Chapter Text
The Captain has no right to look that tired or exasperated. He has known Four two days and that 'not this shit again' face of resignation is entirely unwarranted.
Besides. He found Link. And maybe their mission. And got a job offer.
He's doing amazing.
"You told them you're a time traveller," the Captain confirms. Again.
Four nods.
"He is a time traveller," Legend points out, not so much with him as against Wars.
"And you believed him?"
"The dragon was also time travel kidnapped," the local-Link tells them.
Four has already decided he's not going to find any of this weird.
"He's having a whole quest about it," Purah adds.
The captain sinks his head into his hands for a long moment, then lifts it again, composed. "Okay, this is probably where we're meant to be."
Where they are is the ground floor room in Purah's house, located under the tower no one will let him jump off. It's not a big room, and it's crammed full of books and papers, a large table, and a haphazard array of chairs. Purah takes the only comfortable looking one, and the now four Links are left to fend for themselves. Wars and local-Link stand while Four's found himself a pile of newspapers and Zelda-and-Link missing posters to sit on. Legend's helps himself to the single desk chair.
Purah's assistant, a girl named Josha who's even younger than him, takes a stool at the table to keep notes.
They have done the time travel conversation, the 'we are also named Link' conversation, they have (eventually, whoops) remembered to grab Wars. All sorts of progress.
The books taunt him, unreadable, he's going to see if he can learn the alphabet off Josha as soon as he has the chance, but for now…
"So do I get nickname too?" local-Link asks.
Wars makes the call without consulting them, "This your his home, I think it's only fair you keep Link. We're the visitors."
Now, he has a point and as good guests they should probably accept this, but on the other hand he's given up 'Link' five times now and that's not fair either.
If he really wanted he could insist they use his name instead of 'Four' but he kinda likes Four and ugh, that's not the point, he doesn't know what the point is. He just doesn't like the feeling of losing it to someone else. Of going through everything and never getting to have it back.
So he speaks up, "I think he needs a nickname."
"Everyone here knows him as Link," Wars explains patiently, like he doesn't get it.
Four understands it fine, that's just not the problem. But there's no way he's going to launch into trying to explain the issue here when he only half understands it himself.
"I want to be in the club," local-Link says.
"Yeah!" Chimes Four. Well that's gotta decide it, right?
"You're excluding him," Legend adds, and Wars gives him a 'why must you be such an asshole?' look. Because he is only saying it to be an asshole. He supposes he should give the Captain credit for his patience sometimes.
"Okay," the guy knows when to fold it seems, "the rest of us used titles. 'Hero of the Four Sword', 'Hero of Legend,'" Wars makes an 'and so on' motion with one hand, "do you have one then?"
Ah, so unlike him and Legend, the Captain doesn't seem to have heard of this guy, or at least couldn't pick him from what he's seen. He files that information away.
Local-Link thinks about it for a moment, "I don't think I have something like that, who around is going to go awarding titles…? Hero of Hyrule?"
"We're all have Hyrule," Legend groans.
"What are you going to do if we meet a Link with that as their only title?" Wars asks.
"Stop assuming we'll have to continue this nonsense."
Four frowns at the new Link, "No, Legend is right for the wrong reason—" "Hey!" "—he doesn't look like a 'Hyrule'."
The guy grins,"What do I look like?"
"The locals think you're a cryptid," Legend snarks at him.
"They're not wrong," Purah interjects and local-Link laughs sheepishly.
"Hero of the huge fuck ass field," Legend offers.
He snickers, "Bit long, 'Field' for short or 'Ass'?"
"That's already Legend," Vio says, before anyone can stop him. Actually, there's some mental high-five'ing going on about it if anything.
Legend just smirks at him.
Wars fails to hide his snort then tries to pull it back to something respectable, "Wilderness?"
Red seizes control, never able to resist a nicknaming, "Wilds. You're Wild."
"I am?"
"Yeah!"
"Excellent." The newly dubbed Wild nods firmly.
The captain leans his back against a wall, somehow having found a space mostly free of papers and hangings, "So Wild, we've noticed a pattern. Done anything notable in the past three or so days?"
"By notable you mean…?"
"Boss battle," Legend says dryly, "saving Hyrule, rescuing half a dozen kidnapped sages, a young woman or women in distress, fighting a giant pig."
"The giant pig was years ago—" "Of course it was." "— this time the Demon King Ganondorf was in an aerial dragon battle."
So maybe he really shouldn't have worried about looking weird in front of these people after all. Four rocks forward on his newspaper pile, "So you're done too? Threat gone, back to normal?"
"No," Wild shakes his head, "not until we find a way to bring Zelda back."
"Back from what—! Oh shit did she die?" Legend seems genuinely upset at the prospect.
"Necromancy," Four whispers, horrified. Mostly. Vio, whatever that feeling is I don't like it. ('Shhhh, don't worry about it.')
"No! She didn't die! She's not dead!"
"She's taken somewhere?" Legend ventures.
Purah and Wild look at each other for a moment, then Purah says "Draconification."
A word he's never heard before and Four frowns, breaking down in his head, but it's Legend who says it first, "Change to a dragon?"
Four snaps his head in the direction of the dragon. He can't see it through the wall, but it hums, resonates, on the edges of his senses. "…The dragon is Princess Zelda!?"
"Yes."
"…eh?"
"What…?" Even Legend seems surprised,
"How? And why?" Wars finishes.
"It's a long story," Purah picks at her recorder with one hand, "but the short of it was she brought the transformation on herself to renew the Master Sword."
Legend startles and reaches for his sword —just for a moment— before he stops himself. The Captain frowns, thoughtful, but Four has no idea what she's talking about.
"The what?"
Wild gives him a wry smile, "Need a wondrous Sword of Light to defeat the king of demons, right?"
"Ugh, you do." If the last five years have taught him anything it's that. The Sword is important.
He wonders, briefly, if he's useless without it, but comes to the conclusion 'fuck, no'. He has plenty of things to question; his recovery, his differences from how he was before, if he's just a lesser version of the Colours, but never that it was the Sword that made him worthy.
He made the Sword.
"We don't know how to undo it," Wild tells them, "and now she's injured and time is running out."
"How did it happen?" Wars frowns thoughtfully at Wild and Purah, "How did she transform in the first place?"
"There are… relics of great power said to have been created by the Golden Goddesses..." Purah explains.
"Of course there are," mutters Legend, "If I have been kidnapped by the fucking Triforce again—"
"They were called Secret Stones."
"Are there three of them, triangle shaped?"
"Three?" Wonders Four aloud and Legend's gaze turns to him, "Let me guess—"
"Seven, about this big" Purah holds her fingers apart about the length of his thumb, "comma shaped."
"…I don't know what that is in your writing," Four points out and Wild laughs and draws one on the chalkboard taking up the wall behind Purah. Huh, same shape, good to know.
"A curious property of the Secret Stones," she continues, "alone, they amplify the holder's natural power, their magic I suppose. I suspect you think about the mechanics of magic differently to us, but that's the gist of it."
He's noticed that too, they don't seem to speak about magic the same way he does, though Legend seems more in line with himself from the little he's noticed.
"Ingested they transform the bearer into a dragon, it is said to be at the cost of all thought and memory.
Immortal, but lost…" She trails off.
It clicks, and Four feels the fractures form, "It was an item?" he asks, unable to keep the shake out of his voice.
"A relic from the dawn of creation, a memento from the Goddesses, but I suppose you could call it that."
Thus was the Light Dragon born, thus was the Princess Zelda changed.
An item. An artifact. Some cursed-blessed gift from the Goddesses.
She has no way out, she has no way back, no one and nothing to guide her. It took her, and unravelled flesh and blood and bone, and wove her a new body from Light magic.
Just.
Like.
Him.
Flesh made magic, magic made flesh.
And oh, he knows why he's here.
He knows what he has to do.
The Captain asks her some question, but Four is not paying attention anymore. He closes his eyes and sinks into himself, falling apart is the easiest thing in the world.
Team meeting.
Blue starts them off, 'Okay, so there's not a chance they're letting us try that.'
'They might if it'll save Zelda,' Vio points out, but they all feel the 'might'.
'We might get killed and they think we're adorable,' Red adds, 'they won't let us do anything risky.'
'Please don't call us that,' Green begs, 'Just say they see us as a kid.'
'Link can't help being loveable, okay?'
'All that is your fault,' Blue grouches at him.
'Thank you~ ♡' 'It wasn't a compliment!' 'You know you're very endearing too, Blue.'
'Can we focus?' Green cuts back in.
Vio picks things back up, 'They'll want to try it instead and they can't, it has to be us, we're the only ones who know what it feels like. If we put it off too long it'll be too late.'
'We don't even know if this'll work. We might save her, we might erase ourselves, or it might do nothing at all.'
'That last one seems the most likely,' Vio admits.
A long moment of silence, and they're almost back together as they consider it.
'Why are we here if not for this?' Red finally asks.
'And while Link is still so unstable.' Green is a little sad at that.
Blue speaks up again, 'So how do we do this?'
'We downplay what it involves,' Vio says simply, 'No one but us is going to understand the magic anyway.'
'Is everyone okay with this? It is a risk,' Green warns, 'We don't have the Sword to guide it.'
'We should try to get hold of one of those stones so we have the feel for them first,' Vio suggests, 'But I'm in.'
'I want to help her,' such a simple, uncomplicated desire from Blue, 'Don't overthink it. We want to do it, so we do it.'
'It's the only thing we ever felt the same about, right?' Red finishes it.
Four opens his eyes.
'Saving Zelda.'
Wars is watching him subtly, he caught his lapse, but doesn't comment. The timing is good, a lull in the conversation that went on without him, so Four launches straight into it.
"Do you have the other stones?"
You never have just one of the magic quest stones, right?
"They're around," Wild answers him, "but others have them."
"Could I see one by any chance? I might, might, be able to help."