Chapter Text
Link panted as he wiped the monster's blood off his face. It was strange, the monsters were getting oddly stronger. Almost as bad as the ones in the depths.
Sighing deeply, Link let himself fall to the ground, sitting in the middle of a now dead bokoblin camp.
Now that he was looking at it, the blood of the monsters was darker than their usual purple.
His eyebrows furrowed upon inspection. Thinking about it reminded him of the black-blooded monsters he used to hunt down with…
Link shook his head, snapping himself out of thought. He was just starting to get better after everything.
He was just starting to get over the loss of his brothers. His brothers by spirit and bond. His family.
It hurts too much thinking about it. So, Link did what he does best. He pushed it all to the back of his mind to never think of it again.
Just like those horrid memories he recovered.
Link looked up at the islands above him, watching birds fly overhead. It was soothing.
Was soothing.
Out of nowhere, Link felt a strangely familiar surge of magic spike out in the forest, disrupting his relaxation.
Quickly, he shot up to his feet and darted to the source of the magic.
While running he was trying to pinpoint why it was familiar, an almost missed feeling. Did he push a memory so far away that he can’t remember? Why can’t he—
“Ow!” Link yelled as he fell to the ground. Link rubbed his face as he looked at what he ran into.
Link groaned as he was met face-to-face with a tree. Oh goddesses, Zelda was right. He needed to start paying attention to his surroundings. He gets way too lost in his thoughts at times. Dusting himself off, he got up and continued. But this time, he was walking.
Finally, he reached his destination. The strong divinity that was pulsing from the area was from a portal.
A portal!
That’s why…!
The memories Link tried so hard to push away came flooding back to the front of his mind. His eyes became teary at the thought of his found family. If this portal is what he thinks it is, he’ll get to see them again.
He supposes while he waits, he should freshen up though. Looking down at himself he cringed. He was covered in monster blood and guts, which frankly, did not smell nice.
“Everyone paired up?” Time asked tiredly to the group. In reply, the others hummed in agreement. Their exhaustion showed in every way possible at that very moment. Yes, Hylia gave them a month long break on the ranch but that didn’t take away the grief of losing their brother. They tried their best to help around the ranch but it was hard to bring themselves to do anything.
The majority of their time there was spent crying and moping around. And poor Malon tried her best to keep the boys moving and their hopes high. She may have not had a deep connection with Wild as Wild had with the boys but she missed him too.
Knowing one of her boys was probably gone forever shattered her heart. It took all her might not to fall down the same rabbit hole as the other heroes.
Malon approached the boys with a tired smile, “Promise me that you all will stay safe, please.” Malon’s plea was desperate. She didn’t want to have to lose another one of them. She couldn’t.
“I promise we’ll stay safe. I’ll make sure of it.” Time told her as he held her hands. He leaned in and kissed her on her forehead then her lips.
With that, they all said goodbye to Malon before walking through Hylia’s portal.
The heroes groaned in different sorts of pain after exiting the long-gone portal. Portal shifting was never nice to them, always leaving them hunched over in pain.
The first ones to recover were Time, Wind, Warriors, and Sky. As they went around to help the others they tried to get some looks at their surroundings.
It was clear from the start that they were not in any of their eras, but something about the time they were in was awfully familiar.
It wasn’t an area they’d been in before but the magic of this era was similar to the magic in Wild’s era.
Suddenly their thoughts were cut off by a yelp from Twilight. Quickly, the standing heroes drew their swords but upon facing Twilight, they did not find a monster. No, they saw a wild gremlin they all knew too well having knocked the rancher back to the ground and squeezing the life out of him.
“Cub?!” Twilight gasped when he looked down. His lips wobbled as Wild nodded in confirmation. Without a second to spare, Twilight hugged Wild back with an equal amount of strength and tucked his face into Wild’s hair.
With all the heroes up now, they surrounded the two, tears falling down the faces of many and trying to get a hug from Wild.
Finally, they all got a chance to breathe and get a good look at their once missing brother. He hadn’t seemed to have changed much when it came to aging but his appearance was definitely different.
The boy looked more put together than his usual unkempt look and the horns on his head were an interesting style, they supposed.
“Woah, Wild, where did you get these?!” Wind asked as he grinned and tried to reach up and grab at Wild’s horns.
Swiftly, Wild dodged the teen’s grabby hands, backing away behind the nearest person – Warriors. “No touching,” Wild told Wind as he glared at him.
“Damn kid, are these real?” Warriors laughed as he tugged on the curl of his horn, dragging his head back along with it. The captain had gotten a chance to get a closer look at the horns when Wild was scolding Wind.
Wild squawked and smacked the captain's hands away. “I just said no touching! And I’m not a kid, you should all already know that.” Wild pouted.
They all stared at him confused as Wild did the same to them.
“Wild, what do you mean by that? It’s only been a month since you left. And that time you slept does not make you an adult.” Time’s brows furrowed as he continued, “And what does Warriors mean those horns are real?”
As they all looked at Wild he sputtered trying to find the easiest way to answer them.
“A month?” Wild muttered to himself, looking at the forest ground. Glancing back up at the others, Wild expressed more confusion, “It’s been four years since I’ve seen you all.”
“Hold on, four years?” Legend spoke up. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” He groaned into his hands.
“Strange. It seems time worked differently for him. While we stayed at the ranch for a month, Wild stayed here for four years,” Four hummed.
Twilight let out a sound of uncertainty, “What did you do that took four years, Cub?”
Wild stared at his mentor with wide eyes, “Waiting mainly.”
“You just waited for four years?!” Wind yelled.
“Weellll.” Wild looked off to the side, avoiding eye contact as he admitted what happened, “Technically, I did and didn’t. It took time for my adventure to start; a long time for it to start. But long story short, It took almost three years for it to start.”
When he looked back at his brothers he found them all staring at him in disbelief.
“Hey! Don’t look at me like that! It took me a while to accept the fact of losing you all and having to deal with Ganon again,” Wild scoffed as he scolded them all. “And by the looks of it, you guys weren’t handling it well either. You all look like you got trampled over by a herd of horses!”
To be honest, he did have a point. They all looked like huge trainwrecks. But that offense was not going to distract them from the mystery in front of them.
Warriors cleared his throat to catch everyone's attention. “Wild, you’re going to have to fill us in on what happened before we all die an early death from stress,” He spoke dryly.
Wild snorted, “Alright, captain. You guys better get comfy because this story is not short…”