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“Magic show?” Hyrule asked curiously, staring at the sign posted on the notice board in skyloft, “whats that?” he turned to Sky with his head tilted to the side. The small fae sat on Skys palm, his wings flittered slightly, a common sign of the boys confusion,
Sky felt his eyes narrowed in confusion, reading over the sign once again, “Im not quite sure. I've never seen something like this before.” he turned to the rest of the chain, he caught the eyes of time, (or rather the eye of time) the eldest of the group sighed slightly at Skys gaze, gazing at the rest of the group.
“We could use a break, that last battle took a lot out of us all, hyrule are you up for healing yet?” the fae nodded at time, jumping off Skys hand and transforming back into his human like form. “Tend to Four and Wild first. Wars, can you check over everyone else for any pressing injuries?” the two nodded, getting to work quickly at the elders request.
‘ I already said im fine time. Hyrule, heal twi instead, I think his arms broken.’ wild signed, the young dragons tail lay limply on the floor, unlike most of the time when it was constantly moving and causing on more then one occasion, someone to trip over it. Sky had seen it be stabbed by a black blooded lizofo from wilds hyrule whilst they had been in fours hyrule before the world change.
“For Hylias sake can you please just let ‘rulie do his job.” legend rolled his eyes at the newest member of the chain, twilight glared at the Vet, who promptly found his black colored nails to be the most interesting thing.
“Sky can it be trusted? Its your hyrule after all.” Time questioned, the cut along his arm was being examined by Wars, but still maintained eye contact with Sky. “Im not sure.” Sky mumbled, something was wrong with the flier, what it was? Sky was unsure what it was for certain, but he shook off the feeling.
“Ill get us some rooms, we can sleep on it, but without a doubt, it is quite strange.” sky finally decided. He unfolded his red and white wings as he prepared to take off to meet with sun. based on where they were, they would be able to reach the inn within ten minutes on foot, including the slight setback of four being unconscious due to the change, the portals had always messed him up, no matter how close in times they swapped.
“Ill be back.”
—-----------
“A magic show?” Zelda, or rather, Sun, asked. “What ever does that mean?” sun had been reading a scroll that she had found before sky interrupted her. “Where is the flier located? I would like to check this show out. Would you like to accompany me along with your chain?” her hair didn't have the normal ribbon strewn through the two front strands, she wore casual clothes unlike her usual nice pink dress she commonly wore while she stayed in skyloft.
“I don't think the chain will mind. We were planning on going anyways, its been a rough couple weeks.” Sky ran his fingers through suns hair, the golden locks blew about in the breeze. Sky had always wondered how her hair never seemed to get messed up even with the sometimes harsh winds whilst they flew, a perk to being the human reincarnation of Hylia he guessed.
“Oh? What mess have you gotten yourselves into this time.” she laughs slightly, her white wings speckled in golden like feathers lifted slightly, tilting towards her head slightly, before her wings once again settled down.
“What haven't we done at this point? We went to Twilights hyrule and had to fight the second we got out of the portal, Four was unconscious, and most of the others were down for the count from our last switch. I think Wild was the only one who fought them, and he was also in bad condition. His stamina and pain tolerance is insane.” he laughed in a dispirited manner.
“He is the hero of the wilds isn't he? It makes sense he would be able to go on fighting for a long time.” Sun muses, she hums absentmindedly as Sky moves onto preening her wings, a common activity between the two of them. Her wings slightly glowed in the light, sky had always adored her wings, the gold shimmering and pure white looked god-like, which was in fact true, since she was Hylia's reincarnation.
He ran his fingers through her primaries, “yes I suppose so.” his voice trailed off, he envied the young dragon, Wild was so high energy, traveling double the distance the rest of them traveled when they were walking in different hyrules, much to the dismay of Twilight. Sky had always had… low energy so to speak. He was always tired, nearly to the point where any calm moment he was able to fall asleep in a blink of an eye, unlike his reincarnations, he wasn't burdened by nightmares on the nightly, sure once in a while he would have nightmares, but seeing his fellow chain members nightmares, he really knew he had it easy in that sense.
“Link, your doing it again.” Zelda's soft voice shocked him out of his trail of thoughts. He made a noise of recognition that he heard her. “Don't discredit yourself, your just a bit more sleepy then the others.” she teased. He laughed at her words, his wings rested in the grass bellow them, stretched out in the sun.
“Hey Sky!” a voice called out, wind. His mind supplied, the childish voice came closer to the two, as the small sea monster came into view. His webbed hands waved hello to Sky and sun alike, his gills were a light blue similar to his shirt, the tips of his hands held a blue tone, not concerning, unlike how sky had originally thought. “Oh shit, sorry. Hello Sun!” he cursed out.
Sky raised an eyebrow at the younger but didn't comment, it was futile at this point. “Yes wind?” the 15 year old smiled at them with a large smile, showing off his sharp teeth.
“Ok! So you remember that magic show? Its starting in a couple hours and we want to go! Also Wild finished lunch so come back before I eat it- I mean it gets cold.” he snickered before prancing away, laughing the entire time. Sky rose to his feet, offering a hand out to Sun.
“Remind me, Wild is the one who is incredible at cooking correct?'' Sky winced at her words but nodded. “Well then let's go.”
—-------
Legend didn't like magic shows all that much, he had seen them once or twice around his hyrule, some wanna be magicians traveling his hyrule showing off some bogus magic tricks. ‘ Hey let me pull a rabbit out of my hat!’ why did it always have to be rabbits? Legend groaned at the thought of the previous shows he had seen, yet here he was, sitting at a front row seat in the amphitheater they had set up recently in skyloft, it was used for fights between soldiers as entertainment, according to Sky, but today was a different story. Magic.
The man who was going to perform so called magic stepped into the performance area, immediately, Legend knew something was off, Hyrule, who sat on his shoulder, could also tell something was off, his successor tensed on his shoulder, the two of them, alongside Wild, who sat on Legends left hand side, who similarly tensed up at the sight of the man. Wild, being a dragon blessed of the springs of all three dragons of his hyrule, was highly magic prone, able to adapt magic arts and copy that of the people around him, he had started to learn some healing magic to no avail, his magic was weak, better off used to help himself, yet strong enough to assist in others magic.
“Welcome! Ladies and gentlemen, to the first, and only, magic show in Skyloft. My name, is Darcio, and today I will be performing some magic for all of you. Now I know one or two of you must have prior grievances about magic shows, but I assure you, this is going to be much different then you have ever seen. ” Darcio, interesting stage name . “Now, for my first trick-” the man disappeared from the stage before reappearing in the audience, near an avian who was loved through the town for her good looks, he offered her a single swift violet, a flower legend knew from Wild when he cooked ‘stealth’ foods. The girl giggled and blushed at the gesture, taking the flower in her hands. Legend winced at the gift, the flower was practically oozing magic.
“Now, as you now have seen, I am in fact not some… ‘fake’ magician. I am in fact genuine. I hope this clears up any… disbelief you may have felt towards me.” Darcio walked down the aisle to where the chain and Sun were sitting, Wild was sitting on the edge of the row, due to his hatred of being surrounded, even this seemed to stress him out, even beyond the stress from the evil feeling magic around them. Darcio stopped next to Wild, offering him a warm Safflina, something Wild had actually run out as of late, he could hear the rest of the chain laugh at Wilds confusion, the young dragon growled softly, not taking the flower from Darcio. The later dropped the flower in his lap with a smile, “oh come now I don't bite. Though it seems like you may.” his magic seemed so familiar but what could it-
The audience laughed at the mans joke, Wild remained still, eyes glowing in the dark of the amphitheater. Darcio disappeared in a puff of smoke, showing back up next to Sky, who sat on the other end, offering a silent princess to sun. “for the lovely lady. Your a real lucky man Sky.” Darcio teased. Sky blushed but apparently had ignored the fact that the random man knew his nickname.
Once again Darcio was back in the center, bowing as the audience, minus Hyrule, Wild, and Legend himself, applauded. Time throws him a confused glance but didnt push it further. “Now, for my next trick, I need an audience volunteer. Now who would like to come up and help me out on this one?” cheers filled the air, Wind waved his hand enthusiastically, Legend attempted to shove his hand down, but to no avail, the young sea monster was quickly chosen by the man.”now I would like for my participant to pick one of the three flowers given out today, pick any one! Now, do you have it? Now imagine it in your head, and~” a warm Saflina appeared in Winds hands, who squealed in delight. “Was that, your flower?”
“Yes! It was!” wind stared in shock at the flower in his hands, before long, Wind was back at times side, holding the flower tightly. That was when legend realized what was happening.
‘Legend.’ Wild signs, both of them ignored the show around them, ‘Darcio means dark in ancient hylian.’ legends heart sunk. ‘His magic was familiar but i didn't know why. Thats dark link.’ the rest of the chain didn't look over, as if wild, hyrule and legend were the only people in the world. ‘Hes going to kill one of us. Or someone in the audience. Get the flower out of Sun and Winds hand.’ hyrule was way ahead of them, dropping them in front of Wild, where his flower was. The two threw confused looks at him but they paid no attention.
“Now! For my final trick, the magic box trick. I need one volunteer for this, now this volunteer has to be pretty willing to go through this insane trick, so I need a bold audience member for this.” Dark link says, now that legend could see who it was, the illusion was shattered, he saw dark link for who he was. ‘Legand hes gonna kill whoever is the volunteer, it has to be me.’ Wild signed. Thats right. Miphas grace.
Wild raised his hand with a severe lack of enthusiasm, not to anyone's surprise, dark link chose him, the young dragon pocketed a knife, keeping his slate on him. He headed down to the stage, legend readied his sword carefully, Hyrule transformed back, a small crackle of lightning filled the air.
“Now, please, stand in this box, ladies and gentlemen, our lovely assistant here, Wild, will now be moving from one box to another, now I know you have seen me going from place to place, but I assure you, that wont be the most impressive part here, now wild, climb into this box for me, and momentarily, you will be transported right into that box over yonder.” wild winced, his previously broken tail weakly thumping against the floor before he walked into the box, the door slammed shut before a small thump could be heard, either wilds tail hitting the box in his anxiety, or rather the actual act of being killed being put in place. Hylia this was brutal. “Now, on the count of three, my lovely assistant will be all the way in that box, but this time, with a twist, now please, count down with me,
Three!” The croud chanted with him.
“TWO!” dread filled legend as he felt Wilds magic signature weaken, if he wasn't killed already by stepping inside the box, he was by sure dead by now.
“ONE!” The door opened to reveal Wild, he was to far away to tell, but he was positioned upright in a sitting position, his legs were crisscrossed, his head looking down to the floor, flowers surrounded him, all silent princesses. Wilds tail didn't move, cheering filled the crowd, Dark Links grin was directed directly at Legend. He knew. People started to stand, clapping, yells of excitement filled the room before quickly being replaced with horror, blue blossomed from wilds chest, now the illusion was shattered, the last remains of the spell faded, the flowers were coated in blood.
Wilds eyes were glossy, his arms lifted, as if controlled by a puppet string. The body of their brother waved at the group, his head forced up by Dinks strings that became more visible, a thin strand of wire was tied around his neck, blood spewed from the rapidly increasing cuts around his neck and wrists. The flowers where wild once sat became liquid, that quickly dissolved the ground beneth them. Wilds magic was gone, thats for sure. Twilight had already got his sword and transformed, launching himself out of the audience, sword in his mouth as he ran twords wild, desperately trying to cut the wires that cut into the boys skin.
Legend and Hyrule already were in action, Four split quickly, each of the sides rushing to get all the civilians out, along with sun, who sat in shock, staring down at wild in horror. Vio shoved her out of the amphitheater, before returning to the soon to be assault on Dark link.
“It's too late! Your friend is dead, and this time, he's not coming back.” dark link laughed, the sound echoing around the area, before he disappeared into smoke. Most of the group were searching for him, making sure he wasn't still a threat to them. Legend ignored the others and got by Wilds side, he scanned the younger for further injuries, besides the stab through his chest, along with the wires around all his limbs, he was relatively unharmed. Wilds body stood still, the strings holding him upright. His eyes were open, although one seemed to have been hit in someway, blood trickled down his face, legend cut at the wires carefully, trying to avoid any further damage. Twilight was shakily cutting the wires beside him, goddesses, there were so many, they were attached to his wrist, his elbows, all across his body…
“Twilight, please, calm yourself.” Legend said horsley, his hands were starting to shake from nerves, mipha's grace still hasn't activated… he layed wild down, making sure to be careful of his injuries. A blue light filled the air, small blue flames surrounded the dragon as a young zora, mipha his mind supplied, she sat at his side, her hand resting on his chest.
“It would be my pleasure.”
—--------
To say Legend, Hyrule and wild were in trouble was a severe understatement. Wild woke up quickly after, he coughed slightly to help the others notice his sudden revival. They turned to the newest chain member in horror to see how bloodied up he had gotten, now the remains of the death were mere red angry scars. Twilights sobs were interrupted as he hugged the boy tightly, who awkwardly patted his back.
“What, the fuck was that.” Warriors growled, “did you know what was going to happen?”
“Yes, me hyrule and him all knew what was going on.” legend explained. “We figured out something was wrong early on, and once wind came back after his volunteering… we figured out who it was. Wild knew someone would die, so he offered to take the hit, since he had miphas grace and all.”
“Yeah. about that. What… was that?” Sky asked, he had his arms crossed over his chest, he held a annoyed look on his face, that was poorly masking his concern.
“Mipha…” wild tried to speak, before his voice quickly gave out on him. ‘ She was my fiance- at least according to Flora. When I got Vah Ruta back from Ganon's control… she gave me her gift that she could revive me, no matter how bad my injury.” twilight draped his pelt over his shoulders, wild was shaking from the magic he had to expend to assist Mipha. When he had seen it the first time, wild had explained that he has to use his own magic to assist Mipha in other worlds, the connection wasn't as strong, and based on how far back they were the harder it was, so to do it in Skys hyrule must have cost him so much energy.
“Legend, why did you agree to this plan?” time said calmly. Twilight growled once again at legend.
“Because i've seen him use it before. Back when Dark link had us in the arena, and he sacrificed his life to save mine. He told me all about it, and we decided this was the best course of action. It was him temporarily dying or one of us permanently dying. I think the first is the best option.” Legend glared at twilight. “And you can stop growling. I didn’t force him to do shit. We agreed this was best course of action.”
“Why didn’t you tell the team? We could have worked it out. No one had to get hurt.” time argued back, vio snapped his fingers, attempting to gain his attention, staring at the elder.
“There was not enough time for them to tell us, I realized who he was at a similar time im assuming to the others, but there was not enough time without making it suspicious.” The split minish sheathed his sword and went off to check on the rest of the colors.
“...fine, Wild are you ok?” Time eventually stated, his gaze falling on Wild with a careful gaze, they were all aware as to how the dragon felt about people staring at him.
‘ Perfectly fine. Mipha heals me all the way, as long as theres no complications. This time there wasn't.’ the group wasn't over the sudden death of their friend but for now that was enough. ‘ Now can someone help me up? That wore me out and i need to nap. Someone else has to-’ he was cut off by his own loss of consciousness, apparently it had taken a lot more out of him then they had expected.
“ What in the three just happened.” warriors near laughed, it was less a laugh of humor and more out of awkwardness of the situation, seeing as the man they had sobbed over the death of now had just said he wanted a nap, and came back to life.
“I… I really don't know.”
–
Wild sat up with a spinning head, eyes blurring and refocusing every so often as he did such. He held his head with one hand, squinting at the group of heroes that slept alongside him in Skys small bedroom. The avian himself slept on a chair in the corner, his wings huddled around him and holding the two smallest of the group.
Time and twilight slept against the bed Wild had been sleeping in himself, soft snores echoing from the eldest of the group. Warriors and Legend both had curled up next to one another, sleeping soundlessly despite their constant argument. Hyrule slept in his fae form on the pillow beside wild, the sound of bells jingling sounding out as the fae exhaled each breath.
He looked down to his shirt, the usual blue wasn’t staring back at him, in fact, instead stood a shirt that was near identical to Skys. He hugged himself in the shirt, the cold air from the sky kingdom around them running cold along his back where the wing holes sat.
Wild lifted skys shirt to find light bandaging around his stomach, most likely where he was stabbed from in the box. His wrists and throat both bore matching bandages, unfortunately due to the lack of energy he had and the weak connection with Mipha's spirit back as far as fifteen thousand years before, the injuries had only healed enough to stop him from dying, leaving scars and wounds behind.
He felt at the bandages around his neck, tightly held around his throat across what he assumed to be stitches based on the slightly raised skin underneath it. His throat hurt, a feeling not new to him. He quickly realized his other predicament at the moment, oh those idiots.
He became quickly aware of the small spell Hyrule had placed on the bed, a small wall that blocked his exit from the bed, and therefore the room. He wasn’t that obvious right? he placed a hand on the ‘wall’ that blocked his escape, or rather his exploration of Skyloft— his weak energy levels were far to depleted to attempt to try and break down the barrier, something Hyrule taught him just in case he ever needed to. His limited magic was just powerful enough to make a hole in the barriers, just enough to climb through.
That wasn’t feasible in his current state, so that plan was out. Sure his body hurt , but being cooped up was doing nothing for him. He would much prefer curling up on a rock in the moonlight then be stuck indoors. (His scales always shone so nicely after he did such.) speaking of his scales, the scales running down his back were obviously still not fully cleaned, dispite the attempts by the chain, the blood and dirt still laid under his scales, lifting them slightly. The scales along the rest of his body weren’t doing much better, his tail—being one of the things he could see— was quite obviously coated in blood.
the chain were smart, they listened to what wild said, and his instructions to never try and clean his scales without his permission unless— and only unless— it was a medical emergency and they had to clean the area for such an emergency. Which in this case, was the reason why his scales were cleaned to their best attempts.
Wild quickly noticed how his slate was outside of the barrier, sighing in discontent as he raised one of his sharp talons, this will do for now. He carefully scraped around the edges of his scales, cleaning off blood and dirt outside of the scales, dreading the eventual under the scales. A small cup of water was sat inside the barrier, just cutting off his slate from him.
He dipped a small piece of fabric he had ripped off of his pants into the water, (thankfully they were actually his pants, not sky’s. Thank Hylia he wouldn’t have to replace those.) he scrubbed at a particularly bloody spot on his tail, black blood and his own blue blood staining the usually pearl white tail of his.
He heard someone stir from beside him, ears pinning to his head as he realized who had awoken from their slumber.
“You should be resting you know.” Time gave a gentle glare with no malice behind it to the dragon. “It’s been a long day, you can worry about that tomorrow.” Time passed through the barrier seamlessly, taking the cloth out of wilds hands.
‘ Barrier.’ Wild signed simply, deeming his voice unusable for the time being. ‘ No more sleep.’ He reached for the cloth, nearly snagging it out of Times hands.
“Wild you're going to tear your stitchings. Go back to sleep.” His voice fell stern but quiet, as to not wake the others in the room. “If you do, I’ll even let you sort through my items when you're feeling better.” Wilds ears perked up at that thought, he had always loved going through time and Legends stuff, their items always shiny and varying in magic levels.
‘ I don’t like sleeping in here.’ Wild signed with difficulty, the bandages around his wrists limiting his movements. ‘ You know that time.’
Time sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I know, but we can’t let you sleep outside in your condition.” He considered his words for a moment before finally continuing, “do you want help with cleaning your scales?”
‘ I….’ He considered his words carefully, ‘As long as you're careful.’ Time nodded, handing Wilds slate over to him. Wild took out the small tool kit he had, small dull knives light and flexible enough to go under the scales. The kit was made by Purah herself, seeing how freaked out Wild had gotten after dislodging one of his scales when using his talons.
Time gingerly took the kit, helping wild move forward in the bed, sitting behind him with the tools in his hands. Wild himself took out one of the tools he used for his tail more often then not. He couldn’t see what time had grabbed but hoped he grabbed the right tool out of the kit.
Wild flicked his tail nervously, pulling it in front of himself as time worked on his back. He felt a gentle hand on his back, flinching slightly before settling himself once more. He slowly started to clean each scale along his tail, noticing the lack of feeling on his back as he did such.
‘ Don’t worry about it, I can do it myself if you are nervous about it.’ He signed to Time, who shook his head, once again readying himself for his attempt at helping Wild. He felt the cold blade slide under a scale, gently prying it up before sliding back out moments later.
“Did… I do it right?” Time asked, wild nodded slightly at him, for his first time trying, it really wasn’t a terrible attempt.
‘ Lift it a little less if you can.’ He signed, cleaning another scale, ‘ usually I do this with water as an extra help, but I don’t want to mess with Skys bed.’
“Does it hurt?”
‘ No, if done correctly it doesn’t hurt a bit. Why?’
“You… never let anyone help, or even do it near people, I… guess I assumed it’s more painful then it must be.” Time spoke quietly. If wilds throat wasn’t injured, he would have laughed at Times question.
‘ You know preening right? How it…’ he flushed slightly, ‘relaxes them, or whatever. It’s just a very vulnerable place it puts me in.’
“Then I can do it for you, why don’t you relax, I’ll take the lead and do this until you wish for me to stop this.” Wild considered his words before nodding. He set the tool down on the bed, curling in on himself and resting his head on his knees.
The two sat in comfortable silence for a while, once in a while wild would flinch in sudden pain from a misdone scale, receiving an apology each time. Wild soon relaxed into times hold, leaning his head against his shoulder comfortably. His eyes fluttered shut as he slowly felt his consciousness fall from him, finally allowing him a good rest.