Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hyrule's loss was devastating.

They couldn't get Legend off the ground, if they tried to drag him he became a picture until they left.

Everyone sat around him for days. Sometimes he screamed from his grief, others he begged but more often than not he lay curled exactly as he was now. A fetal position clutching his head turned to the ground, as if he could feel Hyrule's blood singing in its soil.

Wind was fed up with it, he was going to do something about it timeline be damned.

He waited until everyone was asleep before going to Legend. "Hey, have you eaten?"

Legend only sobbed, his shoulders shaking before his head rose for the first time since he fell, "W-when we g ot to o my t Ime I wa g-gonna giv him Aall th- sug ar he wanned - was gonna suff 'im full la apples"

Shit, wrong question. Maybe a command.

"I'll sit you up for food, you just don't do that picture magic again"

In response, Legend did the picture magic. Fuck.

Wind hung his head standing up to leave, eyes narrowed and his mouth grimaced.
Time to get shit done... just...needed to figure out what to do.

It was his turn for watch so there was no one to suspect or check what was going through Wind's mind. Time had mentioned his ocarina in passing, his relationship with magic.

How he got his title. The songs he hummed and strummed.

Wind briefly wondered if he should bring anyone with him, but decided against it - who knew what multiple of the same soul in one place would do without Hylia's protection.

Wind packed his things before creeping to Time's sleep spot, his ocarina was never far away from him. He pulled out his wind waker. He hoped it wouldn't come to an escape but Time was a light sleeper.

After fumbling around for a second he found the ocarina, clutched in Time's hands.

Escape it was.

Wind started to slowly pry at Time's fingers, watching for every breath and twitch for if he had been made. When Time rolled over, Wind took the sudden looseness in his fingers for the opportunity it was, wind waker still in hand he snatched the ocarina and ran.

Time woke up, only through grogginess and age did Wind escape his reach. He kept running.

Time's eyes widened, as he woke the realization of what Wind would do had him clenching his teeth. Dread sunk in, "WIND DON'T"

The other heroes were up in seconds, saw Time rising to give chase and promptly followed suit. Those few seconds it took the heroes to give chase were seconds too long.

Wind waved his baton, summoning the winds to such a harsh blow the other heroes paused to close their eyes. When those eyes opened again, Wind was gone, music notes carried through those same winds he called.

Time fell to his knees, eyes wide as his arms hung limp, "No, please. No"

Legend stayed curled on the ground, too absorbed in his grief to hear Wind leave.

Chapter Text

Wind played the notes he always heard Time humming under his breath; he wanted to get there - before Hyrule died. Wind thought about saving Hyrule.

He felt the wind pick up around him, the notes of the ocarina echoing. Looking down, his body started to fade. After a moment, he was gone; before he could so much as blink, Wind was somewhere else.

Bodies lay all around him - some trees were on fire and others still smoldering. It was a slaughter of more men than monsters.

One of the few survivors looked over at him; he wore what would be a brilliant red scarf.

"I've been expecting you," he said, wiping blood from his jaw. "I'm Link, the first." He raised his sword, swinging the blood off before sliding it into his scabbard. The tunic Wind knew to be green would be stained brown from blood.

Looks like Link was never clean, even from the start.

What a pompous dick, Wind thought. "So you're the first bastard to be a hero; I expected you to be shorter," Wind walked forward.

"I ain't helping ya buggards, already got me plate full"

"You're not supposed to, I'm helping you," he walked towards Wind and met him in the middle. "You're older than I expected."

Well, that was a different reaction than Wind usually got.

°*;•;*°

They made their way back to base camp; relatively speaking, it wasn't long as Wind expected - only a few hours' horse ride. They found a surviving one for Wind from the frey of fallen soldiers.

"I'm from a w'rld o ocean, thar ain't nough people for tha large a conflict, but still, why were ther so many a fallen fellow fer so few a monster?"

The first Link looked back a bit from the front road, "not all Hylians are in agreement; some support the demon king Demise, believing he will bring needed destruction for a renewal. They want power."

"Tha fuck'n weird."

"Indeed."

After several dozen minutes of silence, they made it back to camp. Link made a motion to follow while the rest of the platoon dispersed. He went through a red metal box; inside, there was a man with honeyed eyes and brown spiked hair. "Orville, it's time for me to go - start the preparations."

The man, Orville, nodded and pulled out several scrolls and a pack. He gave the scrolls to what looked like if beans were metal and wore sand castles as hats.

The bean floated out of the box. Once the bean was fairly out of sight, the first Link walked forward and gave Orville a hug. When he pulled away, Orville was, of course, covered in bloody dry flakes and half-clumped smears.

Orville stood there for a moment, looking down at his tunic. "That's gross, get changed before you leave," and he handed the pack over. Link simply smiled and nodded before leaving the box himself.

Wind awkwardly waved and followed.

"Wha ya mean yer goin'?"

"I am joining you on your quest to save your companion and end the split."

Wind blinked. "An how ya know all that?" - the split part was new to him. He knew of the three timelines, of course, but that had already existed for hundreds of years. Surely, if the goddesses wanted them gone, they would have fixed it earlier.

Right?

"You will find out. Now use your borrowed magic; let's go."

Wind thought this was all happening rather quickly, but everything does. He pulled out Time's ocarina and grabbed the first Link before playing the instrument.

Bring me closer to Hyrule - I need to save him

Just as before, the wind blew around them, and as it died down, they faded before simply disappearing.