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occasionallyprosie · 4 months

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Devotion - Chapter 4: "Four More Heroes"

Some people face their internal troubles… others adopt children so they can ignore it. (Aka, Dev is basically batman in that way)

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Dev stayed dormant for a little while, just residing in the sort of mindscape of the Golden Sword before he reached out and began to wander the Sacred Realm.

The Sacred Realm was... dull by now, after the time he spent there when he had first become a sword spirit, and just the sheer brightness of it... Even if the light rapidly replenished his magic and therefore his energy, spirit, and his ability to function, it was a lot.

Then he heard whispers.

"You think he's real? Or another lost ghost? — I don't know... I don't know how he could've even gotten here."

Dev turned, eyes landing exactly where the voice came from. It was just one voice, though disjointed and a little staticky, broken apart and shattered yet mended as one. The voice went silent the moment he looked the direction the source was.

"You're not as quiet as you think you are," he said bluntly. "Who are you? How and why are you here?"

Nobody should be here.

A kid came out from around a corner. Dev stared at the kid in the Sacred Realm. His soul was familiar, but it wasn't one he knew.

The kid stared at him, giving a weak smile. He wore a multicolored tunic and looked a bit unsure.

Dev softened. The soul was—that alone led him to being kind, to trusting them. There was divine courage, though it had faded and was just a ghost of itself, but it was there and it was inside this boy.

"Hey, are you alright?" Dev asked.

"I... Well, umm..." they glanced around. "I... Don't know."

"You don't know if you're alright?" Dev chuckled softly, he moved closer very slowly and carefully.

They made a slight face. "No, it's... Where am I?"

"You don't know?"

"No... sir."

Dev knelt in front of them. "My name's Dev. What's yours?"

"It's..." they hesitated, looking confused before it visibly hit them. "I don't know." They looked at Dev with maybe a bit of fear and grief in their eyes. "I don't know my name."

"What do you remember about yourself?" Dev asked softly.

The kid shook his head. "I... We don't. We were... just here."

"Well, kid. You're in the Sacred Realm, regular hylians shouldn't be here, so why don't we figure out how to get you out, okay?"

The kid nodded slowly and took Dev's offered hand. Dev led them out of the pyramid and he, with a gentle warning about what he was going to do, he prodded at the kid's magical signature.

What he found was... shocking.

They turned out to be a sword spirit, Dev had to search Hyrule just to find their sword form. After a while of Dev teaching them and coaching them into leaving the Sacred Realm, he was there on the other side and helped them to change forms.

The kid looked a bit shaken. Dev knelt in front of them.

"Hey, you alright? I know it's a bit disorienting."

"N-No, I'm fine, it's just..." he stared at the ground before shaking his head and looking at Dev. "I wasn't ready for the memories."

"Oh? Can you tell me about you then?" Dev asked. "Your name?"

"Link," the kid said. "My name is—was Link, I'm—I was a blacksmith, and the Heroes of the Four Sword. It's... it's been a long time, hasn't it?"

Dev stared for the briefest moment before nodding. "It has. Around... 2300 years."

The kid inhaled sharply.

"I'm sorry," Dev offered.

"No, it's... not your fault," he managed, clearly shaken. "I just... over two thousand... goddesses."

Some centuries later, everything suddenly warped. Everything changed, ripping and pulling and pushing and stitching back together.

He was back. Back in that light, that warmth, that lackluster realm that was just him, his awareness, some mindscape formed. But it was wrong. It wasn't just his, there were things here that weren't him.

It wasn't the familiar forest, the endless, sunlit forest with unending changes that he was trying to map out and always finding new things, a true paradise for an explorer like he'd been.

This was a sort of temple, a forest beyond the windows but also an ocean and mountains, but there was no way out. The windows were stained and depicted different people, heroes, he'd realized.

"How are you here?"

Dev whirled around, well not really, he redirected his awareness to the spirit behind him that had evaded his notice... somehow.

"Fi?" He breathed.

The woman, far more Hylian-like than he had ever seen her, standing not far from him, cloak billowing around her. Blue hair, pale nearly-white skin, purple and blue eyes, otherwise she was the same as he remembered, just... less broken, less decayed.

She floated toward him, landing neatly in front of him. She visibly studied him, eyes flicking up and down his appearance. An oddly human action for a spirit that claimed to have always been a spirit.

"This is... unforeseen."

"How are you... What do you know?" Dev asked.

"The timeline split," she surmised. "There were three. I decayed in one of them, and that is where you are from."

Dev nodded. "Yeah, I... I wanted to help the next hero, like you did for me. Help and protect them."

And he'd failed, he added bitterly to himself.

"I see." She seemed thoughtful for a moment. "There were two other timelines, myself in each, we became one as did with the Master Sword of your time."

She paused for a moment. Dev mentally traced this supposed timeline, a singular line that split into three, remaining separate for centuries, and was now clicking back into a single line. One of the three lines was him, the other two was Fi.

"There is a new hero."

"We can find him."

She shook her head, a bit of a stilted movement, but Dev remembered her becoming more human for him as a child.

"I don't have the power to take physical form anymore."

Dev decided not to just say that he did. Instead he shrugged. "Alright, let's wait then."

He didn't like it. He was worried, but Fi wanted to stay put supposedly. The kid, Link, Heroes of the Four Sword in singular form —he found out that there was actually four of them, unsurprising since he'd read their stories dozens of times— had been with Dev when everything warped and he ended up with Fi. He hoped the kid, wherever he was, was safe.

"Thank you, Link," Fi said.

"Dev," he corrected her. "The heroes are Link, I'm... more of a guide now."

There was something behind those heterochromatic eyes, he wanted to say pride or something similar —but wasn't that odd? Within the confines of the sword, Fi looked Hylian, but every single time he saw her outside, she was crystalline. How... interesting.

"You determined my full designation."

"Fidelity?" He guessed, giving a small, wry smile.

Though it was unsurprising that she figured his out so easily, it was surprising when she returned his smile with a small, uncertain one of her own. "Yes, and yours is Devotion?"

He hummed and nodded.

The newest Link was a soldier, barely an adult. He was prideful at first glance, but Dev could feel, sense, and see the way his hands trembled as he grabbed the hilt of their sword.

There was a fierceness behind those sharp, cobalt-blue eyes. A ferocity that vowed protection, but also a meekness, a fear hiding beneath that ferocity, a need to prove— no, a determination to prove themselves. It was a weak determination, one forged out of a fear of failure, not a necessity to succeed.

He let Fi act as she wished, and to his own surprise, because it was something she never did for him, she tested him.

She denied him her loyalty for the briefest moment. For a brief moment that had the fierce warrior faltering and a fear that already existed, that fear of failure, becoming far stronger behind cobalt curtains.

Then determination steeled in front of the fear and he pulled again, harder.

Fi gave in.

She said nothing, so Dev stepped up. He let some of his power seep into the blade, giving it some encouragement and letting it glow slightly golden.

"Hello, Link," he greeted gently, the name coming to him without any real logic as to where, his words a hum in the boy's mind. The boy startled but there was no time for that, something appeared behind him. Dev gave a sharp warning.

The boy's eyes widened and he spun, slashing the Master Sword through a blast of magic that had been shot.

Dev stepped back, studying the way the boy fought. He was skilled, it was undeniable. He was trained, a knight, but there was so much that he could improve on.

This Link was fairly respectful, easygoing, and calm, but Dev could recognize fear and determination in his eyes. Dev offered guidance where he could, whispering battle strategy in Link's mind during meetings and helping him learn to find the best way himself.

He didn't take physical form, too many people and he didn't want to deal with being a person just yet.

Fi told Dev she didn't like to speak to her wielders if she did not need to. Though her words were different, Dev was good at reading between the lines: She didn't want to get attached, likely so the parting wouldn't hurt more than necessary.

Dev couldn't care. Not that he didn't care, but he could not. He refused to care about getting hurt. He learned during his mortal life that you couldn't avoid people for fear of hurting when you lose them.

He also promised Zelda he wouldn't avoid people to avoid being hurt, so he refused to do that.

The first time he took a true physical form was when Link had passed out after a battle and one of the little displaced heroes had grabbed his sword.

"Hi, you remember me?" Tune asked, eyes filled with curiosity as he set the sword on the table and sat on the chair to stare at it. "Captain Link says you can talk, but you never talked to me... I'm sorry I left you under the ocean."

Fi offered some quiet insight, giving Dev some context and her thoughts on the matter.

In a moment, the sword was replaced by a person and Tune yelped, jumping back as Dev took form, sitting on the table. He stumbled back, staring at him in shock.

"Don't apologize for that, little pirate," Dev said, lighthearted and warm.

Tune gaped. "Y-You—You're the sword!"

He laughed. "I am. I am part of it, at least. I have not met you before this war."

Tune looked confused. "But..."

"My partner did." Dev slid of the table and knelt in front of Tune, the young boy was fairly short for his age, not even coming up to Dev's shoulder when he had been standing. If Dev understood right, and he had been getting good at telling age from magical signatures, Tune was about twelve, maybe thirteen.

Tune nodded. "Yes—please."

"Well, a very long time ago, the timeline split into two, and then it split again. Not too long ago, there were three separate timelines." Dev informed the young hero. The courage in his heart was unlike even that in the current Link or Dev's dear Sprite. "When this war began, that changed. The timelines merged together, a convergence."

In the air, Dev drew a line with some magic lingering behind his movements to let that line remain visible, then he split it into three and brought them back together at the bottom.

"Fi is the other spirit of the Master Sword, she is who was with you throughout your journey. She is weaker than I, as she is much, much older, and sealed many, many more evils than I have."

Tune made an 'o' with his mouth, drawing the sound out. "And you?"

"I'm Dev. I am very young in comparison to Fi, and my power replenishes independently whereas hers is bound and limited as a result of our different creations. I used to be Hylian, she has always been a spirit." He tapped one of the timelines. "I formed sometime in one of the three, where Fi had faded away, and when the timelines merged, Fi and I now share the space of the Master Sword.

"Grabe!" Tune gasped, almost startling Dev with the use of a once familiar island language, then Tune visibly realized something as he beamed. "Do you know Mask? Or does Fi know Mask?"

Fi made a slightly pained and guilty chime. Dev gave a soft smile.

"Fi does. I've never met Mask."

"Then you have to! Come on, I'll introduce you. Captain Link's healing and I bet Mask is probably super worried, so we should distract him."

Dev could feel the older brother energy that Tune just radiated. He nodded.

"Lead the way, little pirate."

Tune led the way out and Dev followed him. He wove through the crowds of the military camp and Dev ignored the questioning looks shot his way.

Tune lit up and he ran and tackled someone. A small boy, in green just like Tune was, though this boy's was a darker green.

"Gah! Tune no!"

"Hey, Mask!" Tune wrangled the kicking child under one arm, stealing his floppy green cap and mussing yellow-blond hair.

"Oh—Ge'off!" Mask struggled until Tune released him.

"Cap'n Link's in good shape, Mask, stop being such a worry wart," Tune teased lightly, though it was clear his words were genuine.

"Who's this?" Mask demanded instead of addressing the chide. He eyed Dev warily.

"This is Dev! He's..."

"A sword spirit," Dev offered. He tilted his head a bit, recognizing the very faint sugary magic on the kid. "You like fairies?"

Mask startled. "Huh?"

"You have a bit of fairy magic on you," Dev tapped his nose and Mask scrunched his face up, annoyance joining the shock. "Do you like them?"

"I... I was raised by the Kokiri," Mask offered carefully. "But— Yeah, I like them. They're nice."

"Hmm, how about we do some plotting?" Dev looked over at Tune with a glitter of mischief in his eyes. "So when Link's all better and back to being reckless on the battlefield, we can give him a little... scare."

He knew he had their full attention with that suggestion. Two little gremlins these two were. He should be too old for this sort of thing, but he had a soft spot for kids. Especially ones where he could feel a connection that went deeper than sword and wielder.

The three heroes, Tune, Mask, and Link, they reminded Dev of the kid, the younger sword spirit had that same curiosity, the same determination, the same determination to help out, and the same steadiness that the three had displayed. Tune also looked a lot like the kid. Dev knew, objectively, that the kid wasn't going to get hurt, he was a sword spirit after all and almost nothing in existence could even hurt him, but that didn't stop him from worrying. It only stopped him from going out and abandoning this war to find the kid.

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