#florianfics

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Petrification of the Mind, Ch. 1

Read it here on AO3!

Word Count: 2018

so, this is my first lego monkie kid fic, I saw that there was a lack of Tang content, so. I made my own. this is a "tang gets possessed by lbd" AU :) enjoy!

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It all starts out innocently enough. Tang gets an email from one of his students.

“Hello Professor. I hope this email finds you well. I’m emailing you to ask if you’re already booked for your late afternoon office hours, and if not, I’d like to schedule an appointment for that time. There are some things I need to ask you about. They’re of a personal nature, and easier to explain in person than via email. Please let me know whether that’s amenable. I’ll see you at 4.”

Tang writes a response saying that yes, 4 should work just fine, as well as expressing his concern, and is everything okay? This concern follows him through the day. Towards the end of the day, he sends Pigsy a text to let him know that he has an appointment with a student at 4, and he doesn’t know how long it’s going to take, but at the absolute latest, he’ll be at the shop around 5. ‘Can I expect a big bowl of noodles all ready and waiting for your favorite customer when I get to the shop?’ he tacks on with a fond smile. 

‘dont push your luck, freeloader’ is Pigsy’s quick response, which Tang takes to mean yes. 

Finally, it’s the end of the day. Tang is in his office doing some last minute tidying up, and making sure that any files he thinks might be relevant are already pulled up on his computer. It’s rare for any of his students to ask to meet with him outside of class, and he struggles to remember if there are any special procedures that he might be forgetting. Should he take notes? He grabs a notebook and pencil just in case.

At the exact moment that his clock changes to 4, there is a knock on his door, polite and practiced. Punctual. “Come on in,” he calls out, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

The door opens and his student walks in. She smiles, and though there is nothing off about the smile that he can discern, Tang has to suppress a shiver. There’s a faint click, almost inaudible.

He smiles warmly, shaking off the sudden bout of unease. He gestures to the chair on the other side of his desk. “Please, feel free to have a seat.” 

“Thank you, Professor.” She pulls the chair out, sits down, and scoots it back in. Tang winces at the slight screech as the legs of the chair scrape against the floor. Apparently noticing this, the girl’s eyebrows furrow, and then her eyes widen. “Oh, no, I’m really sorry,” she apologizes, looking at the table sheepishly.

Tang waves it off. “Don’t sweat it, it happens all the time,” he says dismissively, and she instantly returns to form. 

Tang studies her, looking for any sign of what might be going on. Between her rigid, almost formal posture and her serene facial expression, nothing about her betrays any clues as to what she wanted to ask him about. He waits for her to say something, but she just stares at him, silent and still and unblinking (has she blinked once this entire time?), a placid little smile on her face, and an almost expectant look in her eyes, as though she were the one waiting on him, instead of the other way around.

He glances at his computer. “I’m looking at the gradebook now, and it looks like your grades are consistently good in my class, if that was what you were worried about?”

“It’s not.”

“Oh. Well, was there something we covered in class that you didn’t under–”

“No.” 

“O-oh, then is there… you said that what you wanted to talk about was of a personal nature? Are you having any problems at–”

“No, no, nothing like that.” She’s still smiling that same little smile, now tinged with just a hint of amusement.

Tang huffs out a sigh of annoyance, trying to keep himself composed and patient. He’s getting the creeps, he’s hungry, and he’s getting sick of this guessing game. “Well, alright then. I’m no mind reader, so… what can I do for you?”

Her face lights up with triumph, as though he’d said some magic words. Tang shivers, and not just because it feels like the temperature in his little office has plummeted ten degrees in a matter of seconds. “Oh, I’m so glad you asked.” 

The overhead lights flicker. 

Once. 

Twice. 

And then the two of them are plunged into darkness, save for an eerie blue glow, casting strange, twisting shadows. 

“Wh–what’s going on?” Tang stands up, suddenly aware that he’s in a very bad situation. He needs to get out of here, who, or what is sitting across the table from him, but it’s definitely not his student, what’s the fastest way out of the building.

“You know, I think that you can do a great deal to help me.”

Tang quickly weighs his options, and bolts for the door, knocking over his chair in the process. If he can just get to the stairwell… There’s a twinge in his ankle, which he ignores. His hand closes around the doorknob and the door doesn’t open because it’s been locked. His hands shaking, he fumbles with the lock that he always has to fiddle with a little bit because it always gets just a little bit stuck, and theresahandonhisshoulder. Slowly, he looks up. The thing that is most definitely not his student stands beside him, smiling. He hadn’t heard her get up, hadn’t seen any movement in his periphery. 

“Leaving so soon?” She tilts her head to the side, a mockery of earnest curiosity. “You know, try as we might, none of us can escape destiny.”

Tang stares at her, searching for any sign of kindness or mercy. He meets her gaze, and he has the sudden sense that he is face to face with something that is absolutely ancient. And there is no warmth behind her eyes. 

He finally feels the fiddly, jammed lock click give with a little click. 

“We all have our parts to play.” Her smile widens, and although he knows he heard her say it, Tang suddenly isn’t sure whether she opened her mouth to speak. “I must thank you for playing yours, Professor.”

And then everything goes cold.

--------

“-and against my better judgement, I went and made sure there was a bowl of noodles waiting for him, just like he asked! And then he doesn’t even show! He’s already a freeloader, but wastin’ food is–” Pigsy doesn’t finish the thought, instead slamming his cutting board down on the counter a little harder than is strictly necessary.

MK shrugs. “Maybe something came up,” he suggests, eyeing the kitchen implements. 

“Did his phone explode? He could’ve said somethin’!” Pigsy begins chopping the vegetables angrily. “Ooh, just wait ‘til the next time I see him, I’m gonna give him a piece of my mind!”

“Speaking of,” MK begins, looking around, “where is Mr. Tang, anyways? I thought he didn’t teach any classes on Wednesdays, and he’s normally here before I am in the mornings.”

Pigsy blinks, briefly putting his violence against the carrots that are in front of him on hold. “Hey, you’re right,” he says, frowning. “It’s not like him to miss a meal.” 

It’s at this moment that Tang walks in. He takes a seat at his usual stool, and any trace of concern Pigsy might’ve had evaporates.

“TANG!” he shouts, attacking the carrots with renowned vigor. “You got a lotta nerve showin’ up here like everything’s normal after you were a total no-show last night! I oughta cut you off, I oughta blacklist your name, I oughta– ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?”

This entire time, Tang hasn’t reacted, just staring off into space. At this, though, he blinks and shakes his head as if to clear it. “Er. Sorry, what was that last thing you said?” He smiles earnestly at the pig-man.

“I SAID–” Pigsy starts to give his tirade again. Then he pauses as he looks at Tang, and fully takes in his friend’s demeanor for the first time since he walked in. It’s clear that something is amiss.

In all the time that Pigsy has known him, Tang has never been much of a stickler for the way he looks. Nearly all of his clothes are simple, putting comfort and sensibility first, and fashionability last. Despite Mei and MK’s (but mostly Mei) infrequent efforts to diversify Tang’s wardrobe, he always wound up picking the same colors, patterns, materials, and styles that already occupy the majority of his closet. His looks have just never been all that big of a deal for him, that much is undeniable. 

All that being said though, it is also undeniable that Tang takes a certain amount of pride in his appearance. His outfits and features might not be all that much of a factor to him, but he always looks put together, simply because Tang likes feeling put together.

“Whoa Mr. Tang, is everything okay? You look like shit.”

“MK!”

“What?” MK puts his hands up defensively. “If I looked the way that he looks right now, that’s totally what he’d say to me and you know it.”

Pigsy rolls his eyes, sighing. And yet, as he looks his friend up and down, he can’t help but agree with the kid. Tang does look like shit.

His hair is an absolute mess, going in every which way and sticking straight out to one side in a bedhead so impressive that Pigsy wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he somehow rolled out of bed and straight into the noodle shop. His clothes are wrinkled, like he’d slept in them, or possibly like he put them on after they’d been crumpled up on the floor for a week. The frames of his glasses don’t quite hide the dark circles under his eyes.

“...hey, you okay?” Pigsy asks softly, worry creeping into his voice. “You aren’t lookin’ so hot.”

Tang waves him off. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he assures. “I just… I slept like absolute garbage last night.” As if to prove his point, he yawns. 

“You sure?” Pigsy says skeptically.

“Oh, sure I’m sure.” Tang smiles. “Don’t you worry about me! I’ll be up and at ‘em in no time at all!” He says it with noticeably more pep, though Pigsy isn’t convinced that Tang didn’t inject it into the statement as a way of reassuring himself and MK. Still, he lets it go for the time being.

True to his word, though, for the rest of the morning, Tang is significantly more present. He engages in conversation, cracks jokes, and generally seems to be more himself. 

In the early afternoon, there’s something of a lull while MK is out making a delivery.

“Say, Tang,” Pigsy begins as he packs the next round of delivery orders.

“Yes, Pigsy?”

“What did happen last night?” 

“Last night…?” It seemingly takes a moment for the question to parse, but when it does, Tang’s eyes widen and he claps a hand to his mouth. “Last night! Oh, no, I completely forgot! I’m really sorry, Pigsy.” He looks distraught. 

Pigsy sighs. “It’s- fine, but what happened, Tang?”

“Well, I told you I had that student appointment yesterday–”

“You also said it wouldn’t go any later than 5,” Pigsy reminds him.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Tang says with a frown. After Pigsy gestures for him to go on, he continues. “It wasn't supposed to. Really, 5 was the absolute latest it would go. But then it– it ended up being…” He hesitates, pulling his scarf tighter, like he’s cold. “Not what I assumed it’d be. I had to stay later, so I could deal with it.” He mumbles the last bit. 

“Well you could’ve said something.”

“I didn’t think of it.”

“...alright,” Pigsy says after a long moment. “Just… let me know next time, yeah?”

“You got it!” Tang smiles at him before going back to slurping his noodles. 

Pigsy returns the smile, trying to shake the brief chill he feels.

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Wrong Shade Ch. 7

Read it on AO3!

Tumblr masterpost!

word count: 1941

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The silence in the clearing is thick enough to cut with a knife. Four doesn’t know what to say. 

When he and Wild heard the roar, they’d gone to investigate, to see if anyone was in danger. Instead, they found Twilight. Twilight is here, really, truly here, only a few feet away, and the smithy is seized by the sudden urge to run at the older hero and bury his face in his soft fur pelt. 

He curbs the impulse, instead looking the ranch hand up and down. He doesn’t look injured, as far as Four can tell.

For his part, Twilight looks surprised. His eyes are wide, and he stands up straighter. His stance, Four notes, is a defensive one, even though he sheathed his sword when he saw them. But then again, Four has no idea what Twilight has been through. No sudden movements. 

Four puts away his own sword, and Twilight’s eyes flicker from Wild to him. He smiles, taking a step forward. “I– I can’t believe it,” he says. “You’re… here, and alive, and– and here.”

Twilight tenses, and Four stops moving. “You… have my shield,” he says after a moment. He looks between the two of them, an odd expression on his face. 

Four nods. “Well, yeah, we wouldn’t just leave it. It’s important to you.” He smiles. “I even cleaned it for you, although you do a pretty good job keeping your gear maintained.” As he continues talking, in his periphery, he sees Wild take a step back, eyes wide, his expression one of distress. Four feels a stab of worry, but doesn't turn around. “What happened? Are you okay?” He lowers his voice. “Do you know if Dark is nearby?” 

Twilight makes a face. “...What?” His eyes keep binging between the two of them. There's something in the way he’s looking at them that’s just… wrong. Four may not be able to place it, but he doesn't like it. He doesn't like it one bit. 

Four takes a deep breath. Get it together. He takes another step forward, cautious this time, like he's approaching a wild animal. "Rancher?"

"Where did you get my shield?" Twilight's stance becomes more defensive. 

"We… found it in the clearing. Wait, are you hurt? Hang on Twilight, I might have a potion." Four pats his pockets. He starts towards his brother, who takes several steps back, his hand going to the handle of his sword. That’s the moment that Four knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that something is very, very wrong. Under no circumstances would his friend even think about drawing on him.

“What’s going on here?” Twilight demands. “How do you- where’d you learn that name?” His eyes narrow. “Have you two been following us?”

“I don’t understand,” Four says. His voice sounds ever so small, even in his own head. “Twilight, you– what do you mean?” What’s wrong with him? ‘Us?’ Why is he acting like this? Why is he looking at us like he doesn’t even know us? Round and round his head the questions go, making it hard to think straight. They all point to only one likely explanation, and Four really doesn’t like it. Focus, focus! He takes a deep breath, which helps only marginally. Behind him, he’s dimly aware of Wild, who’s breathing hard, bordering on hyperventilation.

Twilight looks at Wild and his expression softens somewhat. “Is he alright?” he asks, concerned.

Why isn’t he rushing to Wild’s side? Four bites the inside of his cheek, trying to regain his composure. He takes Wild’s hand and squeezes it firmly. It takes longer than Four would like, but after a few moments, Wild squeezes back. He takes another deep breath. “Twilight–”

“Who are you?”

The words hit Four like a punch to the throat. Beside him, Wild flinches. 

“Twilight, it’s– it’s me,” Four manages to get out. “You know who I am, you know me.”

Twilight looks uncomfortable. “I don’t recognize either of you, or at least, I don’t think I do, I’m… I’m real sorry.” He shifts his weight between his right foot and his left.

Four’s vision blurs, and feels his eyes burn. He squeezes Wild’s hand, both to reassure the younger hero, and because he needs some reassurance himself. Wild doesn’t squeeze back. Four feels sick. Over three weeks, almost a month of searching, and after all that, their friend doesn’t even recognize them. 

The smith looks at Twilight, who looks genuinely sorry.

Earlier that day, Wild came back to Kakariko in the afternoon, ever so briefly. Four had pulled him aside and asked to go with him the next time he left, as a second set of eyes. Wild had been hesitant, but Four had badgered, and they’d all been around one another long enough for Wild to know that Four wasn’t going to budge on the issue. So he’d agreed. 

Of course, he really did want to provide an extra pair of eyes, but mostly, Four just needed to feel like he was actually doing something to find his friend. He’d wished he could ask Twilight for advice. Twilight was easy to talk to, in a way that the other members of the Chain weren’t. There was never any judgment in his words. He was kind, and reassuring, and when Four saw Twilight for the first time in weeks, he’d been so relieved. 

But then there was this, this kick in his teeth. Four squeezes his eyes shut, feeling hot tears stream down his cheeks. He pats them a few times, trying to cool his face off, to no avail. He hiccups a few times.

“Wait, no, I didn’t mean to make y’all cry, are you– I’m real sorry. Can I… help at all?” Twilight asks, and he just sounds so earnest, and genuinely concerned, and himself, and it’s just so much. A choked sob bubbles out of Four’s throat before he can stop it.

Four feels a heavy hand stiffly come to rest on his shoulder. “Hey, hey, shhhh, it’s okay, everything is gonna be okay.” Four wipes his eyes and looks up to see a very uncomfortable looking Twilight, gently shushing the two younger heroes with his ‘goat whispering voice.’ Four blinks up at him. “It’s alright, you’re alright.” 

Wild throws his arms around Twilight, and Four leans into the form of the older hero, folding in on himself a little bit. Twilight stiffens, but doesn’t do too much to try and move away from the smaller heroes. He just awkwardly pats their backs and continues trying to comfort them.

The situation is oh so familiar and yet far too impersonal at the same time, and it makes everything better and so much worse all at once. 

For the next several minutes, it’s quiet in the moonlit clearing, save for Wild and Four’s gradually quieting sobs and sniffles, and Twilight’s soft, strained reassurances. 

Wild is the first to speak. “What happened?” His voice is quiet. 

“Pardon?” Twilight dips out of his ‘soothing a frightened child or animal’ voice and back into his normal country accent.

“What. Happened?” Wild says again, louder this time. “Why don’t you– why don’t you remember us? Why don’t you remember me?” He pulls away, and Four does as well. “What happened to you, what did Dark Link do to you, what happened?” 

Twilight takes a few steps back, looking alarmed. “Listen, I’m really sorry, but I… I still don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” 

Four takes a deep breath. “Twilight, you’ve been missing for over three weeks,” he says. Twilight’s eyes widen, and Four presses on. “We- everyone has been looking for you but, but it’s like you and Dark Link just… vanished.” He stares at his boots. “We’ve been really worried.” His voice sounds impossibly childish, even to his own ears. 

“Missing? What? I… I don't understand. And what’s this about ‘Dark Link?’ I mean… My name is Link, but I’ve never been called ‘Dark’ before. Do y’all know the Old Man or something? Is that a nickname of his or something?”

Four’s eyes widen and his head snaps up. He looks at Wild, wondering if the cook heard it too. The smithy grabs Twilight’s hands in his own. “Wait, the Old Man? Do you mean Time? Do you remember Time, then?” 

Twilight yanks his hands away sharply. “What?” He starts backing away. 

Wild surges forward, desperately grabbing his tunic sleeve. “Wait, hold on! We can… we can help you. Please. Let’s go back to Kakariko. We can figure this out there. Hell, I’d bet 50 rupees that the Vet’ll know something about it.” His eyes are pleading. 

“The Vet? Who’s– never mind.” Twilight tries to pull away from Wild, but the younger hero manages to hold on. “Let go of me!” 

“Please, Twi, We can work on restoring your memory,” Wild begs, tugging on his sleeve. 

“I…” Four can see the conflict in the ranch hand’s eyes. 

“Time’s been worried sick, we’ve all been worried sick.”

Twilight jerks in surprise. “Wh– Time?” He manages to yank his sleeve out of Wild’s grasp, and scrambles backwards. “What are you talking about? Listen, I don’t know who you are, and I’m real sorry that that’s so upsetting to you, I really am. But I’m not… I’m not gonna go off with y’all just for that.”

“You have to!” Wild lunges for his mentor again, but Twilight is ready this time, and sidesteps fast enough to dodge. 

“Have to? Excuse me? Who do you think you are?” 

“You know me, I’m Link! Or- or Wild, or the Cook, or the Champion! I’m you Cub! You know me! …You know me.” Wild is crying again, and Twilight looks sorry.

But then Four notices the way he’s holding himself. He’s going to run. Four starts to reach for him, but the older hero is already out of his reach. He starts to give chase. Wild is gaining as well, but the rancher is just a little bit faster. 

He dives through a cluster of bushes which slows Wild and Four down. They emerge, and the Hero of Twilight has vanished. When he spots the canine paw prints, Four’s heart sinks. There’s no way they can catch Twilight as Wolfie. Even with his Pegasus Boots, Legend has some difficulty keeping up with him when he really wants to move quickly. He drops to sit on the forest floor, sighing. 

Wild kicks a tree. “Dammit!” He continues to kick it, making sounds of frustration. 

“That’s only going to hurt your foot and fuck up your boots,” Four says dejectedly. 

Wild slumps his head against the tree hard enough that Four can head the thunk when his head hits the tree. He winces. 

“He was right there, and now he’s gone, and it’s–” Wild chokes out. 

Four looks up at him. “Stop that. It’s not your fault. We both know we can’t catch him as Wolfie, and there’s not much point in trying.”

“No, no, I mean–” Wild sighs. “I scared him off. He was confused, and I got too wrapped up in my stupid brain, and I– I overwhelmed him. I should know better, more than anyone else, but–” He hiccups. “But instead I fucked it all up.”

“Oh.” Four pats the grass next to him. “I think I scared him off too, then.”

“But–”

“No buts. Listen, we know he’s alive. We found him once, we can find him again. And we will find him again.” Emerging from under a leaf, a Picori catches Four’s eye. He smiles as an idea begins to form in his mind. “We’re going to get him back. Promise.”

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Wrong Shade Ch. 8

Read it on AO3!

Tumblr Masterpost

Wordcount: 1190

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The boy is gone. 

The older man had only been gone a short amount of time, less than half an hour, he’d been fairly quick tonight, and yet, as he returns to the campsite, silent, the boy’s bedroll is empty. The scarred Hero feels a stab of panic. 

Had they been found by the other heroes? Had the ranch hand gotten wise to his true intentions and left? Had he somehow recovered his memories? Any one of those options would be a disaster scenario. He still needs the boy, the plan isn’t done yet. 

The hero is slightly soothed by the sight of the boy’s bag. He wouldn’t voluntarily leave without his bag, and he finds it unlikely that the boy’s brothers-in-arms would have left the bag behind either. But still… 

He doesn’t know where the boy could be. And he can’t abide by that. The old man is no longer worried about the younger hero being missing, and it’s not a question of whether or not he can find him. Still, he sighs. He touches his face. “And here I just fixed this. Oh well. I suppose that it just can’t be helped.”

Before he can set out to find the Hero of Twilight, he hears the sound of branches snapping, the clinking of iron on iron, and then a wolf emerges from the darkness, glancing behind it. 

It’s the boy. 

And an opportunity that he’s been waiting for. 

The one-eyed man does not smile. His hand goes to his sword with no intention of attacking the wolf in front of him, or even drawing his blade.

The wolf whines, blue eyes wide. He backs up, and for a moment, the hero thinks he might bolt back into the woods. But after a few seconds, the wolf is enshrouded in a cloud of shadows, and when it clears, the Hero of Twilight stands where the wolf had been.

The boy looks afraid. His wide eyes are fixed on the armored hero’s sword. He holds up his hands quickly, a gesture of surrender. “It’s me, it’s me!” There is a frantic edge to his voice.

Still, the older hero does not smile. Instead, his expression is one of surprise, with a hint of confusion. He moves his hand away from his sword.

“Pup?”

Twilight hadn’t meant for his secret to come out, at least, not like this. He kicks himself internally. He should have transformed back into a Hylian before reaching the campsite. But he’d been so spooked by his earlier encounter that it just hadn’t occurred to him to do so. And then Time had reached for his sword, and Twilight had panicked, and before he could really process it, he was transforming back into a Hylian.

So now he sits next to the campfire, adding twigs and leaves. Time sits across from him, and Twilight is grateful for the fire between the two of them. It feels like a barrier.

He doesn’t look up, but he can feel his mentor’s gaze on him. Hear the questions that haven’t been asked yet. And he wants to answer them, really, he does, but… He prods at the red hot embers a bit more forcefully than is strictly necessary. He’s never had to answer those questions before, for anyone. The only other person who knows is Queen Zelda, and she’d just understood the situation, no explanation necessary on his part. 

He wishes that Time would just ask, already. Give him some kind of jumping off point, because he certainly doesn’t know where to begin.

“You’re going to smother it.”

Twilight looks up, blinking in confusion. “Uhh. What?”

“The fire. If you keep going like that, you’re going to smother the fire.” Time points, and Twilight looks down to see that, sure enough, he’s put in so much wood that the small fire is struggling to burn through it.

“Oh. Oh, damn, sorry! Just a second, just a second. I didn’t even notice.” He quickly removes some of the wood from the top, hissing a little bit at the heat. “Sorry,” he apologizes again. He blows on the tips of his fingers. “That’s hot.”

“Well, it is fire,” Time says, smirking a little. “Might be hot.”

“Oh, shut it,” Twilight says with a chuckle, rolling his eyes. Then he remembers the situation that he put himself in, and becomes uncomfortable. He falls silent again. 

It’s a heavy silence, not at all pleasant. The only sounds are the noises of the night woods, the popping and crackling of the fire, and the sound of his own heart, which he’s sure is loud enough for Time to hear. 

He doesn’t know how long they sit there for. It feels like too long. Twilight is about ready to just get it over with and say something already, but Time beats him to it. 

“So. A wolf,” he says.

“Yeah,” Twilight responds flatly. 

“And… have you been able to do that this whole time we’ve been traveling together?”

“Yeah.”

“Voluntarily?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t tell you.”

“Is it some kind of curse?” 

This question makes Twilight pause. Is it a curse? Maybe Zant intended for the crystal to be a curse on him, and he certainly saw it as one at first. But now, it’s different. It feels different, at least. “I… dunno.”

Time shrugs. “That’s alright.” He pauses. “You didn’t have to hide it from me.”

You don’t get it. Twilight doesn’t say anything, just stares into the fire. 

“I mean it, you–”

“I-I understand,” Twilight cuts him off. It’s not that simple, but he doesn’t know how to say it.

“Alright.”

They sit in silence after that. After a while, Twilight yawns. It’s been… a night. 

“Go back to bed,” Time says. 

Twilight shakes his head. “I’m–” another yawn, “–I’m fine.”

Time frowns. “Your yawning begs to differ, as do your eye bags.”

“No, no. It’s fine. At this point, I don’t think it’d even be worth it. I’d have to wake up soon anyways.” The ranch-hand rubs his eyes. They’re itchy. 

The older hero stands up, and walks over to Twilight. He puts a hand on his shoulder. “You need to sleep. Look, before you say anything else, listen to me. You can sleep late tomorrow.”

“I’ll be fine, Old Man,” Twilight says, trying in vain to shake off his mentor’s hand. 

“That wasn’t a question.” Time’s voice brooks no argument. 

Twilight sighs, but makes a big show of walking back to his bedroll, taking off his boots, and lying down. “Happy now?” 

“Not until you go to sleep.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m goin’, I’m goin’. Don’t get your tunic in a twist about it,” Twilight mumbles, rolling over. His eyes are already falling shut. “...‘Night.”

“Good night, Pup.”

As his consciousness starts to drift off, he can’t help but think that now that Time knows his secret, the silly little nickname feels far more fitting.  

And then Twilight is wide awake again, because if Time didn’t know about his transformation before tonight, then where did the oddly apt nickname come from?

That night, Twilight does not go back to sleep.

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Wrong Shade Ch. 6

read it here on AO3!

Read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 on Tumblr here!

Wordcount: 2808

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It’s with a heavy heart that Twilight bids the stable goodbye. Although Time had clearly been reluctant, Twilight managed to convince him to stay for three whole days, on the basis of rest. But at the end of the three days, he goes around to each of the animals, giving them a few final pets. He gives Medi a small hunk of meat, some scritches behind the ears, and then waves goodbye as they set off again. 

“We were going to have to leave eventually,” Time says, clapping a hand to Twilight’s shoulder. “Besides, fending off that dog every time I tried talking to you was getting exhausting.”

"I don't know why he didn't like you. He was so friendly with everyone else." Twilight smiles just a hair, remembering with some amusement the way that Medi had jumped to 'rescue' him from Time. 

"Maybe we just got off on the wrong foot," Time says with a chuckle. "I can be pretty intimidating."

Twilight rolls his eyes. It's quiet for a while, each of them thinking their own thoughts. The words of that merchant, Beedle, spin around in his head. "Have you ever been there before?" he asks after a bit. “To the stable, I mean.”

Time's voice is flat. "No, I don't know where we are at all." His one eye falls on Twilight, and he raises an eyebrow. “Why?” he asks with something that sounds almost like suspicion.

Twilight has the sudden sense that he should be careful with what he says. “No reason,” he says carefully. “Just that weird merchant, Beedle, you know, the one with the beetle backpack.”

“What about him?”

“Well, he said he recognized you.”

Time purses his lips. “He must be mistaken, because I certainly didn’t recognize him. I’ve never been to a stable before.”

Twilight laughs in what should be relief, but instead feels anxious. “Right? Right, and that’s what I said, but he was insistent that he knew you!” He exhales, watching Time carefully. “Crazy shopkeepers… mm, some things never change, huh?”

“One thing’s consistent, at least.”

Twilight wishes he were in wolf form. Not that he isn't plenty perceptive the way he is right now. His senses are sharper than the average Hylian. But right now, he could really use some extra insight. The Old Man's face is as unreadable as ever, and he's always been better at knowing what people are thinking as a wolf. 

Hell, he wishes he were a wolf in general right now. It's nice in a lot of ways. His senses are sharper. The scents of the world are richer, the sounds more complete, somehow, and there's nothing quite like the rush of wind in his fur. It's just nice.

But... people don't react well to seeing a wolf. He doesn't want to frighten Time. Rusl had been badly injured and he still managed to wound Twilight. The young hero shudders to think about what Time, a powerful hero, could do to him. His armor doesn't seem to slow him down, and even though Twilight is fast, particularly in wolf form, he isn't sure that he could outspeed the Old Man. 

Still, maybe he could tell his mentor. The older hero is probably no stranger to magic. But then, his magic isn’t exactly the lightest out there.

At the very least, Twilight can go scouting, and while he's out, maybe he can take some time to go for a run through the forest. 

It'd be a little self indulgent, sure, but he's better at scouting when he has sharper senses. So really, it makes sense. In his mind, it's settled. Once they find a spot to rest, he'll offer to scout and get firewood, and take a jaunt through the woods. No harm, no foul.

Later, it only takes a little bit of persuasion to convince the Old Man to let him go off on his own, and really, you scouted last time, it makes more sense for you to stay here and get started on the food. After he promises to be safe, he takes his equipment, and leaves.

As soon as he’s certain he’s out of Time’s line of sight, Twilight transforms. Once the painful process of bones being rearranged and remolded is complete, he relaxes, and the world comes into focus.

He’s missed this. He starts by walking, but then his gait increases, and then he’s running, and it’s so nice. Chasing down interesting smells, hearing the birdsong as words. 

He’s starting to think he’s gone far enough out and that maybe he should start heading back when he comes across the small encampment of red bokoblins. There’s only five of them, and all their weapons are wood, so he isn’t too worried about taking them on alone. He doesn’t even bother changing back into Hylian form. 

And indeed, the battle is going pretty smoothly. One of them does manage to land a hit on his side, but the wooden club is shoddily made, and he shrugs it off easily.

Twilight is just about to pounce on the last bokoblin when it stiffens. Seconds later, it falls down dead on the forest floor, the shaft of an arrow protruding from its side. He barks in surprise and looks around, listening and smelling for who the arrow could have come from.

He backs up. If it’s another monster, he wants to have enough room to attack. Though… Twilight isn’t sure what kind of monster would attack one of its own kind like that. Still. Better to be safe than sorry.

Coming from the direction the arrow came from, he hears someone grumbling as they approach. Probably a Hylian, by the sound of it. 

Twilight quickly hides himself in the nearby bushes. People tend to react poorly to seeing a large wolf, and his wolf form is much larger than any of the wolves he’s seen around here. Not to mention that whoever this person is, they’re armed, and they clearly know what they’re doing. Twilight would rather not be skewered, thank you very much.

By now, the mystery archer is close enough for Twilight to make out what they’re grumbling about. “Stupid ‘blins, always attacking every damn thing that moves,” they complain. So noisy, but Twilight hadn’t had any idea that they were there until they’d fired the arrow. The cadence of their voice sounds like one that he knows. 

They step into the clearing. It’s a young Hylian man. He’s shorter than Twilight, with long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. His face has large scars creeping up the side of it. He wears a bright blue tunic with white trim, and a scowl that Twilight can’t help but think is out of place. “Don’t they know killing random wildlife is my job?” He yanks the arrow from the corpse of the bokoblin, looks it over, and stows it in his quiver.

Twilight realizes that he’s inching towards the stranger. He stops, puzzled. He doesn’t know this man. And yet, something about him feels so familiar. 

The Hylian inspects the other dead bokoblins. “Bite marks? …Huh. Bokoblins give wolves a pretty wide berth. And wolves don’t normally go after ‘blins, either. So then why–” He stops,  getting a strange expression on his face. “What if…” Then he cups his hands to his mouth, tips his head back, and howls, sharp and clear. Two short howls, followed by one longer howl.

He looks around, ears pricked up, listening. Waiting. His expression is unmistakably one of hope. Twilight has to resist the urge to howl back. After a few moments, the young man tries again. And again. Three more times he howls that same pattern, looking more and more disheartened each time. Finally, he sighs and gives up, wiping his eyes. The fierce scowl doesn’t come back. The look that comes over his face instead is one of despair. It’s as though all the life has been sucked out of him. His posture slouches.

Twilight feels a sharp pang in his chest. He wants to help this poor boy, to comfort him, to– 

His thoughts come grinding to a sudden halt as the boy starts walking away. Despite the acute sense of familiarity, he’s fairly certain that he doesn’t know this boy. At the very least, Twilight can’t think of where he could possibly know him from. 

So then why does he have the Ordon Shield on his back?

Twilight gets turned around multiple times on his way back to camp. There’s too much on his mind to focus. Initially, he was going to bring it up when he got back. He’d been planning on it. But the closer he gets to camp, the less certain he is that he should tell Time about it. 

He’ll have to explain things, like why he hid in the bushes from an apparent ally. He might reveal his secret to Time, but he doesn’t want it to be like this. 

Besides that, he keeps thinking about the way that Time looked at him when he asked about Beedle. He wants to shake it off, but his gut tells him not to.

By the time he actually returns and transforms, he’s decided that no, he’s not going to tell Time. At least, not yet. He wants a better idea in his head before he does that. So for now, he’ll pretend that nothing happened. And he’ll ruminate on it later, when he’s alone.

“How was it?” Time asks when he emerges.

Twilight smiles. “All clear. There was a real small group of bokoblins, a good ways off, but I took care of them no problem.”

“How many?”

“Five.” Time frowns, and Twilight hurries ahead. “They were pretty weak though, and none of ‘em were black blooded.”

Time sighs. “Fine, I suppose.” He looks Twilight up and down. “Where’s that firewood you were going to get?”

Twilight’s heart sinks. He’d completely forgotten to get firewood. He briefly considers lying and saying it’s nearby, and scrambling to find more, but it’d be pretty obvious immediately. He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Guess I forgot to get it after the fight,” he says.

Time smiles. “You’re lucky I can’t stand to sit still for long,” he says, gesturing to a pile of wood. “We’ll probably have to get more at some point before we turn in, but it’s enough to go for a while.”

Twilight smiles in relief. 

They’re about halfway through dinner when Time asks. “You seem distracted. What’s eating at you, Pup?”

Twilight sits up a little straighter. “Nothing.”

“Really.”

“Really, Old Man. it’s nothing. My head’s just… somewhere else, today.” This isn’t a lie, per se, but it’s hardly the whole truth either. 

“Well where has it been?” 

“I’m not entirely sure.” This is a lie. He knows exactly where his thoughts have been.

“If something’s upsetting you, you can talk to me,” Time says, smiling. 

Twilight nods.

They spend the rest of their meal making idle chitchat, until Twilight shoo’s Time to bed, and settles in for the first watch. True to the Old Man’s prediction, he has to go and gather more wood for the fire, but mostly, he has time to sit, and think, and not much else. 

It doesn’t make sense. Rusl made that shield by hand as a tithe to the royal family. Twilight would recognize it anywhere. How did that boy get a hold of it? Why did he feel so familiar? Did he remind Twilight of someone? Maybe, but who? Is this somehow related to Beedle’s claim that he knew him? He isn’t sure, but that feels significant, somehow.

It made Twilight’s head hurt to think about after a while. His shift passes by quickly, and he’s startled out of his thoughts by Time’s icy hand on his shoulder. 

“Time for bed,” he says in a tone that brooks no argument.

Twilight settles into his bedroll, and resolves to think about it more tomorrow.

Instead, he wakes up after a particularly vivid nightmare that involved being chased by Agitha, who was insisting that he still had bugs even after he’d given her all the bugs he found. He shudders. 

It’s still dark, and the birds haven’t even started chirping yet. Ugh. So he’d barely slept at all. But he can’t fall asleep. The lingering traces of the nightmare still cling to some part of his brain, and on top of that, he’s started to think about that boy and the Ordon Shield again. Like it or not, he’s starting to wake up.

He sits up, determined to pop his neck, lie back down, and go back to sleep. The fire is almost out. He looks around, but Time is nowhere to be seen. 

He’s probably gathering firewood, Twilight reasons, but from where he sits, he can see that there’s still plenty of firewood from when he’d gathered it. He shakes his head. Go to sleep, he tells himself. 

But try as he might, there are too many thoughts in his head for him to rest. Maybe a short walk will clear his head. 

Twilight quietly pulls on his boots. He grabs his sword and lantern, but leaves his bag behind as a way of telling Time that he’ll be back, just in case the older hero returns before he does. And he walks into the forest.

It’s a quiet night. There are the snaps of animals moving around, owls hooting, and the occasional scurrying rat, but those are all forest sounds. It’d be ominous if there weren’t any sounds. 

He’s wandered a good ways away from camp when he picks up on something that isn’t a normal forest sound. His ears twitch. Drifting faintly on the nighttime breeze, Twilight hears soft whining. 

It’s the sound of an animal in pain. 

Cautiously, sword drawn, he approaches, until he sees the source of the sound. It’s a bear. One of its paws is caught in a nasty looking hunter’s trap, and the poor creature is whining in pain. 

Twilight sheaths his sword, and slowly approaches. No sudden movements. It may be injured, but it’s still a wild animal. The bear looks at him. She growls. If he were a wolf, he’d be able to talk to her, but he probably wouldn’t be able to get the trap off. He thinks for a moment, and remembers the meat he’d given to Medi. 

Slowly, he tears off a piece of it, and offers it to the animal. She sniffs it, tentatively licks it, and then starts eating it. Twilight doesn’t waste any time crouching at her side and putting his hands on the sides of the trap. 

The bear growls again, a warning. He gives her another piece of meat, and speaks in a low, soothing voice, the way he might calm a particularly anxious goat. “It’s okay, don’t you worry. I’m going to help you, okay?” He starts examining the trap again, locating the lever that should release the leg. “This might hurt a little, okay?” With one hand, he rubs her side in slow, calming circles. With the other, he grabs the lever. “Okay, get ready. One, two, three!” 

He pulls the lever, and the bear roars as the teeth of the trap retract. She rears back onto her hind legs. Twilight jumps back, pulling the trap completely free of the paw as he does so.

After a few seconds she stops roaring, and gingerly puts her paw on the ground. She still flinches, but it’s clearly not as bad as before, because she puts her full weight on it. 

“See? All better,” Twilight says. The bear grunts once in what might be thanks, and trundles off into the woods. Twilight smiles. 

There’s a rustle in the trees behind him, and he whirls around, holding his lantern aloft so he can see with one hand, and brandishing his sword in the other. 

He stops. Lowers the sword.

Two Hylians are staring at him, their eyes wide as saucers. 

The first is short and rather young looking. He has short blond hair kept out of his eyes by a green headband, and wears a fine tunic split into four sections of blue, green, violet, and red. Hand shaking, he brings a hand up to cover his mouth.

The other, he knows. Well, he doesn’t know him, but he’s seen him. It’s the blond archer from earlier. He’s breathing rapidly. The archer opens and closes his mouth several times, though no words come out at first. 

Twilight doesn’t know either of them, but they are both somehow achingly familiar. All at once, he’s hit by waves of homesickness and headache in tandem. 

While he’s trying to process these feelings, the archer finally manages to speak. His voice shakes, and he sounds like he might start crying at any moment.

“...Twilight?”

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Wrong Shade Ch. 5

Read it here on AO3!

Read parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 on Tumblr!

wordcount: 2612

--------

Warriors was right; of course he was. Sky wants to kick himself as he storms to the little shrine by the stream. 

He had been unfair to Legend. He’s aware of that. The Veteran hasn’t given up. Not really. Not fully. Not any more than any of them. They’re all handling this differently. But really, Sky is just so… fed up with the way that he seems to have already decided that finding Twilight is a lost cause. 

Sky cups some water in his hands and splashes it on his face.

In the time since Twilight went missing, every member of the Chain has taken on a lot. Late  nights. Early mornings. Desperate prayers, whispered when they thought no one was around, to goddesses that most of the others had lost faith in a long time ago. 

They’ve all been working hard. But right from the start, Warriors had taken the lion’s share. 

Among seven other voices, Warriors had been a pillar of sensibility and reason. 

Sky remembers it, clear as day.

They all stared at the wooden shield, abandoned on the forest floor. Sky wasn’t saying anything. Nobody was saying anything. The mud in the area was torn up and scuffed. Nobody was saying anything yet, but the black and reddish brown stains painted a pretty clear picture of what happened. Nobody wanted to say anything.

It wasn’t unusual for Twilight to disappear suddenly. Sometimes he’d be gone for hours, other times a day or two. One time, he was even gone for almost a whole week. 

But he always reappeared, equally suddenly, waving off their questions with vague explanations. 

But for all their pushing and prodding, they knew it was fine. Every member of the Chain had their quirks, and Time had never seemed worried about this one in particular, so they just shrugged it off. 

This was… not that. 

They’d been fighting Dark Link and a gaggle of his infected black blooded monsters. And against the monsters, they’d been doing well. They all knew what to do, and although it was time consuming to defeat stronger monsters, the Chain was steadily felling them. 

Warriors and Four had been fighting Dark Link. It wasn’t a fair fight, with the Shadow constantly vanishing just before they could hit him, and changing his shape to look like other members of the Chain. 

Then Twilight and Sky had finished off the group of moblins they’d been dealing with, and went to join Warriors and Four. All it took was one slash from the Master Sword, and Dark took one last deft swipe at the Captain before fleeing. 

Twilight broke away from Sky and started to run after him. “Pup, wait!” Time had shouted, cursing under his breath when he didn’t listen. “Wild, you stay here.”

“But–”

“Twilight can handle himself. He’ll find his way back to us, but we need your skills here.”

Wild hadn’t responded, but Sky hadn’t missed the way that the cook threw himself into the fight even harder, until every monster lay dead. Time had insisted that they wait where they were for Twilight. 

So they’d waited. 

And waited. 

And waited. 

Antiseptic was passed around, wounds were cleaned and wrapped, and still they waited. Still, Twilight did not return. By the time the sun was starting to set, the tension in the group had been thick enough to cut with a knife. Sky was about ready to go looking for Twilight right then and there, Time’s instructions be damned. 

Legend stood up, beating Sky to the punch. “It’s been too long. Twilight should be back by now. I don’t care what any of you have to say, I’m going looking for him.” He’d glared at the group, practically daring them to try and stop him, before turning on his heel.

“Hang on, I’m going with you. Something about this feels bad to me.” Sky had gotten to his feet, grabbed Fi, and joined the Veteran. Legend flashed him a small, appreciative look. 

“I’m coming too,” Hyrule said. “I can’t just sit here. Besides, it’s dangerous to go alone, even when you’re both heroes.”

After that, the others had quickly joined. They’d been silent as they followed the path of broken branches and footprints in the muck. Sky held the sword in front of him, only half-hoping to feel a tug from the blade that would tell him he was getting closer. There was none, predictably.

Wild wasn’t quite as good at tracking as the Rancher, or Fi, but he was no slouch either. He had just pushed through some bushes, when he stopped cold.

“What is it?” Sky had asked, pushing forwards alongside Legend. 

And that was when they’d found the shield, the Ordon shield, abandoned among the muddy signs of a fight. There was blood. There was… a lot of blood. 

And no sign of Twilight.

Nobody wanted to say anything. Particularly not the thing that they were all thinking. Nobody wanted to be the one to speak it into reality.

Then Wind let out a single stifled, hiccupy cry, and as Four grabbed the younger boy’s hand, the spell was broken, along with the silence.

Sky heard someone retching. Time, maybe? Hyrule? Yes, Hyrule. It was irrelevant. There was a bitter taste in the back of his throat, and he felt rather sick himself. He tried to keep his breathing under control, remembering the techniques that his instructors at the Knight Academy had taught him for conserving breath while riding his Loftwing. Slow, deep breathing. 

Nearly everyone was talking, all at once, caught up in a flurry of panic.

Time had been at the rear of the group, and since he’d come through the bushes, he had been totally still, fixed in place. Sky shakily made his way to where their usually unflappable leader stood. The ground felt as though it might give out under him. Time did not react. After only a moment of thought, Sky untied the sailcloth and draped it over Time’s shoulders. He jolted a little.

Wild stumbled forward, towards the shield. “We have to–” He gulped a little bit, clearly struggling for breath. He looked around, as though maybe Twilight was only hiding nearby, before he fell to his knees and took the shield. “We have to find him. He’s– he’s in danger, we have to find him. We– he’s–” 

“He’s dead.” Legend’s voice was flat and empty. He stood rooted to the same spot as he’d been in when Sky walked away, looking hard at the ground.

Sky’s blood froze. Beside him, Time stiffened. Hyrule pressed a hand to his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut. Wild let out a small close-mouthed scream from where he was kneeling. “...Don’t say that,” he whispered. 

“He’s dead, Wild,” Legend repeated, just as hollow as before. 

“Stop it, Vet.” Time’s voice was unsteady but firm. 

“He isn’t,” Hyrule mumbled, not sounding very sure.

“Come on. Think about it. If the Rancher were still alive, he would’ve come back by now.”

Sky glared at  Legend. “Twilight… disappears sometimes.”

Legend laughed, or maybe it was a sob. “Not like this though! Not after he takes off after Dark Link, not when he knows we’re all bound to be worried sick.”

“He wouldn’t have left his shield here either,” Wind said softly. “So– so then he really is–” The sailor’s ears and nose were reddening as he pulled at his bangs in distress. A few strands of blond hair came away in his hands. If he’d been there, Twilight would have told him that that was a bad habit, and gotten him to stop. As it was, Four just sort of half swept the sailor’s bangs behind his ears. 

Wild looked at the shield. “No, no, he’s not dead, he can’t be dead,” he said.

Warriors walked over to the champion, laying a hand on his shoulder. He looked at Legend. “Cut it out, Legend. Twilight’s not dead.”

Legend looked up. His face was blotchy and he looked empty and almost angry. “Really? You too?” The Veteran sounded almost betrayed. “I mean, I’m not surprised by the others, but you too, Captain?” He took a few steps closer, tears starting to roll down his cheeks. “You should– you should understand that sometimes people die, and wanting won’t fucking bring them back! They’re letting their feelings cloud the facts, but I thought you would know better! You’re supposed to be one of the rational ones, be rational!” 

Warriors stared, stunned for a moment before speaking. “He’s not dead, Legend, and we’d know if he was.”

Legend’s face went nearly as pink as his hair, and his mouth flapped open and shut. He took a deep breath, composing himself slightly. When he spoke again, his voice was more even, though it had a hard, incredulous edge to it. “We’d ‘know?’ We’d know? I’ll tell you what we know. Twilight ran off after Dark Link, who is dangerous, sadistic, and evil. He never came back. All that’s left of him is a bloodstain, and his shield, which was made by his family. Come on. You fought in a war. When someone you care about dies, there’s no feeling you get the moment their heart stops. Think about this logically.”

“I’m not being blindly optimistic, I’m thinking logically, Vet.” Warriors’ voice rose, and Sky had a feeling they were all listening. “If Twilight were dead, we would know, because Dark Link would have told us. Think about our enemy. Dark is sadistic. If he killed the Rancher, he wouldn’t have passed up on an opportunity to leverage his death to hurt our group’s morale. He would have taunted us as soon as Twilight was dead. It wouldn’t make sense to kill him, and then not tell us.”

“But his shield–”

“Is a bad sign, yes,” Warriors interrupted. He sighed. “We still don’t fully know what Dark wants. Dark is smart, and if he wants something from us, the life of one of our own would make a good bargaining chip. To do that, though, he needs Twilight alive. He’s probably holding him captive.” 

There was a moment of silence as the Captain’s words sunk in.

Time spoke up. “The Captain makes a good point. There’s no reason to assume that the Rancher is dead. At least, not before we see a body.” The thought seemed to pain him, but he had a determination in his eye.

Legend’s eyes widened, as some spark of hope came back to them. “And you believe that?” he asked. “Really?” He sounded uncertain, like he didn’t want to hope. 

Warriors had nodded as he went around to reassure each of them in turn. Sky had seen the shadow of doubt in his smile, but regardless, the Captain had continued to take on more and more responsibility. 

He’d been the one to suggest they find a base of operations. He’d suggested they ask for help beyond their little group, and when Wild informed Flora of the situation and she came to Kakariko to offer aid, he had been the one to tell her that they needed copies of reports and patrol logs from all over Hyrule. He showed them all how to read the reports. 

When Time left the village in the middle of the night to go looking for Twilight without a word to anybody, while the rest of them had been panicking, Warriors had gone out, found him at the bottom of a ravine with a sprained ankle, and brought him back.

Sky splashes some more water on his face. The Veteran has only gotten more sullen and snarky, taking cheap shots at everyone for no reason. It’s grating.

The Chosen Hero sighs, and looks at the small stone statue of Hylia. He touches two fingers to both of his shoulder blades one after the other, and bows his head. “O Goddess, guide and guardian, these words are for you. Let this prayer reach you swifter than any wings you have yet given to mortals. From your seat at the edge of time, I humbly ask for your guidance. O Goddess Hylia–” Sky’s voice breaks on the familiar words of the prayer. “–I beseech you, hear me,” he finishes, rushing through the last part a bit. “Hylia, I–” he falters before trying again. “Zelda. Please. I still don’t know what to do. Twilight is still gone. We’re not any closer to finding him. We’re running out of ideas, we can all feel it. So please. Please, just guide me in some way. I’ve done so much for you, and I would do it again. I’m not asking for much, just… send me a sign. Say something. Anything.” He feels the tears running down his face, and he looks back up at the stone figure of the Goddess. 

The statue does not respond.

Sky drops his head into his hands, sighing.

“...has she ever actually answered you, when you’ve done that?” Sky jumps, whirling around at the sound of Legend’s voice. The other hero stands at the foot of the small wooden dock, shifting back and forth on his feet. His tone is soft, with little vitriol in it.

Sky wipes his eyes. “I didn’t know you were listening,” he says in what he hopes is a neutral tone. He lets his feet dangle in the pond.

Legend sits next to him, an expression of caution on his face. “Yeah, I uh– I finished that lap the Captain had me do,” he says awkwardly. He looks so much smaller than normal. They sit in tense, awkward silence for a long while. 

Sky should apologize. He really should. What he’d said had been rude, and uncalled for, an overreaction.

“What was that bit at the beginning?” Legend asks suddenly.

“What?”

“That bit at the beginning of your prayer. It sounded like you were reciting.”

“Oh, yeah. That.” Sky’s face flushes a bit. He knows Legend doesn’t care for the Goddesses, Hylia in particular. He’ll probably just make some snarky joke about it. “I was reciting it, yeah. It’s… it’s a prayer you use when you want to talk to Hylia.” He looks away.

“Oh. I’ve never heard that one before,” is all Legend says.

Sky blinks in surprise. He’d been bracing for a quip, but not that. “Oh. Huh. Well, it is a prayer from Skyloft, so maybe it doesn’t get used anymore.”

“Mm. Maybe.”

They’re both walking on eggshells still. After a moment of silence, Sky takes a deep breath. “Look, about what I said before–”

“Does she ever answer?” Legend interrupts. 

“I– does she– what?” Sky splutters. He’s just trying to apologize.

“You said that prayer of yours is for talking to Hylia. Has she ever answered you?” The other hero stares intently at one of the torches.

Sky studies him. The way his lip trembles. The way the skin around his eyes is red. The way he’s clearly been crying. He sighs, and looks back at the statue. “I can’t say for sure,” he answers honestly.

“Hmph.” There’s no triumph in his harrumph. Mostly just disappointment.

“I like to think so.” 

“Wouldn’t that be nice.” Legend kicks his feet, the toes of his boots making ripples on the surface of the water. 

Sky stands, looking down at Legend. “Look, I’m s-” Legend raises an eyebrow, and Sky sighs. “I think I’m calm. I’m going to head back now.” It’s a clear unspoken invitation.

“Okay,” Legend says. “If he asks, you can tell the Captain I’ll be back soon. I still have some thinking I want to do.”

After a moment, Sky nods, and starts walking back to the house. He has reports to annotate. 

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Wrong Shade Ch. 3

Read parts 1 and 2 on Tumblr here!

Read it here on ao3!

Wordcount: 3284

----------

It hasn’t quite been three weeks yet, but Twilight feels like he’s traveled with Time for months. 

Not much of note has happened in these past few weeks. They’ve found camp upon camp of monsters. There have been ruined villages and settlements. 

In a nice turn of events, Time has recently stopped fighting Twilight about taking a watch, a nightly battle that Twilight thought was particularly stupid (“You can’t expect you’ll be in top form if you’re staying up all night every night!”), though Twilight still has yet to convince Time to take the earlier watch (“I don’t mind being awake later at night, Pup. Besides, it’s the worse shift anyways.”). Oh well. The old man can’t do this forever. 

Though, Twilight has to admit, Time does seem to like being awake late at night. He always seems to be already awake when Twilight goes to get him up for second watch. On the handful of occasions that he’s tried to let Time sleep a little bit longer, Time has promptly and silently come up behind him, clapped a hand on his shoulder, and told him in no uncertain terms that it’s time to swap. So for now, Twilight will concede on this point. For now, at least. 

Something is odd, though. In the last few weeks, they’ve come across signs of Hylian civilization in the past, but nothing outside of ruins. Not a single person. 

The pair have been walking down a dirt road in comfortable silence for a while, when Twilight decides to bring up one of the things that has been bothering him.

“Time?” 

“Yes, Pup?”

“Do you think we’re alone here, wherever here is?”

The older hero pauses, looking thoughtful. “I don’t know. Quite possibly.”

Twilight slouches a bit, clearly hoping for a different answer. “Oh. I hope that we’re not. I don’t know. This place is… I don’t know. I’d hate to think that there’s no one else here.”

Time ruffles his hair. “What, is my company not good enough for you?” he asks, an expression of mock hurt on his face.

Twilight chuckles and shakes his head. He brushes a bit of stray hair away from his eyes. “No, no, that’s not what I meant,” he says. “I just meant to say…” he trails off. “It’s strange, that’s all.” 

“I would say that it’s not so strange,” Time counters. “This place looks like it’s been through hell. Maybe nobody survived whatever happened here.”

“Maybe. But I’ve been thinking. About that portal. Where… where I come from, the Hero of Time is– I mean, you are– you’re n​​ot. Alive, anymore.” He looks down, biting the inside of his cheek and trying to choose his next words carefully. “And you haven’t been for a long while. So for you to be standing here, in the flesh, talking to me, then something’s screwy. If the Goddess brought two heroes together, there has to be a reason. She wouldn’t have pulled us away from our homes, our lives, our– our families,” his voice cracks a bit, “she wouldn’t do that just for us to fight bokoblins and lizalfos.”

“I wish I could say I have your same confidence in her.” Time puts a hand on Twilight’s shoulder. “But in my experience, Hylia doesn’t need a reason, and even when she has one, it rarely makes any sense.” 

“I know, I know.” The younger hero chews on the inside of his cheek again, hard enough to taste blood this time. He winces. You should be setting a better example, he scolds himself. “For me though, thinking that she does have a reason, it helps. Y’know?” He pulls his fur pelt closer around his shoulders. The familiar weight and warmth of it is a small comfort to the ranch hand. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I do know. And I’m sorry, Pup. But hey. Look at me. Look at my eye.” Time puts his hands on either side of Twilight’s face, and he meets Time’s bright red eye. “We’ll figure this out, okay? We will figure this out.”

Twilight nods, feeling just a little bit better. “Right. We will.”

“What’s that?” Twilight squints at the structure rising up over the trees. 

“What’s what?”

“Well if I knew, I wouldn’t be asking, now would I?” Twilight responds, rolling his eyes. “And I’m talking about that.” He points at the unidentified thing. 

“My eye isn’t as good as yours are,” Time reminds him.

Twilight sighs. “Hang on.” The hero roots around in his bag for a few minutes before finding and triumphantly holding up the object he was looking for. 

Time’s eyebrows go up. “A mask? What does it do?”

Twilight smiles. “It’s called the hawkeye. It lets me see things that are further away really clearly.” He puts it on, taking a moment to refocus the lenses. “Let’s see…” He scans the sea of trees until he once again finds the object of his interest. “It looks sort of like a horse head,” he says. “Like a strange horse head.” He slides the hawkeye off his face, stowing it safely away in his bag. “That ringing any bells?” he asks.

Time shakes his head. “None whatsoever.”

“We should check it out,” Twilight says. “It looks manmade, so maybe someone’s there.” He’s unable to keep the hope from his voice at the prospect of finding someone, anyone else. 

“Maybe.” Time squints and his lips are pursed. His thinking face. “I know that look. What’re you thinking, Old Man?” 

The older hero hesitates, shaking his head. “It’s nothing.”

Twilight frowns slightly. “No, it’s not nothing. What’s on your mind?”

His mentor sighs. “It could be other people, yes,” he starts. “But it’s not familiar to either of us. There haven’t been any signs of civilization so far. Who knows what we’ll find there? Even if there are other people, how do we know that they’re friendly?” He sees the way Twilight’s face falls, and hurries on. “I’m not saying that it’s definitely dangerous, just that it could be.”

“...that makes sense, but I still want to go,” Twilight says. “It’s worth it to look. We can handle a little danger, I can handle a little danger.”

Time pinches the bridge of his nose. “We can’t just rush in blindly.”

“Then I can scout ahead,” Twilight offers.

“Absolutely not. Not by yourself,” Time says firmly. He sighs. “Okay, how about this? You wait here, and I’ll go and scout ahead. Does that sound like a plan?”

Twilight shakes his head, suddenly feeling offended. “No it doesn’t ‘sound like a plan,’” he argues. “I understand that you don’t want me to get hurt, but I don’t want you throwing yourself into potential danger either! You’re able to get hurt, same as me.” The rancher stares the Hero of Time down until the older man looks away. “Give me say… half an hour, and if I’m not back by then, you can come looking for me. Is that more amenable?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Twenty. That’s the best you’re going to get.”

“Fine. Twenty minutes.”

Time smiles. “I’ll be back soon, don’t you worry.” The hero vanishes into the trees, and Twilight sits down on a nearby rock, waiting. He gets bored of doing nothing pretty quickly. 

“I wonder if there’s any horse grass around here,” he muses aloud. He stands up, deciding to pass the time by looking for some. If he did find horse grass, what would he even do with it? Wherever he is, Epona is almost certainly too far away to hear him. He misses her. He looks around, parting the grass to look for the horseshoe shaped plant that’s so abundant back home.

Twilight doesn’t find any horse grass, though he does find a few mushrooms. 

As he goes to sit back down, resigning himself to spending the next six and a half minutes doing nothing, a pop of bright blue catches his eye. He goes over to it and sits down to better see. It’s a bright blue and white flower. He’s fairly certain that he’s never seen it before, but a part of him feels like he should know the name of the flower. 

It’s so delicate looking, he thinks, though he knows that the little plant is much hardier than it looks.

“What’re you looking at?” Twilight jumps when he hears the grating voice of his mentor.

“You’re back,” he says, feeling relieved. “And I’m just looking at a flower. It’s pretty.”

Time peers over Twilight’s shoulder. He hums in agreement. “Yeah.”

Twilight sits up straighter. “So how did the scouting go?” he asks eagerly. “What did you find?”

“It’s safe,” Time says. “It’s a stable. There’s a handful of Hylians, but none of them looked particularly dangerous.”

Twilight absolutely beams. He stands up, brushing the loose dirt off his tunic. “What are we waiting for?” he asks, already walking in the direction of the stable. 

Time grabs his arm. “Listen, they didn’t look dangerous to me, but still be cautious, alright? This is the first group of other people we’ve come across. We still don’t know how things are done here.”

Twilight nods, tugging his arm free. “I understand, I’ll be careful.”

The pair head towards the stable, Twilight barely managing to keep from breaking into a run. On the breeze, he can hear a familiar tune being played on an accordion. He cocks his head, puzzled. “That sounds like the song I play on the horse grass,” he says to Time.

Time’s brow furrows. “Horse grass?” he asks.

“Horse grass. It’s this plant back home, it looks like horseshoes. When you blow into it a certain way, it sounds like music. I trained Epona, my horse, to come when I blew into it.”

“Huh.”

When the stable is in sight, Twilight breathes a sigh of relief. 

It’s a building, an intact one. There are people milling around. He sees horses, and goats, and he takes a deep breath in. The air smells like hay and grass and farm animals. It smells like being back home. 

He walks toward the open entrance of the stable. Something nudges at the back of his leg. Twilight looks down, and his heart melts on the spot. It’s a dog. He immediately crouches down, petting it with one hand and scratching it between the ears with the other. 

“Oh, who’s a good boy? You’re a good boy, yes you are,” he says, smiling wide. The dog lies down and rolls onto his back, content to be given affection. He turns to Time. “Hey Time, you didn’t tell me there was a dog!” he says. “You were holding out on me.”

“I didn’t know,” Time says, holding up his hands defensively.

“Suuure you didn’t.” Twilight rolls his eyes and beckons his mentor over. “C’mere.” Time takes a step towards Twilight and the dog and Twilight feels the dog tense up. He frowns. “Something wrong, boy?” he asks. The dog growls, flipping over. Twilight follows the animal’s fierce gaze to Time. He continues petting the dog in an attempt to placate him, but to no avail.

“What is it, Pup?” Time asks. 

“I don’t know, he was being so friendly just a minute ago.” Twilight’s slight frown deepens. “I don’t think he likes you for some reason.”

Time takes another step forward, and the dog springs to his feet, barking at the older hero. The dog moves to stand between the two of them. Twilight recognizes the animal’s posture as a protective, defensive stance that he knows he’s used more than once as a wolf. “Time, I think you should back off,” Twilight says with quiet urgency. 

“What?”

“He sees you as a threat right now. So don’t antagonize him further, and without making any sudden movements, back. Off.”

Time nods, taking a step back. The dog growls, though not as aggressively. 

“Little more,” Twilight says, slowly reaching over to start petting him again.

Time takes a few more steps back, the dog is almost calm again, and Twilight breathes a sigh. 

Crack. 

Time looks down at the twig that snapped under his boot, as the dog starts barking with a new fury. 

“Medi! Down!” shouts a sharp, shrill voice. The dog, Medi, whimpers as he lies down. A young Hylian woman comes over. “I’m so sorry about him. I swear he’s not usually like that,” she apologizes. She frowns at the animal. “What’s gotten into you?” she scolds. 

Time chuckles, and comes over to stand next to the young woman. Medi growls at him, and Time not-so-subtly steps away from the dog. “It’s quite alright. I think I spooked him a bit.”

“Still. He usually has much better manners than that. Neither one of you is hurt, right?”

“Nah, I don’t think this little guy would hurt anyone,” Twilight says, even though he’s nearly positive that the dog was absolutely going to bite Time if no one had intervened. He gives Medi one more fond scritch between the ears and stands up. 

The woman laughs. “Well I don’t know about that. But anyways, welcome to the Dueling Peaks Stable. Sorry about the rough welcome.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Time says. “If you don’t mind, we’re a little lost, can you tell me a bit more about where we are?”

“Of course!”

The two of them start chatting. Twilight walks off to go and see who else there is to talk to. There’s a large blue bird man, though he seems very engrossed in playing his accordion, and Twilight doesn’t want to disturb him. There’s a child sleeping under a tree. Then he sees a strange looking man with a massive beetle shaped backpack sitting inside. Twilight walks over to him before realizing that he has no idea how to start a conversation with this man without sounding like he’s never held a conversation in his life. 

He tries for a simple greeting. “Hey!”

The man smiles a toothy smile. “Hey yourself! I don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance yet! My name is Beedle, but you can call me–” He stops, looking Twilight up and down. “Heeeey, come to think of it, I have made your acquaintance already! Why didn’t you say something when I was introducing myself?”

Twilight blinks. “Um. No, I think you’ve got me confused with someone else, sorry. But it’s nice to meet you, Beedle.”

Beedle laughs. “Don’t be silly, Beedle neeever forgets a customer’s face!”

Twilight laughs, a little bit uncomfortable. “I’m not from around here. Maybe I’ve got some sort of lookalike, and you met him.”

Beedle squints at him. “Hmmmmm… No! I haven’t seen face markings like yours on anybody except for, well. You!”

Twilight has to admit that that’s difficult to argue with. The face markings left by his wolf transformation are rather… distinctive. But it doesn’t make sense. “Are you sure it wasn’t just someone who looked like me?”

“Oh, very sure! You were traveling in a big group with one of Beedle’s favorite customers!”

Twilight squints. What is he talking about? He looks over to Time. “Favorite customer? Do you mean–” 

“No, not him, but he was in the group as well! I remember! You all bought arrows from me!” Beedle says. 

“That’s not ringing a bell, sorry,” Twilight says, deciding that he would probably have been better off disturbing the bird-man-thing playing the accordion than this strange man with his strange bug shaped backpack. He gets up. “Well, it was nice chatting with you, but I have to go.” 

“Byyyye! Please come again sometime!” Beedle waves.

Twilight hurriedly walks away. He walks around to the back of the stable, and deftly hops into the pen with all the goats and sheep. He looks at one of the goats, and sighs. “Some people, I tell ya.” The goat stares at him in response.

He sits down on the ground, his back against a bale of hay, continuing to commiserate with the livestock. “I had some real weirdos back home too though. It takes all sorts, I guess. At least he was friendly. Crazy, but friendly.”

Medi lays down at Twilight’s feet, and he relaxes, shutting his eyes. It’s been a long day, and after a few minutes, he dozes off. 

He briefly wakes again several hours later when he feels movement next to him. He cracks open his eyes to see Time settling in alongside him. Twilight makes a face. “Why’re you all wet?” he whispers.

“Shh. I fell into the creek, just go back to sleep,” Time whispers back.

Twilight chuckles, and drifts off again, feeling right at home in the hay.

After talking to the owner of the stable’s daughter for a little while, the older man politely excuses himself from the conversation. He looks around. At first, he doesn’t see Twilight anywhere, but that’s okay. He wouldn’t have left, not without telling Time. He takes a moment to think like the rancher might.

He walks around the stable. He sees the young hero, sound asleep. He doesn’t look much like a hero right now. Just an ordinary farm boy. The armored man smiles. The kid will be out cold for a little while yet. He walks into the woods. He needs a place to unwind, and the stable, with the people and the music and that dog, aren’t going to do it for him. 

He walks in the shadows of the trees until he’s gone far enough that he can no longer hear the Rito musician. He relaxes, insofar as he can relax, until he hears a noise. Whoever it is is trying to conceal their presence, but he hears them. He recomposes himself.

“I know you’re there. Show yourself.”

A man wearing white clothes with red trim steps out of the shadows. He wears a cloth over his mouth and noise to muffle his breathing, and his outfit has a stylized eye with a single teardrop, the symbol of the Sheikah. The man is apologetic. “I’m sorry, Master Time, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The one eyed man holds up a hand. “It’s quite alright,” he says. It’s the same tone he used earlier, when the woman apologized for her dog.

The Sheikah squints. “I did not realize that you had already left again. I thought you were still in Kakariko with Lady Impa.”

“What can I say? I like to move quickly.”

“I understand. Any luck finding him, sir?”

He feels a stab of irritation. So this wasn’t a chance encounter. He smiles. “Yes, actually.”

The man’s eyes widen. “Really? That’s– that’s great news! Where is he?”

“Back at a little camp I set up. I’ve been bringing him to Kakariko, but he’s exhausted.” “Well but that’s spectacular! I shall alert Lady Impa and the others at once!” As he turns to return to his village, the Sheikah man feels a hand on his shoulder. 

“Actually, since you’re here, I was hoping that you could help. If we work together, we can get him back to the village in half the time.”

The Sheikah feels a growing sense of unease. “Alright. Lead the way.”

A few hours later, the hero returns to the stable. He’s soaked with river water. He finds Twilight in the same place as when he left, although the dog has gone somewhere else. He removes his armor. He goes over to where the rancher lies, and starts to settle in. 

Twilight wakes up.

“Why’re you all wet?” he asks in a still half asleep whisper.

He gently shushes the boy. “I fell into the creek, just go back to sleep,” he reassures.

Beside him, Twilight half chuckles. It doesn’t take long for his breathing to even out, and he’s asleep once again.

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Wrong Shade Ch. 2

Read the previous chapter here!

Read it here on ao3!

Word count: 1647

————

“What happened here?”

Twilight stands amidst the ruins of what looks like a village. It isn’t the first place Time and Twilight have seen like this in the week and a half since they’ve started traveling together, but this one feels different. The other places were two or three demolished buildings. This was a simple village, once built on a small lake, now totally destroyed. Where were they? Where had that portal brought him?

He looks to Time, whose face is as impassive and unreadable as ever. “I don’t know.”

Twilight takes a few halting steps forward, water splashing. He walks through the remnants of a wall of a wrecked house, running his fingers along the splintered, waterlogged wood. Whatever happened here clearly happened a long time ago, but it still makes him sad. He doesn’t know the name of this place, but he mourns it anyway.

As he wanders the village, he hears splashing and guttural noises and sees a couple of the strange lizalfos​ that seem typical for whatever region this is.

A low, canine growl rumbles in his throat. Seeing the monsters splashing around, downright gleeful in their- their desecration of the site of this tragedy, Twilight feels a sudden burst of rage flare up in his chest. He draws his sword.

“Are you wanting to take care of them?”

Twilight jumps. He hadn’t even heard Time’s approach. He huffs out a sigh. “Sheesh, Old Man, you’re going to give me a heart attack if you keep doing that.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

Twilight’s face grows serious. “But to answer your question, yes.”

Time nods. “Alright. Let’s do it, then.”

They start to creep up on the reptilian monsters, but Twilight stumbles a little, and they’ve been spotted.

Twilight swings his sword, but the lizalfos quickly darts backwards and lunges forward with its spear. The hero just manages to dodge, and wishes, not for the first time, that he hadn’t lost the Ordon Shield at some point between falling through the portal and waking up. Even beyond its practical defensive purpose, Twilight knew the feel of it so well. Having a little piece of home with him might have brought him some measure of comfort in all the turbulence of the past couple of weeks.

Of the monsters he’s encountered so far, these lizalfos might be his least favorite. They’re fast, and with their frog-like tongue, they don’t necessarily need to close the distance in order to attack. What they are is annoying.

He glances over at Time to see how his mentor is faring. Unsurprisingly, far better than Twilight. He fights with a ruthless intensity, his heavy armor apparently doing nothing to slow him down as he carves through enemies. He makes eye contact with Twilight and grins wickedly.

“Having trouble over there, Pup?” It’s a clear taunt, though it doesn’t hold any real malice behind it.

Twilight rolls his eyes. “In your dreams,” he snarks back. He rolls out of the way of the lizalfos’s strike to position himself behind the monster and slices it with his sword. It lets out a horrible screech of pain, and Twilight manages to get a few more solid strikes in.

He takes a few hits himself, though nothing too serious. The water at their feet grows murky with blood and the silt that their movements kick up, until the reptilian monster falls dead at his feet.

Twilight jumps at the last lizalfos, as Time finishes killing the one he’d been fighting. The monster jumps away from Twilight’s blade, which only manages to nick it a bit.

“Aw, you almost had him,” Time croons.

“I know,” Twilight says through gritted teeth as he tries to close the distance between them. He swings his sword in a wide arc before jumping to the side.

As he does so, the lizalfos darts forward. It slashes into his right shoulder and the rancher hisses in pain. He knows it’s his own fault though; he should’ve been doing a better job of guarding that side of his body.

Before it can land another hit, Twilight recovers himself. The moment it’s in range, he unsheathes his blade, his sword piercing clean through its chest and going straight out the other side.

The mortal draw, he thinks to himself with satisfaction. He remembers the firm voice of his teacher passing the sword skill onto him, the way the Hero’s Shade– the way that Time’s voice had echoed in his skull. Alive, his mentor’s voice isn’t exactly the same as it is in death (as it is? as it was? as it will be?). It’s raspier, with more of an edge to it than Twilight is used to, but it’s still recognizable as his. And besides, Twilight can’t really find it in himself to fault the other hero for not sounding the same as he did when he was dead.

He’s jolted out of his thoughts when Time claps a hand to his shoulder, smiling that sharp, shrew smile of his. “Oh, well done!”

The younger hero hisses, wincing in pain as the fresh injury is irritated. “Careful,” he gets out, biting the inside of his cheek. You are such a hypocrite, you know that’s a bad habit, some part of his brain scolds, sounding very much like some petulant teenager.

Time’s eye widens and he picks up his hand immediately. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry. Are you alright?”

Twilight nods. “It’s fine, I’m okay. I’ll probably wrap and clean it later, but it’s not too bad,” he says, smiling.

Time studies him for a moment, before he sighs and looks away. “Alright. Still. That was a bit of a close one for you there at the end, don’t you think?”

Twilight shakes his head. “I knew what I was doing,” he says simply. He looks down at his tunic, at the proud green garb that the hero in front of him had once worn. “It’s one of the swordsmanship techniques that my teacher taught me.”

When he looks up again, Time is studying him with an expression Twilight can’t quite place, but that almost looks like anger. But Time smiles at him, and the odd expression evaporates so quickly that Twilight almost wonders if it had ever been there to begin with.

“You must have had a great teacher, then. That was very impressive.”

Twilight feels a sudden bout of sadness and guilt. He nods slowly. “…yeah,” is all he says, at a loss for words. How is he supposed to look Time in the eye and lie about what he knows? But then… how can he tell his mentor the truth either?

In the end, he says nothing, just cleans off his sword and resheathes it. The pair start walking, silently for a while.

Not too far off, Twilight can see twin mountains. It almost looks like they’d been a single mountain at one point before being split down the middle. The expansive forests go on for miles. When they aren’t fighting monsters, it’s so peaceful here. If she were here, Ilia would love all the different animals.

And if the Ordon kids were here, there had been a few spots that would be perfect to fish at with Colin. He’d really grown in the past year, becoming bolder, and unafraid to speak his mind. Twilight couldn’t be more proud of him. Talo would love it here too, though Twilight would probably have to keep hold of the boy by the back of his shirt to prevent him from running towards an adventure. Oh, but Talo’s a good kid. All of them are, even if each one of them is a reckless little wild child in their own special way.

At that thought, Twilight feels a sudden pang of sadness in his chest. He glances behind him, not entirely sure what it is he’s checking for. There’s nothing of particular note, and he feels a little foolish because of course there isn’t. What was he expecting to see, two heads of blond and brown hair, darting between trees even after he told them they needed to stay on the path? …Goddesses, he misses them. He misses his friends, no, his family. He needs to find his way back to them soon, even if he doesn’t have the first idea of how to do that. He will.

“That fight was a good fight,” Time says suddenly.

Twilight blinks, snapping back into the present. “Huh?”

“That fight, it felt good, didn’t it?”

Twilight raises a hand to the shoulder he still needs to wrap. “Uh…” He makes a face. “No, not really.”

Time shakes his head, laughing. “No, no, I’m not talking about your injury, Pup. What I meant was, didn’t it feel good once you were in the thick of it, once you knew you would beat them, and then you did? Once you knew that you were going to make sure that place was left alone?” He smiles.

His one eye fixes Twilight on with a piercing stare, and the younger hero has the distinct sense that he’s being tested or judged in some way.

Twilight thinks for a moment, scratching the back of his head. “I don’t know. I mean… I was glad when the fight was over, but I didn’t so much enjoy the fighting, if that makes sense.”

There is the briefest flicker of mostly concealed disappointment on Time’s face, and Twilight scrambles to save the situation. “But– but it did feel satisfying to know that I was doing good, and– and destroying evil. That part felt good.”

“You make a good hero, Pup.” Time says fondly, a smile of approval on his face.

He ruffles Twilight’s hair, and Twilight feels pride swell up in his chest. He still needs to find a way back to his family back in Ordon, but for now, this family right here is pretty good.

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Wizzrobes:

(Madun Magi)

Diet: Wizzrobes do not appear to eat anything

Description: Magic-wielding monsters which are as dangerous as they are jovial. The latter half of their name seems to come from the colorful robes they wear. They are the only monsters which seems to wear fine robes such as these. Where did they get them?

They do not seem angry in the way that most other monsters do. Instead, they act with a glee that is almost childlike. When they see you, they give an excited wave before vanishing. Their movements are reminiscent of a game of tag. Attacking seems almost like playing to them, rather than an act of malice. Even when not attacking, they do not rest, instead dancing in circles. Their energy is truly boundless, although if a significant attack is done to one, it will pause a moment to catch its breath. You can hear it heaving, practically hear the request for a time out.

They do not have any sort of community, though it is not uncommon for Wizzrobes to be found close to each other. Some Wizzrobes have been reported to summon other monsters. Even then, they do not interact with those summoned monsters, but they do it even outside of combat. It’s almost like parallel play. Are they lonely, I wonder? They seem happy, like children playing. Why do they not play with each other?

What might the mind of a Wizzrobe be like…? To push beyond one’s limits, beyond any rational thought? To be young, and playful, and obsessed. To be driven to gain more knowledge, more magic, more childhood? Do they experience wonder? They are so like children, I cannot help compare the two. I wonder if they are at all lonely. They are so close to Hylians, and yet so far.

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Wrong Shade Chapter 1

Wordcount: 1738

Read it here on ao3!

———

Link wakes up in a forest that is not one he knows, to the sound of someone humming a tune that he’d only ever heard howled. He sits bolt upright, eyes wide, only to feel a sharp pain in his side.

“Careful now,” says a nearby voice. The voice has a sharp, grating edge to it, and he almost thinks he recognizes it. “You’re still injured.”

He jolts, looking around for the source of the voice, and sees a tall figure, shrouded in the shadows cast by the trees.

Link instinctively reaches for his sword, only to find it missing. He looks around, feeling a lump of panic growing in his chest. Where was he? Where was his sword? What happened? He’s completely defenseless, shit! He pats his chest, and relaxes the tiniest bit when he feels the familiar lump of the shadow crystal. Not completely defenseless then. A low growl escapes his throat, a warning to the mysterious stranger that he somehow knows is an enemy.

“Where. Is. My. Sword?”

“Whoa there! Take it easy,” the stranger chuckles, holding up their hands. “Your weapon’s just over there. I don’t mean you any harm.” They turn to face him, and as they turn, Link sees a single red eye. They step into the light, and the young hero catches his breath.

Link knows this man.

He knows the tune that brings him a sense of peace every time he howls it. He knows the singular red eye, now set into a face of flesh and blood. He knows the ornate golden armor, pristine and untarnished by the passage of time. He knows the Hero’s Shade, the ghostly mentor who taught him so much of what he knew about not just swordsmanship, but being a hero.

And here he is, alive and well. How? How is he not dead? Is… is Link dead?

Link can’t help but to stare. His former mentor is older than him, with choppy, ash blond hair that frames a scarred face with strange markings. One of his eyes is closed, with a long, thin scar running across his eyelid. His other eye, deep red, looks him up and down with a mix of interest and something else, something that Link can’t quite place. Satisfaction, maybe?

“Sorry,” Link mumbles, scratching the back of his head, a bit embarrassed. “You just spooked me a bit.”

The older man chuckles. “No, no, if anything, I’m the one who should be apologizing. I should have anticipated that you’d be skittish. You woke up in an unfamiliar place, your weapon is gone, and you don’t know me.”

But I do, is all that Link can think. I do know you. “It’s fine,” he manages to muster up.

The very-much-not-a-shade moves over to what looks like the remnants of a campfire and sits down, adding some tinder and kindling to the firepit. “Are you alright? I’ll admit, when I saw you take that hit and go down the way you did, I was a bit worried.”

Link doesn’t remember taking a hit. He thinks back, trying to remember. He’d been in Faron Woods. Queen Zelda had asked him to go there to check up on reports of particularly strong monsters in the area. When he’d arrived, he’d found monsters he didn’t even recognize, and the ones he did recognize were far more powerful than they should have been.

By the time he’d taken care of them, it was dark, and he was in a part of the woods that he was unfamiliar with. He’d wandered around for a bit as a Hylian before transforming into his wolf form. Even with his enhanced senses, there hadn’t been any familiar scents for him to pick up on. He’d continued to wander until he heard a strange sound, and followed it to its source, that being a massive swirling vortex of dark purple. Smelling the foul scent of the black blood inside, he’d only hesitated briefly before jumping in.

And then… and then nothing. And then he’d woken up here, recovering from an injury that he had no memory of acquiring. And hadn’t he been a wolf when he went through the portal? At what point in the interim did he transform back? Did his non-spectral mentor see?

The thoughts race through Link’s head a mile a minute. He looks at the older Hylian. “How- how long have I been out?” he asks shakily.

“About three days, now. I was starting to lose hope that you were going to wake up at all.”

“Three days?!” Link’s eyes bulge out of their sockets. He runs fingers through his hair, trying to wrap his head around it.

The man nods. “Mhm. It would’ve been faster if I’d managed to find a fairy, but you know how they are. Not too fond of Hylians, and very good at hiding.” He sighs, and an expression that’s a bit more scowl than wry smile flashes across his face. “Sorry.”

Link shakes his head. “No, no, it’s fine. Thank you. You saved my life. I owe you one.” He stretches, wincing at the way the movement pulls at the injury on his side. Bracing himself on the ground with his hands, he stands up, swaying on his feet and stumbling a bit.

A pair of cold hands grab onto his forearms, steadying him. “Careful, you’re going to hurt yourself even more!” he laughs.

“Sorry, sorry,” Link laughs, shrugging off the other’s grip and standing up straighter once he has his balance. “Goddesses, if I keep going like this, you’ll be watching out for me forever!”

The armored Hylian thinks. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

“What, having to watch out for me even longer?”

“No, no. Well, sort of. You seem like a capable young man. You don’t know this land, but neither do I. We could travel together, at least for the time being, watch out for one another.”

“I think that that sounds like a good idea to me.” Link smiles and extends a hand. “I’m Link, by the way. I forgot to mention that.”

The other man snorts as he shakes Link’s hand. “Well that’s a bit awkward. I’m also named Link. And,” he looks Link up and down. “I think those are my old clothes you’re wearing.”

Link looks down, remembering what the light spirit told him about his tunic, how it had belonged to the hero before him, the great hero who traveled across time to vanquish evil, whom he’d grown up listening to stories about. This is proof, then. The one standing before him really is his mentor. He blinks a few times, barely keeping the tremor out of his voice. “You’re-”

“The Hero of Time? Yes.” The hero’s face has a dark scowl. “Nice to meet you, Link.” He sighs. “That’s going to get confusing really fast.”

Link’s eyes are wide as the living legend stands up. He remembers the title that Zelda had given him in the throne room when they returned to the palace, unknown to everyone except for the two of them and her closest advisors. “I’m the Hero of Twilight,” he offers. “Maybe we could use our titles?”

The other Link ponders for a moment. “Time and Twilight?” he muses aloud. “Yeah, that has a nice ring to it.”

Twilight smiles warmly. “Well then, it’s nice to meet you, Time. I’m Twilight.”

Time smiles back. “Nice to meet you too, Twilight. It’s nice to meet you too.”

They start to prepare dinner. It’s strange. Sitting by the fire next to Time, preparing a meal, it feels natural. The motions of it come easily to Twilight, his hands moving before he can fully think through what he wants them to do, like they’ve done this a hundred times.

In just a few minutes, he’s cleaned the first squirrel. He passes it to the right without looking up, only to pause for a moment. He blinks twice in confusion, and chuckles at himself. Time is sitting to Twilight’s left. Din’s tits, he’s off his game today. Still, making mistakes when he lets muscle memory take over is nothing new. He shakes his head, and moves on to the next squirrel. The two of them sit in amiable silence, each thinking their own thoughts.

By the time they’ve sat down to eat the small gamey squirrels that Time caught, the sun is nearly gone. He takes a bite, and it’s just okay, but that isn’t really the first thing on his mind. This is crazy. His mentor, the Hero of Time, who’d previously been dead, is sitting next to him, alive and well. There are still so many questions left unanswered, like where he is, what led to his injury, what the portal was, and how Time could possibly be alive. And he will get to the bottom of things. But this late, he’s unlikely to find any answers.

“We should sleep in shifts,” Twilight says once they’ve finished eating. “I can take the late night shift.”

Time shakes his head. “You can be resting. You need to recover.”

Twilight makes a face. “I feel fine, old man. I’d feel worse if I let you not get any sleep, especially after you’ve been taking care of me for the last three days.”

Time raises his eyebrows. “I’ll be alright. You need the sleep more than I do.” In the dimming light of the fire, the older hero somehow seems more intimidating. His red eye, unblinking, is a bit unnerving to the younger hero. Even though Twilight knows it’s just a trick of the firelight, the way it almost seems to glow in the darkness still sets his teeth on edge. But he stands his ground.

“I want to take watch.”

Time narrows his eye, but sighs, apparently caving. “Kids these days,” he mutters. “Fine. But you take the first watch. The later shift is worse.”

“I can handle it.”

“That’s the best offer you’re going to get, Pup. Take it or leave it.”

“...Fine. I’ll take it.”

As Time lies down away from the fire, Twilight relaxes a bit. This feels right.

His shift is uneventful, and by the time he wakes up his mentor for the late night watch, Twilight has almost managed to shake the prickling feeling on the back of his neck that’s been following him since he woke up.

Things are going to be good, he thinks.

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Wrong Shade Ch. 4

Read Chapters 1, 2, and 3 on Tumblr!

read it on AO3 here!

word count: 1499

-------

Wind wakes up to the sun in his eyes and sits bolt upright, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He shoves aside the thick, downy comforter he and Four have been sleeping on top of since they came to stay in Kakariko. The other hero is nowhere to be seen. Nor is anyone else, for that matter. Why had the others let him sleep so late? From down the hall, he can hear muted conversation. The sailor stands up, stretches, and hurries into the other room.

“Did the Champion leave already?” he asks, counting five heroes currently poring over the various maps, books, and the field reports from five different peoples, which have been spread out to cover every surface of the room, including most of the floor.

They all look up when he speaks.

“Morning, Sailor,” Four says. “And yeah, he left pretty early.”

“Actually, I don’t think he ever came back last night,” Legend remarks as Wind carefully weaves his way around the Zora patrol logs from last week to get to the cabinet with food in it. “If he did, it was either really late, or he was really quiet about it.”

“Damn it.” Wind makes a face when he opens the cabinet and sees that they’re down to a handful of apples. 

“Why, did you need to talk to him or something?” Four asks. 

“Yeah, I wanted to ask if it’s worth it to start going to Lurelin for their records,” the sailor says with a sigh as he grabs an apple. 

“You might be better off talking to Time or Impa about that,” Hyrule says around a mouthful of 

what’s probably apple. “Since Wild’s gone so often, and one of those two would probably have a good answer.”

“If you want to find out whether it’s worth going, you should definitely ask Impa, but if you ask Time, he’ll probably leave immediately, whether or not it’d be worth it,” the captain cuts in before Wind has a chance to formulate a response, but Wind can’t help but agree with him. 

“Yeah, you’ve got a point.”

“But he said he’d wait until that last group of Sheikah scouts comes back before leaving again,” Sky points out. 

“Oh please,” Legend scoffs. Sky frowns. “Do you really think he wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to charge off into the woods again?”

“What I think is that you should give him a bit more credit than that.” Sky’s voice is tight. “He gave Impa his word, he’ll keep it.”

“The Old Man is practically chomping at the bit!” Legend shoots back. “You know he wants to be out there right now–”

“I think that the only one of us who doesn’t want to be out there right now looking for Twilight is you, Vet,” Sky says, his tone absolutely glacial. 

Legend’s eyes widen for a moment, hurt, and then he glares at Sky. “That’s not fair. It’s not even true, you know that’s not true,” he says, clearly shaken by Sky’s words. “And it’s not like you have much room to talk, you haven’t exactly had any game-changing revelations yourself,” he spits out. “Not had enough nap time lately?”

Wind and Hyrule make eye contact with each other from across the room, both silently willing the argument to stop. Seeing their family fight like this is painful to witness. 

“I’ve been doing the best I can,” Sky seethes. 

“And I haven’t?”

“You outright said-”

“ENOUGH!” Warriors’ voice rises above Legend and Sky, and the pair fall silent. “That’s enough. From both of you. The two of you are arguing like children. Sky, go splash some water on your face. Come back when you’re feeling calm.” Although the captain’s voice is quieter, his tone leaves no room for negotiation. “Legend, take a lap around the village.”

Neither one of them says a word, though Legend looks like he wants to argue the point somewhat. The two heroes struggle to get through the front door at the same time, before storming off in opposite directions once they make it outside. With the pair of them gone, the tension in the air lightens somewhat, though these days, it never seems to go away entirely. It’s getting to all of them, even the more level-headed among the Chain.

All the same, Wind releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding in. He looks over at Warriors, who’s gone back to reading through and sorting reports from the Hylian guards, setting aside anything notable. “Thank you,” he says.

The captain doesn’t look up. His face twists into a wry smile. “It’s nothing. Someone has to keep things from falling apart around here,” is all he says. His face is a stony mask of calm, but Wind doesn’t miss the subtle way the older hero twists his scarf around his hands. 

“Do you–” The sailor starts to ask if he wants a hug, but thinks better of it and starts over. “Are you alright?”

Warriors nods swiftly, almost mechanical in his rigidity. “I’m fine, Sailor, don’t worry about me.”

Wind doesn’t believe him. “Okay.” He decides not to push it.

Four makes eye contact with Wind, opticulating first to Hyrule, then the door. Wind has to think for a moment before the smithy’s unspoken request clicks and he nods. 

“Hey ‘Rule, I’m going to the general store to get more food. I swear, I can’t eat another apple. Do you want to come with?”

“Sure!” The traveler smiles and stands. “I mean, I don’t mind the apples, but some variety might be fun. And hey, since the cook’s been gone so much, maybe I could help out–”

“Not going to happen, don’t even think about it,” Warriors says before Hyrule can finish the thought. The traveler has the decency to look apologetic. 

Wind walks to the door. “C’mon!” he says, waving him out the door. 

As soon as the door shuts behind the two younger heroes, Four fixes Warriors with a Look. He groans when he notices. “Oh come on, not you too,” he says.

The smith puts down the map he’s been holding. He crosses the room, taking a seat next to the war hero, though he doesn’t say anything yet. 

“I’m fine, really.” Though he’s careful to ensure that his face betrays no emotion, there’s a slight tremor to the way he says the words that Warriors can’t quite manage to kill. 

“The others are gone now, Captain,” Four says gently. “It’s just us two right now.”

Warriors is very still for a long moment, allowing the words to sink in. Then, he breathes out a harsh, rattling sigh. The ever stoic captain crumples in on himself like paper in a fire, gasping for air in an action that falls in some painful place between sobs and dry heaving. 

Four puts his arm around Warriors to steady him. “Breathe,” he says. “Breathe. You can let it out.”

The captain looks up at the smith. “How did he do this all the time?” he whispers.

“What?” 

“The Rancher. He– I never really noticed it before, but it was like he could break up a fight before it even began.  We all leaned on him. I know he didn’t– doesn’t– think of himself as one, but he was. He’s a really good leader.”

“He is, yeah.” Four squeezes his shaking hands.

“And I’m trying to do what he does for the others, I’m trying, because they need that. But it’s just exhausting, and, and–” He chokes out a laugh that sounds hysterical even in his own ears. He is acutely aware of the look of concern on Four’s face, but barrels onwards. “And I’m not even doing a good job of it! That’s the funniest part, isn’t it! I’m exhausted from trying to do this one simple thing, and I’m not even doing the thing all that well!”

Four thinks for a moment before speaking. “I don’t think you’re doing a bad job,” he begins. 

“Thanks, Smithy, but I don’t need pity,” Warriors says with a humorless laugh.

“It’s not pity,” Four says firmly. “Everyone has been at their worst lately, and you’re judging your skills based on someone else’s skills in a totally different situation. You broke up that fight between Legend and Sky earlier. You’ve been handling all of the Hylian reports almost single handedly, and there’s a lot of them. Without you, I honestly couldn’t tell you where our group would be right now. You are not doing badly.”

Warriors sniffles, and wipes his eyes. “Thank you,” he says. “Fuck, I’m a bit of a mess, huh?”

Four rolls his eyes. “Not any more so than the rest of us,” he says.

“I suppose.” Warriors smiles. “I just… I’m worried. I miss Twilight.”

“We all do, Captain. But he’s strong. And we have to believe he’s holding out for us, wherever he is. And besides, we’re heroes, every one of us. Saving the ones we love is what we do.”

[shadow-and-purgatory]

I found a skeletal horse in the dead of night,

I knew he’d crumble at mornings first light

So I climbed atop him, I knew where to go

And together we rode towards his ending of woe

We created the hill with minutes to spare

I got off the monster for which I’d grown to care

I crouched down beside him; we looked to the skies

And the last thing he saw was a beautiful sunrise

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Link wakes up in a forest that was not his, to the sound of someone humming a tune that he’d only ever heard howled. He sits bolt upright, eyes wide, only to feel a sharp pain in his side.

“Careful now,” says a nearby voice. The voice is rough, grating, and he almost recognizes it. “You’re still injured.”

He looks around for the source of the voice, and sees a tall figure, shrouded in the shadows cast by the trees. As they turn, Link sees a single glowing red eye. They step into the light, and the young hero catches his breath.

Link knows this man.

He knows the tune that brings him a sense of peace every time he howls it. He knows the singular red eye, now set into a face of flesh and blood. He knows the ornate golden armor, pristine and untarnished by the passage of time. He knows the Hero’s Shade, the ghostly mentor who taught him so much of what he knew about swordsmanship, about being a hero.

And here he is, alive and well.

Snippet of Wrong Shade :>

The writer urge to spill everything I have planned for this fic even though I would like things to be a surprise

[shadow-and-purgatory]

What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt *You*

Chapter 1: Legacy

Read it here on AO3!

Word Count: 2603

————

In Class 1-A’s dorm building, the Study Space is, as usual, mostly empty. Also as per usual, the two people currently using the Study Space are Denki Kaminari, and Momo Yaoyorozu. The student ranked dead last, and Class 1-A’s top ranking student. At the start, Denki and Yaomomo’s now-frequent study sessions had been study parties, with several of the classmates.

The first one was in preparation for their final exams. Yaomomo had heard Denki and Mina lamenting (Denki significantly more so than Mina) their rankings, and the lack of time they had to study for finals. The top ranking student was more than excited to tutor them, and host a study party. So, Denki and several other students had gone over to Yaomomo’s mansion. (It would feel disingenuous to call the place she lived a “house.” It was just too big and too grand for “house” to be a sufficient descriptor.) Their classmate had spent hours quizzing them, and in the end, Denki had passed all his written exams. (He didn’t want to think about the practical portion of the exam)

When the second semester started up, Class 1-A quickly realized two things: firstly, that all of their classes were going to be significantly more challenging this semester. Right from the start, none of the teachers were pulling any punches. About two weeks into the semester, before an art history quiz, Yaomomo suggested another study party. This raised the question of where to hold the study party, which was when thing number two became apparent: Heights Alliance didn’t really have any good places for studying, and it was even worse if you wanted to study in a group.

There were their dorm rooms, but none of them were set up to accommodate a study session with more than one participant, and, as Iida informed them, having your study space separate from the space you relaxed in was helpful. The common area was large enough for all of them, but that was also the place where everyone cooked, ate, and hung out, making it an unconducive environment for studying.

A few days after the class came to this realization, Midoriya had suggested they use one of the vacant dorm rooms on Floor 2. This seemed like a good temporary solution, so Yaomomo and everyone else who was participating in the study party brought their study materials to the empty room, set up a card table and some folding chairs, and had a little study party. They all agreed that the vacant room worked great as a temporary solution, so they decided to keep using it. Just until they found a better option.

But then Jirou brought in sturdier chairs, because the folding ones were uncomfortable to sit in for hours at a time. And then Midoriya brought in a box of granola bars and fruit, because studying on an empty stomach sucked. But what really killed the idea that the empty room was just a temporary fix was when Bakugou brought in several actual tables, because ”if I slam someone’s head into the table listening to you damn extras, then the shitty table had better not collapse!” Denki was pretty sure that wasn’t the real reason, but he’d had the good sense not to say so.

And so, the vacant dorm was dubbed the “Study Space.” It worked for individual study, partner work, and group projects as well. Yaomomo held several more study parties there.

The “guest list,” as she and Denki had taken to calling it, was something of a rotating cast of students in need of assistance. Sero and Ojiro were fairly frequent partygoers. Mina showed up slightly less often, being more laid back in regards to her poor grades. Satou brought cookies whenever he decided to join them. Jirou and Hagakure were generally pretty average students, but occasionally needed some things reexplained.

Denki was the only one who’d been to all of the study parties. But they were so infrequent, and sometimes he couldn’t help but feel like he was falling behind, even in their little study group. Like he was the one causing a hold up after everyone else had already gotten it. He didn’t want to be a hold up.

It wasn’t entirely that he didn’t understand the material, although in some cases, he didn’t. All the information made sense during the study parties, but when he went back to his room to do his homework, it was like all the information evaporated from his brain. He only managed to put down answers for the first three math problems. He got zeroes on those assignments. He hadn’t even turned them in.

So, after the next study party he’d waited until everyone else had left, under the pretense of wanting to help clean up, or that he’d lost an eraser, or some other bullshit story to that effect. He tried to remember the things he was struggling with on the assignments, so he could casually ask Yaomomo, before she left, about what the value of cosecant at 225 degrees was, and how did you remember whether it was positive or negative again?

Yaomomo sat back down at the table, took out a piece of paper, and roughly sketched a unit circle, along with a table of values. She pointed out each of the values of the circle.

Once she was done explaining, she looked up at Denki and asked, “Does that make sense?” When he hesitated, she handed him the pencil. “Here. Try filling in the values for sin on the table.” He was able to fill in most of the table, even beyond sin.

Yaomomo was silent for a few moments, before she spoke again. “Kaminari, what isn’t clicking?”

“I don’t know, it makes sense now, but when I go to do the homework in my room, it just…” Denki had sighed. “I can’t do it.” He flashed what he hoped was an electric grin and tapped the side of his head. “It’s the executive dysfunction, baybee,” he said, trying to lighten the atmosphere he’d created.

“Do you have your homework with you now?”

“Uh, yeah,” he’d said. He remembered being confused.

“So do I,” Yaomomo said. “You can do your homework here, I will work on my homework, and if you need any help, I’ll be more than happy to assist you!”

“Wait, really?” Denki sat up straighter in his seat, eyes widening.

“Of course!”

Denki punched the air. “Aw, hell yeah!”

And so began the study party-of-two (“What if we called it the stu-TEA party?” Denki had suggested, which Yaomomo found absolutely delightful, and she took the opportunity to prepare tea for them). Sometimes there were other people in the Study Space, but usually it was just the two of them, doing their homework side by side. Occasionally Denki asked Yaomomo for help with the material, and other times he didn’t need any assistance. She was helping a lot just by being there. The internet called it body doubling, where someone else completed tasks alongside him, helping him to focus.

He couldn’t help but notice that despite being the top student, Yaomomo was always working just as, if not harder, than he was. She definitely isn’t falling behind like he is. This isn’t a criticism towards her, just an observation.

“Yaomomo?”

She looks up from the notes she’s outlining for an essay on Pride and Prejudice. She makes outlines for her notes. “Yes, Kaminari?”

“How come you’re always working?” he asks, and immediately kicks himself for it. Why’d he say that? Talk about dumb.

“Well, I like to stay on top of things,” she says simply.

Denki shakes his head. “No, no, I mean… you are on top of things. You’re the top ranked student in the class, at the top ranked hero school in the country. But you’re always so busy.”

Yaomomo’s smile wavers a bit. “It’s vital that I stay ahead, is all.” She shakes her head, her smile returning in full.

“But you already are ahead; you’re leagues ahead of everyone,” Denki insists.

She laughs. She has a polite little laugh that’s almost all nose. She always covers her mouth with her hand whenever she laughs. The picture of decorum, just out of habit. If Denki didn’t know any better, he’d think that she was some sort of nobility, not just rich. “You know, you’re lucky, Kaminari.”

Denki blinks, taken aback by her statement.

Yaomomo is at the top of their class, she has a really cool quirk, everyone loves her, and she’s rich. Denki, on the other hand, is the lowest ranking student in the class, he short circuits way more than he should, he’s a social butterfly with a lot of good friends but no best friend, and his financial situation is… complicated, to use the words his mom uses.

Between the two of them, in what world is he the lucky one?

“Me? But you’re…” He waffles, looking for the right words. When he can’t find them, he instead opts to vaguely gesture at her and say, “But you’re you.”

Yaomomo laughs again. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

“It’s true! What do you mean, I’m ‘lucky?’”

The smile leaves her eyes a little bit. “Well, there’s no real expectations on you,” she says, putting her pencil down.

Denki’s brow furrows.

“It’s just… oh, how do I explain this?” Yaomomo frets to herself for a few seconds. “It’s a bit hard to explain, but for me, it’s… the assumption is that I’ll be a hero.”

“Because you’re rich?” He blurts it out before his brain has time to process what he’s saying, and he kicks himself again. What the actual fuck, Denki. “I’m sorry, that was stupid.” He looks down, the tips of his ears burning with embarrassment. He glances up.

Yaomomo looks surprised and just a little bit uncomfortable. “It’s alright, I am… somewhat well off,” she says with a little nervous giggle. “No, that’s not it. I mean- it sort of is, but-” She sighs. “I don’t expect you to fully understand, but people expect a lot of me as a UA legacy student. Mother is a graduate of the business department, and Father is a Hero who attended UA’s Hero course, as were his parents before him, as well as my mother’s mother. They were all amazing Heroes, and model students when they were at school. And well… the same is expected of me. It is of the utmost importance that I fulfill those expectations.” She wrings her hands, staring at her lap.

“Oh,” Denki says, a bit pathetically.

Yaomomo shakes her head again, smiling fondly. “It’s really not as bad as I made it sound. And I’m sorry, talking about my troubles as a legacy student with you is a bit silly. I just think it’d be… nice…” She trails off. “You get to be the kind of Hero that you want to be, without any preconceived assumptions of greatness or comparison. Nobody has any expectations for you. So, first generation students like you are lucky in that way.” She looks almost wistful.

Denki doesn’t know how to respond, so he smiles at her and says, “Thank you.” She just bared part of her soul to him, and the only thing he can say is ‘thank you?’ He just doesn’t know what else he should say.

But that’s not true, is the response that he has to bite down. The comment about nobody having any expectations for him both stings and is wrong. Ironically, most of the assumptions that Momo has about him are wrong.

Granted, it’s not her fault that she doesn’t know, he reasons, as he goes back to trigonometry. While he hasn’t really made a big deal about it so far, and plans to continue to not make a big deal out of it, Denki is not a first generation student at UA. His history isn’t quite as prestigious as Yaomomo’s, but he still understands what she’s talking about.

He understands that pressure to be like his mom.

His mom, Atsuden Hagane, had been a UA Hero course graduate. Her quirk allowed her to draw out latent piezoelectricity from materials and store it in her bones to discharge later.

As a kid, Denki had idolized his mother. He had as much Thunder Quartz merch as he could get his hands on. Admittedly, that wasn’t a lot, given her somewhat mid-to-low ranking, but still. He’d been so happy when he got his quirk, and it was electric, ‘just like Mom’s!’

By seventh grade, he had decided he wanted to actually be a Hero. Not in the way that every child under the age of twelve said they wanted to be a Hero, just because it seemed cool. He wanted to help people.

Atsuden had been ecstatic when she’d heard. Of course, UA was the only option. She’d personally supervised his studying for the written portion of the entrance exam, as well as his training for the practical. He did pretty well on both portions of the entrance exam, but no surprise there. He’d always been a good test taker.

And then he got in, and he was overjoyed, and he was going to be a real Hero, just like his mom.

And he started at UA. And he almost immediately fell behind.

He was hyperaware of it, of how he wasn’t even close to being the kind of Hero his mom was. And Denki saw Iida, Todoroki, and Yaoyorozu, the other legacy students. They were all so incredible. And Denki was so… not. When Yaomomo told him she was a UA legacy student, it didn’t come as a surprise to him. She radiated competence. All of them radiated competence.

Denki didn’t, that was just objectively true. Nobody in his class thought he was destined for greatness.

Yaomomo called him “lucky,” saying that nobody has any expectations of him. But that isn’t true. He feels it every time he gets a “D” on an assignment. He feels it when his mother gets all red in the face because damn it all Denki, you’re better than this, I didn’t raise you like this. He feels it when his father stands over him doing his homework, trying to make sure he does it.

“Hey Yaomomo, is this a transformation a stretch by a factor of three?”

Yaomomo leans over and looks at the problem. “Yes.” She looks at the rest of his page, and smiles. “Kaminari, off the top of my head nothing here looks glaringly wrong. You’re doing really well with this lesson! This is your last page, right?”

Denki nods, feeling one of the weights lift off his chest when he sees he only has three problems left. “Correct-a-mundo!” He does finger guns, accompanied by a wink.

Yaomomo laughs her little polite laugh. “Well, I’m almost done outlining these notes. Once I’m done, how would you like it if I brewed some tea, as a celebration? Oh, but what kind? Mother sent me some lovely selections, would you prefer jasmine, or oolong?”

Yaomomo had been wrong in her earlier assessment. A lot of people have expectations of Denki, himself most of all. But his classmates don’t. His friends don’t. And there’s a certain freedom in his mediocrity. Even though he’s a fuck-up, they treat his bare minimum successes, what should be their expectation for him, as huge accomplishments.

“That’d be awesome, Yaomomo! Whatever you pick is good with me, you know tea way better than I do.”

And Denki likes to feel accomplished, even if a part of him doesn’t feel like he deserves to.

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Lil snippet of chapter 2 of Wrong Shade

Twilight takes a few halting steps forward, water splashing. He walks through the remnants of a wall of a wrecked house, running his fingers along the splintered, waterlogged wood. Whatever happened here clearly happened a long time ago, but it still makes him sad. He doesn’t know the name of this place, but he mourns it anyway.

As he wanders the village, he hears splashing and guttural noises and sees a couple of the strange lizalfos​ that seem typical for whatever region this is.

A low, canine growl rumbles in his throat. Seeing the monsters splashing around, downright gleeful in their- their desecration of the site of this tragedy, Twilight feels a sudden burst of rage flare up in his chest. He draws his sword.

(The village is the Deya Village ruins btw, which isn’t a detail that’s super relevant, but I like being able to point to the map and be like “they’re HERE rn”, and I wanted someone to know :) )

[shadow-and-purgatory]

“I wanna be a Hero some day!” The young Hylian boy sits up in bed excitedly, punching the air. “I’ll fight evil!”

“Well, it says here that Hyrule hasn’t had a Hero in several generations,” Lumi says, looking at the book. Her voice is a soft whisper as she eases her younger brother back under the covers. She begins dimming the lamplight.

Link pouts, but allows himself to be tucked in. “Why not?”

“Because we live in a time of peace. There are no wars to be fought. No evil to vanquish. The last Hero did a good job in his time, and now we get to be happy because of him,” she explains.

“Tell me about the last Hero?” Link pleads.

Lumi smiles fondly. “No, I need you to go to bed now.”

Link takes his little plush mole and shakes it at her. “Pleeeease? I promise I’ll go straight to sleep, you can even put out the lamp.”

Lumi sighs. “Okay.” She puts the lamp out. It would be pitch dark if not for the soft bioluminescent glow of the plant growing from her head.

Link scrunches up excitedly, ready to hear a story he’d already heard a hundred times.

“Let me tell you about the Vanished Hero.”

[shadow-and-purgatory]

olives

Verity stares at her plate. It’s just salad. Just, lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, black olives, what she thinks are shredded carrots, and whatever the local dressing is, she’s never had it before. It’s just salad. It’s her plate. She needs to eat.

She nibbles at a crouton.

She feels even more tired than she looks. As the others talk about their next steps, she allows herself a brief moment to rest. Shuddering, she folds in on herself and stares at her plate wearily. The olives blink at her, half a dozen watchful eyes, ever looking for something else to devour. And how can you possibly hope to stop them, the tomatoes taunt.

“–do you think, Verity?” Braz’s voice jolts her out of her thoughts and back into the conversation. He’s looking at her expectantly, but there’s something else in his eyes. Maybe contempt? What else could it be?

Verity has no idea what he’s just asked her. “I think… we shouldn’t necessarily rule any of our options out just yet. On either end. No sense in burning bridges before we know if we need to cross them, yeah?” She hopes that that was the right sort of answer for the question he was asking. 

He studies her face, looking for something that she doesn’t know. 

She smiles up at him.

“You not like your salad?” he asks after a long moment, pointing at her yet untouched plate. Her olives sit atop the greens, playing at innocence.

Verity blinks, going for oh, I didn’t even notice, silly me. “Oh, uh, no, I just forgot it was sitting there.” A weak smile to go along with a weak lie. She stirs the olives into her salad, feeling a surge of satisfaction when she stabs one with her fork. She doesn’t look back up at him.

“Ah. You were staring at it like it was trying to tell you a secret.”

“Just staring.” Her salad doesn’t know any secrets. That’s absurd.

“That’s good to hear. The way you were looking at it, I thought that those carrots might’ve said something rude about me,” he laughs, clearly throwing her a line.

“No, but you should’ve heard what the spinach had to say,” she says with a smile, laughing too. “I was just about to give it a talking-to.”

That gets a round of chuckles out of Braz and the others.

She pops the olive in her mouth. It feels like a lot. She doesn’t like black olives. She isn’t sure why she put them in the salad.

Verity stares at her plate. Even with one less olive, the amount on her plate doesn’t seem to be any less. She sighs. There’s still so much on her plate. She needs to eat.