when the moment stretches longer than it should without being filled with Twilight calling out. Wars can feel a line of tension running up his spine as Twilight continues to not call out.
“Did anyone see where he landed?” He asks as he whips his head around, scanning the area for their missing companion, already bracing for finding his unconscious body somewhere. But there is nothing even vaguely Twilight shaped in the area.
Nothing wolf shaped either.
“Did he go in the river with Wild?” Wind asks, sitting up quickly.
“There was only one splash,” Four points out.
“Twilight!” Time snaps again, a little louder, a little more insistent. A leader demanding to be answered. But no answer is forthcoming. Just more silence.
“Maybe he landed further away,” Legend suggests as he gets to his feet. It feels like a far-fetched suggestion, the portals might be inconvenient at their best, but they have never been separated by one before. They always come out as a group.
He supposes there is always the first time for everything, but Wars does not trust that thought, he does not want to lean too far into the comfort that thought promises because he does not know, cannot know, if there is solid weight behind it yet. He does not know if he has space enough to hope.
If Twilight has time for them to lean on the hope that he just landed somewhere else.
“Twilight! Sound off!” Time calls out again, and this time he is definitely pushed the line into yelling.
“Let’s go grab Wild and Hyrule,” Wars says, because he can see that the rest of them are okay, but both of them went into the river. And he never even got proper eyes on Wild either, he just heard him land in the water.
If something happened to one of them, then maybe something happened to one of the others.
The thought makes his skin prickle with unease. There are too many unknown variables in their lives as it is. But at least by making sure both of them are okay, he can solve for some of it.
“Twilight is missing!” Time practically snarls, turning on Wars, tension lining every inch of his body, like he is preparing for a full on fight. Wars can feel himself tensing in response, his body instinctively responding to the threat Time poses.
“And we do him no favors by running off half cocked,” Wars says, steady as a marching beat, trying not to show that he can feel the tension running through the air between the two of them.
“Wild and Hyrule might know something we don’t,” Four points out.
“And even if they don’t, we shouldn’t just walk off before telling them something is wrong,” Legend adds, crossing his arms over his chest. A challenge in its own right.
There is another tense moment where Wars is half convinced that Time is going to ignore all of them, that his worry for the seemingly missing Twilight is going to override everything else. But then a low sound makes its way from between Time’s teeth before he whips around towards the edge of the river, snarling “Fine, let’s go.”
Wars sighs, some of the tension leaking out of his body as he moves to follow.
They all tend to be stubborn to a fault, obstinant, unmovable objects when they decide to be. It comes with the territory of being a hero, of having to stand back up time and time again to face down impossible odds. So Wars knows for a fact that Time is not going to let go of his concern for Twilight, and he is not going to easily forgive any of them for the fact that they pushed back against him immediately trying to locate Twilight. Especially if something did happen to Twilight, if Twilight is hurt, and they are wasting precious seconds doing something other than helping him.
Wars will not forgive himself either if that is the case. None of them will.
But Time will hold a grudge.
Wars just has to hope that it does not come to that. That there is in fact, a completely reasonable and totally normal reason why Twilight did not make it through the portal with the rest of them, despite the fact that Wars is pretty sure he walked in with the rest of them.
Did Twilight walk through with the rest of them? Wars cannot remember. And this fact suddenly feels very important, because he has no idea if Twilight is even on this side of the portal, or if he has been stranded someplace, sometime, completely different.
He does not voice his concerns just yet, but the possibility worms its way into the back of his mind, taking up residence.
“For future reference, Hyrule is not allowed to perform water rescues,” Wild says as soon as their group makes their way towards the small sandy bank he has apparently dragged them both onto.
“We’re both fine,” Hyrule protests, as he twists to attempt to wring out some of the water from his dripping clothes. It is not very effective, but Wars at least understands the impulse.
“Are you sure you're both okay? No other issues?” Four asks, cutting over whatever Wild was about to say back to Hyrule.
“Yeah? Why?” Hyrule asks, as both he and Wild shift into focus.
“Where’s Twilight?” Wild asks, his eyes scanning over their group in quick movements.
“Unclear. We’re trying to figure that out,” Wars says, assuming command of their little group. Time can have it back later, after they have figured out what is going on and there is not quite the same risk that he will run off on his own convinced he can do it better that way.
“What? What does that even mean? ‘Unclear’?” Wild asks.
“He didn’t come out with the rest of us,” Four says.
“Did he go in the river?” Hyrule asks, clearly coming to the same conclusion that Wind had come too earlier.
“No, I would have seen him,” Wild says, immediately discounting that possibility.
“And he didn’t sound off when Time called,” Wind adds.
“What are we waiting around for then?” Wild demands, already striding off.
“Wild!” Wars snaps, already picturing Wild getting himself lost, of them having to divert time and resources to Wild instead of being focused on Twilight, “Stop! We need a plan!”
“I have a plan, find Twilight,” Wild snaps.
“Hell yeah!” Wind cheers.
“I’ll go with you,” Sky says, scrambling to catch up with Wild, who is already halfway across the beach. Wars knows that he needs to put a stop on this now, or else the group is going to splinter, and who knows how long it would take them to get back together again, they still have no idea where the portal spit them out after all.
And if Twilight did not make it through the portal with them, then that means that if they separate, none of them will have any way to know if another portal separates them even further.
“Stop, we’re not splitting up,” Wars says, injecting his voice with all the authority he carries. The authority that being a Captain has given him.
“Watch me!” Wild says, an edge of something dangerous in his voice even as he flies in the face of War’s authority. And Wars knows that if Wild leaves now, they will not be able to find him, not unless Wild wants to be found. They do not have Twilight there to hunt Wild down for them.
“Guys, come on, this isn’t helpful,” Four says.
“Splitting up will let us cover more ground,” Sky says. The words themselves are reasonable enough, but they are said so casually, as if one of them missing is a small problem they can solve easily, despite the fact that they do not know anything about why Twilight is missing.
Wars appreciates the effort Four made to reason with them, reaffirming the reason why he is the favorite for today, but he is done having this argument, “Do not make us save you too.”
“We’re all Heroes, we can handle ourselves just fine,” Hyrule snaps.
“Twilight’s a hero too, and he’s actually missing,” Four points out. And that seems to buy Wars time because the group that seemed about ready to bolt all stall in place.
“We are in a situation where we have more questions than there are answers, and if you go off on your own, you’re just creating more potential questions and muddying the waters. You’re all very capable, but none of us know what kind of situation we’re in or what might help, or who might be the key to our success, we need to stick together for now,” Wars says. He needs them to understand why running off on their own is a bad idea, really understand. Because if they do not understand why it is a bad idea to run off, if they decide to just placate him for now, then they are just going to keep having this conversation.
Or worse, several of them will actually wander off on their own in the middle of the night or when Wars is not watching.
Wild glares at him, but he stops moving like he is about to sprint off in a random direction, the rest of them be damned. And Time, who has not said a single word this whole fight but is radiating an aura of fury and frustration, does not suddenly spin around and go walking off either. So Wars counts it as a win.
“We should try and find civilization, figure out where we are and if something’s been happening,” Legend says.
“We should keep going downriver then, that’s our best bet,” Hyrule says with a sigh, seemingly resigning himself to their plan.
Neither of them sound particularly enthusiastic, but they are working with Wars, and right now, he will take what he can get.
“We could be walking away from Twilight right now, we didn’t even search the area for him,” Wild grumbles.
“I’ve been keeping an eye out, I haven’t seen anything,” Four says, already moving, “The chances that he’s around here and we haven’t spotted him already is slim, and Wars is right, we’re better off if we can establish a few facts about where we are and what’s going on, that way we’re better prepared.”
The others still seem unhappy, so Wars makes his final point, “I know this isn’t ideal, but this is the best way for us to move forward right now.”
He can tell that his words do not offer any kind of comfort to the others, and that is fine because they do not really offer comfort to Wars either. He would much rather know what is going on, where Twilight is, and how to help him than just wandering the countryside of wherever they are with the hope of locating some form of civilization. But none of them argue with him either as they start to move.
None of them really talk either as they move, the silence feels a bit stifling, but Wars is not going to insist that they talk to each other. The silence might be uncomfortable, but a forced conversation would be even worse.
So they walk in silence. Then they walk in silence some more. And even longer still, they walk in silence.
At some point, the forest around them starts to get concerningly thick. They have to go from moving as a pack to walking practically in a straight line, with Wars at the back to make sure none of them decide to taper off from the group while no one is looking. And he almost suggests they turn around, but he strong-armed everyone into this plan, despite their protests, and he does not want call it just yet.
So they keep walking in silence.
“I think there’s a village up ahead,” Legend finally says, breaking the never ending silence they have been walking in.
“Doesn’t look too big,” Hyrule points out.
“Doesn’t matter how big it is, as long as the people there can get us situated,” Wars says. Hyrule is right though, the village does not look that big, a cluster of houses that seems to have been slit in half by the slow moving river they have been walking alongside, some of them more tucked away than others next to the hills that have also started to crop up alongside their path. But Wars just needs them to be friendly.
“Hope they don’t tell us to turn back around and walk all the way back where we came,” Wild grumbles.
Wars feels the tension inside him spike. He does not want to argue with Wild, with any of them, but he also does not want to put up with these comments, the sniping. He knows none of them are happy about missing Twilight, but he also knows that this was their best move. And if they have a problem with it, they can shut up about it until after Twilight is back.
He is just about to express this opinion to Wild when someone calls out, “Link!”
The voice is young, feminine, and all of them react to it, whipping their heads around to identify who just called out for them by name. Which makes Wars feel more than a little foolish for him to assume that it was him the girl was calling out for. It is certainly not a voice he knows.
He is just about to relax, confident the young girl is not calling out to him, when a small child throws himself off the side of one of the hills that borders their small river path.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Wars is positive that the small child expected to jump into the river, but he reacts without thinking, snatching them from the air and pulling them in close to his chest.
The small child reacts somewhat predictably to being grabbed midair, struggling in War’s grip, trying to remove himself. Wars has an admonishment on the tip of his tongue for the child, ready to lecture, somewhat hypocritically, about not jumping off things, when he catches sight of the child’s face. And it freezes him solid.
Because despite the difference in age, Wars knows Twilight when he sees him.