THIS IS SO GOOD IM CRYING 😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️😭😭😭

hero's aspect wild still has mipha's grace, right?

i'm rereading the whole fic and i got to the bit where hyrule is sure he would've killed wild if he'd been there when they first saw him. and i thought-

well ok. what if he did. like they kill wild before sky can tell them what's really happening and everyone is horrified and then he. comes back to life. all's well that ends well! except the trauma i guess

OH MAN

Oh no!

(Oh Yes)

Aspects of a Terrible Mistake

They had messed up. They had messed up beyond messing up. ‘Messed up’ wasn’t even an appropriate word for how badly things had gone wrong.

Legend stared silently as Hyrule, sobbing, tried to pour his Life spell into a corpse. Beside him, Sky was paler than ash, his eyes wide and his lower lip trembling. Only a moment ago he had burst through the brush, panting, and shouted for them to stop, that this wasn’t a monster, it was a hero like them.

It was too late. Hyrule had shot true, his arrow going into one of the hero’s eyes and killing him instantly.

This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be real. It was a dream, a terrible nightmare, it-

Legend felt like the world was spinning without him. He couldn’t focus. He heard himself saying that he was going to get Time, knew distantly that he was moving through the forest towards their camp, but he was in a daze.

They’d killed a hero.

He didn’t know what he said to Time. He didn’t know what the old man said, just that his eye flew wide and he looked sick. The rest of the heroes - the heroes that hadn’t been part of the group that killed an innocent man - followed him to the river where the corpse was still lying prone and Hyrule was sobbing into his chest.

They eventually decided to give him a decent burial. It was the very least they could do. The new hero, whoever he was, was a big guy but Time could just about carry him back to camp.

They laid him out on a bedroll, as if he was only sleeping. It would take a while to dig a grave and they were determined to do this right, to clean the blood from his face and comb his hair before they buried him. They would take some of his jewellery, maybe his sword and that strange device on his hip so that they could give it to his own people if they ever went to his era.

Hyrule was still trembling as he removed the arrow from his eye and washed his face. Legend had no idea how the traveller, the sweet kind traveller, would ever forgive himself for shooting the killing shot. Legend had just been a part of the group that killed him and he felt wretched.

There was nothing he could think of to say.

Legend turned to see how the grave was getting on, and -

A gasp. The sound of someone stumbling backwards, and a whine.

Legend span around and screamed.

The dead man was no longer dead, and now was looking up at him with two wide, very frightened eyes.

What the f-

Link awoke with a gasp, his body aching and his head pounding. He had been dead a moment ago. He had been dead, he had been murdered and -

Oh Hylia, the boy who shot him was right beside him. Wild whined and tried to struggle away, but his limbs were heavy and numb after their temporary death. A few feet away someone screamed, a guy with pink hair who looked like he’d just seen a ghost. Which, yeah kinda.

But what the hell was going on?! He’d died in the river, but now he was in a glade, under a blanket. Were-

Were they planning to bury him? The killing boy looked like he’d been crying, what the hell was going on?!

Voices began to ring out as a group of more boys and men began to crowd around him, all looking shellshocked and disbelieving. Some, he recognised from the hunting party, others he did not. The largest of the group, a tattooed man with one eye, pushed his way through the crowd and knelt at link’s side.

“Everyone, give us some space. Sky, stay with me, help me explain.”

Link whined again, looking up at the tattooed man. Despite his intimidating figure he was looking down at him kindly. Link knew that he probably shouldn’t trust him, but he did.

Okay so this was all batshit crazy. According to one-eye - Time, his name was Time - they were all heroes from across time, all called link, and all drawn here by mysterious portals. Sounded like a lot of woo-woo bullshit to Link, but then Time’s friend, Sky, had let him hold his sword. The Master Sword.

Hylia, it was all true.

Call him crazy, but Link - Wild, he was now - didn’t hold a grudge. He’d died before, including by accident or at the hands of people who hadn’t realised it was him and not a monster. It was fine.

Well, it wasn’t fine, but Wild was forgiving and wanted to move on. Wanted to get to know his brothers.

It took a while. Weeks, really. He couldn’t communicate properly, couldn’t explain himself to them. Little by little, though, he broke down barriers between himself and the chain. The ones who hadn’t been in the hunt first, then one by one, the others.

Four. Warriors. Legend. Sky.

And then Hyrule. Much as Wild wanted to move on, it was hard to build a bridge with Hyrule.

He knew why the traveller had done what he did, probably would have done the same in his situation. Honestly, he was even pretty impressed by his shot!

But his subconscious was another matter. He got nervous around the traveller without any real reason, and Hyrule’s guilt was clearly affecting him too.

Then, one day on a hike the traveller had pulled out a bow as he turned to listen for monsters and Wild had jerked away on instinct. The look of shock and guilt and grief he then got from the traveller after that was horrible, and that night he found Hyrule’s bow snapped in half in a ditch.

In the end it was food that united them. Wild had seen Hyrule by the campfire and steeled himself, walking over and plopping down beside him.

Hyrule immediately made to move, to give wild space, but wild stopped him, putting a hand on his wrist. He rumbled softly, and offered his slate.

It took a while to get his meaning across, but eventually Hyrule understood that he was asking for food suggestions. The traveller would never be a great chef, but he could follow instructions and was genuinely excited to help.

It was the first time they had ever actually done something together and… it felt nice. Right. When they were done they had a damn good meal for the chain, and Wild ruffled Hyrule’s hair fondly. The traveller smiled shyly back up at him.

By the time they first made it to Wild’s world, the time Wild had be killed by Hyrule felt like a bad dream.