Chapter Text
“Nayru’s sweaty bunghole!” Legend swore as he stumbled through the portal, arm-in-arm with Hyrule.
Hyrule swung around, looking for threats, but realized that the veteran had just managed to scrape his bare knee against a rough boulder as he found his footing on the new ground.
“Everyone alright?” Time called out from nearby. “…Other than Four?” He corrected himself.
“No monsters here!” Hyrule replied, ignoring Legend cursing under his breath.
The other heroes all grouped up around Four, who had his hands on his knees and his eyes squeezed shut, clearly not yet recovered from the effects of being magically shunted through time and space.
Wind walked up to Twilight, having noticed that he’d been a little subdued lately. “Psst, do you think this is a new Hyrule?”
Twilight frowned. “Maybe. That bridge o’er there looks sorta similar to one from my time, but I don’t recognize this ’ere canyon at all.”
“Ooh! I hope we’re going to get a new Link, too!” Wind exclaimed.
“It has been months since we last recruited anyone.” Warriors cautioned. “Perhaps we have just arrived at a time between heroes?”
“Well we aren’t going to find any new heroes if we just keep standing around here.” Legend snapped. “Let’s get across that bridge, I think I see a building on the other side.”
Hyrule felt a comforting fae magic drawing him in the opposite direction, but it seemed to point up and over the steep, rocky cliffs behind them. He sighed softly to himself. “Four, are you ready to move yet?”
The shortest hero grimaced, but nodded.
Twilight fell into step with Time at the back of the group, awkwardly itching at his long sleeves and keeping an eye on the gaggle of heroes spilling onto the bridge ahead of them. “What time is it here, Old Man?”
“Just after dawn.” The one-eyed swordsman replied. “Three days after the full moon.”
Twilight huffed, equal parts thankful for the older hero’s strange talent and exasperated at his cryptic mannerisms.
Time spared him a glance with a twinkle in his eye as they stepped onto the long wooden bridge. “I just know.” Several planks underfoot had recently been replaced, which suggested the Chain was fortunate enough to have arrived in a well-maintained region. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “The moon is just about to set behind us; you’d be able to see it if it weren’t so overcast.”
“What even is that building?” Wind piped up from the front of the group, nearly halfway across the canyon. “It’s such a fuckin’ weird shape, and right on the edge of these sheer cliffs!”
“Not so loud, sailor.” Four whispered hoarsely, still suffering from his portal headache.
“Sorry!” The pirate hero responded more gently.
“I think I see some people standing around a fire,” said Sky, who was sticking next to Four with obvious concern for the smith’s discomfort. “So it’s not a monster camp or anything like that.”
The Chain made it to the other side of the canyon without incident, surprisingly enough, though at one point Time had to level his sharpest Unamused Dad Look™ at Wind and Hyrule to prevent them from pursuing too much vertical exploration of the steep drop below. Just because Wind could land softly with his Deku Leaf didn’t mean that they had time for him to find his way back up afterwards.
“I’ll go up and ask around. Hopefully we can get a lead on this era’s hero.” Time pushed ahead of the group, and Warriors shadowed behind him.
Six heroes were sitting around the embers of an abandoned cookfire when Time and Warriors came back with information from the locals. “The bad news is that nobody seems to know any real details about a hero, but the good news is that apparently we’re not far from Hyrule Castle. Hopefully we can get an audience with this era’s Zelda.”
Sky sighed as he pulled himself from a comfortable slump against Four, who had mostly recovered by now, and got to his feet. “It’s too early for more adventure. We should have slept in today.”
“Which way to the castle?” Wind asked. “I’m always happy to see another Hyrule Castle, I’ve been keeping a list of ideas to give to Tetra for whenever we can build our own.”
“Take a left at the first fork in the road,” Time recited what the stablemaster had told him, “and then a right at the bottom of the ‘Breach of Demise’, whatever that is. And it’s a straight shot from there. About a day’s journey on foot, they said.”
Sky paled, suddenly fully awake, and clenched his fists under his sailcloth. “How dangerous is this route? It sounds,” he gulped, “ominous?”
“The stablemaster reported that this is a well-traveled route, so it should be safe and easy to traverse.” Warriors reassured the chosen hero.
“Don’t jinx us with that ‘easy’ shit, pretty-boy.” Legend cuffed Warriors on the shoulder, and pointed up the road. “And we’d better start moving before ’Roolie leaves us behind.”
“Hey! Don’t run into that spooky-ass fog without me!” Wind scrambled to his feet and chased after the traveler.
“I believe that is our cue to leave.” Warriors chuckled, extending a hand to help Four up.
Four stuck next to Warriors as the ragtag group of heroes hit the road. “Time said there weren’t any details on the new hero, but were there any rumors about him?”
The captain shrugged. “I conversed with a few others while Time handled the stablemaster. No one said anything similar to each other, so it seems any possible new member may be a more mysterious one.”
Blue eyes looked up at the taller Link. “C’mon Wars, spill the beans already! What did they say?”
Warriors ticked off four fingers as he spoke. “A Goron said that the hero saved the princess from a cursed slumber. A stablehand said the hero is,” he made air-quotes with his free hand, “a ‘badass Sheikah assassin’ that clears out monster camps without ever showing his face. A Zora claimed that her mother was only real hero in the land. And an old man said that the hero died decades ago, and Hyrule has just been healing naturally over time.”
Legend looked over his shoulder and stared down Warriors in an unspoken dare. “Thirty rupees that none of those are true. They’ve got to be messing with us.”
Warriors prepared a sharp, courtly retort, but it died in his throat when he noticed Time drawing up from his position as the rearguard. With a deliberately blank face that the captain was unfortunately familiar with, the one-eyed swordsman placed his bet: “Fifty rupees that all of them are true in some way.”
Four whirled around to face him, flabbergasted.
“What?” The ghost of a smirk flitted across the eldest hero’s impassive face.
Warriors sighed. He knew that when Mask got in the mood to sow a little chaos, nothing could stop it. And unfortunately age hadn’t dulled the attitude, only taught him to do it with more subtlety. It was going to be a long walk.
The fog thinned by the evening, though the overcast sky still obscured the view of anything too far on the horizon. By mid-afternoon, the Chain made it over another bridge that was supposed to be “only an hour or two” from Castle Town, according to a pair of soldiers stationed there.
“This bloated-ass fuckin’ Hyrule is way too damn big,” Wind grumbled, dragging his feet near the rear of the group. “Hylia should’ve given us a ship to ride if everything is so goddessdamn fuckin’ far apart!”
“Language!” Twilight snapped.
“Fuck you, I’m a pirate!”
“You’re a child!“
“No! Suck my….”
The cranky heroes’ bickering petered out into horrified silence as they rounded a bend in the road and the blackened ruins of the massive castle came into view.
“What happened here?” Sky murmured.
Twilight cocked his head, ears twitching. “I hear some folks workin’ over there. Maybe they’re just rebuildin’ after a big battle?” He suggested. “My castle was pretty roughed up right after my adventure, took some time to whip ’er back into shape.”
Legend sneered. “Great. So we’ve got to convince a new hero that they can’t even enjoy their fresh victory, time for more punishment from the goddess?”
Sky gave him a flat look. Time, unflappable as always, ushered them all along towards the town before any heated arguments could break out.
The sounds of tools and labor, men chattering on worksites, filled the silence as they approached. Fortunately, the rebuilding little town was far more alive than the mausoleum across the moat.
It took some asking around to find who was in charge, and when they started trying to question the foreman about heroes and princesses he cut them short. “That’s Sheikah business,” he explained, sending them to a grease-stained old man who was elbow-deep in the remains of some rusted metal contraption.
It was like pulling teeth to get information from the eccentric fellow, despite his jovial demeanor. Even Time, who was no stranger to staring down strange people, found it unnerving to look him in the eyes, as his specialized brass goggles seemed to flick around and point the piercing, glowing lenses every which way. Between rambling tangents about how he was close to fixing “the guardians” (?), how proud he was of his son’s merchant business, and how remorseful he was for upsetting his wife (and getting himself kicked out of the house, apparently), the Chain managed to nail down a few key facts:
His colleague Purah, who lives in Hateno Village, was “monopolizing” the princess, so that would be their next destination. The castle had been destroyed by Ganon, in an event he just called “the Calamity” (with a capital C, they could tell), before its defeat about a year ago. And there was some kind of hero, somewhere, but he didn’t like them because they didn’t use enough of the equipment he made.
Legend lingered back as the rest of the group moved on, trying to see what that equipment was (it always paid to check for new items, especially when exploring a new land), but unfortunately the strange doctor did not travel with any stock. Hopefully they would get the chance to stop at his shop later.
By the time Legend made his way back to the rest of the Chain, Wind had flopped on the ground on the side of the road as the rest of them discussed what they learned.
“I hate this new hero already.” Wind whined, throwing an arm over his eyes. “His Hyrule is too damn big and empty. We walked all day, and we aren’t even there yet.”
Warriors came back to the group from where he spoke with a few of the workmen. “Hateno is about two days’ march from here. The first stop is a riverside stable, about half of a day’s march south. If we push on immediately, we could likely make it by sundown.” Wind just groaned in response.
Time surveyed the tired puddle of Links resting among the ruins. He was ready to keep moving, but he could tell that several members weren’t as used to so much walking. “We can rest for a little while first, and then get going from there. We’ve been on our feet for quite a while today already.”