Chapter Text
Time tells her the truth.
The Portals they were hunting were likely similar to the one that brought her to Wild’s Hyrule. The Portals have no determinable moment when they appear, only that they close after all nine heroes have walked through them (according to notes from people outside of the Group). The Portals that, on occasion, leak out dangerously ill magic and breed monsters far stronger than their normal. The Portals span eras between the heroes, never leaving the land called Hyrule, constantly shuffling them around without knowing when they will appear again; to outside the Group, the heroes simply stop existing, just to show up next time.
(Tag remembers Time’s wife, Malon, and forces herself not to cry over how many lifetimes and Portal jumps that woman has become a widow, to be not in the next moment. To her own world, Pre-Tag is gone. She will not be back until she is home.)
Wild said they were close to another stable—Outskirt—and it would be the last one before the long stretch to Lookout Landing. Tag wonders if they had waited until now since it would be the last time they see any more travelers until they get to the Landing, she’d be forced into their safety.
But they weren’t there yet. They were camping again, this time in Dalite Forest. Where the trees were so dense, she couldn’t see the moonlight above. Tag lasts until sunset before she breaks. Not outwardly, not even dramatically. She didn’t give them screaming, shaking hands, or shattered dishes thrown against trees.
That morning, after folding her blanket and told that hurting truth, Tag still walked with the Group. Tag still nods and talks between Legend and Sky. Tag still thanks Wild when he hands her a bowl of lunch. Tag still laughs, small and thin, when Wind attempts to balance two bowls and a waterskin on his nose, nearly falling backwards. Tag still looks Time in the eyes and says, “No, I understand. I’m okay.”
But Warriors notices the way she zones out during every conversation. He notices she keeps drifting to the edge of the Group, distancing herself from them.
Hyrule notices the way she doesn’t eat during dinner, how she pushes food around the plate and offers most of it away.
Four notices every time someone mentions the future, her shoulders tense like she’s waiting for an executioner’s axe. Burdened with the fact that… there could be a future she returns home, but also a future she’s kept in Hyrule.
Somehow, that uncertainty hurt worse than a clean answer would have.
Tag sits by the fire until the laughter dies down into murmurs. Wind eventually falls asleep halfway against Sky’s side, the other whittling a chunk of wood in the shape of a spoon to replace one broken before. Wild and Legend argue quietly over whether keese count as pests or demons, then whether demons can be considered pests. Twilight is… there, watching her, but still a present force.
They are normal. Everything around her keeps being normal. Acting as if her world didn’t just end for the second—third—fourth time that breakfast.
The pressure behind her ribs becomes unbearable; she feels as if the moon is going to crush her. Tag stands abruptly, eyes tracking her movement. “I—I’ll be back. Just… give me some time?” No one stops her at first. People wandered all the time—bathroom trips, patrol walks, gathering wood and foraging. She was pretty sure that if Wind could have nightly escapes that hadn’t need an excuse, she could have one herself.
Tag runs off before someone could speak to her.
Twilight watches her go. He has spent days watching her; he’d like to say he knows every little cue about her.
The way her mouth twitches down before she smiles. The way she plays with her ring when nervous. The way she asks for a break, for a ‘fiver’, rather than anyway that makes sense. The way she blinks twice when confused, before humming a flat note.
This time, Twilight watches the way she keeps her head down and hands gripping the sleeves of her jacket. He watches the way she walks too fast for someone trying to pretend they are not running from something. He watches as she pats herself, checking both the small bag on her thigh and the weight on her blade. He watches as she leaves her main pack behind.
She’s not even gone the full five minutes before he stands.
It’s a stretch, a show if anything. Twilight acts as if he worried about her. A part of him is, but it's more that he’s worried about what she’ll do without someone as her guard. What she can do behind their backs now that she has a reason to.
Warriors notices immediately. “Twilight.” His name is a warning, has been for days, “Don’t.” He’s aged nearly twenty years in his scarf. That haunted look the Group has chased away is back, a ghost over his shoulder after the War of Eras. One of his soldiers has gone… AWOL. Even if it pains Twilight to count Tag as one of his brother’s people.
“I ain’t goin’ to do anythin’, Captain. Just goin’ to check on her before somethin’ happens.”
“Something has, Twi.”
“‘Xactly.” The shift along Warriors face makes Twilight fear for his brother, the way regret makes him look pained. “I ain’t planin’ to do anythin’ but talk to her. I don’t think she’ll be wantin’ to see you or Time ‘bout soon. She’s a powderkeg goin’ to explode inward on herself.”
Time’s eye lifts toward him from across the fire. “And all you will do is talk?”
Twilight pretends not to see or hear it, that his worry is meant for the Hero of Twilight and not for the Tag Along running away. Even so, he can’t lie to the Shade; he says nothing.
Twilight stalks her, the wolf inside knowing just where to go. Something in him pulls tight at his mind—something wrong. He thinks it's his senses, something catching like an ugly memory.
The forest shifts as he walks through it, wind forming way for the woman to run. In his mind, Link sees the shadow of a woman with red hair, sees how she floats just off the edge of his vision. He can never see her fully; he only just remembers how her smile looked.
“You need something, Wolfie? Keep up.”
Midna.
He blinks and she’s gone again, just himself and the trees.
Something walks ahead, scaring the birds and insects into silence. Link’s feet carry him forward before he knows he’s walking, but it feels right. Like he’s meant to be moving anyways. Why was he walking? For a woman, for Midna. No, wrong one.
The woman. The Tag Along. She’s there. At the edge of the trees, her body tucked into herself, hand covering her face. Her shoulders are shaking like she’s laughing. A shadow ghosts over her body, twisting and distorting her.
Black smoke, so familiar… Zant forms behind her. Long neck bent down, his hand gripping her wrists and pulling her face free. Orange eyes, Link sees them bright as the moon, which look so wrong on her face. She’s laughing, she’s laughing.
Link slows, heart caught in his ears. His hand tightens on instinct near his sword, though he doesn’t remember deciding to draw it. He doesn’t, but his nails grip it either way. Zant isn’t alone with her, another face forms in the Twili shadow.
Tag’s silhouette overlaps with something taller. Something crowned in broken shadow. Body strong and broken in both ways, there’s… something white in the black. A fissure of power and light and… Ganondorf.
Link stops entirely, feet catching on a root of a tree. There weren’t trees when they fought—it was the Castle, it was Dusk’s Castle, his Zelda’s home… After that was the field, but there aren’t trees this full in that field.
His breath catches, shallow. The world feels too loud, too sharp. It’s beating out like a Goron inside his skull, thrumming and thrashing and howling wrong.
Tag says something—he doesn’t fully hear it. Because Zant is laughing. Because Ganondorf is alive. Because Twilight is suddenly standing somewhere else entirely, somewhere colder, somewhere flooded with memory—
Twilight steps forward, something lost on the tip of his tongue, but his boot catches on a stick. It snaps and his mind is pulled tight again.
Tag makes it farther than she expected before the crying starts. It’s ugly, nothing like the soft movie tears where someone is meant to cradle and hold her.
Her breath catches wrong, painful, and humiliating. It's like she's gasping through memories she doesn't know about anymore—falling in the snow with Tulin, bargaining for someone to stay an extra night, nearly getting ran over by a startled hog and having Wild laugh at her before helping her up, Legend and Hyrule walking behind them and chanting ‘fuck hogs’ like an inside joke she doesn’t quite get but laughs anyways. Tag presses both palms over her mouth like she can force it back down her throat before someone realizes she’s breaking. Her tongue catches wrong as she slams her jaw shut, the taste of iron is soft on her lips.
As the firelight disappears behind her, the woods blur in her tears.
She hates this.
She hates all of it.
The heroes, the Portals, the monsters, the stupid fucking swords and blades, the meals they shared and laughs they had. How long were they laughing at her? How long did they plan on stringing her along? How stupid did they think she was?
How stupid was Tag to follow them—blind and willing?
The worst of—worst of all—they had made her feel safe. That’s the cruel part. Rito Village was safe due to her being an anomaly, the strangest unknown. Then she was forced on the Group and… She’d been with them longer than she had been in Rito Village. Her safety didn’t feel like an act with them, the Group had her secure enough that she let them in willingly.
Tag bends forward, bracing her hands on her knees as another broken sound tears out of her chest. She doesn’t want to be ‘Tag’ anymore, she doesn’t want to be ‘Lady’ either. Her brain won’t shut up. Her jacket is suffocating; it’s too hot, she can’t think.
How long has it been? Is there still 24 hours in a day? How many days are there to a week? At what point had a month passed into two? Is it almost three yet?
Buttons pop open, nearly ripping at the force Tag pulls on it. It’s thrown to the ground as she paces, walking in wide and uneven circles. She spits in the dirt, blood and tears staining the ground wet.
She left her computer on her bed, there was most likely going to be a missing person’s case done for her… Just like the one for him. The food would be going bad—there’d be cheese in her milk jug, hardened bread, and moldy fruit on the counter. Tag isn’t there to clean up what mess there was going to be.
And she’s going to be stuck in Hyrule while that happens.
A branch snaps behind her. Tag jerks hard enough her boots skid in the dirt, breath catching painfully in her throat. Her hand flies for the knife at her hip before she recognizes him. Twilight freezes a few feet away, face drawn in the dark.
“Can I help you, Twilight?” Tag wipes her face, smearing the tears and spit over her skin. “I don’t…. I want to have my mental breakdown in peace, if I can. Maybe take a damn leak and pretend my life isn’t over again. That all fine? You can hate me from afar…”
“He told you the truth, that we can’t confirm a way to get you back.”
“Are you that good at stating the obvious?” Tag feels hurt, but more tired than anything else. “You fucking ate breakfast with me, you know damn well how this day went.”
“So you get it now—that you don’t belong here,” Twilight says, voice low and steady, carrying just enough steel to make her twitch. “Nothing good ever comes from a Portal, and you…” His jaw flexes, blue eyes flashing gold. “You’re proof of it.”
Tag narrows her eyes at him, blinking the remaining tears away. She wipes hard at her face before he can see fresh tears forming. Her pulse pounds so hard she feels sick. “You got damn nerve, calling me ‘proof’ of anything,” Tag snapped, voice cracking hard enough she hated it immediately. “…Asshole.” It would have be intimidating if she weren’t caught sniffling hard and wiping her snot on her sleeve. “‘Side, I might have came ‘out a portal’, but I didn’t choose to.”
“It doesn’t matter ‘how’—the fact is you are here.” And the minute difference worried Twilight to his soul—it echoed someone he lost once before. His voice broke just a fraction.
“I didn’t choose to walk through it—I was asleep when I was dropped from one. Unwillingly.”
“It doesn’t matter! You’ve already changed everything. Your actions hurt my brothers. You’re a distraction to them—you’ve made them careless!”
Tag laughed, short and sharp, the sound echoing off the trees. “You all lied to me for weeks! You think I’m doing shit on purpose? That I forced Wild to make bread for me? That I made Wind try to fight a boss boko-hog? That I wanted to face down a silver man-cat with Legend? I don’t think you know how any of that ended—with me trying to end it!”
“And none of that would have happened if you weren’t here!” Twilight stomped forwards, boots kicking rocks on his path forward. Tag steps backwards, trying to widen the distance but she nearly trips over a tree root, too focused on keeping her breathing in check. “Nothin’ like this has ever happened… Wild cooked what he wanted, Wind never had the need to prove himself, Legend has never once been so careless—and all of it happened because you are in our way!” He growled, huffing loudly to quiet himself back down, ears flicking backwards where the Group waited. “You’ve changed the way my Group is.”
“I am not going to apologize for trying to survive in your world. And I’m not fucking apologizing for surviving in a way that pisses you off.”
Twilight’s chest tightened. She was defiant, stubborn, and loud—a whirlwind of chaos in the forest he wanted controlled. But this wasn’t just annoyance. It was anger, fear, frustration, and confusion all rolled into one impossible shape. That haze doesn’t move from her side; it waves at him.
Twilight wanted to growl and snap, to grab the cord around his neck and fall back into easy senses, but the woman was still watching. He doesn’t know what she’ll do seeing a shard of the Mirror of Twilight, doesn’t know how she’ll react to the Blue-Eyed Beast under his skin with the Twili Kings on her side. “I’ve seen what comes from people like you—monsters from Portals—and it never ends well!” He walks forward.
Tag wants to turn and run, but it won’t do her good. She snapped forward before the words had fully left his mouth. Her boots skidded in the loose soil as she closed the distance and drove both palms hard into his chest to shove him back. Twilight reacted on instinct; one hand grabs both of hers. He skirts around her, twisting with the motion, and wrenches her arms over her head, pressing them down in one sharp motion.
Immediately, Tag starts bucking against him, flailing and wiggling. As she gasps and whines, Twilight wonders why he can taste fear in the air—why does she fear when she’s… He severs that thought, or his mind does; he presses his chest to her back and pins her hands to her spine. “Enough!” he snarled.
“Get off—let go of me!” Tag kicks violently. She twists like a feral cat caught in a snare, heels digging into the dirt as she tries to wrench free. She tries her hips first, slamming back into his hips and using her pouch as a weapon. Tag feels Twilight’s breath ghost over her skin as he hisses in pain.
“Stop fighting—” His grip finally gives away enough for her to twist sideways. Tag slams her head into his chest and butts against his chin. Teeth clink together and she hopes he bites his tongue. She knows her tongue is, she can taste it.
She whistles, sharp and high. Immediately, Twilight rears back, ears flicking against the offending noise. At his panic, Tag pulls an arm free and tries to tug away from him. She tries again, bringing her fingers to her mouth and whistling as hard as she can.
Instead of freedom, Twilight drags her like a doll, pulling her along the forest floor by her wrists. Tag stumbles but keeps up to his pace. She knows she’s stepping on flowers and crunching leaves; but she can’t hear it over the sound of his painting and growling. “You’re acting like a child!”
“Better than acting like—like a paranoid jackass!” Tag, instead of trying to push against him, knowing she’d lose based on brute strength, brings her hand up, fingers curling like claws, and rakes them over the exposed skin of his neck. Falling backwards, Twilight finally lets Tag go and presses a hand to where she made him bleed. Her blood touches his, mingling and melting.
Link feels dangerously warm, burning in his body. He grabs his neck, feeling the little raised lines she made on him. For a moment, Tag thinks the red on his neck is blackened. His mind is everywhere—he can’t find Zant, he can’t find Ganondorf. The field is back, but it’s not the field. Its a forest? No, it’s Link’s—Wild’s—his Cub’s world. He’s too tall… Who’s… Something pulls the string tight again. So tight it nearly snaps. He submerges again, the water pulls over his mind.
They stand in the dirt, breathing hard and glaring at each other. “You don’t belong here!” He growls, “Don’t you get it? You’re a monster, ain’t you?! What do you want?”
Something crossed her face, but she stamps it down before the other can catch it. Tag’s eyes flash green in the dark, body twitching enough with adrenaline and fear. “I just want to get home!” She lungs. Her body slams into him again, but this time Twilight was ready. He steps aside, hooking under her arm and tries to throw her off balance.
Instead, she twisted with the motion and drives her knee up. Twilight barely had the time to lift his leg to protect himself. The impact still made him grunt and stumble for the next blows. Tag shoves him with both hands, Twilight doesn’t move. He’s a brick wall that Tag doesn’t know how to take down…
The moment there is even a lick of space between them again, her hand touches her thigh. Steel flashed in the darkness—raised and pointed. She said she’d use it, she made that promise to herself more than the men. It seemed like now was a good enough time to use it. His neck bleeds, so does her mouth.
Twilight’s eyes narrowed, and the hero steps back enough he knows she can’t reach.
She held it low, defensive, body angled away and breathing too sharp and fast. “You want to fight?” she snapped. “Fine. Face me like a ‘hero’.”
Twilight’s hand hovered over the hilt of his own sword. “You’d lose.”
“Maybe,” Tag shot back, baring her reddened teeth. “But I’ll make it hurt.” For a moment, neither of them moved. The forest seemed to hold its breath around them. Then Twilight dropped his hand from the sword and rushes forward with purpose. Tag reacts instantly, fearfully.
She slashed low—not aiming to kill him, but to force him back enough she can run. The tower was in front of her, behind his back. Twilight sidestepped the strike easily, grabbing her wrist before the blade could swing again. He twisted her arm sharply, hearing the way her elbow popped at the strain.
The knife slipped from her fingers and hits the dirt.
Tag didn’t hesitate.
She slapped him.
Hard.
His head cracks to the side, the sound echoed through the trees. Twilight froze, Tag’s palm still hovered in the air between them. For all she was, Tag freezes too, horrified for half a heartbeat that she actually struck him. Her chest is heaving, heavy and raw. Her face is wet from tears. “You’re no fucking hero,” she spat, “You’re just like the monsters back home.”
It snaps gone. That something in Link’s mind is gone; it’s white again. There’s no haze, no feeling of water suffocating the wolf. It’s like jumping from a nightmare. He looks down at green eyes, wondering how they changed color? Weren’t they orange? No, they never were.
White filts over her shoulder in the shape of a sword. Though he doesn’t recognize it as anything he’s used, he knows what weapon Ganondorf favored, the one Dusk keeps back in the castle. The Sword of the Six Sages.
For a moment, Twilight is quiet. It’s the quietest his mind has been in… a long while. He blinks the haze, blue eyes unsettled in the dark. Around them is a thick and dense forest; there is no Twili Princess, no evil man, no corrupted tyrant. There is only a bleeding and crying woman in front of him, who looks as terrified as one of his Ordonian Goats. “What…? Tag?”
Tag binks at his tone—confusion and fear. She doesn’t fall for the trick and kicks again, this time she didn’t miss. Her boot landed squarely between his legs. Pain exploded through Twilight’s body like lightning. He dropped to his knees instantly, breath leaving him in a strangled gasp. “Ordona’s—!” Tag didn’t wait for him to finish.
She ripped herself away, body hitting a tree feet away from where it looked as if Twilight fell in slow motion. He groaned in time with her gasping, closed fist beating the ground into submission.
She can only watch him. The way he rolls in the dirt, the way his pained whines sound similar to her cries from earlier… The way he looks up at her, new emotions on his face, ones she has never once seen him give her—regret and fear, empathy at its latest.
Tag sees her blade left on the ground. She doesn’t think, she just kicks it at him. The blade slides on the leaves and stops in front of him. “Don’t keep your trophy, ‘Hero’.” She pants, voice heavy with exhaustion. “Give it back to Wild—tell him the truth, what kind of man you are.”
There was a mess on the ground, muddy and filthy; a jacket, her mind supplies, and it’s hers. Tag stands over it, thinking… It was hers from the beginning, not some bargaining chip. She pulls it on with rough, angry motions; she feels where the red thread rips back open. It’s… bigger now, the hole is… She pulls on the thread and watches as the knot at the end is pulled through.
Tag turns her head, staring him down. Twilight was still hunched over, one hand braced in the dirt and the other clutched painfully between his legs. It doesn't feel like she won the fight….
For a moment, it looked like she might say something else—something sharp, something cruel. Tag wasn’t sure what she wanted to say—caught between ‘fuck you, I was right’ and ‘Time will be disappointed at you’—but she didn’t give him any closing remarks.
Instead, she turns into the twilight and walks.
Minutes passed before Twilight could breathe normally again. The forest held quiet except for the sound of his ragged breathing. He was still kneeling, head pressed to the cold dirt, when voices began approaching through the trees.
Twilight swore under his breath.
Perfect timing.
Branches rustled. Four appeared first, bright-eyed and curious. “Oh, Twilight, there—” They stop. “Why are you on the ground? Are we late?”
Hyrule stepped into the clearing behind him. “Where’s Tag? We heard whistling and came as fast as we could.” His sword was already raised for a would-be enemy.
Wind perked up immediately, coming into view with the grace of a hurricane, immediately pointing out with a smirk. “Cold winds, you look as if death warmed your soul.”
More footsteps followed—Warriors, then Legend, then Wild. Time pushed through the brush last, taking in the scene with one slow, tired look.
Twilight looking as defeated as he felt.
Tag’s knife, forgotten in the dirt.
And the woman nowhere in sight.
“Twilight,” Time said slowly, voice edged with confusion and irritation, “care to explain why you are eating dirt?”
Twilight groaned and tipped his head back toward the sky. “Ordona’s Grace,” he rasped. “She kicked my nuts in.”
Silence fell over the clearing.
The Group stared down at the Rancher.
Wind’s face wobbled immediately as he tried to hold his smile back. He turned away, shoulders shaking violently as he buried his laughter into his sleeve.
Legend didn’t bother with the courtesy—he doubled over with a loud bark of laughter, one hand braced against a tree as tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. “You sure weren’t blessed by Nayru’s wisdom, Rancher,” He wheezed out. “That’s what you get for picking a fight with someone half your size, but twice as crazy.”
Warriors folded his arms, clearly fighting the urge to grin. “I thought I taught her most of the unofficial rules… Then again, she said she’d bite. Never doubted her for it.”
Wild crouched beside Twilight, ignoring his brother to grab the knife from the dirt. He turned it over in his hand and thumbed off the dirt. His brows knit together immediately. “This is Tag’s.” Not ‘the blade he gave her’, not ‘the blade she was barrowing—Tag’s blade.
The laughter died just as quickly as it had started.
Wind straightened slowly. “Wait,” he said, suddenly serious. “Where is Tag? She walked this way, aye? Is she off?”
Twilight didn’t answer, doesn’t know how. Time notices that immediately. The old hero’s gaze flicked from Twilight’s hunched posture, to the knife in Wild’s hand, to the direction the crushed leaves led out of the clearing. His expression hardened. “Twilight,” Time said quietly.
The rancher didn’t look up. But his eyes shifted to the side, right where Tag had turned and left him. Legend wiped his eyes and squinted at the ground, finally noticing the signs of the scuffle. Dirt torn up, flowers dead in smooshed heaps. Footprints where someone had been shoved backward and dragged along.
“…Oh,” he muttered, “Din’s tit.”
Hyrule crouched down, fingertips brushing the disturbed soil. His magic hummed faintly under his skin, feeling the echoes of emotion left behind.
Anger. Fear. Pain.
He fell back immediately, almost launching himself skyward with his Jump Spell. “What did you—How could you?!” Someone gripped his arm, holding him still from rushing his brother. “Are you—”
“…You fought,” Wild said softly. No one moved. He stood up slowly, still holding the knife. His voice was careful when he spoke. “Did you… hurt her?” Blue eyes eyed the bleeding lines on his brother’s neck.
Twilight’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t know… I didn’t draw my sword at her.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Wild said. The words hung heavy in the air.
Wind shifted uncomfortably, glancing toward the dark treeline. “She wouldn’t be the one to leave, would she? I mean… It’s dim out and she left her blade.”
Legend sighed loudly. “Kid, after kickin’ him like that? Making him bleed like a righteous pervert caught by a handmaid? Yeah. She would.”
Warriors steels his face quickly, not showing the fear and disgust. “How long ago?”
Twilight finally spoke, voice rough. “…Some minutes, I reckon.”
He exhaled slowly. His hand slid over his forehead as he studied the forest, the same way a Captain studies a battlefield after the dust settles. “Then she’s already gone.”
Wind’s face paled. “But—she can’t be out! Wild said there’s a talus and a stalnox on the path, if we weren’t careful! Tag nay know that; she’ll be walking a straight line to her death.”
Hyrule shrugged off Sky’s arm, turning away from the Group to lean against the tree humming home back to him. It felt, faintly, of Tag. “She was already struggling tonight,” he snapped. “We lead her on. No one said the whole truth to her until this morning… She’s been in her head for hours, and not one of us tried to talk her out of it.”
Legend groaned quietly. “Great. Just great. So we’re down a companion, up a weapon, possibly walking into monster land again, and this time trying to track down someone who wants nothing to do with us? Grace of the Goddess, men, Grace of Hylia.”
Warriors looked at Twilight again, sharper this time. His eyes burned into his brother’s. “What exactly did you say to her?” Twilight didn’t answer yet, didn’t know how. Didn’t think he needed to. The silence said enough.
“What I thought I had to.” Twilight spoke as if it was his right as a hero to keep away anything that could be dangerous for his brothers, not as if they were all heroes who risked their lives for the ones they care for and the ones they hate.
Time closed his eye briefly, something old and tired settling into his expression. When he opened it again, it was firm with disappointment and commands. “Twilight.” The rancher finally looked up at Time. It was the one man he was scared to face. “Get up.” Twilight pushed himself to his feet, though the motion still made his knees threaten to buckle. He straightened stubbornly anyway. Time held his gaze for a long moment. “You’re going after her—you’re going to apologize to her and give her her blade back. Whether she returns is up to her—anything more than your eyes on her without her permission, and the next Portal that comes for us, I will personally leave you on the farm with Malon… and I will tell her what you have done behind her back.” Twilight paled violently and nodded once, moving to pass him on unsteady feet. But Time raised a hand.
“No.”
The single word stopped him cold. Time didn't need to say it for Twilight to know what he meant—even if the rest of the Group didn’t. Or some did; some secrets aren’t as ‘secretive’ as they feel.
Wind blinked. “Wait—what? But you just told him to chase her.”
Time’s gaze softened just a fraction as he looked at Twilight, but there was steel behind it. “Twilight won’t be finding Tag on his own.” The rancher frowned as Time tilted his head slightly toward the forest. “Wolfie will accompany you.”
Twilight didn’t answer, didn’t speak to the Group as he hobbled to the bags left behind. He thinks, unsure of himself, how the fuck to explain anything to his brothers, to the woman he harmed. How does he say he’s been… asleep? Backseat, even, a word Tag used once.
His hand grips the pommel of his sword, pulling it free from his back, and lays it next to the rest of theirs. Instead, he grabs hold of Tag’s bag and slings it over his shoulder. He turns toward his brother and holds out for Tag’s scimitar. When it’s faced in his palm, he turns to look at Time—Time, not the Shade—and nods.
Time doesn’t nod back. But something flickers in his eye.
A moment later, the forest swallowed Twilight alone.
Wind stared at the treeline nervously. “You really think she’ll actually let Wolfie near her? She hadn’t even let one of the wild horses near her after it tried taking a bite off her arm.”
Wild shrugged faintly. “She talked Teba into letting her stay in Rito Village despite being unknown, she found a way into a group of men that made her comfortable, and she talked a silver lynel into letting us pass its territory with words alone. That horse just didn’t like any of us.”
Hyrule huffed softly. “Fair point.”
Time settled down beside the fire again, though his eyes remained fixed on the dark woods. Where Twilight had wandered away, where he hoped Tag had walked. “Let’s hope,” he murmured, “that the wolf has better manners than the man.”