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Hyrule sometimes wonders to which goddess luck can be attributed to.
Din didn’t seem a likely candidate. She was more a being of brutal absolutes. Things that were and things that were not. The piercing peak of a mountain. The jagged slash of a river through canyon. The slow, crawling grind of an iceberg rending apart stone, inch by painful inch. Simple, irrefutable truths. Unquestionable strength. Nothing left up to chance.
Nayru, meanwhile, seemed beyond the reproach of something as directionless and messy as Luck. Nayru was the arbiter of gravity, the origin of laws so integral, so self evident, that there was no point in putting them into writing. The one who plotted out orbits and constellations before there were even any stars to glide along their paths. No margin for error because there was no error.
Luck could come from Farore. The life she had sewn between the unbending land and laws of her sisters was a capricious thing. Lush one second and fossilized the next. But life was cyclical. It had its patterns. For every frostbitten blizzard there was the dawn of spring. For every predator snapping bone beneath jaw, there was that same predator disappearing back into the earth beneath scavenger and rot and growth. Action. Reaction.
No. The Golden Goddesses, while powerful, were hands off deities. They had shaped the world, left paths for its future, and then set it spinning into its circles, but were not the kind to make sure it kept wheeling in its rotations.
That task landed quite neatly into Hylia’s domain.
And that thought, the idea that She was in charge of luck– and therefore, their complete and total lack of it today– would have made Hyrule snort deliriously, if he had the air for it.
As it were, he hardly has the air to keep his lungs heaving as he clings awkwardly to Legend’s neck.
Legend pitches forward and Hyrule feels his stomach launch into his throat as his face smashes into the other’s back, the bar of his arms tightening around the veteran’s throat with a jerk. Legend lets out an aborted choke, stopping just quick enough to regather his footing and let Hyrule’s feet touch the ground enough to relieve the pressure before he’s off again, feet pattering madly over mud and stone.
Not for the first time, Hyrule wishes they had a second longer to stop, change position, regain breath, anything, but alas. There isn't much they can do with the entire lower half of his body numb and a clans-worth of hunters snapping at their heels.
Around them, the forest is once again a mush of greens and browns smearing past as Legend’s Pegasus boots slam them forward. Wind and branches whip them in equal parts, yanking exposed limbs and tearing at loose clothes and hair. Beneath him, Hyrule can feel as air slices in and out of the veteran’s lungs, the older hero’s heart rabbiting away as each step jostles them both. Behind, the dogged sound of their pursuers cascades through the underbrush; snapping twigs accompanying the sizzle and pop of teleportation magic and their whooping, nasal laughter.
The whole cacophony is enough to make Hyrule’s head spin.
Or maybe that’s the toxin in his system finally making it to his head.
Hyrule has no clue how a simple scouting mission could have gone so wrong so quickly. One second he and Legend had been gazing across an overlook, trying to get a lay of the land to report back to the others. And in the next second pain had lanced through his right leg where an arrow was rooted deep in his thigh as several trees around them exploded into smoke, replaced with garishly dressed, red ninjas.
Several hands and a net had lunged at him, and it was only the muscle memory from years worth of being hunted that allowed Hyrule to cast a quick Jump spell, sending him several feet above the chaos. After that, it was only a matter of slamming back down on top of them with his good leg braced down on his shield, a hylian cannon ball.
And then Legend was there, viciously stomping on any Yiga members beneath him as he threw the arm on Hyrule’s bad side over his shoulder and all but dragged the wandering hero from the clearing.
It had only taken around half a mile to realize that there was something wrong with Hyrule’s leg outside of the projectile they had yanked out a little ways back. Half a mile more to understand that the tingling, numbing effect would spread to his other leg and make his vision swim.
Which left them here: At least half a day's walk from the others, his arms wrapped around Legend’s neck like a noose as his legs dangle uselessly beneath him, with what seems to be the entirety of Wild’s Yiga clan hunting them for sport
Their luck is truly something else.
“You have eyes on them?” Legend wheezes out between breaths, gaze locked forward.
Hyrule woozily drags his head from where it was pressed against the other’s shoulder and lets it flop back. The mishmash of muted colors are difficult for him to parse but then– there. Dancing orange runes bloom from a bush not 20 feet back, flowering into petals of red and gold papery charms and a footsoldier with a bow honed on them.
“Left!” Hyrule shouts. Or tries to shout. His tongue has started to feel fuzzy and leaden in his mouth, leaving “ ‘Eft.” to tumble clumsily from his lips.
Legend doesn’t pause for elaboration, doesn't look over his own shoulder to confirm. He simply moves. Hyrule feels the sharp turn as a lurch in his stomach, sending him curling his face back into position in the older hero’s shoulder lest he lose his lunch.
Even with the quick dodge, the sound of arrows sing past far too close for comfort.
The veteran must think so too if his frustrated hiss means anything.
Hyrule understands. The sizzling pops and giggles of the Yiga are gaining ground. Legend’s legs, while fast, are beginning to slow, to stumble. They’re still too far from the others.
Their time is running out and they all know it.
“Drop me.” With every word, Hyrule can feel himself slowing down more, his mind getting more and more muddled.
Distantly, he realizes he should be scared. Terrified. But just like with his body, his emotions seem detached from him. He notes the prickling panic. The heaving, dripping dread. The brief sparks of anger at these people for doing this to them. But it’s like those emotions slip through his fingers like sand– ephemeral, nothing he can get a firm grasp on.
He’s not sure what was on the laced arrowhead but it seems to be part paralytic, part sedative. Meant to knock him down and out, but not kill.
He knows what the latter feels like, and this soft, numbing sleep isn't it.
“Shut up, ” Legend huffs out between panting breaths.
“They're ‘fter me,” Hyrule says slowly, trying to pick out each word carefully from the mire of his brain. He thinks his reasoning is sound if not eloquent. They had only tried to restrain him after all. And, he thinks ruefully, it's not like he doesn’t know why. “Trynna catch, not kill. You can get ‘elp.”
“I said,” Legend snarls. “ Shut. Up. I’m thinking.”
They take another sharp turn that almost sends them sprawling into mud, and this time Hyrule hears the hollow thunk of arrows hitting the tree inches to the left of them.
Running out of time. The thought spins in his head as fast as the kaleidoscope world around him. They’re running out of time. Running out of time. His head is already a swirled swamp, thick, syrupy, trying to drag him under. How long till his arms go numb? Till his hands lose their grip? Till Legend is forced to hold him in place just to keep them moving?
Hyrule clenches his grip tighter. Relaxes a fraction. Does it again. Tightens, relaxes, tightens, relaxes, familiarizing himself with the feeling.
Maybe…
Maybe he can spare Legend.
Maybe…
“Don’t even. Think. About it.” Each word is molten as it grinds out of Legend’s mouth, panic, exhaustion, and fear sparking together to ignite into anger. “Together. Or not at all. You idiot.”
Hyrule sighs and lets his head thunk back against the other’s back. He once again notes the guilt and relief he knows he's feeling but can't grasp onto. Notes the way they seem to war together, snapping at each other's heels in his guts. The way they collide into nausea that threatens to crawl up his throat.
He swallows it down into something he thinks might be hopeful resignation.
Legend suddenly lurches left and Hyrule catches as they just barely skirt a large, fallen log. The whumps of several other bodies suddenly colliding with the obstacle a beat later coaxes a mean, breathless little snort from Legend.
The older chances a look over his shoulder, the devious look on his face fizzling out into something akin to comfort as he catches Hyrule’s no doubt hazy eyes. Something like a ‘See? We can take these idiots.’
Hyrule musters up a twitch of his lips back and then–
Then the ground falls out from beneath them.
Whatever control Hyrule had over his limbs has completely abandoned him now, so he has no idea how Legend has the wherewithal to grab him and guide his head into the safety of the older’s chest as they start to fall ass over teakettle.
And if he had felt like the world was a spinning, confusing mush before, now it’s as though reality has lost all sense of rhyme or reason. The sky cartwheels and flips and cannonballs straight into the muddled mess that was the greens and browns of the forest around them, creating a confusing whirlpool of color and direction. Even through the numbness of the toxin, Hyrule can feel the vines and stones catch at his skin and hair as he and Legend go careening through the depths, peppering slices and stings across his body from every conceivable direction.
They seem to tumble forever and yet it is only seconds before they come to a skidding halt as a crumpled mess of limbs at the bottom of the hill.
For a second they simply lie there: Hyrule disoriented, Legend exhausted.
But after a moment, there is a shout from above them, followed by that Hylia damned hiss and pop of teleportation.
And then Legend is hauling himself into motion once again, mud covered, grass stained, with blood dripping from skinned knees and a nicked eyebrow but with eyes made of steel and fire.
Not for the first time since they started traveling together, Hyrule is struck with the fact that this is The Hero of Legend.
The Hero he had always been eager to hear stories of when growing up. The Hero who’s name was whispered reverently by villagers and spat out as a curse by monsters. The Hero who was said to be able to shapeshift, who had mastery over time and the seasons, who could walk through dreams and walls alike, and had defeated Ganon not once, not twice, but three times.
The Hero of Hyrule and Lorule and Holodrum and Labrynna.
Of course this doesn't even faze him.
Barely even slows him down, in fact.
The pink haired hero hooks one arm underneath Hyrule’s legs and uses the other to brace behind his back, hauling him up into his arms. Hyrule, for his part, woozily closes his eyes and relaxes back into the other’s grip. He trusts Legend. Trusts that he knows what he’s doing.
Instead of dizzily watching their path or keeping track of the hisses and pops of their enemies, Hyrule concentrates on willing himself to stay conscious, to stay here , despite the cotton soft numbing. Despite the slow quicksand pull of his mind. Despite the gentle beckoning darkness leading him down.
He needs to stay here, to help, to do something.
Just in case.
Just in case Legend needs him.
They walk for a while like that, silent and limping and barely hanging on.
Eventually, Hyrule distantly feels himself being set down, back laid against the rough grain of a tree while something soft is tucked behind his head as a makeshift pillow.
The wandering hero forces his eyes open a crack and finds Legend only a few feet away, muttering as he digs through his side bag. His hat is notably missing and it takes a couple of sluggish seconds for Hyrule’s brain to put two and two together that the other’s hat must be what his head is resting against right now.
It takes another syrupy slow moment to realize that Legend isn’t muttering, but actually speaking to him.
“–always thought it was more of a hassle to get my hands on it than it was worth,” The older is saying, eyes still locked on his bag. “I could never figure out if I was supposed to do something specific with it or if it would help me sneak in somewhere or what.”
Legend pulls a Red Potion from his satchel. He pops the cork on the drink and holds it to Hyrule’s lips. The weird, fruity yet mushroomy taste of the potion spreads over his tongue as the drink’s bubbly, viscous texture slides down his throat and– finally.
Finally, Hyrule can feel the numbness and tingling and fog beginning to ebb, if only barely.
He drinks as much of the concoction as his stomach can handle before Legend pulls the glass away and places the bottle an inch from Hyrule’s limp left hand.
With the world no longer a cacophony of swirling color and tilting gravity and encroaching darkness, Hyrule can finally register the sound of footsteps and voices a little bit beyond their hollow.
He can also now place the expression on Legend’s face as decidedly rueful, which Hyurle doesn’t care for one bit.
“It wasn’t till I met you that I realized that the ring wasn’t just disguising me, but actually turning me into someone specific” The pink haired hero continues whispering as he once again paws through his bag. He comes away with a small wooden box a moment later.
Flicking open the lid reveals a golden ring with a zig-zag shaped red jewel set in its face.
“It also wasn’t till I met you that I understood this thing actually could be useful.”
Legend pulls the ring from its place.
Smiles with crinkled eyes and tilted head and eyes full of gallows humor.
Slides it on his finger.
And then it is no longer Legend standing in front of him.
It’s him.
His own hazel eyes, his own lopsided, dimpled smile. His own messy brown hair and slightly knobbly fingers and freckles and green tunic and–
…no.
“No!” Hyrule mumbles frantically, managing to shake his head back and forth. The feeling is beginning to return to him but it's slow, trickling back by inches where he needs it by feet. “Together ‘r not at ‘ll!”
“Don’t worry, ‘Rule,” Legend speaks and it's odd to hear the veteran’s voice come from his body. The disguised hero shakes his head and leans down to ruffle Hyrule’s hair, the same dead smile on his face. “I’ll be right back.”
Hyrule shakes his head harder, dislodging the other’s warm hand.
With the numb blanket of poison drip drip dripping out of his system, he can feel the full force of his emotions slamming through him again. He feels his face heat up under their barrage, his body vibrating with the sheer force of it. Everything, his fear, panic, dread, betrayal, he can feel as they boil together and then erupt forward into the most scalding glare he can manage with a mostly numb face.
“Liar,” he hisses, voice cracking on the word.
And Legend…
Legend just sighs and shakes his head.
Steps back.
And leans down, collecting Hyrule’s sword and shield from the ground.
When he straightens, he makes the image of the perfect Hero of Hyrule, from the scruffed and bleeding limbs down to the hunted expression of grim determination.
Then he turns, pausing a second to slip his own Fire Rod into a loop on his belt and fish a glinting medallion with a bomb on its face from his bag before marching straight to the edge of their little hollow. The sounds of the Yiga are all around them now, orange runes and smoke peaking over the top of the underbrush as grunted order becomes more and more clear.
Legend glances over his shoulder.
Hazel eyes meet hazel eyes: one pair a forest fire, the other wood hardened to petrified stone.
Sorry, Legend mouths.
Then he turns, shield on back, sword raised and fire rod in hand, shouting as he charges forward to set the world ablaze.
And Hyrule-
Hyrule is not going to let him get away with it.
He starts with parts of his body he can feel. His face, where he can feel the heat of anger and the cool trickle of frustrated tears creeping at the edges of his eyes. His neck and chest, where his heart rattles his ribs and his lungs constrict with fear, but also where a warmth is beginning to bloom from his stomach outward thanks to the potion.
He focuses on the boundaries, where his muscles go from panic tense to forcibly lax. And then, Hyrule pushes. Pushes from his veins upward through marrow and bone, slamming against cotton numbness pillowing muscles, clawing desperately at the brambles of tingling that ensnare nerves. He wills the potion to move faster. Wills something else, something golden and mountain strong and constellation evident and prey driven courageous, upward from every drop of red within so he can. Just. Move.
Distantly, Hyrule feels the ground tremble beneath him as the air fills with smoke and muffled shouts from where Legend is surely using his Bombos medallion.
He needs to move.
He needs to move now.
Leaning forward off the tree feels like being waist deep in a mire, the very air seeming to try to suck him back into place. He doesn’t let it. His arms are leaden, his legs made of stone, but by Hylia, Hyrule will make them move.
Bracing one arm down in front of him has the wandering hero sweating. Placing the other next to it makes his lungs heave. He doesn’t let it stop him. Not for a second. Arm over arm, hand over hand, legs pushing whenever they are able, Hyrule drags himself forward across the forest floor. Dirt caking into elbows and pushing up nails, stones pressing up into ribs, leaves and branches slicing at his face, Hyrule ignores it all and crawls.
Crawls and crawls and crawls and crawls because-
Because– there.
There, from underneath the bush he had been dragging himself through, Hyrule can the battle is already winding down.
The forest clearing is ringed with fallen Yiga. Some are groaning, some are not, but almost all are smoldering slightly, matching the scorched and cratered ground around them. The five still facing down Legend are not unscathed from what must have been a barrage.
The three Yiga foot soldiers are in varying states of disarray, with one missing half their mask and swaying slightly, a second with embers still in their hair, and the last with burns only on their legs somehow. The two Blade Masters, however, appear to have dodged most of the explosions, only the edges of their uniforms singed.
Legend, despite having thinned the herd significantly, isn’t faring too well himself. One arrow is lodged through his shoulder and another is through his thigh, a mirror to the wound that had started this all. Hyrule can see a minute tremor going through him, his arm straining under the weight of his sword as his knees twitch, threatening to buckle. His Fire Rod lays in the dirt at his feet, useless now that Legend has spent all his magic on his medallion.
“We would have given you the opportunity to come quietly,” One of the Blade Masters growls, raising his sword “But I think we’re well past that point, don’t you, Hero?”
“B-bite m-me,” Legend replies, his jaw trembling with the effort of gritting out those words.
The second Blade Master snaps his fingers and the foot soldiers fall into formation, two aiming arrows at Legend while the third readies a net.
“I suppose the master only said you needed to be alive,” The Blade Master continues, slowly moving in with his partner. “Missing an eye or two will have to do.”
The Blade Masters ready their swords while the footsoldiers loom behind them, ready with support-
But Hyrule doesnt let them take even a single step closer to Legend.
Hyrule takes everything that has been building inside him today and focuses it into the palm of his hand.
Takes the panic, the spark of adrenaline and sick breathlessness of it, and condenses it down till the manic energy, the fear, is vibrating the very air between his fingers. He takes the anger next and stokes it forth, takes in the sight Legend with muscles failing and with blood dripping down his arm and adds that to the fire until he has an inferno, and channels that down too till it feels like blisters are bubbling up between his calluses.
He takes the helplessness and frustration of limbs not responding to his call, of watching Legend smile wryly before walking to what could have well been his death, and feeds that restless energy into the mix until his entire arm is shaking with the miasma of energy and emotion.
A spark of magic is all it takes to set his hand alight with the dancing plasma of lightning.
The blinding light, or perhaps the rapturous crack! of the magic sparking to life, sends everyone’s heads in the clear snapping in Hyrule’s direction. He knows he must look a picture: covered in mud and leaves and cuts, sprawled out underneath a bush with a blinding, twitching mass of multi-colored lightning casting shadows over his manic expression.
Legend’s face slackens in disbelief, and though he can't see their faces, Hyrule likes to think he can imagine the look of absolute bafflement on the Yiga members’ faces.
He gives them all a grin so wide it makes his cheeks hurt.
And with a snap of his fingers, lets the chain lightning fly.
The roar of thunder drowns out the sound of five bodies hitting the ground, leaving the two identical heroes as the only ones conscious in the clearing.
Hyrule looks at the Other Hyrule.
The Other Hyrule looks at Hyrule.
Bubbles of relief and incredulity over the insanity of their situation forces manic laughter up and out of his chest. The Other Hyrule responds in kind, stumbling toward him and collapsing into a fit of snickers by his side. Which just makes Hyrule laugh harder because, here they sit: two Hyrules looking incredibly worse for wear surrounded by scorch marks and craters and the smell of ozone and unconscious ninjas.
“Never,” Hyrule gasps out between laughs, “Do that again.”
The Other Hyrule laughs and pulls the ring from his finger.
Brown hair is replaced with pink tinged blonde. The green and brown tunic bleeds to red and black. Gone are his freckles and hazel eyes and dimples, replaced with silvery scars and ultramarine eyes and a crooked nose.
"Not even to mess with the others?" Legend asks with a exhausted grin.
Hyrule pretends to screw his face up in thought.
"One more time," he decides with a faux air of finality. "You're allowed to use it one more time."
Legend snorts. And holds out his pinky.
Hyrule huffs out a laugh, rolls his eyes, and links their fingers together.
"Deal."