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With the taste of copper behind his teeth, Wild tightens his grip on his Zora silver spear, for all the good it does him. He’s still injured, still separated from the rest of the Chain. He can barely make them out in this swirling sandstorm, only able to make out the glinting of armor and vague figures.
A lynel roars, a silhouette in the distance, and Wild sees it slam its club down, several smaller figures darting out of the way. Tension folds in his chest, compressing his lungs something fierce. They’ve got this, they're experienced, he soothes himself. They’ll be fine. Wild just wishes he was over there with them, and not dealing with this.
The ground shifts under his feet. Wild throws himself back once more, grunting with the impact. Always a pain to deal with these things.
The Molduga breaches the sand, screeching in rage as misses its target and falls on the ground. Scrambling to his feet, he runs towards the monster, only for it to vanish below the sands again with a snarl, beady little eye trained on him before it does.
Wild groans in frustration, fighting back the urge to throw his spear at the ground. It's on the verge of breaking already, and with the sandstorm knocking the Slate offline, he’d be left defenseless. Then he’d really be screwed.
Moldugas are tough enough already, but with the black blood they’re much faster, crawling into the ground before Wild can get a hit in. Smarter, too. This one knew enough to herd the cook away from the rest of the group back towards their measly camp, leaving him to struggle against it with no bombs and limited weapons. He’s probably got some internal bleeding already from when it got a hit in, what with the blood in his mouth.
Wild shakes off that thought, spitting out copper. He’s been through worse and survived. He’ll make this through.
The ground rumbles, harder this time than the last. Maybe if he had his sand boots on, maybe if he wasn’t already hurt, he’d be able to stand steady. But he doesn’t.
Wild stumbles, slipping in the sand. It’s all the monster needs.
The Molduga slams into him like a charging boar, sending him flying. He lands in the sand with a crack, stealing the air from his lungs in an instant. Wild gasps, trying to breathe past the sharp pain in his ribs. Broken, he thinks dazedly.
The beast stares at him for a moment with that awful eye, and he’s made all too aware of the absence of his spear. There’s a moment where he wonders if this is it, that the stomach of the beast will be the one place Mipha’s Grace cannot reach him. The Hero of the Wilds, felled to a Molduga, of all things. The thought would make him laugh, if not for the blooming pain gnawing at his chest, if not for the terror of it all. He wonders if his brothers will make the funeral march to the little cottage in Hateno, or if the Goddess will not grant him even this mercy.
The Molduga turns it’s eyes away and burrows down into the sand. Maybe it decided he’s dead already.
Wild exhales an aching breath, lolling his head to follow its path.
Clarity snaps into place. It’s heading for the group. It’s heading for the group.
A shout tears its way from his throat, trying to warn, but ever since his first death and second birth his voice has never been quite the same, raspy in all the wrong places and far too quiet. The wind steals it away, anyways. Whatever the cause, his brothers do not know of the beast rapidly making its way towards them.
Wild has to get over there. He has to, because he’s the only one who knows this monster, and because he will not let his brothers die on his watch, will not be the cause of another massacre. He’d rather fall on his sword.
His hands fumble for grip in the sand, and hit leather.
Time’s bag. The old man must’ve dropped it in all the chaos. Not notable, but what is notable are the items spilling out of it.
The Fierce Deity Mask is an item that Wild’s probably used a dozen times before. The small power boost is helpful, but with the rest of the outfit it becomes a force to be reckoned with, akin to the Barbarian Set. There are many outfit and foods that enhance strength for a short time, but the Fierce Deity Set always feels different to the others. It almost feels like it was once alive, the same feeling that he gets from the demon’s mask. It’s silly, he knows, but it’s still something he cannot shake.
In all his time exploring, he’s never found a duplicate of the set.
Despite that, the mask sits half in their leader’s bag, one of the white eyes staring up into the sandstorm. And Wild isn’t stupid, he’s seen the markings on Time’s face, knows that his version of the mask- so far in the future- has dulled in strength. However, if Time’s works even close to the way Wild’s does, then maybe that boost in power will be enough.
But what if it doesn’t work, what if-
There’s no time to be thinking about these things, Moldugas move fast. Wild picks up the mask, feeling the way it almost hums under his fingers, and presses it to his face.
Immediately, there’s a feeling of wrong, wrong, wrong, something new and invasive in his head, wriggling. Wild gasps for air that doesn’t come, the mask blocking his mouth and nose. It’s never like this with his mask- what’s-
A stabbing pain erupts in his skull, and he’s not sitting in the desert anymore.
The first thing he notices: he can breathe again. Drawing air into his lungs with renewed vigor, he looks around. His ribs still ache, but it feels distant, now. The landscape is foggy, and he can’t see a few feet in front of him. The moon looms low and heavy, everything glowing silver in her light. The plains stretch unbroken in every direction, pale grass gently swaying in non-existent wind.
A figure stands in front of him, almost blending into the background. Wild freezes, some age-old prey instinct screaming to stay still. It hurts to stare at it for too long, and it’s features keep slipping into each other, shifting into different people. It tilts its many-faced head, examining him with glowing white eyes. He is a pinned bug under its stare.
Okay. Not what the mask is supposed to do, but he can work with this.
“You are not my usual vessel.” The stranger rumbles with a chorus of voices. Wild doesn’t flinch, but it’s a close thing. He pulls himself up to a stand, ignoring the dull pain in his chest. The entity- spirit?- watches him, narrowing his eyes at the wince Wild can’t suppress.
“Will it be a problem?” He asks, trying his best to look the stranger in the eye. He knows better than most to not be rude to spirits- Lord Satori could definitely turn him into a flower if it wanted to, not even to mention the Lost Woods- but he honestly does not care right now. There’s too much on the line to be wasting minutes with manners right now. “Are you the Fierce Deity?”
The stranger laughs. “You are headstrong, wildling. I am the God With No Name, but this is what your kind has taken to calling me.” It frowns with many mouths, stepping closer. Wild’s breath catches, forcing himself to not step back. “You are injured.”
“My brothers need help. I won’t lose them, injures be damned.” He says, standing his ground, something determined in his eyes. “Can you help?”
The spirit- no, Deity- hums, turning its face towards the looming moon. Something uncurls in his chest as its gaze is turned from him.
“I can. I will.” That heavy gaze is turned back to him. “However. It will be incredibly draining on your physical form.”
Wild takes a breath, hears the air rasp through rebuilt lungs. Glancing down at his left hand, he traces the path of century old burn scars, causing his fingers to always curl ever so slightly. His left ear and eye has never worked quite the same. He got these defending his best friend- his most important person in the world, and he will take a hundred more before he lets anything happen to his brothers, consequences be damned.
“I can live with that.”
The Deity watches him, its mouth twisted downwards in a frown.
It reaches a hand towards him, and Wild squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to shiver at the cold pressure on his head.
Everything goes dark.
If there’s only one non-boss monster Time would be happy never seeing again, it would probably be Wild’s lynels.
None of his boys are completely uninjured, everyone with at least a nasty bruise from the silver beast’s club. Sky has it the worst, most likely with a broken leg, the chosen currently hovering on the edge of the battle and doing chip damage with his bow. Wild had vanished at the start of the fight, driven away by another monster. Time dearly hopes he is alright, that they will be quick enough with this beast to go help the cook. The lynel, at least, appears to be on its last legs, bleeding tar in more places than not.
But even on its last legs, the lynel- like all black-blooded monsters- keeps fighting, as if unaware of its injures. It swings its massive club at Four, sweeping up more sand into the storm. Four dodges with quick feet, and the lynel growls, stumbling forwards on unsteady hooves. Time takes the opportunity whilst it’s distracted, rushing forwards to swing his sword at its flank.
The lynel roars in fury, whipping around to snarl at Time, readying its next attack. From the other side of the lynel, Four dug his own sword into the wound that Time had created. An underhanded strategy, sure, but they’re all exhausted. The sooner this battle is over, the better.
Four must hit something vital, because the lynel howls and collapses to its knees, fading into cloying smoke as it hits the ground. Time meets Four’s eyes from the other side of the fading corpse with a nod, a tired smile on the smithy’s face.
With the lynel dead, he looks around for the rest of the group. Hyrule has already found his limping way over to Sky’s side, Legend in tow as the older boy reminds the traveller to actually set the bone this time. Wind has flopped down on the sand, exhausted- as they all are- but mainly uninjured except for a cut on his face, Twilight and Warriors sitting besides him- the former holding his arm weirdly. Warriors, ever the soldier, catches Time’s gaze and holds up eight fingers.
Eight accounted for.
The sandstorm could make it hard to find the cook, and he doesn’t know if Twilight has the energy to transform- even if he insists on doing so to find his protégé. Their best option is to head in the direction that Wild and the monster had gone in, he can’t have gone far-
The earth shakes beneath his feet.
Wild has told them about his Moldugas before, desert monsters that no one else has. Attracted to sound, and able to breach the ground with startling speed, great terrible whales of the sand. Time had hoped to never encounter one, but the chain is never that lucky.
The Molduga jumps from the sands, and Time knows instantly that he will not be fast enough to dodge. He’s exhausted, they all are, and exhaustion makes a slow man.
Then, as if by miracle, a lithe figure crashes into the beast in midair, spear buried firmly in its scales. The Molduga shrieks and crashes to the ground a few feet away from Time and Four, kicking up sand as it writhes and bleeds tar onto the ground. Wild- because there’s no one else it could be- pushes his spear deeper before yanking it out, an arc of black blood following the movement.
“Wild!” Four shouts from where he’s popped up on Time’s side, waving. Wild turns to them, features faintly visible through the veil of sand.
His eyes are a pure, glowing white.
(He is nine, body too small for his mind, and he is staring down the the moon. He is eleven, alone on the battlefield. He is sixteen again, a distinct hollowness in his right eye.)
That’s not Wild.
Time pulls the smithy behind him, ignoring the questioning noise he makes. The Fierce Deity tilts its head at them, at the rest of the group. He hears Warriors draw a sharp breath. The God wears Wild’s skin like a mockery, long white hair braided elegantly down its back, the champions tunic turned a pale green with sparse armor. The spear it wields like a dancer is tipped with double helixes at both ends, stained with blood.
The Molduga wails, and the Fierce Deity returns to its task, leaping on top of it before the beast can dive beneath the earth. That spear is driven into the soft scales of the sand whale’s throat, and finally, it goes limp with a final cry. Time releases an exhale, relieved.
There’s a pressure in the air, building behind his teeth and sliding down his throat, singing of battlefields and power and victory. Time has long grown used to it, but Four stiffens behind him.
The Fierce Deity turns to them again and, with a terrible churning in Time’s stomach, walks towards them.
He can see the markings staining Wild’s face up close, and it makes him want to hurl, want to throw something, want to just sit and cry a bit. He had hoped desperately that the mask wouldn’t be used, but he supposes that was simply too much to ask of Her Grace.
The Fierce Deity smiles up at him with Wild’s face and Wild’s scars aglow. It speaks with Wild’s voice, but it’s wrong, it’s too clear, and Time can’t imagine the damage that it’s doing on the cook’s shredded vocal cords.
“Your bloodline flows strongly, changeling.” With that statement that Time might think about for the rest of his life, the Deity tries to wonder off.
Time grabs its shoulder. Wild’s shoulder. Goddesses.
“Get out of him.” He orders, staring into its eyes. They narrow as the Deity frowns, glowing scars pulling at its mouth with the motion. It’s a little surreal to actual talk to the Deity in person, and not in a mindscape. Time can’t say he enjoys it. The Fierce Deity looks at him with affection or something of the like, but he knows full well that affection from divinity is something to be avoided.
The Fierce Deity will not hurt him on purpose. Time knows that. However, he also knows that- for a god- it can be so easy to hurt without thinking, to bend mind and flesh like paper with a flick of its wrist. The markings scrawled across his own face speak to that.
“Your wildling told me to make sure his brothers were safe. I am simply doing my duty.”
Wild’s self-sacrificial tendencies had really reared their head this time, it seems. They all see, of course, how Wild is quick to throw himself in front of a blow or blade meant for one of the others, content in his own harm so long as the others were not hurt. It’s destructive, but he knows it’s born of guilt.
Time grits his teeth, “I will not repea-”
“Please forgive my brother, sir,” Warriors interrupts with an easy, practiced smile, somehow having sneak up to Time’s side while he was distracted. He glances towards the rest of the group, seeing Four talking quietly to Twilight. When the rancher looks at the Deity, it’s with an angry glare that seems more wolflike than anything.
The Fierce Deity looks at Warriors with something almost like fondness, and Time curses his younger self for using the mask so many times during the War.
“The boy captain.” The Deity appraises, “It has been some time.”
Warriors nods, smile tight. “It has. I've already done checks of everyone, I can assure you they are alright.” Time forces himself to nod.
The Fierce Deity closes its eyes, considering. He gets the feeling that he is being watched, still. “The wildling is injured.” It finally says.
Out of instinct, Time lurches forward, intending to look over Wild himself. He catches his hands at the last moment, bringing them to his sides. Warriors doesn’t look much better, and when he glances as Twilight, the rancher’s far closer than before, face slightly pale. He hopes his descendant understands that this is something that Time has to deal with, stubborn as the rancher is.
“Where?” Time asks- demands, really. The Deity gives him a look that he doesn’t know how to decipher.
“Broken ribs. Internal bleeding.” It throws a look over to the steadily dissolving Molduga corpse. “The boy fought hard. He cares for you all very much.”
Almost too much, Time thinks, to resort to this. Sometimes he wishes his boys weren’t so damningly heroic. He sighs, feeling far older than his years and still too young at the same time.
“I know.”
There’s a nod from the Deity, and then it’s slipping Wild’s scarred fingers under the skin of it’s mask. Warriors looks away, vaguely green, but Time’s never actually seen this process before- only felt it, distantly- and can’t bring himself to tear his eye away.
It’s all a very fast process, really. Skin peels from wood-turned-skin and finally separates with a squelch- and Wild is standing there, hylian and mortal, mask in hand. The spear- a normal silver one, now, lands in the ground with a soft thud.
He’s swaying on his feet, Time notices, and there’s blood on his chin. He clasps a hand on the boy’s shoulder to steady him, and gently takes the mask with his other, worry running laps in his mind. What if the Fierce Deity underestimated Wild’s injures, as gods are wont to do? What if the Deity burrowed deeper into his mind, and taken some of Wild with it? What if-
“T’me?” Wild slurs, dazed. Warriors is immediately at the champion’s side, steadying him alongside Time.
“You’re alright, Wild.” He whispers, even as the Captain shouts for Hyrule, for a potion, for anything. Wild hums, staring up at him with unfocused eyes. He remembers as a child how drained he felt after using the mask, how Warriors would often have to carry him off the battlefield.
“We’re safe?” He asks, and Time nods. Safe as they can be.
He knows what will happen next. He’s experienced it. Still, that doesn’t help the panic that squeezes his lungs tight when Wild’s eyes slip shut and he crumples, boneless, into Time’s arms.
Wild wakes slow, pulled from the dredges of sleep by a warm presence at his side. There’s a hand carding gently through his hair, he thinks. It feels nice. He shifts to press closer, something scratchy like wool against his face. The hand stills, and he stops the whine that wants to rise in his throat. Instead, he forces heavy eyelids open, blinking languidly as awareness comes back to him.
What happened? His bones feel like cinder bricks, and there’s a burning in his throat. Wasn’t he just facing down that Molduga? He remembers fingers brushing wood, the mask, a pale moon, the stranger, and then- nothing. His chest tightens. Why can’t he remember, did- he didn’t die again, right? No, everything else is still in its place. Then what-
There’s still sand under him, but it’s cool instead of blazing hot. Are they in an oasis? Or just somewhere with decent shade? His vision is blurry, but there’s spots of green dotted about. And a red blob. A red blob that’s getting closing, solidifying into a person. A hand presses to his forehead.
“Are you stupid?” Legend huffs. Okay, rude. Wild tries to wiggle away, but quickly finds there’s a wolf sitting on him, snoring. Lovely. If his arms weren’t trapped under a hundred pounds of fur, he’d take a picture for blackmail. The hand retracts, taking the warmth it gave with it. “The hell were you thinking, doing that?”
“Legend.” Chastises Time from above him. Oh, that must be who he’s leaning into. His vision’s getting sharper steadily, and when he looks up he can see the old man’s wheat-blonde hair.
The veteran scowls, or tries to, at least. There are bags under his eyes and worry rests on his brow. “Fine. You deal with this then. Your mask, your problem.”
He watches Legend’s retreating back, and he realizes -not for the first, and certainly not for the the last- just how much the hoarder cares.
Time sighs heavily, and the cinder bricks in Wild’s bones all drop to his gut. Time’s disappointed.
From the few memories that he’s recovered, his father was a distant man due to his station, not exactly kind, but caring nonetheless. Once, when the old version of him was young, he’d left the back door open and their family dog ran off. The memory is foggy more than anything, so Wild doesn’t know what his father’s face looked like in the moment, but he imagines it was similar to Time’s now.
“Wild,” the old man begins, looking him in the eyes intensely. He wants to shrink back, but there’s nothing to shrink back against. “What you did today was extremely dangerous, I need you to know that.”
He almost tries to wiggle away again, but Wolfie’s snoring has stopped he’s staring at Wild as if to make sure he doesn’t try to bolt. Evil brother. See if he gets any pumpkin soup the next time Wild makes it.
“You’re all alive, though.” He mumbles instead. Fuck, his throat hurts, like someone took a cheese shredder to it. Sweet Farosh.
“Be that as it may, champion, the power of that mask is not to be taken lightly.” Time almost sounds scared. Time doesn’t get scared- or at least doesn’t get scared easily. Whatever’s in that mask- the Fierce Deity- Wild can tell it terrifies the old man. Maybe the markings upon his face should’ve been warning enough, but since when has Wild ever listened to warnings. They didn’t lose anybody today, that’s what matters.
The Molduga would’ve killed one of them, he’s sure of it. It would’ve dragged one of his brothers deep beneath the sand with it, never to be seen again. And Wild can’t accept that. Zelda has always said that he’s stubborn.
But whenever he looks at Hyrule, sees the magic flow from his hands, he sees Mipha. Whenever Time swings that massive sword of his, there’s Daruk. When Legend tosses insults and jabs like flowers, he’s reminded of Revali. Whenever Twilight tugs him close and away from danger, he wonders if Urbosa ever did the same for Zelda. He failed them- four deaths amidst thousands of others that weigh on his shoulders.
He looks up at Time, and thinks you’re alive, I haven’t failed you yet.
“Right.” He says instead, “I understand.”
Time’s face pinches, as if he can taste the lie in his mouth, but his hand returns to carding through Wild’s hair anyways. Wolfie’s weight on his lap is comforting, almost like his adventure when it was just the two of them. It’s not, anymore, but Wild doesn’t mind.
Sleep tugs at the edges of his mind, insistent, and Wild lets it take him. They’re alive, he repeats mentally, like a mantra, like a prayer. His brothers are alive. That’s what counts.