Chapter Text
Two days had passed since Dot turned fifteen. She was now officially old enough to claim her crown, if she wanted it: her wings had fully matured. Vaati had been in the forge, chatting with Dot and Shadow to the beat and hiss of Four at work for the last few hours. (He still had no idea how Four could hear them in their corner when they could barely hear themselves.) Four was just pulling off his gloves, his work for the day ended, laughing with them as Dot retold a prank involving orange paint, a cucco, and the Cane of Pacci -- with Four as her target. The next moment Shadow was gone, falling into a black and silver portal. The three siblings didn’t think -- they all dove after him, Vaati grabbing Dot’s hand and Link’s shoulder as they fell through. They three were close together when they landed, as he’d hoped, but there was no sign of their brother.
Looking around, Vaati recognized the Minish magic as Lorulean, but it wasn't an area he'd been to before, and the Hylians with him had never been on this side of the Divide... Oh. Oh that could be a problem... "Keep calm, come what may," he warned his siblings, one hand resting on his sword. "Light magic does not thrive here the way it does in Hyrule."
"You know this place, then?" Dot asked hopefully, double checking that her sling and rock bag were secure, and her gifts from Shadow on her back. She'd almost never taken them off in the last couple days, something he was grateful for now. Her magic was wary of the dark and shadow magics in the air, he noted approvingly, and wouldn't rise to her bidding half as easily as it did at home. A good thing: they did not need her to be a blazing beacon of light magic right now, no sir. Every monster in the country would come after them if she used it.
“Enough to know we’re not going to be walking back to Hyrule. We’re in the wrong dimension for that.” He gestured to the air around them, or rather, the magic in it. “As to the area... could be Lorule, could be the Twili Realm, could be another country altogether from those. Welcome to the Shadow World.”
“Shadow mentioned those places -- something about an apprenticeship?” Four frowned, looking around. “Don’t think he said anything about a change in dimension, though.”
“He probably assumed you knew, since we grew up knowing about those places. Papa Ezlo isn’t too good at making portals, so we didn’t visit often, but we did come a couple times before the apprenticeship, to find a good teacher for him. Papa figured we should at least know of the places, since I for sure have blood kin in Lorule and he was fairly certain Kellum did too. Purple hair isn’t exactly common in Hyrule unless you’ve Lolian heritage.”
“And the apprenticeship was...?”
“Papa isn’t nearly as skilled in dark magic as he is in light. He knows enough to balance both, but not enough to truly train a dark mage. And Kellum is most definitely a dark mage. Given half a chance he’ll be alright on his own.”
Dot shook her head. “I hope you’re right."
He nodded. You and me both, princess. "Lin-- er, Four? Is the drama king awake right now?"
A moment's silence drew a deadpan look on the Hero's face. "Awake and stuck in a tree. Weird landing on exiting the portal, apparently, and it's at a height where he's not sure he can shift small and tall before being small kills him."
Vaati huffed a laugh. Always the weird situations with you, Kellum. Always. "Can you tell which direction he is from us?"
Four glanced around, then nodded. "Sort of. Not directly, but Shadow recognizes both where he is and where we are and thinks he can give directions."
"So we're going to get hopelessly lost," Vaati summarized flatly.
His companions didn't argue. "We'll give him one chance to not get us lost," Four decided, mischief in his eyes. "We'll get to hold it over his head for life if he does, though."
The three shared a smirk. Vaati didn't have to be in his brother's head to know that smirk made Kellum nervous if he was the target -- all seven of them knew to fear it when their siblings turned chaos on them, especially if Red and Vio were on the same page about it like they clearly were now. Dot being on the same page doubled the effect, always.
All the same, they gave Kellum's directions one shot, heading east toward the town in the distance.
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West of where Dot and their brothers had landed, despite his best attempts, Shadow was no closer to getting himself unhooked than he was three hours ago on getting thrown here, shortly before his siblings landed. With a tired sigh, he finally gave it a rest to try and think his way out instead. It was then that he felt magic in motion below him, and froze. While there was a vague chance it was his siblings, he knew his chances of having guided them right were slim to none, and the chances his struggles had attracted an enemy were high.
Below him, a blond girl he didn't recognize moved, her steps silent as she danced through the woods. Rather unlikely she was a native to this area: blond hair was rare in this part of the Shadow World. Even with a Hylian parent, it usually didn't last more than a generation or two without another Hylian marrying in. It was often the same way with purple hair in the Light World; to keep it usually required a direct Lolian connection. Something about reflecting their dimension's patron goddesses, he thought his teachers had said.
But, now that she'd turned a bit, he could tell she wasn't Hylian either. This girl looked human, even if her magic didn't seem to match. Her ears weren't any form of pointed, and while he'd been told on his apprenticeship that human and Hylian would one day be mostly interchangeable terms as they had been in the Era of the Skies, that wasn't so in his home era, and he at least knew he hadn't traveled through time. It was odd enough for a Hylian to be here; how the heck did a human manage it? His teachers claimed most humans didn't have access to magic in his home era.
He must have moved just enough then, because she paused in her dance and turned to look up at him, still swaying. "Hello up there. Are you stuck?" she called, just loud enough for the breeze to carry her voice to him.
He sighed and stopped moving. "Unfortunately, yeah. Portal dropped me right here hours ago. Would you help?"
She grinned up at him and scaled the tree, fast as a squirrel, and sat him on her shoulders, slowly raising him up and forward until he could slide off the branch. The moment he was free he slid off her and to the branch below, balancing easily as he grinned up at her. "Much appreciated, miss."
Her nose wrinkled in distaste as she started back down the tree. "Call me Cadence, and you're welcome."
"...sorry?"
"You're good, just not a fan of titles."
"Fair enough, Cadence." Hopping easily from one branch to the next, he beat her to the ground and offered her a hand down. "Folk back home call me Shadow, by the way."
"So you're not from here, either, huh." She took his offered hand and jumped the last couple feet. "Well met, Shadow. Do you have any idea where we are?"
"Forest of Secrets, near the border between Lorule and Avalon, in the Shadow World. And no, I'm not from here -- I'm from Hyrule, in the Light World. What about you?"
She rolled her eyes and slung -- the heck is she carrying a shovel for? -- over her shoulder. "Don't know those places, so you probably don't know my home either."
Shadow sighed, ignoring the half truth somewhere in her words. Everyone was entitled to their secrets until holding those secrets got someone hurt. "No, probably not." He offered her a hand again. "I'd offer to guide you, but without a map I get lost far too easily. We’d somehow end up in Hyrule without using a portal, not sure how but that’s my level of luck.”
“Hm. How’s this then -- you decide which way we go, and we’ll go the opposite direction.”
He started to raise a finger in protest, then thought better of it. “Y’know what? That may well just work. I’ll have to keep that in mind for later, if it does.”
They turned, ultimately following the same direction she'd been heading in the first place -- east.
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Octavo was nuts, of that Vaati was sure. No one who knew the task before them would actually want to be the hero like Octavo clearly did. But even after Four split to better fight the idiot, none of them were expecting the sleeping spell. Vaati had come across a similar spell once before, and managed to shift it to a temporary one instead of a conditional one; but he was no mage, and had still been knocked out for hours by the time Shadow and his new friend Cadence found them. That fairy guiding them, Trill, had shown them two portals, one each to the Colors and to Zelda, and they parted ways. Cadence went to the Colors, since they'd have plenty of help once the four were awake, and she claimed she wanted to keep looking for a way home. He and Shadow went to Dot, because Four would one hundred percent murder them if they left their sister unguarded one second longer than they absolutely had to, no matter how skilled a fighter she’d become since the last journey.
They found themselves in Kakariko, though not the one Papa Ezlo had raised him and Kellum in. This was its mirror though, and a weak point in the Shadow Veil -- one often exploited to teach their children how to sense the Veil and walk partially on both sides, Shadow had said once. The Yiga here had found Dot and recognized the Light Force in her, putting her to bed in a shielded room lest others see how bright her light was and come to investigate. The two of them woke her up, a mild pulse of magic from Shadow easily twisting the sleep spell to end on its own, and headed out together.
It didn’t take long to realize there was more to Octavo’s curse than just sleep. Ever since Vaati had woken up there had been a tune running through his head that he didn’t recognize. It had changed when they reached Kakariko, but he didn't know this tune either. He’d thought it was the usual Shadow World thing, just louder than usual -- he’d hear it here whenever he came with Shadow, though usually not for this long. But when they came upon monsters, the tune grew much louder, and knocked him and Dot off their feet.
Shadow frowned down at them, swaying lightly. “Alright you two, what the heck did I miss?”
“I think... something chained my magic to the music here....” Dot began slowly, wincing as she tried to get up.
“...blast it. No, no, you’re doing it wrong,” Shadow muttered, moving to help her. “Keep the beat, if someone’s tied you to the music. The music itself is a normal thing, everyone this side of the Veil adds to the spell as an easy mark for where the monsters are and where it’s safe. If you’re stuck to it, you’ll need to dance your fight. And probably every other movement, at least while there’s monsters nearby.”
She nodded, wincing as she tried to pay attention to the beat. Shadow helped her upright; the motions were stiff and jerky, but it worked. Vaati followed their lead, stepping up one movement at a time rather than the smooth motion he was used to.
“It gets easier. There’s a steep learning curve, but it’ll get easier as you get used to it,” Shadow offered, still bobbing to the beat, so much easier to hear now that he was actually listening to it.
“What, have you climbed the curve, then?” he teased.
“Yep! Though it’s normally used for training exercises, with mages adding a complication to the guards here. It was fun to practice though!”
“Can you remove it?”
His brother shook his head, and he deflated. “Not while a beatmaster spell is active at the least, and yours are very much active. Just keep the beat and you’ll be fine. There’s a bonus to that, though -- beatmaster is generally an area-of-effect spell. Any monster you come across while this is active will also have to follow the beat. It’s easier to tell what their patterns are that way, and all of them will have a pattern they follow. You’ll see it too, just watch.”
He and Dot turned to observe as Kellum stepped into the monsters' line of sight. His brother danced as he fought, sliding past one monster to blast magic at another, only to strike the one he'd passed in the back with a black and green dagger he'd pulled from nowhere. Every motion was attuned to the music so loud in his mind, and somehow his blows seemed to get stronger the longer he danced... right up until he missed a beat. From Shadow's scowl, the two probably were connected... somehow. It didn't make much sense to him.
Fortunately for Vaati, the battle was over shortly after that. With the last monster in the area gone, the music in his head faded back to just barely louder than Lorule's usual. Shadow was examining an odd stone in front of the building when they approached, and tapped it with his magics just as they reached him. He turned to them with a smile.
"Tap your magic against this, will you? It's a guideline for the light fey, so they know where your strength was when they give their release blessing. The design on this one prevents monsters from either using it or pulling your magic back out of it. There aren't a lot of light fey in the Shadow World; this helps them save their magic for actually healing folk, rather than using it to locate how strong you are at full strength. My teacher called them safety points, but most visitors call them Sheikah stones."
"The Sheikah come here too?" Dot perked up, always curious.
"Not often, but yes. Mostly in a study exchange with their sister tribe, the Yiga. Where the Sheikah worship the Purple Goddess, the Yiga worship the Orange Goddess. I’m told the goddess pair are twin sisters, and they were each granted charge of one side of the Shadow Veil between Hyrule and Lorule, to guard it and to claim worship from it, and so bolster their own strength.”
“Any chance we’ll get to meet some Yiga, then?”
“About as much of a chance as you have of meeting Sheikah in the Bright World. If you meet them it’ll most likely be because they want to meet you, not because you ran into them on accident.”
Dot slumped a bit in disappointment but moved on, tapping her magic into the save point. Vaati quickly followed suit. No sense straining the dark cousins here if they didn’t need to. Shadow chuckled at her as they moved on. "You should know though, Dot -- most of the Sheikah in this Kakariko are actually Yiga. Only visitors get away with calling them Sheikah, because that's the Light World equivalent. If you're gonna be here for a while, call them Yiga."
Dot nodded, and they left the safety point behind, hoping the Colors had had better luck than they had so far.
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Blue really hoped his siblings were having better luck than they Colors were so far. Red was doing the best at moving when the annoying music in their heads got super loud, and even he was tripping over his own feet half the time.
At his side on the ground Green was curled up around his head. The music had been loud to him even before they came across monsters, and that had spiked a nail of sound through his skull like a Goron slap. His brother hadn't budged beyond the tremors in at least fifteen minutes -- he'd counted. Not that there was anything else Blue really could do, much as he hated it: his every attempt to get off the ground had failed miserably since the blasted music had gotten louder. But at least he could attempt to protect his baby brother should the monsters take notice of them. Currently they were only interested in Red though, so they'd have to hope this worked.
On his other side Vio was busily analyzing Red's fight, mentally taking notes since he couldn't quite write through the weird twitching the noise gave them all.
"Blue, look." Aaaaand there it was. Hopefully today's theory would actually be useful. Vio pointed to the battle. "The monsters -- they're all moving in sync with the music. Those times Red's tripping over himself... I think he got off the beat."
"You sure?"
"Hasn't proven wrong yet. Test it, will you? If it works you'll be on your feet to help Red and I can coax Green into it. Might just help the headache."
"...fine. What's the testing procedure this time?"
"Just... keep to the beat, for now. We'll work on other stuff once we can actually move.”
Blue shrugged and tried it, tapping the ground to make sure he had the pattern right. To his surprise his own headache eased a bit, and he grinned at his big brother before inching up to the beat. Keeping a foot tapping once upright seemed to work, so... He tossed Vio a smirk and grabbed their hammer.
You hear what Vio's theory is over this noise? He called through their bond as he nailed a weird lizalfos sneaking up on Red.
No, what is it?
Keep the beat and we're good.
...seriously?
Unfortunately. He swung into a bokoblin as Red turned to cover his back. Green and Vio joined them after a few minutes, though it was clear their baby brother was still struggling. He didn't normally stick to distance fights, but he was using their boomerang while Vio kept his bow and Red his fire rod.
They all preferred to use their sword, but that wasn't currently an option. Ever since Cadence woke them up, they'd been unable to take it out of its sheath -- a discovery that had nearly cost Red his head. And would have, if Red wasn't so used to dodging things that flew at his head. Blue had never thought he'd be grateful that birds regularly dive-bombed his big brother.
That had been the start of this fight. Green got to end it, boomerang taking the last moblin down on its return. The volume dimmed not a second later. Their leader promptly collapsed against him, exhausted more from the pain than from the fight.
Can... Can we stay here a bit? Green whispered in the bond between their minds.
"We can and we will," Vio confirmed. He handed Blue their canteen and moved to collect the loot while Red started a fire. They'd only been on the hunt for an hour or two, but they weren't going any further today. Not when one of them was still bad off. Blue uncapped the canteen and wrapped the water around his hand, pressing it to Green's forehead.
You don't have to --
Finish that thought, baby brother, and I will tell Dot you're not taking care of yourself.
Green made a face but shut up and let him soothe the headache already. All of them were just the tiniest bit scared of Dot. She had a protective cucco mode when she thought they were doing that level of dumb and had no problems with unleashing it on them. They couldn't complain; they were the same way when something happened to her, even though she was usually much better about healing up after. He’d lost count of how many times they Colors had had to drag each other off for healing. Usually to him, especially if they were low on potions or fairies. He’d not told them yet that using his magic like this was exhausting. They’d stop letting him heal if he did, he just knew it. Besides, sitting beside Red after did enough to perk him back up when needed. So as long as he only healed when they stopped for the day he’d be fine, right? Right.
Green sighed in relief, and he put the water away, already tired. Anything else could wait. “Get some rest, idiot,” he muttered, grabbing their pack.
Green grabbed his wrist and yanked him back down beside him. “Only if you do, idiot.” Blue shot him a glare. His leader glared right back. “Sit. Stay. Your magic stamina sucks worse than your physical stamina and you know it. Stop trying to pretend you aren’t tired as heck from helping me.”
Shoot. Maybe he hadn’t been hiding it as well as he’d thought.
No, you just left your doors open and thought too loud, Red corrected as he brought some firewood to them, already dried from his ambient heat. You do that a lot when you’re tired. Good to know sitting with you helps, though.
Oh. Oops. Sorry.
“Don’t be. It’s good to know each other’s tells so we can make each other recover,” Vio corrected, plopping beside them to look over the gathered loot. Mostly rupees, looked like, with a couple heart flower blooms and an odd long sword.
“Is that... glass?” Red leaned forward, poking it curiously.
“I think so. It has the right weight for it. But I think there may be a form of magic to it as well -- something shifted when I picked it up, and again when you touched it. Might not be as fragile as it looks?” Vio poked it. They all felt it then, probably because they were watching for it -- a shift of magic from Red to Vio, something tied to skin maybe? Blue wasn’t sure.
“Weird...” Green picked it up, testing its weight and sighting down the edge. Yep, that was definitely tied to skin. “As well crafted as any average metal weapon, far as I can tell.”
Vio took it back from him, strapping it to his hip. “I’ll test it in our next battle, then. See if we can’t pinpoint what the magic in it is.”
They nodded agreement as Red arranged a fire circle and lit the wood, holding his blaze steady and gentle until the wood caught. Blue grabbed their pack to start dinner, grateful they’d gotten paranoid and brought it everywhere with them. It’d been sitting beside Dot when the portal showed up a week ago, and they'd grabbed it on instinct when jumping after Shadow. Vio and Red did a quick patrol of the clearing while he worked, Green chopping vegetables for their stew.
"Shadow? You there?" He heard Vio call softly across their bond.
"Hey, Periwinkle. Something go wrong?"
Blue smiled. His idiot brother sounded tired, but he was still alive. And if he was worried for them, chances were things were okay with Dot and Vaati too.
"Fine, just checking in, see if you found Dot okay. Also curious about the tall rocks with the Sheikah symbol on them."
"Tap those rocks with your magic any time you find one. The fairies here will thank you. I'll explain when I see you in person. Dot and Vaati and I are doing alright. Gotta teach 'em how to dance their fight, but they're getting there."
All of us, or just one of us?
"Hiya Firecracker. If you're split, all of you."
"We will then. What do you mean, dance their fight? Do you mean the music fighting issues?"
A low growl in their bond startled them, Green narrowly missing cutting off a finger. "Yes. That. Your magic's bound to the music too then? Dot mentioned that and she and Vaati can't fight well yet because of it."
They each confirmed it, and Shadow continued. "Careful of the beat, then. It'll drop your health and strength to miss a beat when around monsters. Don't use any glass weapons you find until you've gotten decent at fighting. I gotta go, we found another monster area."
"Alright. Try not to get too badly hurt, yeah?"
Shadow chuckled. "Yeah, yeah. I'll do what I can."
He left then, and as soon as they'd eaten they each tapped their magic against the stone. It glowed briefly in response, flashing each one's color back to them before dimming again, and they set up camp so they could practice a bit.
Blue really hoped they found their siblings soon. Wandering without them sucked.