Chapter Text
Legend was never good with words. He used to just stay silent and that tended to keep him on people's good sides. During Hytopia, he discovered silence wasn't the best option for teams and now he spoke with barbed and pointed words hiding his true meaning, as close to silence as he could get.
But this team was... it was different from the doppels. How he wished he could split and do this quest with three versions of himself rather than stuck with eight other versions of his spirit. They were ignorant, and reckless, and Legend couldn't get why they acted that way. They were heroes, they should know that zoning out or daydreaming while on the road was how you got ambushed. They should know not to trust everyone they met on the road.
He'd snap at them, tell them off and he'd get mad.
It came to a head a couple nights ago, where Twilight got equally as mad, but it was at him because he told Hyrule and Wild off rather sharply for getting lost. Legend might've been a bit too sharp with them, he would admit, but they were both plenty old enough to realize yet they just didn't. How could they not realize how stupid it was to go out without letting the team at least know where they were going out! But Twilight was a protective mother bear and snapped at Legend. They had a brief yelling match before they both stormed off.
One sentence Twilight said stuck with Legend: "Didn't your parents ever teach ya not to say anythin' if you can't say anythin' nice?"
Legend almost wanted to yell: “No, they didn't! I never met them!” However, he kept that comment back. Instead, he decided to be a bit more introspective. Clearly, his communication methods from Hytopia, the only other time he really worked with a team, wasn't going to work here: being blunt about where someone needs to fix themselves, because they obviously should be able to figure out why they needed to.
So he had to figure something else out.
He wondered how silence would work. Obviously he couldn't switch to total silence, that’s definitely not how a team worked, but he could just fall back on old habits: only speak when spoken to, unless necessary to speak otherwise.
Legend rolled over that idea for an evening, then the next morning he decided to act on it.
Legend had never felt so lonely, but it was own fault he supposed. He kept to himself, if prompted he'd say either the least he could or some sharp retort depending on the context of the prompting. But those prompts came less and less as time went on.
It definitely made things far less tense, he noticed. Even if he was digging his nails into his palms whenever someone did something stupid, he wasn't asked his opinion so he kept his mouth shut. He took physical measures to keep the less experienced heroes safe, but never verbal.
He followed the group from the back, counting heads every now and then. He noticed Hyrule begin to drift off but bit his tongue and dug his nails into his palm.
Time called Hyrule back, and Legend had a thought he considered very intrusive and he did not appreciate its arrival.
What if he just stopped following?
Immediately, Legend shook his head, clearing the thought away but it was stubborn. He decided to pointedly remind himself that Warriors and Time were both very consistent and good at keeping the group together... except neither questioned Twilight disappearing for patrols, half the time Legend would have to nudge Sky when Sky moved too slow from his daydreaming or his bad lungs. They seemed to only check on Wild, Hyrule, Four, and Wind...
Legend shoved the idea from his mind. He wasn't a deserter. This was an adventure... well, it was more of a quest, but either way, he'd never ran away from one of these things before and he wasn't going to.
Legend leaned against a tree, sitting perpendicular to the camp and casting occasional glances to the wider forest. It was getting darker and he'd decided to journal. He rarely journaled, it was as old of a habit as his silence was, but since he didn't have Ravio or Zelda or even really the doppels (since they were presently all shoved into one head) to rant to, it was back to journaling he went.
He mindlessly just wrote words, which usually resulted in some poetic way of explaining how he felt since he could never truly draw himself to writing 'I feel sad' so instead it was filled with analogies and metaphors attempting to explain how his mental and emotional state was.
"Hoarder, do you want to take watch?”
"I’ll take third."
Warriors made a confirming hum and moved away. Legend watched him go before he returned to what he was doing.
Legend eventually finished writing and set his journal back into his pouch to read later when his mind wasn't so pressed and figure out what he wrote with an actual clarity. He let himself fall asleep and get some rest.
Third watch came, and Legend sat back in his spot and read through his newest entry, glancing up and listening closely as he did so.
"You know that a sort of looming presence? The one that's always there and pressing against your mind? There is an absence actively moving, a void fully consuming my mind. There's days where everything is just a giant ocean, there's so much everywhere, unending waves and clouds far above, birds crossing the horizon line to dip for food and rise to eat, fish leaping from the waves and diving below the tides, corals curling over rocks and crags, but where I stand at the surface there is a distinct nothingness, a melancholic serenity."
Legend studied the paragraph, head tilted as he couldn't quite devote full attention to it without losing awareness of the camp and he was on watch.
"Sometimes it throws me off, how they're always so happy. They're so calm and nonchalant. As if there might not be a monster in the shadows or a guard around the corner. They don't see the dangers in the shadow of trees and turning of corners. I don't understand how someone could have gone through even one of any of my adventures and come out unafraid of what's unseen. Maybe their adventures were just that different, maybe there's something there I don't see, or maybe it's just the added adventures I've had that's made me so paranoid. Maybe if I'd only gone on one or two I'd be more like them: less sharp and able to smile without fear of the subject of that smile being taken away. Flare thinks the effects of our adventures piled up but Frost thinks we are less affected by them because there was so many and we became desensitized. Fern isn't sure; he's never sure about things like that."
Legend flipped the page and began writing his conclusion of the previous paragraphs, what he wanted more concise and directly.
"The group is optimistic and positive and its so confusing. They don't look out for things that could take them by surprise, they're not always on the lookout for something lurking in the shadows and that's concerning. I think I feel a bit like an outlier in that, I've never been someone to take things at face value so their reactions to things just doesn't make sense to me. Because of that difference I think there's a divide. They feel so distant, and I know that's my own fault from being rude before, but it still remains. I haven't had a conversation with someone since that random stall owner two towns back. I think it's loneliness, the ocean I feel, but I want my actions to cause ripples, for me to be noticed. I've never really wanted to make friends before, I tend to lose them, and I know I'll lose this group, but if I don't talk to someone I'm going to kill m go insane. I don't know who I can trust to speak to though, who wouldn't get upset at my defensive speaking or who wouldn't mention my genuine voice. I can't trust them with that. I feel like a star in the night sky, from a distance I'm surrounded by everything but I'm really just alone, drifting in a void, being led along by something far more powerful."
Legend looked up, scanning the tree line and listening closely before he pressed the pen back to the paper.
"I want to scream, I want Zelda or Ravio, someone who understands me. They don't get that I'm trying to help, that I don't want them running off and getting hurt or doing something stupid. I learned not to do so many things the hard way and I’m just trying to keep them from learning the same way. At first I didn't know how to explain that, and I still kind of don't, but now I'm scared unsure of how they'd react. I don't need more distance. I keep thinking of other metaphors, a tree in a forest that's disconnected from the root system. I'm not alone, but I am alone. There is nobody here that I can turn my back to and (in full consciousness) trust them to protect me. There is nobody here I could ask to speak with and trust they wouldn't dismiss my problems no matter how badly I explain them, or how small they are. Yet even if I do scream, nobody would listen. (Did the tree that fell in a forest alone ever fall in the first place? Did the star that flickered out even exist if nobody saw it?) If I scream and cry and beg, would they listen and help? Zelda would, Ravio would, but I could name hundreds others who wouldn't blink twice."
Legend startled when a teardrop hit the page. He scrubbed his face before continuing.
"What kind of hero am I? I'm not like Time, steadfast and grounding, experienced in age with knowledge about the world and not just how to fight and solve dungeons. I'm not like Warriors, skills practiced and learned with a head for strategy and leadership. I'm not Twilight with his strength or Sky with his skill. I'm Wild for his tenacity or Hyrule for his. Not Wind for his stubbornness or Four for his, well, his intelligence (V), confidence (G), protectiveness (B), and insight (R). I have items, I have the magical items I can loan out or carry or explain and then what? What else? What help is knowing seven languages when the evolution of written Hylian is more confusing than the timeline? What is knowing a map of the surrounding countries when none of them even exist in any other timeline to their awareness? I don't see my place in this group nor do I feel present in it at all, even as an outlier."
The sun began to peak over the horizon and with it, Wild and Hyrule gradually began to rouse.
Legend scratched down a couple last sentences before he shoved his journal away, deep into his bag to be ignored for as long as possible.
"They say we're brothers, I've heard them call each other that and claim us all to be brothers. I have had two families, my uncle and grandparents, and then Zelda and Impa. If they're so certain we're brothers, then one of us is wrong about families: because I have never felt more alone than with them."