Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wild frowned at his slate. “Darn,” he said, “I’m out of Goron Spice.”

Wind sat straight up. “What?” he cried in dismay. “So no spicy curry tonight???”

“Maybe not,” said Wild, rubbing the back of his head. “Give me a second.” He put the slate away on his hip and wandered from their camp.

“...where is he going?” asked Hyrule. 

“I don’t know where he could go,” said Sky. “I’m guessing the only way you can get Goron spice is from the Gorons and… well.” They were nowhere near any kind of Goron city or settlement. “I’ll go check on him. He loves his spices so much he might be in mourning.”

“The manual did warn us he would wander off,” said Hyrule, digging Flora’s printed, extremely detailed gift out of his bag. It was lovingly titled How to Keep my Knight Alive Without Excessively Impacting Your Sanity. He started flipping through it as Sky got up and followed Wild.

He didn’t have to follow very far. Just a few dozen paces from camp, Wild had knelt down and appeared to be praying. His hands were clasped and his head was bowed. Sky watched him in surprise for a moment before deciding to leave him to it. It seemed a little dramatic as as coping mechanism to running out of spice, but they all had at least one thing they overreacted to themselves.

“Well?” asked Legend when he got back.

Sky shrugged and sat back down. “He’s praying.”

Legend scoffed. Wind tossed his hands up with another despairing cry. “I was really looking forward to spicy curry!”

A minute or two later, they heard a loud CLONG! and flinched in alarm.

“What⁠—!”

Distantly, Wild cheered. “Thank you, Hylia!” While everyone else was exchanging bewildered looks and trying to decide if weapons should be drawn, he happily trotted back into camp. “Okay!” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Is everyone still good with spicy curry for dinner?”

Wind looked hopeful but still asked, “I thought you were out of Goron Spice?”

“Oh don’t worry, Hylia helped me out,” said Wild nonchalantly, pulling ingredients and equipment out of the slate rapidfire.

Hyrule gestured with the manual and shrugged, baffled. Normally they might have asked more questions, but Wild was notoriously grumpy when bothered while cooking, so they collectively let it go. The curry that night was delicious, which made everyone except perhaps Legend willing to overlook the eccentricity.

They set out the next morning. “Huh,” said Twilight, prodding a random, empty metal chest with his foot when they passed it. “Wonder where that came from.”

As good of a swordsman as Wild was, his skill with a bow was where he truly shined in their group. He could land a dozen shots in the blink of an eye, all with pinpoint accuracy. No matter where he positioned himself, he could provide cover and still pull his sword and defend himself if his position was under threat. It made them all very confident that he could be trusted as a rearguard.

Unfortunately, sometimes that trust put him in a worse position than anyone intended, especially when Wild had a habit of shattering his own weapons by putting way too much force behind his strikes.

Twilight heard the stomach-dropping sound of Wild’s sword shattering, followed by the even worse sound of him cursing sharply. Unfortunately Twilight himself was already pressed, and so was everyone else. He could barely spare a moment to catch a glance of Wild without sustaining a serious injury.

The young Hero was retreating, practically skipping back away from the monsters advancing on him. It was clear he was out of arrows and weapons both, but the farther away he got the less chance there would be to help him. “Wild!” Twilight shouted, trying to fight toward him with little success.

He heard nothing else. After a moment he managed to catch another glimpse. Wild was on one knee, head bowed and hand pressed to the dirt. Twilight couldn’t tell if he was injured before he was forced to pay attention to his own immediate surroundings. “WILD!”

“We can’t get to him right now!” Warriors shouted. “Wild, just hold on!”

CLONG!

Twilight startled at the unexpected loud metallic noise and nearly lost his head for it. Wild whooped. “Thank you, Hylia!” he said, and a moment later a barrage of explosions began. Twilight’s own hide was saved shortly after when ice arrows whistled past his face to freeze the monsters he’d been struggling with.

When all was said and done and the heroes were wiping the grime off as they caught their breath, Wild trotted happily over to Twilight. “Are you okay? That was close.”

“Am I okay? What about you, Cub!” He seized Wild’s arm and looked him over, but the younger Hero barely seemed scratched. “I saw you knocked down to your knees!”

Wild gave him a confused look. “What? No, I was praying.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t quite formulate a response before Time stepped in.

“Mid-battle isn’t the best time for praying,” he said disapprovingly.

Wild gave him an odd look too. “It is if you need help.”

“Then call on us for assistance. We would have found a way to come to you if you’d called out earlier.”

“But you couldn’t have⁠—”

Wind interrupted. “Hey!” he complained. “You were holding out on us by keeping all those bomb arrows back!”

“But I didn’t⁠—”

“Just use them up front next time!”

“What? I couldn’t have used them until I asked Hylia because⁠—”

Now it was Legend’s turn. “What, are they some kind of sacred bomb arrows?” he scoffed. “Just use them! And pray on your own time!”

“Stop it,” said Warriors, cutting in. “Wild, don’t wait until the last second to use your special arrows. It’s good to have some in reserve, but that was cutting it too close.”

Wild looked at them all with a hard, bewildered stare, as if he thought they were speaking gibberish. “Sure…” he said. “Next time I’ll… figure it out and pray earlier?”

Time nodded and patted his shoulder. They let the issue go, but most noticed that Wild continued to sneak uncertain looks at them sideways for the next few days.

Only Twilight noticed that he stopped talking about his prayers entirely.

Legend didn’t know how he’d gotten himself into this situation with Wild of all people. And yet there they were, captured by the so-called ‘Yiga Clan,’ stripped of their gear, tied up like prize hogs, and tossed into a dark cell. To make matters worse, Wild had taken a blow intended for him and Legend was pretty sure he had sustained a nasty concussion from it. There was a steady, slow drip of blood coming from some cut on Wild’s scalp, and it was staining his long blond hair an ugly red.

“Wild, can you hear me?”

“Nnghh. Yes,” Wild said thickly, face pressed to the cold stone. He only managed to open his eyes half way, but that was enough for Legend to see that his pupils were two very different sizes. “I can’t⁠… can’t… think… can I pray? W’you be mad?”

“What?” It was impossible to check the injury or do anything about it when Legend was tied up so thoroughly, but he still tried. “Yeah whatever, you can pray, I don’t care. Just stay awake and keep talking.”

“Mmm… muh… pl… Hylia…”

Their captors returned, this time with some creep in an ornate robe instead of the standard armor at the head. “And now,” creep said grandly, spinning around toward his followers and spreading his arms, “we finally take revenge for our Dark Lord, and (more importantly), for MASTER KHOGA!”

The Yiga around him roared in agreement.

“Today we kill not one accursed Hero, but two!” He turned and pointed squarely at Wild. “Begin with the one who defiled our Master and our bananas!”

“You stay away from him!” Legend snarled, but there wasn’t much he could actually do. He was thrown into the stone wall for his trouble, and by the time his ears stopped ringing Wild was already out of the cell, slumped on his knees before the robed maniac. Two Yiga blademasters held him upright there.

“Hylia…” he muttered, head lolling forward like a supplication. “Help… please…”

“Wild! Wake up! Fight! Anything!”

The Yiga leader raised a crescent sickle high above Wild’s exposed neck. “Die, accursed Hero!”

CLONG!

From absolutely nowhere, Legend watched an enormous metal chest fall at terminal velocity and hit the Yiga leader squarely on the top of his head. The man crumpled like a snapped twig, sickle clattering to the floor, and did not get up. The falling chest was accompanied by a sprinkling of red elixir vials and weapons, many of which lodged themselves into the Yiga below.

Despite his shock, Legend wasted no time. He was up and running before the Yiga had recovered from their own shock, ramming the loosely-closed cell door open and diving for the nearest fallen weapon. He’d even managed to cut his bonds before the assassins recovered; he took up the very sword he had used to do so and set upon them with utter wrathful fury.

“Thhhh… Hylia…” Wild slurred where he was incapacitated on the ground behind him.

As soon as Legend was sure he had bought enough time, he ran back to Wild and slammed down onto his knees beside him. A truly foul curse was on the tip of his tongue until he realized that the red elixirs were the same kind Wild made for healing serious injuries. “Okay,” he muttered, dragging Wild up to rest against his upturned knee. “You’re gonna be fine.” He all but crammed one of the bottles down the other Hero’s throat.

A second later Wild blinked, awareness returning. “Don’t tell anyone,” was the first thing he said, eyes wide.

“...what?”

“Please don’t tell anyone that I prayed,” he pleaded as he scrambled up with a little help, quickly gathering the weapons and other fallen elixirs. “It was just⁠—the concussion, I couldn’t think straight. I needed extra help and… don’t tell anyone. I’ll do better next time!” The chest, as it turned out, contained a Hylian shield which Wild quickly pulled over his arm.

“What are you talking about!” Legend exploded, frustrated by the nonsensical turn the conversation (and entire situation, really) had taken. “Why would praying⁠—”

He paused suddenly as something occurred to him. “Wait… the chest… the elixirs…”

“I promise I won’t need it next time,” Wild said quickly. “Or I’ll think ahead to do it earlier! Just⁠—don’t tell them!”

And then there was no more time to talk, because additional Yiga began to descend upon them in waves. They fought through the Yiga hideout over the painful course of an hour until they finally managed to find where their stripped gear had been stored. From there it was an easy escape, since Wild was simply able to grab him and teleport them to the shrine nearest their last camp before they’d been ambushed.

Once they were safe, Legend stared hard at Wild, who refused to make eye contact as he gingerly touched his bloody hair. “Hey, there’s a stream nearby where we can wash⁠—”

“You made that chest fall. And the weapons and elixirs.”

Wild paused and peeked out at Legend from the corner of his eye. “...no? I mean I prayed, but Hylia is the one who dropped them for me.”

“You prayed. And Hylia dropped items in response?” Something new occurred to him. “Wait. The missing cooking ingredients. The weapons. The arrows!”

Now Wild turned and faced him with an increasingly confused expression. “I… yeah? I mean I know none of you need help but⁠—”

Legend cut him off with a sharply pointed finger. “No no no no. No. That is not what this is about. What do you mean Hylia drops items for you!”

Wild stared. Legend stared. A goose nearby honked and flew off.

“You know what, nevermind,” said Legend, waving his hand. “I’ll let someone else get it out of you. Let’s go.”

“Uh… okay. Can we not tell⁠—”

“Ahaha, no. I’m telling immediately. Now let’s go.”

It was a profound relief to see Wild and Legend return (relatively) unharmed from the ambush that overwhelmed them. That relief, however, was quickly buried under confusion as Legend stopped in the middle of the group and loudly asked, “Did any of you know Wild can pray to Hylia and she’ll drop items for him?”

“Hey, you know, I should really go hunting for some fresh⁠ venison—” Wild said quickly, backing up.

“Oh no you don’t. Twilight, grab him!”

Sheer reflex had Twilight grabbing Wild’s arms when Legend shoved the younger Hero into him. “...what?” he managed. There was a little bit of blood in Wild’s wet hair, and that distracted him for a moment.

“We don’t need to discuss⁠—” Wild tried.

“Yes we do! Did any of you know about this?”

Time looked like he had a brewing headache. “What do you mean Wild can pray to Hylia and… have items dropped?”

Legend scowled. “So none of you knew.”

“Wait, what?” said Wild. “What do you mean... know? I thought you just didn’t need her help anymore.”

Bewildered silence fell between all nine of them for a long, awkward moment.

“You know what,” said Sky, “maybe we should start from the beginning. Legend, what could possibly be making you ask something like that?”

“Wild was out of it from a concussion and about to be executed by the Yiga,” he said bluntly, causing a few sharp inhales. “But then he prayed to Hylia, and a huge metal chest fell on the leader. Plus some weapons and elixirs. And he begged me not to tell you for some reason.”

Wild shot Legend a profoundly betrayed look. Legend was not bothered.

“So…” Four said slowly, “when Wild prays to Hylia she… gives him actual stuff?”

Wind gasped. “Wait a minute! Is that why you wander off when you’re out of ingredients and then mysteriously come back with the exact ingredients you need even if they don’t exist at all in that era?”

Time sighed. “Don’t be⁠—”

“Uh. Yeah,” said Wild. “I… thought you knew?”

This time it was a dumbstruck silence that fell for just a brief moment. Then, multiple of them exploded into noise.

“You can pray and⁠—” “She drops Goron Spice?” “You mean you’re being direct and⁠—” “—ask nicely??” “WHAT?”

Frustration crossed Wild’s face. “Well⁠—!” he started, struggling to find the words. His shoulders drew up defensively around his ears. “If you didn’t know then why did you tell me to figure it out and pray strategically!”

“Who said that??” Warriors asked, bewildered.

“YOU DID!”

“Wh⁠—WHEN?”

“When I ran out of arrows and broke my last broadsword two weeks ago! You all told me to be strategic, don’t ask her for help, and pray on my own time!” Wild fumed. Twilight shifted his grip to rest one grounding hand against his upper back.

“I… think I’m starting to see where the miscommunication happened,” said Sky. “Wild, we never knew you could do that. We thought you’d held arrows in reserve.” He shook his head in amazement. “You prayed and the Goddess herself gave you arrows mid battle? That’s incredible!”

Wild’s frustration ebbed. “You really didn’t know?”

“I didn’t think such a thing was possible,” Time admitted.

“So…” Wild narrowed his eyes. “Do you all just… not talk to Hylia ever?”

“I think what you do might be a little different than what any of us do,” said Sky. “Could you show us?”

“Yeah,” said Legend, arms crossed. “And pray out loud. I want to know what magic words it takes for Hylia to drop Goron Spice on you.”

“It’s not like she always gives me stuff,” Wild mumbled, but he went a few paces from their group, shot them an uncertain glance, and then knelt. “Um… well I usually pray like this: Goddess Hylia, thank you for watching over me, especially with the Yiga just now. Thank you for being the reason I got to meet Zelda, the best person ever. Please watch over her even though she’s still a little mad at you. Do you have any errands you would like me to run?” He paused, expectant, then continued. “Let me know if anything comes up, I’m always happy to help. Your temples throughout the eras look really cool, by the way. Also, if it’s not too much trouble, my brothers-in-arms want to see your gifts to me? If I could get an apple or something, that would be great.”

CLONG!

A chest dropped to the ground in front of Wild, accompanied by two bottles of Goron Spice, a Royal Bow, and several honeycombs.

“Oh! Thank you, Hylia!” said Wild, instantly in a good mood. “I was just running low. I’ll pray again later. Bye.” He stood up and opened the chest. “Sweet! New paraglider fabric.” He held it out to show them. The pattern on the fabric depicted the symbols of the Golden Goddesses over a statue of Hylia, whose stone countenance was notably more fond than was usually depicted.

Amidst the watching Heroes, more than a few jaws were slack in shock. Even Legend’s eyes were wide. Then, abruptly, Wind burst into laughter.

“We found Hylia’s favorite Hero!” he wheezed, and laughed so hard he fell over.

“Why wasn’t this in the manual!” Hyrule cried, tossing up his hands.

Wild tucked the fabric under his arm and scratched his jaw awkwardly. “Oh I’ve never told Flora about this one. I didn’t want her to feel bad. Actually… I’ve never told anyone about it. I just… sort of assumed you all could do it too, but didn’t need that kind of help anymore? Or didn’t like it?”

“Wild, there’s nothing wrong with needing help, especially in our line of work,” said Warriors. “I’m sorry I misunderstood you. I would never tell you to ignore allies or try to do everything on your own.” He looked meaningfully at Legend. When Legend said nothing, he elbowed him sharply.

“Ow! Yeah fine, I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I didn’t know your prayers ended in an actual resupply or I would have told you to do it more often.”

“…oh,” Wild said quietly. “Well… thanks.”

“I’m glad that’s cleared up,” said Twilight. “So, uh… what was that about you almost being executed, Cub?”

Wild froze like a startled deer under Twilight's stare. Then he pointed at Legend and cried, “Don’t look at me, Legend was almost executed too!”

“HEY!”

Chapter Text

Two days after the Hero of the Wild joined them, Twilight had the middle watch. They weren’t expecting trouble, especially not as close to a sacred spring as they had camped, so he wasn’t too tense. Every so often he would get up to add more wood to the fire or walk a circle around camp, checking on his brothers-in-arms as they rested.

Wild was asleep further out than anyone else, at the very edge of the circle of firelight. He had the lightest bedding of anyone, but when asked the day before he’d merely shrugged and said “The weather’s not bad. If you had some nice springy grass here I wouldn’t even use a blanket.” Twilight could sort of understand, especially since every time he checked on their newest member he was sprawled out in a way that rendered his bedding fairly useless anyway.

Everything still seemed to be in order, so Twilight finished his round after checking on Wild and settled back down again. There was perhaps an hour left before he would be waking the Old Man to take last watch. He yawned.

Wild suddenly gasped and bolted upright. Before Twilight could do more than startle, the younger hero was on his feet and sprinting into the woods, away from camp.

“Wild!?” Twilight called, shooting to his feet. “WILD!”

Wild didn’t slow down. Twilight’s shouting had caused some of the others to stir, so he made a split second decision to take off after Wild right away. He quickly realized that the kid was fast— way faster than he’d thought. It took less than a minute before Twilight lost line of sight and was forced to rely on other signs of his passage to follow him. “WILD! STOP! COME BACK!”

He didn’t stop or come back; he didn’t give any indication at all that he’d heard Twilight. The trail quickly became too difficult to follow while running. Twilight was forced to slow down and make a decision: keep tracking Wild, wait and see if someone else was following too, or turn back and get help.

Lucky for him he didn’t have to decide, because Warriors caught up to him. “What? What happened?” the other hero asked, harried and only partly dressed with sword in hand.

“I don’t know! Wild just woke up and ran!”

“Ran where?”

“Through here, but I lost him. He wasn’t holding back.”

Wars cursed. “If something had spooked him he wouldn’t have abandoned us. So what could it be?”

“I don’t know. But if you tell everyone else what’s going on, then I’ll keep tracking him.”

Warriors nodded and turned back the way he’d come. Twilight hesitated for a moment more before he decided that he could effectively keep tracking Wild in Hylian form. It wasn’t urgent enough to require anything more. As they’d all learned in the… very interesting process of tracking Wild down and convincing him of their identities, the young hero was capable. Extremely capable.

…maybe a little too capable, especially as minutes accumulated into an hour and Twilight still couldn’t find him. The trail just seemed to go on and on until it suddenly stopped in a conflagration of messy brush and askew branches, like a whirlwind had struck the spot. After that, Twilight couldn’t find where the trail picked up again and uneasily turned back toward camp.

If Wild didn’t return by morning, he resolved, then they would use everything at their disposal to find him.

Despite his deliberately slow pace as he looked for anything he might have missed, there was still no clue as to Wild’s location by the time he reached camp. No one else had left camp, and they were all awake. They looked up as soon as they heard him approaching.

”Well?” asked Warriors.

Twilight shook his head. “I lost his trail. There was no sign of a fight, just some wind, maybe a little magic. Does the manual say anything?”

Sky and Hyrule clearly had been and still were poring over the manual Flora had given them. “Nothing about this,” said Hyrule. “Just that he has a tendency to wander off.”

“This doesn’t really feel like wandering off,” Wind opined, half grumpy and half worried.

Twilight opened his mouth to respond, but a sound caught his ear. He turned sharply and was shocked to watch Wild, inexplicably soaking wet, calmly walk back into camp from a completely different angle than the one he’d left at. The young hero blinked at them as they regarded him with astonishment.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning?” Legend echoed incredulously. “What do you mean morning? Twilight’s been looking everywhere for you!”

Wild’s head tilted in curiosity. “Why?”

“Because… you got up and ran off all of the sudden?” Twilight said slowly. “Are you alright?”

“Ah,” said Wild with a sage head nod. “Nightmares. You know how it is.” Then he took out the slate and thrust it toward Twilight’s face. “I caught breakfast. And I found some bugs and snails for Z—Flora’s taxonomic classification study.”

Twilight nearly went cross-eyed to look at the little fish icon Wild was trying to show him. “Is that why you’re wet?” he asked.

“I don’t have a fishing rod.”

Hyrule was flipping furiously through the manual. “Aha!” he cried. “It says here he can and will catch fish with his teeth. Other methods include… blowing them up and electrocuting them. Uh, ‘Special Note: do not trust him to keep from electrocuting or blowing himself up in the process.’”

“I used my teeth this time,” Wild helpfully clarified, wandering past them toward the campfire.

Time seemed to be deeply considering what was wrong with their newest member and his life choices. He caught Wild’s arm when he tried to saunter past. “So,” he started, “just so we’re clear. You had a nightmare, woke up, and ran off into the woods to catch fish with your teeth?”

Wild’s expression also turned considering. “Fishing was the best option to calm down, you know?”

Time sighed through his nose and let go. “Next time, tell someone where you’re going before you run off.”

He got a dubious look in return. “But I… Nevermind. I’ll try.”

“Thank you.”

By then it was nearly sunrise anyway, and Wild contentedly set to work on preparing breakfast, so no one went back to sleep.

The fish were, at least, delicious.

Wild was hardly the only one of them with nightmares; it was a rare night when no one at all woke after having a dark and unpleasant dream. Sometimes that waking would even be violent, with the sufferer jolting upright with a gasp or reaching for their sword. What he was, however, was the only one who responded to his nightmares by waking up and sprinting off into the darkness to find some way to calm down.

He didn’t do it every night. He didn’t even do it every other night. But it did quickly become apparent that it would be a once-every-week-or-so phenomenon. If he’d given any warning signs, perhaps they would have been able to stop him and offer their help, but he never did. He went straight from silent to sprinting every time, as witnessed by multiple of the heroes on watch.

Despite his promise to Time, he also never managed to tell them where he was going as he went. “I’m trying,” he said apologetically. “I just forget how to talk after a nightmare because… you know. Sorry.”

And once he’d sprinted off, he only returned after he’d finished whatever task he wanted to do to ‘calm down.’ He would catch game, or clear out a monster camp, or fletch new arrows, or collect samples of the local plants and wildlife to bring back to Flora. He was never too bothered by any of it, either, which seemed like the strangest part. After a while they started to be less bothered by it too. It was just one of Wild’s quirks; a strange, perhaps mildly inconvenient, but ultimately benign way to cope with the stress of a bad dream.

Or at least that was the case until they got more context.

“Wild,” Hyrule asked one evening as he was adding another addendum to Flora’s manual, “this reminds me. I wanted to ask, why didn’t Flora include anything on your habit of running off a nightmare?”

“Hmm?” He looked up from where he was supervising his stew. “Oh, it’s because she’s never seen me do it.”

Hyrule’s head tilted. “Really? I guess that makes sense, then.”

“Mhm.” He turned back to the pot. “When she’s there it snaps me out of it right away, because obviously I don’t need to run off to the Castle.”

The entire camp paused for a moment at his words. Even the heroes who hadn’t fully been paying attention to Hyrule’s question stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to Wild.

“…what does that mean?” Time asked.

“What does what mean?” Wild tasted his stew, made a face, and dumped more salt in.

“What do you mean you ‘don’t need to run off to the Castle?’”

“Well she can’t still be trapped there if she’s sleeping next to me, so there’s no reason to run.”

Four frowned at him. “What, do you only have one kind of nightmare?”

This time when Wild tasted the stew, he looked pleased. “Yeah, of course. I die, I wake up in the Shrine of Resurrection and all my memories are gone, but I know Flora is trapped in the Castle with the Calamity again. Of course, if she’s next to me then I wake up and realize she’s safe. That’s why it isn’t in the manual.” He smacked his lips and his expression turned thoughtful. “Probably a good thing. I think she would have worried if she’d ever found out.”

“Do you mean,” said Twilight slowly, “that when you wake up and run off, it’s to go fight the Calamity? And you only stop running when you realize you can’t?”

Wild finally seemed to recognize that something in the conversation was a little off. He stopped paying attention to the food and shot a puzzled look at Twilight. “Well, yeah. It usually takes a mile or two before I realize why I can’t find the Castle. Then I’m already up, so I might as well do something useful to calm myself down. What did you think the reason was?”

“We thought you ran to work off the energy of a nightmare,” said Time, “not because you’re trapped in it for so long that you can run miles without waking up.”

His words made Wild go quiet for a moment. “Well, I… wouldn’t say it like that. I’m awake. It just takes me a little bit to… remember everything.”

“Wild, nightmares are normal,” said Warriors. “Being disoriented when you wake up from one is normal. Being so disoriented that it takes you miles of running before you realize where and when you are, isn’t.”

The young hero looked between each of their faces before hesitantly asking, “…it’s not?” When each of them shook their heads, he still looked uncertain. “But… it takes Flora a while to realize she’s not in the darkness if I’m not there to talk to her. She said… sometimes she can’t see at all, even if the lights are on and her eyes are open. Only my voice helps, because she’s looking for it, like how I’m looking for her.”

Time said, “That’s not normal either.”

Wild’s expression turned pale and nauseated. “…oh.”

“No wonder you didn’t want to be separated,” Four murmured.

“If… if it isn’t normal… then how do I help her when I’m away?”

No one answered for a very long moment. Then, surprisingly, it was Legend who spoke up. “I don’t know,” he said, “but if you can figure out what works for your nightmares, it’ll probably work for hers too.”

Wild turned back to his stew, and the silence resumed. He looked like he needed it, so no one else spoke. It was only when he was dishing out the food that he shared his thoughts. “I don’t know how to wake up faster without Flora,” he admitted. “When I wake up from a nightmare, it’s… there’s no difference from how it felt when I woke up in the shrine. Even without my memories I knew I had to get to her. The King had to tell me not to rush straight to the Castle.”

He paused. “I wish I’d been strong enough to. I guess when I wake up now, I know I am. Or maybe I just don’t care if I’m not, because I know her so much better now. I know what she was enduring. I… I’m not sure I can stop myself from trying to run to her. Sorry.”

”Well,” said Wind, “maybe something else can remind you she’s not trapped?”

“Something that can remind me?” Wild echoed quietly. “I… don’t know. Maybe.”

There were no other suggestions, so the silence went unbroken once Wild let it fall. They focused on eating dinner. Wild seemed especially focused, staring down at the ground between his feet as he practically inhaled his food. When he was done, he set the bowl down and stood up.

“I’ll be back,” he muttered, tapping at the slate, and his cloak appeared in a flash of blue light. He pulled the hood up and left camp.

“…what do you think he’s doing?” Wind whispered once he thought a Wild wouldn’t overhear.

Four and Wars shrugged. Legend huffed and said, “Praying, obviously. He wants something for Flora, and divine intervention is the only way he’s going to get it.”

“I’ll go check on him in a bit,” said Twilight. “I think he wants some time alone too.”

When he did go check, Wild was indeed praying. He was sitting on his knees a fair distance from camp, hands clasped and head bowed over them, utterly still. Twilight watched him for a long minute and wondered if he should try to offer comfort. Before he could decide, though, Wild pulled his cloak off and held it out as if he was offering it to someone.

“Please,” he whispered. “So that she can remember my promise even when I’m not there. No more darkness.”

The cloak disappeared in a flash of golden light, which made Twilight’s eyes go wide. They went even wider when the light returned in the form of little motes that gathered and brightened, shaping into something curved. Wild raised his hands to it, and the light flashed once before disappearing.

“Thank you, Hylia,” said Wild, and stood up and bowed with what Twilight was certain was a Bow of Light in his hand. When he turned around, he spotted Twilight and tilted his head inquisitively. “Oh, hey.”

“What…?” said Twilight, at a loss.

“I was praying,” said Wild. “I asked Hylia to help me and Flora. She did.” His head tilted a little farther. “Why do you look so surprised?”

“Isn’t that a Bow of Light?” Twilight managed.

“Uh.” Wild scrutinized the bow, then nodded. “Yes.”

“...the Goddess gave you a sacred artifact? Just because you asked?”

“I mean I didn’t ask for it specifically. I just asked her for suggestions.” He gestured with the bow. “This is a good one. Zelda⁠—Flora, I mean, gave it to me to defeat the final form of the Calamity. If I put it over the slate, then I’ll grab it when I wake up and remember. I think.”

“Okay,” said Twilight, a little weak. He wasn’t even sure why this was flooring him so hard, because it actually lined up neatly with what he knew about Wild and his relationship to Hylia. Maybe there was just something unaccountably surreal about it no matter what he knew. “That’s good.”

Wild smiled, and the bow disappeared into his slate. “Yeah. I’m going to head back to camp now. Did you want to tell me something?”

“No, uh… I just wanted to make sure you were alright.” They began to walk back together.

“I’m alright now. Hylia agreed to give Flora my cloak and a message. I hope it helps her the way the bow might help me.”

The sense of surreality increased. “I hope so too.”

Time was on watch when Wild jerked awake with a gasp. His hand closed over the bow that had become his constant nighttime companion, but when he leaped to his feet he lurched forward only a single step before he froze. Eyes wide, heaving for panicked breaths, he stared down at the bow in his hands. The coiled lines of tension in his body slowly relaxed.

A relieved smile crossed his face.

“Everything alright?” Time asked quietly.

Wild nodded, rubbing the grit from his eyes with his free hand. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah,” he said, voice rasping. “Everything is okay. No more darkness.”

“Good.”

The young hero lied back down, sacred bow cradled to his side, and went back to sleep with a smile still on his face.

Chapter Text

The closeness of a Hero and his Princess varied from era to era. When given either the chance or necessity to speak with the Zelda of their era, the quality of a reunion also varied. Some were gentle and sweet. Some were warm but pragmatic. A Zelda fit her Link, and vice versa. But, whatever the kind of reunion was, there usually wasn’t much to take note of.

Usually.

When they returned to Wild’s era for the third time, he seemed to know the very moment his boot touched the grass. While everyone else was busy looking around at a location they hadn’t seen on any of their visits—a high cliff top next to a sleepy village—he immediately bolted for the nearest building.

“Wild?” Twilight called after him, surprised. The surprise doubled when Wild practically dove through the doors. “Wild!”

A cacophony of crashing furniture and surprised women’s shrieks⁠ started up and was near-instantly followed by his boot reappearing as he kicked the doors back open.

“NO!” Flora hollered, clinging to the doorframe with both hands when Wild tried to drag her through it.

“YOU NEED TO GO TO BED!” Wild hollered back, Princess half over his shoulder as he strained to get her to let go.

“PUT ME DOWN, I’M SO  CLOSE TO A SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH!”

“I CAN TELL YOU HAVEN’T SLEPT IN A WEEK. BED! NOW!”

Flora’s grip slipped slightly. “SO HELP ME I WILL NAME YOU ARCHDUKE OF HYRULE!” she threatened. How it was supposed to be a threat, they weren’t exactly sure, but her tone was clear.

“HA! YOU’RE SO SLEEP-DEPRIVED YOU WON’T EVEN REMEMBER THIS WHEN YOU WAKE UP!” Wild crowed his victory when her hands finally slipped from the doorframe, lunging forward while she flailed for any purchase. Without giving any indication that this situation was in any manner odd or unexpected, he hiked her fully onto his shoulder and booked it away from the building.

“PURAAAAAAAH!” Flora wailed as she was carted off to (apparently enforced) rest, “QUICK, BRING ME THE PEERAGE TITLE FORMS!”

Wild cackled and sped up, leaving behind his bewildered and mildly horrified brothers.

Purah, whom they recognized only by reputation and tiny stature, peered through the open doors of her lab. Her mussed hair and the bags under her eyes almost matched Flora’s, though she seemed far less loopy. “Sweet dreams!” she called, apparently with no intention of either following Wild’s lead or enabling Flora’s threats. She also didn’t seem at all bothered by the group of Heroes on her doorstep.

“Was that… normal?” Hyrule asked hesitantly, manual held to his chest like a shield. It hadn’t said anything about this.

“Oh no,” Purah assured them as she poured herself a cup of something that smelled gag-inducingly bitter even from a distance. “Normally they’re much worse. Zelda was too tired to properly brawl today.” She took a sip and wandered back into her lab. “Hmm, I wonder how the blood of a different era’s Hero would affect the rune…”

They made the wise decision not to follow either party.

“Wild,” Twilight said casually the next morning, “I… couldn’t help but notice your… interaction with Flora yesterday?”

Wild paused in the middle of constructing an enormous meat smoker in the middle of his yard. A few other Heroes glared at Twilight for interrupting, considering they were looking forward to the smoked gourmet meat Wild had been promising since their last visit. “Yeah,” he agreed, head titling. “You know how Zeldas get. What about it?”

“I don’t know actually. That seemed… a little extreme?”

“Oh no,” Wild assured him, turning back to his work, “that was tame. She was too loopy to retaliate properly. And she had no time to plan or cover her tracks since we arrived right on top of the lab for once. It worked out perfectly!”

Twilight opened his mouth and floundered for a moment. “Sure,” he said, “but… maybe I’m just surprised she lets you get away with that.”

Wild turned enough to give him an arch look. “Of course she doesn’t. The peerage thing is just a bluff unless I do something really stupid, she knows how much I hate politics and fancy dinners. She has other ways she gets revenge.”

Morbid curiosity won out. “Like what?”

“Spa days with Riju in Gerudo Town. Forbidding me from Lynel hunting for more than twelve hours. Letting Purah experiment on me. Starched shirts, ugh. Making me talk to ambassadors. Fancy dinners—which she doesn’t let me cook even a single dish for—with foreign… diplomats…” He paused and squinted in suspicion. “Wait a minute. She’s been tricking me into title-adjacent activity this whole time!”

Twilight could admit some of those would definitely count as revenge against each of them too. “Still,” he said, determined not to touch the whole ‘archduke’ thing with a ten-foot pole, “it was, uh… it took us by surprise.”

Wild frowned. “Well, I know none of you do stuff like we do, but you would if you could. We were a lot more like you and your Zeldas a hundred years ago. That’s the only good thing about the Great Calamity: it took away all the barriers between us.”

“Uh,” Wind interjected, scratching the back of his head, “I… can’t really see us ever doing things the way you and Flora do, Wild.”

“…really?” Wild asked, surprised. “You’ve never wanted to?”

“I can honestly say I’ve never wanted to drag Tetra off to make her take a nap, yeah. I think she’d kill me if I even thought about it.”

“Huh,” said Wild thoughtfully. He turned back to his smoker. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Twilight echoed.

“Yeah, okay, maybe it’s another weird thing I do. I mean, I’m not gonna stop. If I did she’d live off of nothing but coffee and the thrill of scientific discovery. She’s reckless with her own health like that. Someone has to be the voice and legs of reason every once in a while,” he said, cheerfully disregarding the blatant hypocrisy of his own words.

After Flora had caught up on her sleep, she was more than happy to greet them and give an extremely detailed update on the state of her era. She also included an entire, equally detailed analysis of all the data Wild had been collecting throughout the eras about their mission and, apparently, giving to her on the last two visits when no one had been paying attention to where he’d disappeared to. It was… surprisingly helpful.

Hyrule approached her after everyone else had split up to do a bevy of tasks at her or Wild’s request. She was quite receptive to the addenda he had added to her manual—and by receptive he meant alternately wrathful over something Wild had ‘forgotten’ to tell her or delighted by his revealed eccentricities. She agreed to add the addenda and reprint the manual, along with some additions she’d also thought of since she’d written the first draft.

They worked on it together while the others were away and it was then, in the quiet of Wild and Flora’s little kitchen, that Hyrule dared to ask.

“Flora…” he started, “do you… know why Hylia favors Wild so much?”

Her busy hands stilled, and her bright smile became brittle. “Ah,” she said, stilted. “Well. Yes. Forgive me if I sound condescending but… haven’t you put it together already?”

Hyrule frowned. “I—no. I haven’t.”

Her smile somehow became even more brittle. She fixed her eyes down at her work. “How could any mother not favor the child who laid down his life in her service? One that she then cradled in her own arms for a hundred years?”

Realizations slowly dawned. “…oh.”

“Then he wakes up and kneels before her, earnest and devoted even without a single memory, and offers to do whatever she asks of him because his greatest desire is to grow strong enough to rescue the very daughter of hers that he died for.” She closed her eyes and loosed a long, deep sigh before putting her face in her hands. “How could anyone not favor him after that? After what you’ve told me, I’m half convinced the Golden Goddesses also send him favors through Hylia.”

Hyrule opened his mouth, shut it, and then opened it again. “Is that… a bad thing?”

Flora let her hands fall from her face to the table with a smack. “No! But if you set aside the more serious implications of how it came about, isn’t it just a touch ridiculous?” She tossed her hands up, pure exasperation replacing the brittleness in her expression. “It is as if the Goddess pulled a fairytale prince from a storybook and plopped him down on the grass of Hyrule Field in front of me! Even among your ridiculous lot he still manages to be absurd!”

And suddenly Hyrule understood exactly what was going on. It knocked the nameless, unpleasant emotions right out of him, and he hid a smile. “I see.”

“He wasn’t like this before!” she continued ranting. “I mean, he was still a little ridiculous, but he would have fit right in with your group. Unusually stoic, perhaps, but otherwise exceedingly normal for a Hero. Then he came back a hundred years later like that!” She glared into the middle distance and drummed her fingers on the table. “Saying that aloud, it now occurs to me that his ridiculousness may directly be Hylia’s doing…”

It became harder to hide his smile. “Maybe, but… you know, he said something to us earlier. One of the only good things about what happened to you two was that it removed the barriers between you. Maybe it’s more because of that than divine intervention.”

Flora looked up and narrowed her eyes at him. She said nothing for an uncomfortably long moment. “You,” she finally decided, “think I’m just as ridiculous as he is, don’t you?”

Hyrule thought back to their arrival in this era two days ago… and to their first meeting in the canyon pass months ago, when she and Wild had been laughing hysterically after pranking an assassin. He tapped his fists together nervously. “Maybe not… just as ridiculous…”

“Sweet Goddess,” she muttered, rubbing the space between her eyes. “How did I not anticipate this? You all are the only perspective I have on the true nature of my ancestors, undimmed by myth and legend. I must seem like a hooligan compared to them. A clown!”

He didn’t like the turn her thoughts had taken. “Hey, no,” he said, frowning. “You fit your era. You’re spirited, you’re kind, and you accomplish amazing things I don’t even try to understand. And you fit Wild. I can’t think of any one of the others who wouldn’t love you to bits. Some of them just… might tell you to go to sleep more often.” 

And again she was silent for a long moment, eyes hidden behind her hand. “…really?” she asked at length, sounding much younger than the seventeen years he knew she had.

“Really, Princess.” He fiddled with the fancy Sheikah writing implement she’d lent him. “I’m sorry I brought it up. It’s just… Wild keeps taking us by surprise, and it seemed like you were the only one who might have answers. You’ve had a lot of time to think about it.”

“Oh no,” she said, looking at him again. “You’re mistaken. I didn’t know any of this. I found out from you two hours ago.”

Hyrule stared. “What?” he said dumbly. It occurred to him suddenly and far too late that Wild had told him this was information he’d withheld from everyone, including Flora. And Hyrule was the one who’d just thoughtlessly dropped it on her.

Flora leaned forward. “You think he would tell me Hylia herself talks to him when I prayed for a decade and couldn’t hear even a whisper? I can’t even hear her now, much less receive a packed lunch just for asking! Wild would never risk saying something that might hurt my feelings. He would hurl himself from the peak of Mount Lanayru before he did that.” She picked up her pen and waved it. The exasperation had returned. “Of course I had theories about the state of his body and soul for those hundred years already, and I knew there was something he was hiding, I just could never figure out what. So really, you’ve done me a tremendous favor. I can foresee a veritable library of scientific, philosophical, and theological research coming from just this one fact!”

Her expression turned devious. She pressed the pen against her lips and grinned.  “Now all I have to do is figure out how to test a few things without him noticing…”

Hyrule decided that whatever happened next was Wild’s problem.

Bonus

Twilight was helping a Hateno farmer with his cows when he heard a piercing shriek come from the laboratory at the top of the hill.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN LINKY GETS EXPRESS DELIVERIES FROM THE GODDESS???”

Startled, he looked up the hill. The following shriek was even louder.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN GODDESSES PLURAL??????”

Twilight waited, tense, but nothing else happened. He relaxed, running a hand over his hair. “Huh,” he said, turning back to the cows. “Wonder what that was about.”

“Alright,” said Flora. She was perched on a table in Purah’s lab, which was pushed all the way up against the wall to make room for the equipment surrounding Wild. The prototype camera and as many sensors as Purah could think of were pointed directly at him. He had also been forced to strip down to his underpants again, ‘just in case the magic on his clothing interfered.’ He’d rolled his eyes and told Purah she fit right in with her Sheikah monk ancestors. She’d looked flattered.

“Ready, Your Highness?” Wild asked dryly. Flora made a face at him.

“Careful, my Knight, you are already on thin ice. If anything merits a peerage title don’t you think it would be this?”

He held his hands up. “Point taken. Can I pray now?”

Purah’s head popped up from behind her terminal. “Fire when ready, Linky!” she enthused.

He knelt down and cleared his throat. “Goddess Hylia, thank you for protecting me, my brothers, and my friends. I also thank you for putting up with this experiment. Is there anything you would like me to do for you at the moment?” He paused. Purah made an excited noise at whatever data she was getting and scribbled down notes so fast it was a shock the paper didn’t catch on fire.

“I’ll be sure to do that for you right away,” Wild said, evidently in response to a direct request. “Now, if you don’t mind, could you please give me what I asked about last night?”

Flora paused in her own note-taking. “Link, you weren’t supposed to anticipate the experiment!”

“SHHH!” Purah shushed.

CLONG!

A metal chest hit the ground, narrowly avoiding crushing some of Purah’s equipment. Wild smiled. “Thank you. I really appreciate it, and I know she will too. I’ll pray again later. Goodbye.” He stood, but didn’t move to open the chest. Instead, he gestured for Flora to approach.

“What did you do?” she asked, frowning. Nevertheless, she set aside her notes and approached. He had to help her over some of the equipment so she could join him in the center.

“Open the chest and find out. It’s for you.”

She opened the chest and stared into it with a stunned expression. With slightly trembling hands, she lifted out a crown, then raised an ornate dress partly from the interior. “These⁠—these are…” Abruptly, she put them down and shut the lid. “You absurd man,” she said, choked, and covered her eyes with a hand.

“Mhm,” he hummed, smiling, and pulled her into a hug that she returned fiercely.

“Fine, I forgive you for not telling me,” she managed, muffled into his shoulder. “Ridiculous, ridiculous man.”

Purah picked her way to them as well. “What did you do, Linky?”

“Not much,” he said, rocking back and forth a little in place as he continued to comfort Flora. “I just asked Hylia if she could maybe give Zelda back some of the Queen’s things that were lost in the Calamity. It looks like the crown and coronation dress were fair game.”

Purah cooed, opening the chest and peering inside. “How sweet. Could you ask for a lazer canon blueprint next?”

Wild laughed.