Chapter Text
When Legend woke up he felt off.
An itch he couldn't reach, a buzzing she couldn't quite source, pins and needles that never went away. He felt as if everything in her body had been moved slightly to the right in her sleep.
He dismissed it as a portal sideffect, or any innumerable curses or scars or whatever that have their hooks in her, and continued on. She had breakfast, avoided any conversation at camp, complained the entire trail to Four's Castle Town, and now it was several hours later as he stood in the bakery, and the feeling remained.
If anything, it’d gotten worse. He felt as if she was pushing against his own skin, too big for her body.
He tapped his foot along to an imaginary rhythm and as she watched Four unsubtly have some kind of internal debate over what bread to buy.
Normally, he still wouldn't have the patience for this sort of banal pointless time-wasting, but his already small supply of patience is particularly thin today.
"Four, can you hurry up?" She hisses. "We don't have all day."
Four jumps, coming back to the land of the living. "Oh! Right, Sorry." They pick the brioche and hand over their rupees at the counter.
Today, the group is stocking up on supplies, among other things. Due to how big the group is, and how varied their needs are, it's typically a whole ordeal. He got paired with Four today, since neither had anything they needed to buy.
At least, they were supposed to, but with a red glint in their eyes, Four had started flitting from stall to stall, and somehow they wound up making a stop at the bakery before they check in on Four's grandfather.
What are they even doing here? It’s a waste of time, and they have better things to be doing, well, not really, they don’t have anything better to do, and really, actually, she should buy something, nevermind he’s not hungry, he’s–
Legend mentally bats away her disorganised thoughts. He's been worse than ever lately. If she doesn't keep a grip on herself, he'll be caught spacing out. God forbid Wars catches him. Shaking her head, he turns to Four who is still chatting with the woman at the counter. "Four!"
Four straightens, glancing over their shoulder at him.
They look laughably close to a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar, but if he said that, Four would probably purposefully knick his sword during the next weapon repair. So she elects to keep her mouth shut.
Four hurriedly waves goodbye to the woman, her name is Pita, Four insists, and they're on their way.
Four's Castle Town is small, but somehow more packed than the likes of Time's.
"It's a big tourist spot," Four had said right at the gates. "There's going to be a lot of people. And a lot of merchants looking to scam unaware tourists out of their money. So please think about whether the price is reasonable first before you buy it." The last part was delivered with a firm look at Wild. He had an exorbitant amount of money on him at all times, and also zero awareness of being price gouged. It would be funny to watch if Wild wasn't the one buying ingredients for them all.
But really. The place was smaller than her orchard, but there truly was an unreal amount of people. He was brushing shoulders with people constantly, having to keep a firm grip on Four's wrist just so she wouldn't lose them in the crowd.
Finally, there's a break in the mass of people, and Four pulls her out into the fields.
"Hate huge crowds. People don't know how to keep their hands to themselves. Assholes." He spits.
Four wordlessly pats his upper arm, continuing to walk down the dirt path. Somehow, their brioche was completely unharmed from the crowd. With a huff, he starts trudging after them.
God, she still feels like shit. Maybe it’s something serious? Did he trip something? It’s not paralysis, but, it’s not like it matters, I'll weather through it anyways, no one cares enough anyways, can you get a grip? Can you be quiet? What if I’m dying? Legend’s thoughts swirl and cannibalize themselves until she starts to feel like a dog chewing on its own leg. Shut up, shut up, shut-
"Wanna share?" Four waves the pastry in her face.
Legend startles. "What?"
"You were lost in thought. Thought you might want to eat something."
"You still haven't eaten that?" She blurts.
Four shoots her a flat look. "I'll start if you keep this up."
“If it gets you to eat it.”
“Har har. Look, do you want it or not? I saw you eying it in the bakery. You didn’t eat much this morning either.”
His face warms. “I don’t–”
Not letting him finish, Four apparently decides for him and halves it. “Here.”
Legend hesitates for a moment before snatching it. “Fine. If it gets you to shove off.”
Except when he bites into it, his teeth gnash into something hard. A curse leaves his lips, and Four barks out a laugh. Her eyes bulge out of her head. Immediately she spits out her mouthful, whirling on Four. “You! What did you put in here?!”
“Relax, vet.” Four crouches down and begins to poke around in the gooey mush now sitting in the dirt.
“What the hell are you–”
“Ah, there it is.” Four, disgustingly, picks something out from it, and then proudly brandishes it in his face. “Look.”
Legend jerks his face away, before narrowing his eyes at the thing clasped between Four's finger and thumb.
It's some kind of broken half of a coin. Bright red, and cracked down the middle. “What, so someone dropped their change in your pastry? Are you that much of a penny-pincher? Coins aren't even accepted currency in most places, so wha–”
Four rolls their eyes at her. “It's a kinstone. Sometimes they bake one into their bread for good luck.”
“Good luck?! That's a choking hazard! And it's broken! Some shitty good luck that is.”
Four has taken to absentmindedly cleaning off Legend's spit from the coin using their tunic. “That's the point. When you get a kinstone, someone else has a matching half. If you fuse it with that half, that's when you get the good luck. Here.”
Legend scrunches up his nose at Four offering her the kinstone piece.
“C'mon Vet, you collect so many pointless things, and you draw the line at a single kinstone piece?”
She huffs, reluctantly grabbing it and turning it around in his palm. “I don't see the point in it. I don't believe in luck.”
“Well I personally believe in having fun.” Four responds simply. “I have a bag of pieces just in case I run into someone with a match.” They shake a small bag on their hip.
“And this is the first time you bring this up?”
“You haven't brought up plenty of secrets. I think it's fine if I keep some of mine. Besides, I haven't found any kinstones outside of my time.”
“Got me there.” Legend examines the coin in her hand. “Wait, do you have a piece that matches mine in there?”
“Hmm.” They peer at the fragment laid flat in his palm. “No, I don't think so. That colour is rare. While I probably have a couple that match the shape, I don't think I have any that match both the shape and the colour.” At the confused look Legend gives them, they add: “Both need to match exactly for a kinstone to actually fuse. It's not just putting any random piece together so they line up, the kinstone needs to become whole again. It needs its missing part.”
“I didn't take you for the sentimental type, Smithy.”
Four blinks, and then a look of pure embarrassment washes over their face. “Oh. Sorry. I didn't realise I said that last part out loud. The point is, you need the exact part.”
“I see.” Legend gives his chipped little coin a long look, before stuffing it away in one of her pouches. “There isn't another one in here, right?” He gestures at his brioche.
Four laughs. “There shouldn't be, but knowing your luck Vet, who knows?”
They reach Four's house in decent time, and without any incidents. Including Legend chipping his tooth on a good luck charm. It's a nice enough place. Admittedly, the group's never been dropped close enough to Four's home to actually see it before. So naturally, this marks the first time Four's been able to visit home, and see their grandpa.
Keenly aware of this, Legend starts to lag behind.
Four almost doesn't notice, too engrossed in their clear single-minded focus to return home. It's only when Four reaches the door, knuckles raised to rap against the door, do they turn to face him. "Veteran?"
Legend shifts from foot to foot. "Go by yourself."
Their face scrunches up. "What? Why? Legend, you-"
He rolls his eyes at the tone they start to take with him. "Oh please, Smithy. I'm not doing this out of the kindness of my shrivelled little heart. I'm doing this because I don't want to stand in the room while you and your grandfather talk about your baby photos or whatever."
Four frowns, their hand lowering. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure." Legend reiterates. "Look, it's your first time getting to see your granddad since this mess started. Take the offer Four. Din, I'll even guard the door."
They sigh, but smile slightly, their face annoyingly fond. "Thank you. Remember you're welcome to come in whenever, Vet."
"Pff, right."
With a last roll of the eyes, Four knocks on the door.
Legend turns away and tunes out whatever happens next.
Her mind wanders, and bumps into that still buzzing feeling again. At this point, he's starting to worry just a little. Any long lasting pain is at least familiar, or ignorable, but this pulsating, throbbing discomfort behind the eyes feels like it's getting progressively stronger. Which.. Isn't normal. Sometimes old injuries flair up, but she can't begin to pinpoint where it's coming from. This weird, uncomfortable sensation might as well have been surgically implanted in him last night.
The very insinuation makes her skin crawl, so she quickly shuts that train of thought down. He really, really doesn't want to ask any of the others for help, but at this point it's starting to look unavoidable.
When Legend glances up, he realises Four is no longer outside. Right, right, they were here to see their grandpa. How long has he been absorbed in her own head?
Shaking himself out of his stupor, he marches up to the door. Then, she promptly feels stupid. Now what? He made a big stink about staying out, but now he's just stuck waiting outside. Sure, she absolutely doesn't want to be inside, but... She groans.
A sudden glint from the corner of her eye catches her attention. Whirling on her heel, she raises her shield in time to the treeline, catching an arrow whizzing out from the treeline.
The shapeshifter stands at the edge of the forest, glowing red eyes peering back at him.
It extends a hand, and only then does she realise, somehow, it holds her bracelet. Glancing down at her wrist, it really did steal it from under her nose.
He curses under his breath, sparing a glance at Four's house. He wasn't going to interrupt Four's time with their grandfather. ..But this is so obviously a trap.
Gritting her teeth, she finds herself at an impasse. As if sensing it has him right where it wants him, it waggles out the bracelet, slinking back into the woods.
After a moment of deliberation, Legend takes after it.
Legend is going to kill this stupid thing the second she catches it.
It led him on a stupid wild goose chase through these stupid woods, pinging branches at him and ducking into bushes only to jump out behind her then disappear again. Breathing heavily, she rams into a clearing after it, and with a sick sense of satisfaction, realises the clearing stops at a steep incline. The shadow seems to realise it too, as it skitters back against the incline.
A wide grin stretches across her face. “Nowhere to run?”
The shadow morphs, and Legend raises his blade in anticipation… Only for it to lurch upright wearing her own face.
Mid Legend reaching for his fire rod, the shadow speaks in her own raspy voice. “I'm not running.”
She wraps her fingers around the staff of her fire rod. “So what was all that time you spent running away from me, huh? Hand it over.”
It laughs, reaching into its pocket and pulling out her bracelet. “This old thing?”
He brandishes his fire rod, pointing it directly at the shapeshifter. “Now.”
“Fine, fine.” It slowly extends a clawed hand, the bracelet sitting in its open palm. “Come and get it.”
“Oh, sure!” He scoffs. “Do you think im stupid?”
“Do you want your smelly bracelet?”
Legend shakes his head in disbelief. “Why the hell are you doing this?”
Its lips curl into a smile. “You're having troubles, aren't you?” It starts to stride towards him with a complete lack of care for the fire rod pointed at it. “You and I both know it's not something small. It's certainly not a problem the Hero of Legend can easily ignore like the rest.”
Legend scowls.
The few rays of sunlight breaking through the thick canopy paint the growing grin on its face. "The discord you're feeling, it's starting to reek enough that I can sense it, y'know?"
"So what, you've been stalking me?" She scoffs. "Get in line."
It laughs, the sound equally amused and irritating. "You're so dramatic. I'm just warning you."
"Sure you are." Deciding he's done wasting her time, he kickstarts her firerod.
It heaves a dramatic sigh. "I really didn't want to do this."
All at once, that background buzzing feeling bursts into a deep animalistic dread. His vision flares, and she manages a choked gasp before her body locks up completely.
"I just wanted to have a conversation with you, really!"
He tries to move his body, to move his feet. The dread rises, and rises, and rises, until the feeling surrounds her shoulders.
"But I see you want to do things the hard way."
It comes to a stop right in front of his fire rod. Legend twitches. It sputters out a weak flame.
The shadow bats it aside. "C'mon." It stifles a laugh. "Take your bracelet back."
She manages a small tremble in her shoulders, squeezing her eyes shut as he tries to move, goddamnit why can't he move?!
"Aww, you need some help? Don't worry, let me put it on for you!"
The doppelganger grips his wrist, and every nerve in her body is set ablaze. Searing pain rockets through her body, comparable to a lightning strike ten times over. Shadows surge from its hand as it slides the bracelet onto her wrist, and the contact burns like he just stuck his hand in lava. Legend screams, writhing in its iron grip.
His attacker rolls its eyes. "No need to make so much noise. No one's going to hear you out this far anyways.”
Legend can barely focus on the words said in his own twisted voice, her teeth grinding together from the effort. It's like he's being ripped apart at the very god-forsaken seams, bone scraping against bone as invasive, curling magic tears through her body and dances across her skin. He howls in pain, focusing all her energy on the monumental task of not passing out.
She squeezes her eyes shut, against the feeling, and for a peaceful moment, everything goes white.
Then, it all rushes back to him. The grip on her wrist is gone, and she collapses to the ground, gasping and gagging for air.
"See? Only hurt for a second!"
Between his rattling breaths, Legend twists his face into a scowl. "What the fuck did you do to me?"
He startles at the voice that leaves her mouth. "What the hell–" He finally opens his eyes, only to immediately wish he kept them shut.
Across from her, lie two identical doppelgangers. One blue, one green.
His heart drops when he sees one of them breathe.
Doppels don't breathe. Doppels don't feel, gods, they're not even supposed to be alive. Her skin crawls, realising she's not even in the correct doll.
Her head snaps to the monster standing in the middle of this lucid dream. "What have you done?!"
The shapeshifter looks disinterested with her simmering rage, instead tilting his head at him like he was an idiot. "What? Did you not figure it out just now? I'm helping you. You needed this, so here you are!"
"I needed this?!" She staggers to his feet, quickly drawing her sword. "You better undo this and get rid of- Of those! Or I'm going to-"
The inky black figure doesn't move, snickering away at him like she was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. "Going to what? You don't know how to fuse back, do you?"
He lowers her head, levelling him with a vicious glare.
"And unfortunately.. Neither do I! What a shame!" She lunges forward, and his sword slashes straight through the monster as he laughs, vanishing into the shade the cramped forest provided.
"Good luck, little rabbit!"
Legend wakes up with a migraine. Before he opens his eyes and sees what kind of stupid situation he's gotten himself into, he does a quick house check and tries to remember what happened. Shapeshifter. He groans. The migraine, he realises, is magical in nature, the pulsing behind his eyes syncing up with the pulsing of magic in his veins. It must've done something to him then, which caused him to faint. Wracking his head over what kind of horrible curse it must've cast on him to cause such a shitty throbbing in his skull, he sits up decently slowly. He should take it easy like this.
"...Hey."
His hand flies to his ice rod, immediately brandishing it at the shapeshifter who is apparently still here.
As expected, he's met with an exact replica of himself. ...But for some reason, red. Like back in Hytopia. Legend narrows his eyes.
"Woah, hey, hey! For Golden Goddesses sake I'm you!"
"And you think I'm goi–" He grinds to a halt. His voice was higher than normal. "I'm.. What.. What's going on?"
His green doppel rolls his eyes, before rummaging around in his bag. He tenses. "Get your hands off–”
"My bag, you have no idea what kind of magical items are in there, or what you could potentially break, yes I know. It's my bag too." His own doppel drawls tiredly, before pulling out his pocket mirror. "Look before you fire at me please."
Suspicious, he snatches the mirror from its hands, and peers at his own reflection.
He immediately drops the mirror and his ice rod in response. "What– We- This can't be happening–!" He whips her head around to find the third, and just as he grimly suspected, another green doppelganger lies unconscious to his left. "You're not supposed to be talking! Why are you-!"
Link presses the heels of his palms to his eyes and breathes as deeply as he can, trying to work out if there's someway he's still sleeping.
"We're not. I checked."
He ignores himself, remaining in a sort of fetal position.
"Look, I don't exactly know why we're.. Like this, but.. Do you remember what happened? Every little detail helps. I wanna check if you're fully here."
Breathing in and out slowly, he wracks his brain. He felt bad this morning due to some kind of magical debuff, walked it off, left Four with their grandfather, chased after the shapeshifter, and got attacked. He doesn't remember anything after.
"I got attacked. So that shapeshifter did this?"
"Yeah. I woke up, and you two were here. You weren't awake, and I tried to get it to change me back, but–”
"But it refused? Typical." He croaks out. "But why this? Why now? And how? Doppels are just vessels of my soul. You're not supposed to be walking and talking."
"Look, it's not like I know either, but I checked both of you, and you have pulses and unique magic signatures. And I didn't exactly want this. As for the why.. It said we needed it." He can hear himself pacing. "And, I hate to admit it, but.. I do feel better. That shitty feeling is finally gone."
"It.. must be some kind of magic exhaustion or something. Some kind of pain that lessens because it's split across three bodies. Or maybe adrenaline."
"Huh?"
He peels his hands from his eyes and fists them into the grass. "I couldn't figure out what it was, but it must be one of those. There's nothing else it could be."
His red doppel shoots him a look. "I don't think that's true."
"What are you saying? You're me, you shouldn't be disagreeing with me!"
"That's what I think the feeling was. We needed to split. Not just recover our magic or- Or whatever. I mean, we'd still be in pain in some kind of way. And I feel fine." He mutters, a weary look on his face.
"But that doesn't make any sense! Why would I need to split?! And like this, for fucks sake! Last time I did this, you," He points a finger at his clone, "Were just a Doppel. Nothing more!"
"And we're not anymore. You just said it yourself, I'm you. I shouldn't be disagreeing with you."
Horror settles firmly in his chest. "No. No, it's.. That shadow did something. This is entirely some kind of curse, or—"
"You felt it, didn't you? When we were travelling with everyone. We got more comfortable. Started to have our own little mental dialogue?"
He avoids looking at himself.
"We started to be more open with them. And then, it made us more open with ourselves. We've been a little messier lately. It's why the shadow managed to catch us off guard."
"Because it wasn't normal. This isn't normal in the slightest." He hisses.
"What part of us is normal?" The copy responds tiredly. "I thought we were over this."
He jumps to her feet, whirling in on himself. "I don't want to hear this from some defective doppel!"
His own clone simply pushes away his finger pointed in his face. "That's not going to work on me. You may be the part that pushes everyone away, but you can never get away from yourself."
He recoils.
Before he can respond though, another imitation of his voice speaks up.
"What's happening?!"
"Hey." Says his first doppel.
"Nooooo… I hated this gimmick– Wait–!!" The green one whips around, checking himself out. "Yes! Green!"
"Glad to hear someone's happy."
"Alright! So lets see, you're mad," A finger points at him. "And you're sad." Another at his red doppel.
He grits his teeth. "No, I'm not–"
Immediately the green one laughs at him. "You're easier to rile up than Wars!"
He bristles. "And you're just as annoying as him!"
"I like to think I'm better."
"Okay, great.” The red one—how is he going to differentiate them, numbers maybe?—interrupts their fight. “We're all awake. First things first, we need to figure out what's been divided between us."
"Hah? But last time we were all just–"
"Doppels, yes I know. But we're clearly not anymore, so we should check the state of things. Since we're not going to be getting back to one person anytime soon."
Those words are like a dagger to his heart. "No. No, I'm not seeing the group like this. I won't let you."
The two of them turn on him, still sitting in the grass.
The green ones first, a pitying note to his own voice. "They're not gonna do anything to us or whatever, and it's not like we chose to do this. We got cursed."
"And we do have to figure out some kind of way to get back together. If anyone would know, it'd be one of them."
He grinds his teeth as hard as he can, unable to argue against his own logic.
"Also hey, can we please pick some names? It's gonna drive me crazy otherwise."
"How about color—"
"No," He snaps. "I'm not ten."
"Yeah, we can do better. We're way older than when we named Fuchsia."
"Don't bring up that cuccoo." He groans. "This is why I don't want them to see me like this."
"Okay, okay, fine. I've been outvoted. How about.. Names like the group? Y'know, hero titles?"
"Hey, that's not so bad!"
He almost rips out the grass he's been white-knuckling this whole time. His name is Link. He's Link. Not Legend, not whatever name these clones will prescribe him. And he's not some fragmented broken person like this. He's the real one.
"I've got mine!" Says the green one. "Worlds! How's that? Pretty good right?"
"It works." Says the red one, not interested in... Worlds' preening. "I was thinking Ballad, for myself."
Worlds blinks. "That's not a title. Well whatever, it's great to meet you Ballad. You! What're you gonna pick?"
He startles at the finger in his face.
"And don't go 'Well My name is Link!' No one gets to be Link until we're back together. So pick a name unless you want me to call you Blue the whole time."
Suitably threatened, he relents, wracking his brain. Far too many are uncomfortable or awkward, and after a minute, he settles on: "..Oracle."
"Awesome. Great to meet you too, Oracle." Worlds announces with a little clap. "Now what?"
Ballad sighs. "What I was going to get us to do before we got off track," A pointed glare in his direction, then Worlds’. "Was to see who got what in the split. Since we clearly don't share memories post split, nor opinions. So we should check what skills and knowledge went to who."
Worlds snaps his fingers. "Gotcha!" He dives for his bag, rifling through it. He then pulls out one of his many harps. "Bingo! Alright, lemme just.." Worlds plucks a string, and it's horribly out of tune. He makes a sorry-looking expression. "Yeesh, I swear I know how to play.. I remember it."
Oracle rolls his eyes, rising to his feet and snatching it from World's grip. "Here, let me show you how it's done. You're far too immature to be holding something so delicate." He confidently falls back on the memory of playing for crowds, only for a shrill chord to ring out. He hears his own tittering laugh from Worlds. "Wha–? Gah, no, I–"
Ballad pries the harp from his hands. "I know how to play." As if to further make his point, he plays that song of all things. Oracle screws up his face in displeasure. "And I'm the one with the calluses for instruments." Ballad holds up his hand, and true to his world, there are several patches of hardened skin along the sides of his fingers and thumb, as well as on his fingertips. When Oracle checks his own hands, he finds them strangely pristine. Glancing back at Ballad, he realises he also got all of the lightning scars. "I tried it earlier, while I was waiting for you both to wake up."
Oracle's face flushes. "Then why didn't you tell me?!"
"I wanted to make sure. Now magic next.” Ballad continues rummaging in his bag.
“Hey, I just realised, you've got all our rings!” He turns to meet Worlds in his face.
Glancing at his hands, he finds Worlds isn't lying. His fingers are suitably gem encrusted, while Ballad and Worlds are bare. Now keenly aware of appearances, he looks himself over. He already knows his hair is dark blue, but his tunic is now also blue. Beyond that, it's more in the style of his old tunic when he was helping Din and Nayru.
Peering over at Worlds, he's wearing something closer to his first; a simple green tunic—but he's also the one with Ravio's bracelet, for some reason—except he was wearing shorts. He turns up his nose at the sight.
“Wait, hey, are you a girl?”
Baffled, Oracle can't simply ignore his stupider self on this. “What.”
“Are you a girl.” Worlds says plainly. He bristles.
“No? None of us are?”
“I am.”
Oracle stares at Worlds, who stares right back.
“Maybe we should say what we want to go by aside from just names?” It's only when Ballad speaks with a heavy sigh does Oracle remember he's also here too. In the time they were having a staring contest, he unearthed two other bags, and a good few magical items.
“Like..?”
Ballad pinches his nose. “Oracle clearly uses ‘he’, I’m guessing? What do you want?”
“Oh, like.. Oh! Right, duh.” Turning their nose to the air, Worlds jabs a thumb at themself. “She! I'm a ‘she’!”
“Not grammatically correct.” He snips at her.
Worlds ignores him, turning to Ballad, who had gone straight back to whatever it was he was doing. “What about you?”
“Whatever works.” Ballad responds, tossing aside a fire rod. “She or he is fine though.”
Watching Ballad a bit closer, he processes that she's wearing an outfit closer to what he was wearing before the shapeshifter split him. Except for it being tinted red, of course. She's also been bouncing her knee this entire time.
Oracle drifts over, grabbing the abandoned fire rod. He activates it with ease, waving it around with an easy gait. At least he gets some familiar comforts.
Ballad watches him with a critical eye. “Worlds, try using an ice rod please.”
“Okay!” The moment Worlds swipes it from where Oracle dropped it earlier, it autofires, encasing an entire tree. “Uh.”
“Do you even– That's not how you pick up one of those! You didn't even check if it was safely inactive!” He jabs a finger in Worlds’ face, snatching the rod from her clumsy hands.
“Well I dunno! In the past I just held it and it'd do its thing!”
“You did not just hold it, you had to—” He breathed out thinly. “You can't be me. There's no world in this realm.”
“There's Worlds though.”
He snaps to look at her smug expression. “I'm going to–”
“Oracle has all the magic knowledge then.” Ballad says, not bothering to look at them.
“Then what do I have?”
“I don't know. Magic and Instruments are easy to figure out. If I had to guess by you being the only one with a sword and a scabbard, sword-fighting, maybe.”
It's only when Ballad mentions it do they both realise Worlds has had the tempered sword slung on her back this whole time. “Huh. I guess some of our stuff got split between us?"
Ballad has already finished packing everything away evenly across the three bags, seemingly satisfied with whatever it was she was looking for. "Yes, and I've already distributed our things."
Oracle keeps his grip on both magic rods, slinging them over his back. “So what now?”
Ballad shifts from foot to foot, while Worlds draws her sword, flicking it around. “Well.. Now, we need to do something. We can't continue like this without a plan.”
“We could tell them.” Worlds pipes up, and if it wasn't for the sword she was waving around, Oracle would've wrung her neck.
“Are you fucking stupid?”
“Hey!! Are you fucking stupid?! What are we gonna do other than tell them? Walk into town and say we're just some identical triplets who look just like their missing team member? With his things?!
In a brief moment of careful consideration, Oracle makes his decision.
He lunges forward, grabbing her by the collar of her shirt. “Shut up! You clearly internalised nothing from all of my years working with the most ungrateful slimy people alive! People are itching to dump me, dump you, because clearly you're the part that keeps making this mistake! Once they figure out that we— That I'm like this, they'll finally leave me! I didn't even want to get attached, let alone so stupidly—!!”
“Enough!” Ballad's flat straining tone interrupts him, wrenching his hands away from Worlds, and smacking the sword out of Worlds white-knuckled grip. “And how are you two fighting like children going to help anything? If us having our own independence didn't prove we weren't the same as in Hytopia, then you two being unable to work together really does!" Equal parts fury and shame burn Oracle's face. "What we're going to do is split up and rejoin each of the separate groups. From there, we can ask questions, try to find any leads, keep them away from the other groups, and if it goes wrong, only then will we have to tell them.”
Oracle opens his mouth to argue, but Ballad whirls on him. “Do either of you have better ideas? Worlds wants to go to them for help, and you don't want to tell them, so this is the best in-between I can think of.”
“But we look different.” Worlds says lamely.
They fall into an uneasy quiet. Oracle sighs.
“...I can cast a glamour spell on us.”
The two turn to him, both equally confused. He rolls his eyes. "Look." He focuses on a particular ring on his finger, and closes his eyes.
This particular spell was one he learned at some point after his first adventure but before his second. He was hopeful that something that changed his appearance could allow him to at least enter towns like he used to. He had been getting tired of stealing groceries. Unfortunately the curse seemed less tied to Link's appearances and more Link's very being, so when he waltzed into town donning the image of a pretty girl he'd met along the road, the knights nearly pounced on him immediately. However, for people who don't have an in-built metal detector for him, it still works fine enough.
The spell is simple. You pick something to tether your magic to. Ideally something with some kind of sentimental attachment, and obviously something you keep on your person, as the glamour disappears the moment you remove the item.
Next, you think of what image you want others to perceive. A couple ideas fly through his head. Long orange hair with a pink hibiscus flower, golden royal jewellery with a bright pink dress.. but he quickly shoos them away. He focuses on what he currently looks like. He pictures the little photograph the Sailor took of him the other day without his knowledge.
It's a bit like assembling a puzzle. First the hair and then the hat, and so on and so on. It helps that he still has an identical face and stature, as the farther a glamour is from your actual body, the more magic it requires to cast.
When he opens his eyes, the other two are looking him up and down.
He holds out his hands, and twists around to make sure he got all the details right. His tunic looks one to one, and he's pretty sure his hair is an exact colour match.
"I forgot we had that spell." Worlds murmurs, grabbing at his tunic.
Oracle slaps away her hand. "You seem to forget a lot of things."
Worlds glares at him, but says nothing. Oracle takes this as a personal victory.
Ballad circles him, picking the glamour apart. "It's pretty spot on. Can you do it for all three of us?"
"Yes, just-" Oracle pulls two decorative gem-encrusted rings off of his fingers, one red and one green, and foists them upon them both. "Take one, and then I'll cast it when you're ready to go. But you have to keep the ring on. No losing it."
"Alright, so then we all agree on this plan?
"Hardly." He grouses.
Worlds rubs her face. "I guess."
Ballad sighs for what feels like the fiftieth time since she started existing, and looks up to the sky. Worlds shuffles in place, and Oracle pinches his arm just in case.
Despite his desperate hopes, despite him closing his eyes and imagining he's just in Hytopia again, putting on voices and pretending it isn't just him, all by himself all over again, despite the gaping silence in the clearing: Oracle opens his eyes, and nothing's changed.
Oracle drags a hand down his face.
This is going to be a very, very long day.