Chapter Text
Wild frowned at his slate. “Darn,” he said, “I’m out of Goron Spice.”
Wind sat straight up. “What?” he cried in dismay. “So no spicy curry tonight???”
“Maybe not,” said Wild, rubbing the back of his head. “Give me a second.” He put the slate away on his hip and wandered from their camp.
“...where is he going?” asked Hyrule.
“I don’t know where he could go,” said Sky. “I’m guessing the only way you can get Goron spice is from the Gorons and… well.” They were nowhere near any kind of Goron city or settlement. “I’ll go check on him. He loves his spices so much he might be in mourning.”
“The manual did warn us he would wander off,” said Hyrule, digging Flora’s printed, extremely detailed gift out of his bag. It was lovingly titled How to Keep my Knight Alive Without Excessively Impacting Your Sanity. He started flipping through it as Sky got up and followed Wild.
He didn’t have to follow very far. Just a few dozen paces from camp, Wild had knelt down and appeared to be praying. His hands were clasped and his head was bowed. Sky watched him in surprise for a moment before deciding to leave him to it. It seemed a little dramatic as as coping mechanism to running out of spice, but they all had at least one thing they overreacted to themselves.
“Well?” asked Legend when he got back.
Sky shrugged and sat back down. “He’s praying.”
Legend scoffed. Wind tossed his hands up with another despairing cry. “I was really looking forward to spicy curry!”
A minute or two later, they heard a loud CLONG! and flinched in alarm.
“What—!”
Distantly, Wild cheered. “Thank you, Hylia!” While everyone else was exchanging bewildered looks and trying to decide if weapons should be drawn, he happily trotted back into camp. “Okay!” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Is everyone still good with spicy curry for dinner?”
Wind looked hopeful but still asked, “I thought you were out of Goron Spice?”
“Oh don’t worry, Hylia helped me out,” said Wild nonchalantly, pulling ingredients and equipment out of the slate rapidfire.
Hyrule gestured with the manual and shrugged, baffled. Normally they might have asked more questions, but Wild was notoriously grumpy when bothered while cooking, so they collectively let it go. The curry that night was delicious, which made everyone except perhaps Legend willing to overlook the eccentricity.
They set out the next morning. “Huh,” said Twilight, prodding a random, empty metal chest with his foot when they passed it. “Wonder where that came from.”
As good of a swordsman as Wild was, his skill with a bow was where he truly shined in their group. He could land a dozen shots in the blink of an eye, all with pinpoint accuracy. No matter where he positioned himself, he could provide cover and still pull his sword and defend himself if his position was under threat. It made them all very confident that he could be trusted as a rearguard.
Unfortunately, sometimes that trust put him in a worse position than anyone intended, especially when Wild had a habit of shattering his own weapons by putting way too much force behind his strikes.
Twilight heard the stomach-dropping sound of Wild’s sword shattering, followed by the even worse sound of him cursing sharply. Unfortunately Twilight himself was already pressed, and so was everyone else. He could barely spare a moment to catch a glance of Wild without sustaining a serious injury.
The young Hero was retreating, practically skipping back away from the monsters advancing on him. It was clear he was out of arrows and weapons both, but the farther away he got the less chance there would be to help him. “Wild!” Twilight shouted, trying to fight toward him with little success.
He heard nothing else. After a moment he managed to catch another glimpse. Wild was on one knee, head bowed and hand pressed to the dirt. Twilight couldn’t tell if he was injured before he was forced to pay attention to his own immediate surroundings. “WILD!”
“We can’t get to him right now!” Warriors shouted. “Wild, just hold on!”
CLONG!
Twilight startled at the unexpected loud metallic noise and nearly lost his head for it. Wild whooped. “Thank you, Hylia!” he said, and a moment later a barrage of explosions began. Twilight’s own hide was saved shortly after when ice arrows whistled past his face to freeze the monsters he’d been struggling with.
When all was said and done and the heroes were wiping the grime off as they caught their breath, Wild trotted happily over to Twilight. “Are you okay? That was close.”
“Am I okay? What about you, Cub!” He seized Wild’s arm and looked him over, but the younger Hero barely seemed scratched. “I saw you knocked down to your knees!”
Wild gave him a confused look. “What? No, I was praying.”
Twilight’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t quite formulate a response before Time stepped in.
“Mid-battle isn’t the best time for praying,” he said disapprovingly.
Wild gave him an odd look too. “It is if you need help.”
“Then call on us for assistance. We would have found a way to come to you if you’d called out earlier.”
“But you couldn’t have—”
Wind interrupted. “Hey!” he complained. “You were holding out on us by keeping all those bomb arrows back!”
“But I didn’t—”
“Just use them up front next time!”
“What? I couldn’t have used them until I asked Hylia because—”
Now it was Legend’s turn. “What, are they some kind of sacred bomb arrows?” he scoffed. “Just use them! And pray on your own time!”
“Stop it,” said Warriors, cutting in. “Wild, don’t wait until the last second to use your special arrows. It’s good to have some in reserve, but that was cutting it too close.”
Wild looked at them all with a hard, bewildered stare, as if he thought they were speaking gibberish. “Sure…” he said. “Next time I’ll… figure it out and pray earlier?”
Time nodded and patted his shoulder. They let the issue go, but most noticed that Wild continued to sneak uncertain looks at them sideways for the next few days.
Only Twilight noticed that he stopped talking about his prayers entirely.
Legend didn’t know how he’d gotten himself into this situation with Wild of all people. And yet there they were, captured by the so-called ‘Yiga Clan,’ stripped of their gear, tied up like prize hogs, and tossed into a dark cell. To make matters worse, Wild had taken a blow intended for him and Legend was pretty sure he had sustained a nasty concussion from it. There was a steady, slow drip of blood coming from some cut on Wild’s scalp, and it was staining his long blond hair an ugly red.
“Wild, can you hear me?”
“Nnghh. Yes,” Wild said thickly, face pressed to the cold stone. He only managed to open his eyes half way, but that was enough for Legend to see that his pupils were two very different sizes. “I can’t… can’t… think… can I pray? W’you be mad?”
“What?” It was impossible to check the injury or do anything about it when Legend was tied up so thoroughly, but he still tried. “Yeah whatever, you can pray, I don’t care. Just stay awake and keep talking.”
“Mmm… muh… pl… Hylia…”
Their captors returned, this time with some creep in an ornate robe instead of the standard armor at the head. “And now,” creep said grandly, spinning around toward his followers and spreading his arms, “we finally take revenge for our Dark Lord, and (more importantly), for MASTER KHOGA!”
The Yiga around him roared in agreement.
“Today we kill not one accursed Hero, but two!” He turned and pointed squarely at Wild. “Begin with the one who defiled our Master and our bananas!”
“You stay away from him!” Legend snarled, but there wasn’t much he could actually do. He was thrown into the stone wall for his trouble, and by the time his ears stopped ringing Wild was already out of the cell, slumped on his knees before the robed maniac. Two Yiga blademasters held him upright there.
“Hylia…” he muttered, head lolling forward like a supplication. “Help… please…”
“Wild! Wake up! Fight! Anything!”
The Yiga leader raised a crescent sickle high above Wild’s exposed neck. “Die, accursed Hero!”
CLONG!
From absolutely nowhere, Legend watched an enormous metal chest fall at terminal velocity and hit the Yiga leader squarely on the top of his head. The man crumpled like a snapped twig, sickle clattering to the floor, and did not get up. The falling chest was accompanied by a sprinkling of red elixir vials and weapons, many of which lodged themselves into the Yiga below.
Despite his shock, Legend wasted no time. He was up and running before the Yiga had recovered from their own shock, ramming the loosely-closed cell door open and diving for the nearest fallen weapon. He’d even managed to cut his bonds before the assassins recovered; he took up the very sword he had used to do so and set upon them with utter wrathful fury.
“Thhhh… Hylia…” Wild slurred where he was incapacitated on the ground behind him.
As soon as Legend was sure he had bought enough time, he ran back to Wild and slammed down onto his knees beside him. A truly foul curse was on the tip of his tongue until he realized that the red elixirs were the same kind Wild made for healing serious injuries. “Okay,” he muttered, dragging Wild up to rest against his upturned knee. “You’re gonna be fine.” He all but crammed one of the bottles down the other Hero’s throat.
A second later Wild blinked, awareness returning. “Don’t tell anyone,” was the first thing he said, eyes wide.
“...what?”
“Please don’t tell anyone that I prayed,” he pleaded as he scrambled up with a little help, quickly gathering the weapons and other fallen elixirs. “It was just—the concussion, I couldn’t think straight. I needed extra help and… don’t tell anyone. I’ll do better next time!” The chest, as it turned out, contained a Hylian shield which Wild quickly pulled over his arm.
“What are you talking about!” Legend exploded, frustrated by the nonsensical turn the conversation (and entire situation, really) had taken. “Why would praying—”
He paused suddenly as something occurred to him. “Wait… the chest… the elixirs…”
“I promise I won’t need it next time,” Wild said quickly. “Or I’ll think ahead to do it earlier! Just—don’t tell them!”
And then there was no more time to talk, because additional Yiga began to descend upon them in waves. They fought through the Yiga hideout over the painful course of an hour until they finally managed to find where their stripped gear had been stored. From there it was an easy escape, since Wild was simply able to grab him and teleport them to the shrine nearest their last camp before they’d been ambushed.
Once they were safe, Legend stared hard at Wild, who refused to make eye contact as he gingerly touched his bloody hair. “Hey, there’s a stream nearby where we can wash—”
“You made that chest fall. And the weapons and elixirs.”
Wild paused and peeked out at Legend from the corner of his eye. “...no? I mean I prayed, but Hylia is the one who dropped them for me.”
“You prayed. And Hylia dropped items in response?” Something new occurred to him. “Wait. The missing cooking ingredients. The weapons. The arrows!”
Now Wild turned and faced him with an increasingly confused expression. “I… yeah? I mean I know none of you need help but—”
Legend cut him off with a sharply pointed finger. “No no no no. No. That is not what this is about. What do you mean Hylia drops items for you!”
Wild stared. Legend stared. A goose nearby honked and flew off.
“You know what, nevermind,” said Legend, waving his hand. “I’ll let someone else get it out of you. Let’s go.”
“Uh… okay. Can we not tell—”
“Ahaha, no. I’m telling immediately. Now let’s go.”
It was a profound relief to see Wild and Legend return (relatively) unharmed from the ambush that overwhelmed them. That relief, however, was quickly buried under confusion as Legend stopped in the middle of the group and loudly asked, “Did any of you know Wild can pray to Hylia and she’ll drop items for him?”
“Hey, you know, I should really go hunting for some fresh venison—” Wild said quickly, backing up.
“Oh no you don’t. Twilight, grab him!”
Sheer reflex had Twilight grabbing Wild’s arms when Legend shoved the younger Hero into him. “...what?” he managed. There was a little bit of blood in Wild’s wet hair, and that distracted him for a moment.
“We don’t need to discuss—” Wild tried.
“Yes we do! Did any of you know about this?”
Time looked like he had a brewing headache. “What do you mean Wild can pray to Hylia and… have items dropped?”
Legend scowled. “So none of you knew.”
“Wait, what?” said Wild. “What do you mean... know? I thought you just didn’t need her help anymore.”
Bewildered silence fell between all nine of them for a long, awkward moment.
“You know what,” said Sky, “maybe we should start from the beginning. Legend, what could possibly be making you ask something like that?”
“Wild was out of it from a concussion and about to be executed by the Yiga,” he said bluntly, causing a few sharp inhales. “But then he prayed to Hylia, and a huge metal chest fell on the leader. Plus some weapons and elixirs. And he begged me not to tell you for some reason.”
Wild shot Legend a profoundly betrayed look. Legend was not bothered.
“So…” Four said slowly, “when Wild prays to Hylia she… gives him actual stuff?”
Wind gasped. “Wait a minute! Is that why you wander off when you’re out of ingredients and then mysteriously come back with the exact ingredients you need even if they don’t exist at all in that era?”
Time sighed. “Don’t be—”
“Uh. Yeah,” said Wild. “I… thought you knew?”
This time it was a dumbstruck silence that fell for just a brief moment. Then, multiple of them exploded into noise.
“You can pray and—” “She drops Goron Spice?” “You mean you’re being direct and—” “—ask nicely??” “WHAT?”
Frustration crossed Wild’s face. “Well—!” he started, struggling to find the words. His shoulders drew up defensively around his ears. “If you didn’t know then why did you tell me to figure it out and pray strategically!”
“Who said that??” Warriors asked, bewildered.
“YOU DID!”
“Wh—WHEN?”
“When I ran out of arrows and broke my last broadsword two weeks ago! You all told me to be strategic, don’t ask her for help, and pray on my own time!” Wild fumed. Twilight shifted his grip to rest one grounding hand against his upper back.
“I… think I’m starting to see where the miscommunication happened,” said Sky. “Wild, we never knew you could do that. We thought you’d held arrows in reserve.” He shook his head in amazement. “You prayed and the Goddess herself gave you arrows mid battle? That’s incredible!”
Wild’s frustration ebbed. “You really didn’t know?”
“I didn’t think such a thing was possible,” Time admitted.
“So…” Wild narrowed his eyes. “Do you all just… not talk to Hylia ever?”
“I think what you do might be a little different than what any of us do,” said Sky. “Could you show us?”
“Yeah,” said Legend, arms crossed. “And pray out loud. I want to know what magic words it takes for Hylia to drop Goron Spice on you.”
“It’s not like she always gives me stuff,” Wild mumbled, but he went a few paces from their group, shot them an uncertain glance, and then knelt. “Um… well I usually pray like this: Goddess Hylia, thank you for watching over me, especially with the Yiga just now. Thank you for being the reason I got to meet Zelda, the best person ever. Please watch over her even though she’s still a little mad at you. Do you have any errands you would like me to run?” He paused, expectant, then continued. “Let me know if anything comes up, I’m always happy to help. Your temples throughout the eras look really cool, by the way. Also, if it’s not too much trouble, my brothers-in-arms want to see your gifts to me? If I could get an apple or something, that would be great.”
CLONG!
A chest dropped to the ground in front of Wild, accompanied by two bottles of Goron Spice, a Royal Bow, and several honeycombs.
“Oh! Thank you, Hylia!” said Wild, instantly in a good mood. “I was just running low. I’ll pray again later. Bye.” He stood up and opened the chest. “Sweet! New paraglider fabric.” He held it out to show them. The pattern on the fabric depicted the symbols of the Golden Goddesses over a statue of Hylia, whose stone countenance was notably more fond than was usually depicted.
Amidst the watching Heroes, more than a few jaws were slack in shock. Even Legend’s eyes were wide. Then, abruptly, Wind burst into laughter.
“We found Hylia’s favorite Hero!” he wheezed, and laughed so hard he fell over.
“Why wasn’t this in the manual!” Hyrule cried, tossing up his hands.
Wild tucked the fabric under his arm and scratched his jaw awkwardly. “Oh I’ve never told Flora about this one. I didn’t want her to feel bad. Actually… I’ve never told anyone about it. I just… sort of assumed you all could do it too, but didn’t need that kind of help anymore? Or didn’t like it?”
“Wild, there’s nothing wrong with needing help, especially in our line of work,” said Warriors. “I’m sorry I misunderstood you. I would never tell you to ignore allies or try to do everything on your own.” He looked meaningfully at Legend. When Legend said nothing, he elbowed him sharply.
“Ow! Yeah fine, I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I didn’t know your prayers ended in an actual resupply or I would have told you to do it more often.”
“…oh,” Wild said quietly. “Well… thanks.”
“I’m glad that’s cleared up,” said Twilight. “So, uh… what was that about you almost being executed, Cub?”
Wild froze like a startled deer under Twilight's stare. Then he pointed at Legend and cried, “Don’t look at me, Legend was almost executed too!”
“HEY!”