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The gods really have it out for him. Seriously. She's starting to think she's picked up a curse or something because she cannot manage to get a break.
It's a great day when it happens, because of course it is. The sun is high in the sky, hot but not unbearably so. The taste of hydromelon and hearty durians linger on his lips, and the sand is warm where his sandals sink into it. It's a great day for her, which of course means it isn't allowed to last. One moment he's pursuing Isha's wares and enjoying getting to put his disguised form to use inside the walls of Wild's Gerudo Town, and the next the ground is splitting beneath him.
In an instant, an inky void swallows her whole.
Inside its hold, space and time roll around like a pair of wild dogs. He is nothing, only the hapless victim caught between their brutal interpretations of play. It draws on for an eternity, for a heartbeat. For a year, for a decade. For a breath, for a curse. It is agonizingly antinomous, a harsh singular that holds a gentle infinity.
No dog holds onto a bone forever; eventually the portal spits her out.
His ears ring for a brief moment and he catches himself on the side of a building, his stomach churning until gravity settles again. Her eyes refocus on the tops of her sandals and the wildgrass and weeds reaching out from the packed dirt road beneath them. His bones ache faintly and his magic crackles like static when he tries to pull on it, a well of life left completely useless inside his chest.
The leylines of her world wrap around her ankles, and she lets out a breath of relief right as the great bell of her Castle Town's church lets out a loud toll. Then, he doesn't breathe at all.
Her curls droop as her head hangs, her chin lowering to her chest. His shoulders rise up to his ears and he can feel the color draining from his face. A hibiscus falls from her hair as she curls in on herself. The silky fabric of his skirts rub against his legs.
Oh, fuck.
It doesn't take long for someone to notice her. He's a young, beautiful girl in the middle of Castle Town. Her hair is a striking red, her dress is vibrant and clearly high quality, and her age is ambiguously anywhere from barely old enough to leave the house to somehow old enough to marry. He's also having a panic attack right outside someone's shop. The eyes that linger flash with everything from wariness to concern to barely disguised desire.
Though, it doesn't stay disguised for long. A man approaches him like a wolf might approach a deer--no disrespect to Wolfie--and asks, "You lost, sweetheart?"
It might be a polite sentiment, if not for the way the man tries to press closer even when she stumbles a step back. His fists curl and he has to remind himself that picking a fight right now would only make it worse. Even if she does feel like knocking some teeth out at the proposition currently coming from a man old enough to be her father. To be Time's father.
The man's voice is muffled and hard to focus on. More people are looking on and it's getting harder to breathe, but breathing comes second to everything else. Right now, she just needs to disappear. He knows, and he hates, how much harder that is to do in this form.
"Don't touch me," he says as politely as she can. His teeth grit inside her skull.
It's as if the man was waiting for this exact opportunity. The moment the words are out of her mouth, the man grabs her by the shoulder. The man's hands are heavy and clumsy, and his breath reeks of a severe lack of hygiene. He's sober, though, which almost makes it worse. Actually, it definitely makes it worse.
Something inside Legend snaps and she swings before she can even think about the consequences. It's a shitty punch, mostly spurred on by panic and the thought of someone who wasn't her, a seasoned Hero, standing here instead. His knuckles hurt immediately. Though, she has a feeling the man's face, clutched in both hands as he groans on the ground, hurts more.
It…all gets worse from there.
---
It's like an execution march.
Legend stumbles forward clumsily, knights on all sides of her. His heart is so loud in his ears that he winces at every beat, and a bell rings relentlessly in the echoing cavern that should hold his brain. As it is, all her thoughts are directed to stepping forward and not tangling herself in the chains.
The iron is heavy around his ankles, and heavier still around his wrists. Gravity pulls the shackle down to the ground, straining against the red-hot swell of her very broken wrist. It burns and it aches; every step jostles the shackle more. He walks as quickly as he can, wary of the chain's pull that he knows accompanies any attempts at slowing down.
Her confusion, her fear, is only made worse when she realizes she doesn't know where she is. They're somewhere inside the castle dungeons, obviously, but which halls are anyone's guess. He's been in this place what feels like a thousand times before, and yet he has no idea where he's going or where he's been. She barely even remembers to walk.
His soles press into the cold stone as his feet fall in front of him again and again, the chains dragging against the ground. She wonders idly if her sandals will reappear the next time she transforms, or if she's just going to have to make peace with being barefoot every time. His thoughts tangle alongside the chains as he walks, leaving him unsteady and aching.
She can hardly hold herself up.
When they finally stop, it's before a door he does recognize. The double doors are ornately carved, historical symbols of great precedence carefully pressed into the grain. A cross decorates the bottom of each door, surrounded by ancient runes of prosperity, protection, and triumph. In the middle, split between each door and positioned just above the handles, sits the Triforce.
Oh, hell.
The knights knock only twice before shoving open the doors to the throne room unceremoniously. They drag him forward before he can react and he strangles a scream in his throat as his wrist cries out at the chain pulling on it roughly. She stumbles forward, breathing heavily, and stands half-crumpled before the reigning Queen of Hyrule.
"What is the meaning of this?" Fable snaps before Impa can, something unexpectedly rageful on her face. Her eyes rove over Legend, from her brilliant red curls to the equally brilliant red swell of her broken wrist. He doesn't know what his face looks like right now--what Marin's face looks like--but Fable's shutters in response.
"Your highness, we bring before you the traitor to the crown!" one knight reports in a low kneel.
Fable stops. Visibly starts, and then stops again.
What a blessing it turned out to be that she was only ever the traitor, and not a name. He has enough problems right now, and he hardly needs any more. She's already a traitor to the crown; he doesn't need to be an abomination to it too.
"Of course," Fable says to the knight as levelly as is possible, all things considered, "And she has been arrested on what grounds?"
Legend feels something she refuses to place as the word--one only ever meant for inside her head--echoes in the throne room. He doesn't have the chance to linger on it for long.
The knight barks like a dog, "Treason to the crown! Kidnapping of a royal!"
Fable's frown pulls at her face. Legend tries not to shift under her sharp, sharp eyes as the pieces start to click together for her. She's never seen the face of the girl before her in her life, and she'd certainly recall a successful kidnapping attempt. She obviously doesn't, and he knows that she knows there's some sort of foul play, from the knights or someone else.
After a long moment, Fable says, "I…see. She shall face my judgement, then."
Legend doesn't stiffen. She doesn't.
It's just that Fable's judgement could easily dictate anything, everything from the kindest pardon to the cruelest sentence. Fable could easily have her tortured or killed, for the traitorous crimes she hasn't committed, or for the blasphemous ones that she has. The Queen doesn't know about those ones--and she never will, if he can help it--but once she does…
Only, it's Fable. He hasn't yet proven himself to be a traitor, and he can see the kindness that curls behind her gaze when she looks at him in his sorry state. Her soul speaks of a Hero, and even if it's dampened and distant in this form, she can see the way Fable relaxes when she meets her eyes.
After the knight says and does nothing but kneel on the ground, Fable directs the group of them coldly but not unkindly, "You may leave her here."
The feeling from before returns. Legend staunchly pushes it away from herself.
The knight straightens. "Your highness, the traitor is a highly accomplished criminal who has evaded our capture for many years! We cannot allow such a risk to the throne!"
Impa steps forward, her face stony and dangerous. Legend has felt her true glare only a few times, and even this look is not entirely devoid of sympathy for the cursed men before her. Still, it is much to his relief that she directs that look to the knights and not to him. Being near it is enough to stiffen her spine again.
"I will keep the criminal in check," Impa says with a severe tone of finality, "You are dismissed."
The knight hesitates. Behind him, the other knights' faces flicker with uncertainty, a battle between the curse and the duty of decorum. By rules of rank, they must listen to Fable and Impa, and yet they are at a standstill.
"Unless, you are questioning my ability to do so?" Impa asks with a dangerously raised brow.
It does the trick, and the knights are quick to depart at that. They scatter away like deer.
---
The conversation was inevitable.
"Have you ever been cursed?" Fable asks, leaning forward slightly. Her curiosity is palpable, though she catches herself quickly. "Pardon me. It's only that my--the hero of this land, Link, receives similar reactions from the knights due in part to a curse."
Her words catch on Legend's brain like a tree branch on a tunic. His racing thoughts are snagged, briefly lifted mid-air as their momentum jerks them to a stop. She prompts, tentatively, "Your…?"
Fable looks at her searchingly. She presses the weight of her eyes into every twist of his expression, every pore of his face. She's not sure what Fable finds, honestly, but it must be something.
"I am trusting you with this, though I could not tell you why," Fable says after a moment, "I have a great faith in you."
Legend nods solemnly. She's not surprised. Fable trusts him, holds faith in him; of course she does. How could she not? It does not matter that the Princess has never seen her face in this shape before, that she does not know the girl who stands before her.
What was it that she'd said to him on that terrible, terrible night?
She is her hero, no matter her form.
After a moment of consideration, Fable takes a weighted breath.
It sounds like a confession when she quietly tells him, "The Hero, Link, is my brother, though we were apart from many years and--"
The universe shudders under the weight of his heaving inhale.
"You fucking knew!?" Legend demands, her eyes wide. Feelings he cannot name bubble under his breastbone, a boiling mix of good-bad-what-the-fuck. The shackles are the only things holding her to the ground, clinking metal tethering her to the uncertain unknown.
Fable startles too. Then, she looks back at him, eyes just as wide. "Link?"
Legend gapes. Her heart is moving far, far too fast.
Fable stands from the throne on shaking legs and stares at him like he's grown a second head. Maybe a third, even. She feels like it.
"Link?"
Legend sucks in a breath.
"You knew?" he asks again, softer this time, more restrained.
Fable bites her lip. She confesses, "I hadn't realized you were trying to keep it a secret."
Of course she hadn't; it's not like he'd been subtle. After all the slip-ups and near misses calling Fable her sister, after all the similar clothes and posture and hair, after all the signatures she'd stayed up practicing until they'd looped in all the same places, after all the staring at each other through a mirror…One might even say he was hoping for her to figure it out without actually having to say anything himself.
After a moment of contemplation, Fable pales and she hurries to say, "If I had known our relation was a secret, I wouldn't have shared it!"
Legend's lips curl up into a smile despite the circumstances. He slowly edges his self-control back together as he says, "Of that I am certain. I'm not--it's not a secret. Besides, you trusted her--me, I mean. You trusted me, despite the shock of what you thought was another curse."
Fable nods agreeably, her eyes half-wild but the rest of her easily re-composed. "It was indeed a shock. Though, I must say, this form suits you as well as your other."
Legend pauses. Trying not to sound half as touched as he feels, he asks, "You really think so?"
Fable's smile is undeniably warm. "Of course. You make a mighty warrior, and just as mighty a princess."
"Mightier, even," Legend adds, humorous but earnest.
Then, the cogs in her mind visibly turning, Fable excitedly realizes with a start, "This is why the Sheikah's royal library was rifled through! I thought it might have been an enemy of the Sheikah, but this makes much more sense. You were teaching yourself the Royal Spells!"
Her excitement quickly gives way to indignation. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? That sort of magic--you could have been hurt!"
Legend snorts and tries to sound snarky instead of pathetic when she says, "I'm already hurt, Zel."
Fable's face shutters. Her eyes drift over him, slowing on the shackles, the bruises that no-doubt mar his face, and the swollen wrist that looks about half as painful as it feels.
"Let's get those off of you," Fable says, starting forward.
Legend flinches. She tries to disguise it as shifting on her feet, but the wince on Fable's face tells her she's failed. She doesn't call him out on it, but he feels the press of the accusation regardless.
"I--Zel, you can't," she says, "They're magicked. The keys--"
Metal clatters and his attention snaps to the right. Only steps away from them both, Impa dangles the keys to the thick iron around his limbs in her hands. She's been a fool to ignore the woman for as long as she has, stressful circumstances or not. The Sheikah eyes them both with an impassive look.
"Guardian Impa," Legend says politely, willing his voice not to shake. It doesn't listen, of course, but it's the thought that counts.
"Your Highness," Impa greets, a brow raised. Her amusement is palpable, though there's an edge to it that makes Legend shiver.
Impa has always been a trusted ally, a confidant, and, at times, even a friend. She has been good to him, to the Hero. Legend doesn't know how that applies to her now, though. Does a Prince still hold her grace? Will she use her blade to cut down the Royal Bastard, or his enemies?
The Sheikah steps closer once, twice, and then again. Each time, Legend wills herself not to shake. The dread is deep in his bones, though, and his heart beats rabbit-fast. The Sheikah stops before him.
"Your Highness," she says, and her voice holds only seriousness now. She gestures to the shackles still wrapped around him. "May I?"
Legend swallows.
Her gaze flicks to her sister on its own. Fable holds his focus gently and nods her assent, her approval. Legend turns back to Impa and nods, and the woman seems pleased. He holds out his uninjured wrist first, failing to smother the hitching in his breath as Impa's gloves kiss the skin of his hands. Neither of the two comment on it. The key snaps the shackle open and Impa catches it in the flat of a waiting palm before it can fall and snag the chain, and the other shackle. Fable takes the shackle from her without a word.
Impa's hands wait for Legend to catch up, palms open and unmoving. She hesitates. The aching swell of his wrist is an agonizing reminder of what rough hands mean for brittle bones. The other two stand readily, impressively patient, as she takes a slow and wavering breath. Finally, he inches his wrist from its protective curl by his waist and hands it over to the Royal Guardian.
Impa is…gentle. She holds her wrist like it's broken, and she edges the shackle open so carefully that Legend barely even hisses out a breath when the weight of it shifts. The relief is instantaneous. The second his wrist is free from the shackle, the crack in his wrist turns from a wide, tunneling burrow hollowed through his bone into a faint, splintering fissure. She hadn't even realized how much it had hurt until it was gone. It was just a broken wrist, after all. He's dealt with worse before, and will certainly deal with worse later.
By the time she croaks out a, "thank you," Impa has already freed both of his feet from the shackles there too, having knelt to the ground to reach them. It's a jarring position, the woman kneeling before her, even if by some people's measure it is to be expected.
"Of course," Impa replies, something hard to read behind her gaze, "Always, your highness."
"You don't have to call me that," she croaks.
After a long, considering moment, Impa says, "Always, Link."
"Thank you," Legend says again, his voice small.
Impa nods in a manner that can only be called solemn, and gestures to the shackles now split between her and Fable's grip.
"Each shackle set has its own keys, but the Sheikah have been working on a skeleton key that will bypass the individual magic mechanisms on the shackles accessible to the guard," she says resolutely, "It will be yours as soon as it's made."
What?
It's not entirely unprecedented. Agahnim's reign had made the Sheikah painfully aware of just how vulnerable the guard are to mental magics. While the fact that those magics have only ever targeted Link has kept it from being a pressing issue, he's not surprised to learn they've established a variety of contingencies. Even so…
"That's a lot of trust to give a person," Legend comments nervously, shifting on her feet ever so slightly.
"Those of the Royal Line are afforded some amount of trust," Impa says easily. Almost as an afterthought, she includes, "And, of course, the Hero is as well."
Legend pauses.
He smothers the frantic tremor in his voice as he asks, "Do the Sheikah know? Does everyone know?"
"Of course not!" Fable cuts in, and her face is slightly red, "Though, I have been known to speak about you at length to those I consider my allies, and--"
She, perhaps wisely, cuts herself off.
Great. So he really was the only one out of the loop.
Impa says impassively if a bit testingly, "Your status has not been well-guarded, though I assumed you planned to now inform those you are involved with, as you insist it was not intended to be a secret."
"It's not. It was never a secret. I just…" Helplessly, Legend admits, "I can't believe you knew."
"Link…" Fable's face twists into something very torn, bordering between grief and denial. "Did you not?"
Legend laughs nervously. "Of course not. I've known for ages."
Fable does not look relieved. At all.
"How long, exactly, have you known?"
He pauses. It's a bit of a strain as she tries to sift through the mess of quests she's been on now, the knowledge she's absorbed and the fears she's gained. He settles on the flowing blue silk that had slipped through his hands like water and the soft plucking of a harp.
"Nayru was the one to tell me," she recalls after a moment, "I would have been--what, thirteen? Fourteen, maybe."
Fable takes in a quiet and shuddering breath. Her face is rapidly losing color. Even Impa's unwavering collectedness seems a touch taken aback.
"I mean, how long have you known?" Legend tries. The fingers on his good hand twist into his tunic restlessly.
"Always," Fable says, looking like she's reconsidering everything she knows about him, "Link, I've always known."
Legend stops. Her voice is so small it's barely audible, pathetically desperate. "Why did you never say anything?"
Fable nearly chokes, rushing to explain, "I thought you knew. I swear, I did. I thought you didn't want to address it. That--that you didn't want to address me."
And, isn't that a heartwrenching discovery? It settles some things into place, for as much as she doesn't want it to.
Fable's always been a bit odd. In the beginning, she was friendly, inviting, and willing to have only whatever Legend would give. She would never ask, though, never take. She was overly eager to please, so much so that he'd always wondered if she had any friends who weren't him.
Then, as the years passed and they'd grown closer, the careful distance between them had always seemed more practical than worrying. Legend had always noticed Fable's hesitance, but it had seemed to stem from her status as Princess, and then as Queen. She had figured Fable was only being mindful of the power that she held, not…not this.
"After your second quest, you tolerated me," Fable adds helplessly, "I couldn't bear to push you on it and drive you away again."
"Because you thought I was avoiding you."
It's not an unreasonable conclusion to come to. In a way, it had even been true. She'd finished her first quest shaky, uncertain, and all of nine years old. He hadn't disliked the Princess he'd saved, but the formality of every meeting after had been too much to bear, especially when the guards were still gunning for his capture. It had been easier to just...stop showing up. It wasn't like she was needed.
He didn't know he was needed. She couldn't have known. He feels like he should have, though, as Fable's voice wavers, almost fragile, earnest but wounded.
"And then you came back. I resolved to meet you on your terms, from then on."
Legend fights to compose himself.
She concedes, "I suppose, if our roles were reversed, I might have done the same. It's not as if I approached you about it either."
"You did not," Fable agrees, her expression complicated and torn.
"Perhaps you are both at fault for the distance between you," Impa advises as a strained silence begins to settle.
"Perhaps," Legend agrees.
Fable nods dutifully.
"And, perhaps, you will both be at fault for the closing of that distance."
He can see the very moment it registers. Her sister's face lights up, barely even wearing that mask of Queenhood, and she turns with a sparkle in her eye.
"Perhaps, when this new quest has ended, you might come to visit?" Fable tries, cutting into her own thoughts, "No, no, not with the state of the guard. Perhaps, I will come to visit you."
"Is that safe?" Legend tries, though his hopes rise whether he wants them to or not. Despite her reservations, she knows that Fable and Ravio will be a force to be reckoned with, and that their reintroduction--not that they'd really had the time to meet before--will be remarked on through the ages. He can already feel the headache.
Fable's grin speaks of mischief. "Now, who would suspect a Sheikah boy traveling to meet his sister?"
Legend pauses.
"That's brilliant," he confesses.
"Yes, I imagine the two of you have many plans to make," Impa says, and the twinkle of mischief is not entirely lost on her. However, she firmly insists, "and you will be free to make them. After you have been seen to by a healer."
Ah. Right. That.
Fable startles, seemingly having forgotten the fact that Legend's beat to shit almost as much as she has. Still, his face aches and his wrist is definitively broken. Also, a concussion isn't entirely off the table.
"You--" Fable's hand snaps out to point at Legend. "You sit down. Right now."
Legend blinks. "...okay?"
"Now," she insists, pushing him up the raised steps, "Goddesses, you're injured. Why are you even standing at all?! Sit down!"
"Uhm," Legend tries, the arcane circuits that make up her brain sparking and failing to connect, "Where? On the ground, or?"
Fable sucks in an offended breath and pushes him toward what is literally the only chair in the entire room. "We've just established you've a right to the throne as any. Now sit down or so help me Hylia--"
Legend sits. A sister's ire is not to be trifled with. Between Aryll and Linkle, she already knew that, but good gods.
Still, as they wait for the castle's healer's knock and he urges Fable to spill more bits of castle drama than he knew existed, he finds himself wondering if maybe the gods don't have it out for him after all.
Then a gaggle of Heroes walks through the door instead. She changes her mind pretty quickly, after that.