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“Ah- Link, could you—“
Eight variations of the same face turn to look at him.
“Uh….”
“Oh, yeah, you guys all have the same name, don’t you? That’s gonna get confusing quick..” Linkle points out helpfully.
“Well, um, I was talking to that Link, this time..” Link points at another Link, dressed in purple and wearing a flat cap.
Link perks up. “Oh! Yeah, what did you need?”
Link shakes his head in dismay. “No, no, we probably should address the name situation.”
“Why?” Asks Link. “Can’t we just call each other Link one, Link, two, and Link so on and so on?”
Link gives him an unimpressed look.
“How would we choose who gets to be Link 1?”
“Why does it matter who’s Link one?”
“We are not calling each other by numbers!”
“It matters because… well, like, 1 is the best I guess?”
“If we had to call anyone Link 1, it should be-“ Link stops himself from just saying Link and instead uses his sense to point at who he means. “Uh. That one.”
“Why me?” Link asks in open curiosity.
“Because you’re the oldest,” Proxi jumps in.
“I think me and your Link are the same age, Proxi.”
Said Link simply gives him a Look. Honestly, he acts like they haven’t traveled through time.
“Oh- OH! You meant- I see…” he looks to the side in embarrassment. “Wait, but how do we know if I’m the, er.. the first Hero?”
Link shrugs. “I dunno. History?”
Linkle has a headache from shifting her eyes between nine different people so quickly, so she decides to interject on the matter.
“Why don’t we just give you guys nicknames?” She suggests.
The party of young men dressed in green (and blue) look between each other as they all take a moment to consider this.
“How do you even make so many different nicknames out of the same actual name??” Asks Link.
She frowns. “I dunno, it’s better than calling you Link 1 and Link 2!”
“Well, I mean, if you wanna take that question seriously we’ve got…” Link starts counting in his head and then numbering off with his fingers. “Linky, Lin, Li… Inky, I suppose?”
“Inky? Thats the name of a fuckin’ squid, for sure,” says one of the younger Links.
One of the older Links shoots him a reprimanding look. “Hey, language.”
Link just raises an eyebrow in confusion, as if he’d assumed everybody in the vicinity swore.
Link 1 waves his hands to interrupt and catch the attention of the whole group. “Listen, this is ridiculous, you can just call me Sky. Cause I’m from Skyloft, right, and Skyloftian doesn’t sound all that causal, so…”
“Sky?”
“Yes.”
A moment of consideration seems to pass through the group.
“Eh, works for me.” “Yeah, alright.” “Sky, hm?” “What’s skyloft?”
Link points at Link and says, “we should call you the short Link.”
His face scrunches. “Hey! Why don’t we call you the asshole Link while we’re at it then?”
Link’s eyebrows shoot up in half amusement, half surprise.
“Seriously, quit it with the language! You’re too young to be talking like that.” Link cuts in between them.
Link looks between Link and Link. “…”
“Bitch.”
Link scoffs and looks away, shaking his head in defeat.
“Okay, well…” starts another Link, “if you’ll be Sky, then I’ll be Four, perhaps?” He draws the blade on his back and holds it gently in both hands, showing it to the group around him. “I’ve got-“
“You wanna be Link number four?”
Link looks annoyed. “No, I forgot about the stupid number thing already, I was going to say you can call me four since I wield the Four Sword.”
“Forsword?” Asks a different Link.
“No, ah- it’s the Four Sword.” He enunciates clearly.
“But there’s only one?” Points out the young Link who’d been cussing, seemingly just for the sake of being a shit.
Four gives him an unamused look. “Astute observation.”
The Link that this whole conversation had sprouted around, the young one in the purple, spoke up. “I guess you could call me Conductor? Or, like, engineer or something? That’s my job title anyway, so I’ve been called that before. It’s simpler.”
“What’s a conductor?”
Proxi chimes in again on behalf of her Link. “In that case, you could call me Cadet. That was my rank at the castle, so I’m used to hearing it.”
“Well, it works, but…” Link looks at him contemplatively for a moment. “Cadet kind of undersells your experience level a bit, doesn’t it? I mean, you’re a hero of Hyrule too now, not some fresh faced trainee.”
Link tilts his head, reconsidering. Looks away for a second as he thinks. Then, Proxi relays his new thoughts.
“Warrior maybe? Hero isn’t exactly that much more distinguishing in this group after all.”
Link huffs at that with some amusement. “Yeah, not really.”
The foul mouthed Link says, “warrior is a pretty badass name!”
The older Link, who decided he’d give up on trying to correct the child a third time, simply makes a face in Link’s direction.
Link sticks his tongue out.
“Okok, so, we have-“ Link points at everybody in time as he names them, “Sky, Four, Warrior, and… Conductor..? Was that right?”
“Yes!”
“And Linkle, of course,” he finishes with a nod in her direction. She smiles.
“So that leaves you, and you, and you, potty-mouth.” Then, with a tiny head tilt, he adds “and me too, I guess.”
The older Link half raises his hand for a second, just to call attention to himself. “I can be Deku.”
“Like the tree?”
“…Yeah.”
“That feels weird, I’d just be thinking of a big old tree every time I’d try to call you.”
He tuts in exasperation. “Okay, fine, then- I dunno, how about, ah..” he flounders for a brief moment, rolling his hand in the air as he searches his brain for something acceptable. “How about Time, then? That’s what they called me when we met. The hero of time. Little unconventional for a name, but… whatever…”
“Hm. Y’know, it kinda fits you!”
Time looks away.
“Okay, well that’s five Links down. We could call you-“ Link points at the one with brown hair, “-Twilight, maybe? You were called the Hero of The Twilight, weren’t you?”
Twilight nods.
“Great, that’s six Links figured out then.” He looks down to the younger Link again.
“So, you, got anything you wanna be called?”
He smirks, like he’s been sitting on something mildly funny for a while, and points right back at Link. “You can call me Seadog!”
They all start laughing at the sudden exclamation.
“Pfft— Wh- what? ‘Seadog?’ Excuse me?”
Seadog stands his ground. “You heard me! I was a pirate back on my Hyrule, yknow! I’m… im dastardly!”
Twilight pats the kid on his floppy green cap and smirks. “More of a sailor, I think.”
“Watch it, country boy.”
“How do you even know what a country boy is? Your Hyrule is an ocean.”
Sky sighs. “Enough, you guys. Pretty sure we do actually have somewhere to be, so, let’s just figure these two out and get a move on.”
Seadog chuckles to himself. “‘Get a move on..’ pfft…”
“Okay- wait, are we seriously calling him that? We’re just moving on from “Seadog” like it was totally normal?”
“Eh, let the kid have his fun,” says Time.
Link looks straight at ….seadog, and says “when my life is on the line and I have to scream for help, I am not yelling for “Sea Dog” to come rescue me.”
The sailor just smiles at him. “Well don’t call for my help then.”
Link scowls.
“Just you then,” Time addresses the thus unnamed Link
“Well don’t look at me for ideas, I’ve never been called anything but Link.”
“You know what- it hadn’t occurred to me earlier, but I suppose that only seven of us would actually need to be called something different to avoid the name confusion,” comments Four.
“What?! So he gets to just stay ‘Link?’” Asks the young conductor.
“Forget fighting about who gets to be Link 1, I should’ve been worried about who just gets to be Link.”
“Look, if you guys hate the nicknames so much, we don’t have to use them-“ Sky tried.
“No, no, much as it may annoy you all, it is probably necessary to be able to differentiate between all of us. It’s not like I can ask for the one in green, yknow?” Time joked.
“I don’t know why you guys care, this is your opportunity to be called whatever you want,” Seadog chimed in.
“Yeah, and some us just want to be called our name.”
“Sucks to suck, I guess?” Was all he had in response to that.
Link rolled his eyes.
“Well, you guys can figure that out on your own later. For now, let’s just stick to what we’ve come up with,” Time says with an air of finality. “And,” he adds on with a smile, “if we really have to, we could just call you guys the Little Link and the Big Link.”
Sky claps his hands together. “Right then, that should be everyone.” He turns around to face each of the others as he speaks. “Time, you’re taller- I mean- you’re more experienced! So you and me can flank the group as we travel. Four, Seadog, and little Link—“
“I never agreed to that nickname..” the conductor muttered.
“—you guys should stay in the middle. And usually I’d like to have Linkle towards the back as well since she’s a ranged fighter, but we need her on compass duty once more, so Linkle, if you would please lead us from the front?”
She nods satisfactorily.
“Twilight, Warriors, you cover her at the front as well.”
Twilight gives a little salute, while Warriors throws Twilight some type of look, and just nods instead. Ah, Knights.