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Warriors thought he recognized the lowland they’d arrived in, lightly forested but mostly just an open grassland. It was a little hard to tell in the dark, however, and Wild and Twilight also said it could be one of theirs, so they all decided they ought to just make camp for the night and figure out the lay of the land tomorrow in the daylight.
With their camp up against the foot of a short hill, they bed down in the long grasses, a lantern placed on a rock in lieu of a fire. Watch is assigned without much of a fuss, luckily, and Warriors doesn’t have to volunteer.
Warriors needs his ‘beauty sleep’ – as certain Links he will not name have started calling it – so yes, he’s glad that it’s not his turn to sit watch tonight.
“As if I’m the only vain Link in our group,” Warriors snipes back.
“Sure, Wild likes his jewelry alright, but you’re the vainest. No contest.”
“What’s wrong with my jewelry?”
“Nothing at all,” says Legend. “They’re all just jealous of our gear.”
“As if, your rings are tacky,” says Warriors. Bulky, badly-cut stones, and with no engravings at all, Zelda or any noble lady would be ashamed to have such a ring in her possession.
“Hey! See if I ever defend you again.”
Either way: not Warriors’ turn to stay up and watch.
That’s consequently the first thing he thinks as he’s rudely awoken, what feels like only an hour or so after closing his eyes. “What is it?” he mumbles into his arm, which he’d been resting his head on.
“Link! Hello! It is you, right?”
The voice is very high pitched. Also, no one here calls him Link, because they’re all Link.
Warriors struggles up to sit, trying to see through the dark. He spots the speaker almost at once, however, even though she’s tiny, because she glows brightly. An intense white light fading into softer yellow, and Warriors has to squint to make out the shape of a tiny girl with dragonfly wings in the middle of the glow.
“Hello, little one,” he says. Adrenaline from being woken fading fast, but he doesn’t feel so tired anymore. Not as the fairy lands in the palm of the hand he holds out, as soft as a piece of downy pollen from a fireweed blown by the wind.
“Hello yourself!” She flaps her wings quickly, shaking them off. “Do you remember me? You said you couldn’t take me any farther, so we parted ways in the caves!”
Does he remember?
“...Angie?”
“Anji!” she corrects. “The quickest lightning fairy of them all! But you left me anyway.”
“I’m sorry…” He doesn’t quite remember, to be honest. He could only shelter so many fairies at a time, and he supposes he’d found another fairy in the caves who was worse off, or maybe…
“I forgive you!” chirps Anji. “On one condition: bring me back to Castle Town!”
Warriors blinks at her. Then he realizes, that if Anji is here, then this field is in his era, and it can’t be far at all to Castle Town.
“...Right. Of course, I’ll take you with me. But let’s wait until it’s light out, alright?”
“Hmph!” Anji flies up, and up – and lands in his hair.
“...Are you going to sleep there?”
“Exactly.”
Warriors suddenly and strongly wishes that Proxi was still with him. She was, hm, quite territorial about Warriors, and would let no one else sit in his scarf or on his head. Warriors really hates having anyone mess with his hair, so Proxi always sat on his shoulder. Ah, well.
“I’m going to lie down,” Warriors warns Anji.
Anji flies up again, and after Warriors has laid down again, a small ball of light flies up to nestle under his chin instead. Warriors smiles.
The clouds have blown away, and he can see a few stars in the sky. There, the Triforce’s north point, the star they would use when they didn’t have a compass, when they navigated out in the wilds…
Knowing he’s back home again, Warriors closes his eyes.
Ever since Wind woke up this morning, he’s been wondering if all of this is some weird karma for what he teased Warriors about last night.
“Alright, boys,” Warriors had said, as soon as the last Link had been woken up. “This is my Hyrule. If we start within the hour, we can reach Castle Town by noon.”
Which sounded great, right? Except then Warriors said, in a firm captain’s tone, “We must make ourselves presentable.”
There wasn’t any water around to wash anything with, clothes or hair, but Warriors makes them all brush off their clothes and rub off stains with a rag wet from his waterskin. Time is set to polish his armor, Hyrule to finally mend that hole in his – apparently only – pair of pants with the help of Legend. On Twilight, Warriors forces a hairbrush, and then he goes to put on makeup – yes, makeup, like Mrs Marie wears! Or Tetra, when she was forced into that weird princess get-up.
Except Warriors doesn’t paint his lips. Wind’s almost afraid he’s going to poke himself in the eye, furiously painting black along the edge of his eyelids and in the corners and just – why?
Worse, Warriors had somehow run into a fairy at some point before they woke up, and she’s flitting around trying to ‘help’.
“That’s a terrible color!” she chastises Wild in a high, ringing voice. “So dull! It’s not even patterned and- no, ew, put that thing away! That’s too much pattern!”
Wild takes out and puts away garments from his slate, scowling. “Don’t let Cece hear you say that,” he grumbles.
Well, Wind doesn’t have anything to change into. Also, he’s a kid. They can’t make him brush his hair, no way.
Not even Twilight. No, don’t come closer-!
Wind fought valiantly. Twilight is just unfairly good at wrangling struggling prisoners to the ground and brushing their hair, okay, which is whatever, since that’s his literal job. Stupid goatherder.
“Oi, farmboy!” snaps Warriors. “Don’t you dare get grass stains into the sailor’s tunic!”
Eventually, Warriors gives up. That’s how he phrases it: “Well, we certainly don’t look presentable yet, but we’ll have to finish getting ready closer to the castle either way. Let’s just head out.”
As soon as they’ve set out walking, Wind whisper-shouts to the closest person, Four: “What is his problem?”
“I think I can guess,” says Four, with a distant look. Warriors didn’t have much to complain about with Four, but maybe he just thinks Four is such a fashion disaster that nothing could be done.
“Your court must be terrible,” says Twilight to Warriors. He drawls, “Or what, are the townspeople going to faint from seeing somebody dressed like they’ve been sleeping rough?”
“Oh, they just might,” Warriors parries. “The court has certain standards, let’s say. And the army definitely has.”
The Castle Town of Warriors’ time is huge, even bigger than Twilight’s. As soon as they’re through the city gates, the fairy flies up from Warriors’ head and says, “I’ve got places to be! Good luck with the princess!” She darts off into a tree-lined street and disappears.
But she’s not the only fairy Warriors knows, apparently. He drags them all off to a bazaar for ‘some last-minute aid’ and there they run into several fairies, three of them who decide to stick around.
One of them, Isla, says that Wind ‘smells like water’ and decides to sit on his shoulder. Like a tiny, blue parrot.
Actually, squinting at her from this close, Wind can make out the outfit she’s wearing. Nothing like the white dresses his time’s fairies wear, Isla has a long blue and purple toned dress, with slits up the arms and gemstones hanging from the train and just… wow. That’s a lot.
“Is that hair potion?” exclaims Hyrule.
Wind, in horror, jerks around to see Warriors stuffing several bottles into a paper bag. “Of course it is,” says Warriors. “Now, let’s get going.”
And the horrors continue: the one person everyone was relying on to complain, Legend, does nothing. Worse than that, he smirks at the rest of them, flipping back a tress of his discolored hair over his shoulder as Warriors comes to inspect him. “Well?” he says.
“...I suppose,” Warriors allows. “You do have a sense of style.”
Him?
They stop in a park just outside the castle, where Warriors finds a bench in the shade of an oak tree. He puts down the bag, and the fairy who’d sat on his shoulder flies up with a tinkling sound.
“Alright. Twilight, get over here.”
Warriors puts the same weird makeup as himself on Twilight, then tells him he should walk with more confidence. Several of them – including Wind! – Warriors makes put a potion in their hair to ‘freshen it up’, and then he has Twilight brush Wind’s hair again.
Isla laments that Wind doesn’t have his ears pierced yet. Then she blows a kiss at him which makes his hair start curling at the ends, to which Warriors just makes an approving noise.
They fuss around for ages and ages. Just when Wind thinks there can’t possibly be anything more they could do to their appearance, Warriors will pull some crabshit like pulling out a pot of powder from his bag and insist on powdering everybody’s cheeks for some indiscernible reason. Well, except for Legend, who does it by himself, the absolute traitor.
Wind swears the sun has actually for real started sinking by the time Warriors finally thinks they look ‘presentable’.
“He’s insane,” Hyrule complains. “No one can possibly care about appearances this much. With this amount of effort, you’d never leave the house!”
“Oh believe me, some would consider this low effort,” says Warriors. He claps his hands together. “Everybody ready?”
Hyrule exclaims, “Is everyone in your world a diva?”
Apparently, yes. Because stepping into the throne room, and Wind looks around and realizes that actually, Warriors isn’t vain at all. Not when compared with all of these people.
Nobles line the walls of the great hall, and what they’re wearing… furs and silks, pearls, glitter, huge gemstones – asymmetrical outfits, sleeves that don’t connect to anything, eye-searing greens and pinks, random chains and feathers and dragon hide leather-
Wind almost bumps into Sky’s back, not looking where he’s going. They’ve reached the back of the hall, where Zelda’s throne is. It’s a huge, gaudy piece too, gilded and swept in cloths with Hyrulean emblems carved into it. The woman sitting there must be Zelda, and she’s wearing – armor, Wind supposes. But also a dress? Not a dress with armor on top, no, that’d be too simple clearly. An armored chest plate continues into a purple corset, with a flared skirt showing her armored legs and… her hair’s braided, but only halfway up her back. Her crown is jagged and decked with gems.
There’s just way too much to look at in this hall. Zelda starts speaking, but Wind isn’t really paying attention, just trying to take everything in.
Zelda has a guard standing behind her throne – who could be Impa? She looks Sheikah, Wind thinks that was the word, but she’s also young. And she has these awesome red tattoos…
Then to the side of the throne, there are two more women. Advisors? The way people dress here is crazy – one has her blue hair in a high ponytail, fixed in place with what looks like a small hat that has huge red feathers for some reason, and then she has a cape over one arm and a sleeve that doesn’t connect to her blouse on the other, and…
Okay, moving on, the other woman’s outfit has even more feathers somehow, all around the collar, and half her dress seems to be made of metal, and her stockings have red flame patterns on them which match the feathers in color. Wind can’t decide if that’s cool or not. There’s just so much detail, and they’re so weird, why would you have an entire sleeve just made out of gold chains? Why only one pant leg?
“-and the Hero of Winds,” says Warriors, and Wind hurries to bow, then zones right out again.
He tries to imagine Warriors with feathers sewn to his scarf. The face he makes has Legend elbowing him in the side, and Wind hastily puts on a properly respectful expression again.
“Of course,” declares Zelda. Did Warriors finish his explanation?
“In fact, we’ve already started!” chirps the blue-haired girl. “We knew you guys were coming, so we’ve already tracked down the monsters you’re seeking!”
“That’s fantastic, Lana!” says Warriors, smile bright, gesturing wide towards her. “Might we discuss this in detail, perhaps?”
“Certainly,” is Zelda the one to say, and waves a hand behind her. Some guards start pulling open a door beside the throne which Wind genuinely had not noticed earlier. “If you would please show them, Lady Lana, Lady Cia?”
More bowing to the princess, and finally, Warriors hurries them out of the throne room and into a cool stone corridor without any people in it.
Warriors feels as if he can take a proper deep breath for the first time in an hour once they’re in the servant’s corridor and out of the view of the entire court. Lana heaves a little sigh of relief, and his fellow Links all sag or slump against walls.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Cia drawls, leaning back against the wall. “Aren’t you a mismatched lot?”
Warriors laughs. “Oh Cia, you have no idea what I started out with. I worked miracles on this guy, I tell you!”
Hyrule smacks Warriors’ hand out of his face. “Shut up already!”
Ah, Hyrule. Hair magically washed, brushed, gelled back where it wouldn’t cooperate – cheeks scrubbed, painted, eyebrows plucked- look, Warriors had to work on him.
“Hmm, well he had his own charm, didn’t he? And now you’ve gone and prettied him up.”
“Alright,” says Twilight, interrupting Warriors and Cia’s fun. “What the hell was that about? And can we get some introductions?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Lana jumps up. “My name is Lana, and this is Cia-”
“We already know all of you, by the way,” says Cia.
“-and we’re the sorceresses of time. Guardian of time, pardon me. Cia!”
Time has his arms crossed over his chest, like he’s displeased. Warriors supposes no one likes parading around in front of court. Time says, critically, “And you two know about the black-blooded monsters, do you?”
“When some brute comes leaving muddy footprints all through my domain, of course I notice,” says Cia.
Lana adds, “It opened a portal and let through a group of monsters somewhere in the Eldin Caves.”
“Well, that was easy,” comments Legend.
“Thank you, Lana, Cia,” says Warriors.
Wind groans. “Ugh, so now we have to head straight there, is that it?”
Time frowns. “No, it is getting to be late. We ought to find somewhere to rest for tonight.”
Warriors says, “That won’t be a problem. I have a suite here.”
“That’s the first good thing you’ve said all day!”
Warriors considers apologizing for all the fuss. Then again, it’s not like washing their hair would kill them! Sure, they didn’t end up having to spend time arguing with the court, since Cia and Lana were already here – actually, they probably knew he was coming – but it was still better to be prepared. Good goddesses, it’s like some Links never even brush their hair…
Since he’s been away, the castle servants seem to have packed up all of his things. Warriors finds several boxes in the dressing room, but there’s no point in unpacking since he’ll be leaving tomorrow anyway.
His comrades sprawl over the sofas in his sitting room, though Legend trails after him into the bedroom and as he checks on the bath. “Nice digs,” he comments.
“Thank you. It’s the princess’ work.”
“Yeah, I figured that out by myself.” Cheeky. Well, Warriors would never have selected gold-embroidered wallpaper for himself, no. He was just fine sleeping in the barracks with the other trainees.
There’s a knock on the door and then Lana pokes her head in. “Hello again, everyone. Is Link here?”
Warriors and Legend come back into the salon. “I assume you mean me.”
Lana giggles. “Ah, that’s right, please excuse me. Still, Link, there’s a few fairies here asking for you…”
Wind groans and turns over on the sofa. Hyrule kicks him in the leg.
“Alright, coming,” says Warriors. “Feel free to use the bath, and there’s towels in the other room-”
When Warriors leaves with Lana, Legend tags along. Time gives them a look from where he’s leaning back into a sofa as they go, then seems to decide he’s too tired for this after all, and closes his eyes again.
Lana’s suite (shared with Cia) is right next to Warriors’, though hers is definitely more lived in. There are books scattered all over the salon, more throw pillows and a dark knitted blanket over one sofa, and an array of crystals with a small ball on the table. Next to the crystal ball is a vase of fresh roses, from which a few fairies burst out and dart towards Warriors.
“Link!”
“You disappeared for ages!”
Two fairies hover right in front of his nose, glowing pink and purple. He doesn’t have to squint to make out their forms to tell who it is, but he sees that Kiyo is still wearing that dress with the ribbons he’d helped her affix and pricked his finger doing way back when.
“Kiyo, Phos, you know how it is, duty calls…”
The third fairy, having flown a lap around him to inspect him, joins the other two. “Proxi!”
“You’ve missed me?” she reads from him. “Link, I’ve missed you too!”
Legend patiently stands to the side and watches his reunion with the fairies, arms crossed over his chest. Still, having his eyes on him makes Warriors feel strange, like he’s showing something he’s not meant to.
Lana disappeared into the bedroom first thing, but now she comes out with Cia trailing after.
Cia stops in the doorway. “You brought a guest?”
Lana giggles. “Aw, Cia, I’m sorry! I thought you’d be happy to meet him!”
Cia leans in to hiss something acerbic at Lana, who just smiles guilelessly at her other half. Warriors wonders what that’s all about, but he thinks he can guess…
They all sit down in the sofas around the table with the crystal ball, Proxi taking her customary place on his shoulder and shooing Kiyo and Phos off to go sit on the table instead. Kiyo, with a huff, elects to sit down on Legend’s knee instead. Phos lands on Lana’s head.
“So,” says Legend, leaning back. “You two employ time magics?”
“Yep!” says Lana. “It’s a bit more complex than that harp you used, though. Or anything the oracles usually do.”
His brows furrow. “You know about the Harp of Ages?”
Warriors says, “They probably know about all your adventures, actually… isn’t that right, Cia?” He grins at her.
Cia thinks she’s too dignified to do something like blushing in front of her idol, and just arches a brow. “As you may recall,” she drawls, “It is the duty of the Guardian of Time to watch over the flow of time… especially if some little green-clad boy goes traipsing around tangling up timelines in each other like so much yarn.”
“What does that mean?”
Lana hurries to reassure Legend. “Don’t worry! Nothing you did really made a mess in the end, you did a great job untangling time yourself!”
“Unlike certain other fools,” says Cia.
“He really did his best, though! The Hero of Time couldn’t know looping time on itself can cause paradoxes. I know you were rooting for him, too!”
Legend gives Warriors a look. “But I, somehow, didn’t make a mess?”
“Somehow,” Cia agrees. “It’s almost impressive. For a novice.”
“Cia!” chides Lana. “Usually you only have nice things to say about the Hero of Legend, why do you have to be mean now?”
Warriors starts laughing. Proxi pipes up from next to his ear, “You can tell him he’s your favorite hero, I promise Link won’t be offended.”
Cia abruptly and dramatically stands up, the feathers framing her head swaying. “When have I ever implied that I-”
Warriors just keeps laughing, and Lana smiles innocently up at Cia. “You’ve never really been subtle…”
“Wait, what?”
Warriors laughs harder at the look on Legend’s face, and the fairies all join in with their tinkling crystal laughter. Cia walks away to hide her darkening face, and Legend himself starts to flush.
Lana says, “Sorry, sorry, this must be a little weird. But we have to keep watch over all of time, and well, Cia’s always loved the golden age in your timeline – she says it’s a fascinating period of history-”
“Hmm.” Legend’s expression, after some struggle, resolves into a smirk. “And I’m better at time traveling than the old man, you said?”
“Way to go, giving the veteran an even bigger head than he already has,” quips Warriors.
“Yes,” agrees Cia, coming back around the table, composed again. “Your own performance is positively lacking in comparison, isn’t it, Link?”
Warriors gapes at her. “Hey!”
It’s Legend’s turn to start laughing. “Yes, tell it to him straight! I’m the best there ever was!”
They joke around some more, and Warriors tries in vain to stop Proxi from telling Legend about his embarrassing first time riding into battle on a horse, and that other embarrassing story about the fire rod. Phos then demands that Legend tell them if it’s true that he really had a romance with the fairy queen – which Legend immediately denies – and instead Legend tells them some total hogwash story about getting accidentally engaged to a talking tree.
Warriors sinks back into the sofa and just watches.
He’s talked with Lana about past heroes, of course. When he first saw that shining mark on the back of his hand and Impa recognized him as the hero, he’d lie awake after battles and all the old stories he’d heard would come back to him in bits and pieces. Heroes failing horribly, kingdoms falling apart – heroes who against unbelievable odds managed to restore the kingdom, or save other worlds. They all would leave him cold, stomach twisting as he failed to rest.
Warriors was nothing. He was just some guy, a trainee. Why him?
Later on Lana could at least answer some of his questions. Most of the heroes had been quite unremarkable, random children who tried to help, young men who just tried doing what they felt was their duty and simply didn’t give up no matter what happened. They were like him. Legends built them up later to larger than life.
Then, Warriors’ own legend started to build as the war came to a close. Zelda wanted portraits of him painted, statues carved. Random nobles wanted to shake his hand and have him kiss their babies and pose for portraits with them…
Cia never brought up talk of the hero, any hero, unless prompted.
Warriors didn’t want to be reminded all the time. He’d even met some past heroes, but it didn’t feel like meeting a hero. Being a hero is something that has nothing to do with you as a person. It’s like the fine clothes and hero’s greens and makeup he puts on to go in front of the court.
Like Zelda’s crown. Like Cia and Lana and all their regalia.
‘Hero’ was a word that meant nothing and everything – and then Warriors met the others. They weren’t ‘heroes’, they were just like him, and he knew them, even if only a little bit.
Maybe the best mark of a hero is only how large your legend grows. In that case, yeah, why not: Legend is the best there ever was.
Proxi pokes him in the cheek and whispers, “What are brooding over?”
Warriors straightens up and smiles. “Nothing. Where were we?”
Legend gives Warriors a look, as if to say ‘I’m onto you’, but keeps telling his story. Something about fighting an evil witch of fashion, which has Lana and the fairies enraptured.
Cia leans her chin on her hand, watching Legend. In her eyes is a strange look, deep and somehow sad.
Warriors suddenly feels a shiver go down his spine, like a premonition of being too late. Too late for what? Legend’s life is long finished by the time Warriors was born.
You can know all of a man’s legend and still not know the man himself at all.
Cia and Lana must know more about Warriors’ comrades than they ever shared with him. Things they would never share with him.
Things Legend hasn’t shared with them. He can speak for hours about his adventures, painting up his legend for all the rest of them – but that’s not really him, is it?
He hides behind the hero. The best of all of them at using that sleight of hand.
Well, it’s not really Warriors’ business to pry, is it? And Legend does tell a good story. So Warriors laughs when Legend is finished and sketches a mock bow to his audience, and Phos begs him for another story about the princess Styla.