Insert obligatory disclaimer here, stating that I do not own a specified franchise and that all characters belonging to said franchise are property of said franchise's creator, whom I am not.

"Hey, Link?" Red asked.

"What?" Link said, at the same time that the other Link said, "Yeah?"

"No, the Link with brown hair and bad direction," Red clarified.

"Oh, right. Sorry," the other, blond Link said.

"What was the question?" the brunet Link asked.

"What does your shield look like?"

Link thought for a moment, as it'd been a while since he'd last seen it and all the details weren't as firm in his mind as they used to be. "It's large and brown, with a red cross. Why?"

"I think it's in that tree," Red replied, pointing.

Link followed his finger and squinted. Sure enough, there was a tree, with something large, brown, and squarish lodged between two branches near the top.

"Hey, that's a whole five feet lower than the last tree!" Link exclaimed happily.

"Wait, what?" Blue said. "The last tree? You mean to say that this isn't the first time you've gotten your shield in a tree?"

"No," Link replied simply. "Although last time was because a flock of Keese stole it when I wasn't looking because of the Like-Like horde."

"...I'm slightly scared to ask," the blond Link began, "but what was the reason this time around?"

"Oh, I was running from a four-headed dragon for about an hour or so, got lost, and ended up in the middle of a minion horde rather than a generic monster horde. Then there was a panicked stampede, and I kinda lost track after that because everything got a bit muddled."

"...You're joking."

"Well, compared to the one and two-headed dragons, the four-headed dragon was actually the slowest runner of the bunch, probably from all the extra heads. Running from the one-headed dragon took a bit over three hours.."

"That's not what I meant," the other Link protested. "I was talking about – wait how many dragons have you ran from?"

"Oh, just the three," the brown-haired Link assured him. "The three-headed dragon was asleep when I found him, and the five-headed dragon is just too lazy to bother with me."

Every so slightly, the blond Link twitched.

"Link, you okay?" Vio checked.

"I'm fine, why?" the brunet one said in a confused tone at the same time the blond one said, "I've just got a slight headache is all."

"Right, that's annoying." Vio muttered. "Link with bad direction, shush. Link with trains, could you repeat that?"

Link duly repeated himself.

"Alright, just checking," Vio said. "But I don't think we can keep calling you both 'Link'. This is only going to get more confusing the longer it goes."

The two Links exchanged glances with each other.

"Yeah, but... if we can't use 'Link', what do we call ourselves?" the blond Link asked. "I mean, I've only ever had the one name."

"We can use nicknames!" Red exclaimed suddenly. "That's what Green, Blue, Vio and I do, and it worked out great for us!"

Blond Link regarded him dubiously. "That's nice, but I don't think my clothing color is going to be the best choice here, since 'Green' is already taken."

"And I don't really think I want to go by 'Brown'," Brunet Link decided, looking down at his sleeves. "It kinda gives the wrong impression, you know?"

"Not those kinds of nicknames, silly," Red snickered. He pointed at Blond Link and asked, "Your title is the Hero of Trains, right?"

"Right..." Blond Link replied slowly.

"Wanna use it?"

Blond Link blinked. "What now?"

"Do you want to use 'Train' as your nickname?" Red elaborated.

"No!" Link sputtered.

"Why not?"

"Because 'Train' is a stupid thing to name somebody!"

"But it's nicely relevant to you and your adventure and not at all a really obvious tie-in to your mode of transportation!" Red pleaded. Blond Link glared at him.

"You. Are. NOT. Naming. Me. Train."

Red deflated a bit, but rallied right back to the challenge. "Alright then. Vio?"

"Yeah?"

"What kinds of things are associated with trains?"

Vio raised an eyebrow. "Red, we only just learned what trains are a few hours ago. What makes you think I know about them now?"

Red just gave him an expectant look.

"...Okay, yes, I read the instruction manual that Link had, but that still doesn't mean I'm an expert!"

"Please?" Red chirped.

Vio sighed. "Umm... gears, pistons, wheels, tracks, engines, coal, steam, whistle-"

"Ooh, I liked that other one," Red interrupted. "What do you think, Link?"

Blond Link tilted his head. "Uhh... which one are we talking about...?"

"Steam!" Red said. "Trains make it, right? Nicknaming by association."

"...It's better than 'Train'," Link admitted. "But I'm not sure I-"

"Steam it it!" Red cheered.

"That wasn't an agreeing sentence!" Link yelped.

"Your turn!" Red told an apprehensive Brunet Link, completely ignoring the protests coming from his previous victim. "What's your title?"

"Nothing fancy like his," Brunet Link said. "I'm just the Hero of Hyrule."

Red paused, almost literally putting his enthusiasm on 'stop'. "Awww, we can't call you that."

"...Eh?"

"Hyrule," Red explained. "We can't call you 'Hyrule', it's already taken. Besides, think about how confusing that would be."

"Yeah, about as confusing as having two Links at once," Blue said dryly.

"Exactly!" Red agreed, completely missing the joke. "Okay, Hyrule is a country... which is a land... which is a place... Vio, can you list some words that mean 'country'?"

"It's called a synonym," Vio sighed.

Red frowned. "...No, I don't like that one. Are there any others?"

"No, a synonym is – never mind. Yes, there's others, just give me a second... state, tribe, empire, realm, union, land, area, turf, kingdom, territory, province-"

"Wait, go back," Red interrupted again. "What was that one that started with an 'R'?"

"Realm," Vio replied after cycling through the list in his head again.

"Do you like that one?" Red asked the currently-without-a-nickname Link, practically bouncing in place.

"Uhhh..." Link responded decisively. Blond Link took the stall in the conversation to put in, "And I never agreed to mine either!"

"Please?" Red asked. His eyes which were already considerably large, somehow got even wider until both Blond and Brunet Links were looking at a passable representation of an adorable puppy. They spent a moment silently cursing their weakness to adorable puppies before exchanging helpless glances with each other.

"...It's better than 'Train'," the newly-dubbed Steam decided.

"And there's definitely worse things to be called," Realm agreed.

"Yay!" Red cheered, giving them both spontaneous hugs. "You like them!"

Over Red's shoulders, the other three colored Links gave the new guys sympathetic smiles.

"The new names grow on you, trust me," Blue whispered to them with a knowing smirk.

"I'll take your word for it," Steam replied.

Realm just smiled, then remembered something and cleared his throat. "Uh... not to ruin the moment or anything, but we still need to get my shield down from the tree."

"I've got it," Vio said, pulling out his Bow and nocking an arrow on it. It took a few shots, because the shield was really lodged in there, but eventually an arrow dislodged it entirely and the shield bounced to the ground with a resounding metallic clanggggggg.

"And here I was gonna try climbing for it," Realm said, grinning as he picked up his equipment and slung it onto his back – and frowning as something struck him as off. He twisted his head around to look, stared for a few seconds, then turned to face the other five Links with a sheepishly resigned look on his face.

"By any chance," he began awkwardly, "did any of you seen my sword while you were looking earlier? I seem to have misplaced it."

"...You're kidding," Blue said blankly. "You've got to be kidding. How in Nayru's Name do you lose track of your sword?"

Realm shrugged. "Actually, it's been a little over four days or so since I lost my sword the last time. That's pretty good as far as I'm concerned."

"Let me get this straight," Steam interrupted. "Ninety percent of the time you have no idea where you are. Fifty percent of the time you don't know where your shield is, and the other fifty percent you don't know where your sword is. You run into a ridiculous amount of monsters, it takes you ages to get anywhere, and you can't read a map to save your life?"

"That about sums it up," Realm agreed.

"...Exactly how long have you been at this whole Hero thing?" Green asked.

Realm considered this. "Um... a couple years, give or take a few months?"

"Do you have any idea where your villain is?" Vio questioned.

"Yes," Realm said defensively. "And I'll have you know that I'm almost ready to challenge him. I just... have some issues figuring out how to get there."

"Without your sword," Steam pointed out bluntly. Realm turned red.

"Yes, well... I did say 'almost'."

Everyone stared at him for a few seconds.

"...I know that I just met you," Blue said slowly. "And I know that you're probably very capable of being a Hero once you get to wherever it is you're going. But if it legitimately takes you that long, and you lose your stuff that often, how in the world do you ever get anything done?"

Realm just shrugged again.

"Alright," Farore nodded in satisfaction. "I think we can safely say that those six are not going to be killing each other. Time for phase two!"

"Now that events are in motion, we can work ahead to the aspects further up the timeline," Nayru mused. Din gave her an odd look.

"Why did you say that out loud?"

Nayru paused, and blinked. "Well, because I was explaining it."

"To whom?" Din asked. "It's Farore's plan, so she already knows, and both you and I know what she's doing. We're the only ones here. Who are you explaining it to?"

"I would tell you," Nayru said slowly, "but that would require breaking some walls, and we both know the Universe is too unstable for that right now."

Din absorbed that, and her eyes widened as she nodded in understanding. "Oh, right. Sorry, I'm just kinda used to us addressing them directly."

"Din," Farore called warningly.

"Sorry!" Din replied. "Geez, this is going to be harder than I thought..."

"Just do what I do," Nayru said, shrugging. "Say everything out loud to make up for the fact that we're ignoring them."

"Girls," Farore interrupted. "I think I've found the next candidate. He's even heading in the right direction."

"Which one is this, then?" Din asked.

"This is the one I had to make a special intervention for," Farore said. "With that piece of nasty Curse work."

"Oh, the wolf-one," Nayru remembered. "Good choice. He tends to take things in stride, doesn't he?"

"Exactly," Farore agreed. "A dimensional rift shouldn't get more than a raised eyebrow and a shrug."

"Let's get to it then," Din said.

One timeline over, Link was having an argument.

This wasn't anything new, per se. His partner, Midna, was an insufferable little Princess who was convinced she was always right and had the attitude to back it up, and as such the two of them got into their fair share of spats.

The reason this particular one was worth noting, however, was because Midna had just turned Link into a wolf, and the 'arguing' part of the argument was rendered rather moot considering that Link was currently unable to speak Hylian, much less words.

So he settled for glaring at her instead.

"Oh, don't give me that," Midna sighed. "You know I don't enjoy it when you sulk."

"I am not sulking," Link growled – literally.

Now, Midna, not being a wolf, couldn't actually understand Link at the moment. Normally, this wasn't much of an issue because they had workarounds: turning his head and blinking meant 'I want to warp', twitching both his ears meant 'Change me back', and everything else Link wanted to say could usually be postponed until he was Hylian again, or communicated through body language and the occasional snarl depending on how much Midna was annoying him.

In this case, however, Link could tell Midna had no intention of changing him back, and he had no real way of telling her exactly how he felt about the whole situation. Midna knew this, naturally. And so, when faced with Link's growled response, she reacted as only she could.

"What's that?" she asked, hand perched tauntingly on the outside of her helmet where her ear would be. "I don't think I heard you, there's some sort of loud dog around."

Link pegged her with another glare, then whipped around and stalked away, tail lashing behind him. If that was how she was going to be, then he wasn't going to waste his time.

Unfortunately, Midna had other ideas.

"Where are you going?" she asked slyly, floating along above his head and flashing her fanged grin at him. "We've got a job to do, remember?"

"No, I've got a job to do," Link retorted, forgetting that he couldn't be understood. "I'm the one with the weapons, I'm the one doing the job. And don't you even start with me on that!"

Midna did not start with him, mostly because his entire sentence had gone right over her head. Instead, she rolled her eyes and announced, "Goddesses, you whine too much."

"I'm not whining," Link said with false calm. "I'm actually incredibly pleased with my current situation."

Even though she couldn't hear the words, Midna could definitely hear the sarcasm and she grinned. Link was rarely sarcastic; in fact, most of the time he was content to listen and watch and take everything in stride. The fact that he was retaliating told her exactly how annoyed he was, and Midna took a moment to relish it. An annoyed Link was a real rarity to her.

"Geez, what got under your fur?" she taunted.

Link threw a third – and by this point, slightly ineffective – glare at her, and pointedly turned his back.

"Oh?" Midna mused. "Are you ignoring me?"

Link's left ear twitched, but other than that he gave no response that he'd heard.

"Are you sure you want to be doing that?" Midna's voice suddenly sounded in his ear. Ironically enough, it was the one that had twitched. Link stiffened, but determinedly kept his gaze fixed in front of him.

"Right then," Midna said cheerfully, which made Link shudder. The only times he remembered Midna being cheerful had ended badly for him. "You brought this upon yourself."

Her hand shot out and latched onto a certain spot behind Link's ear, and Link froze.

"Midna..." he said apprehensively.

"I warned you," she said flippantly. And she began scratching Link's head.

The day she had discovered Link's sweet spot had been a day of joy – for Midna, anyways. Link on the other hand regarded that discovery with the attitude that one would generally have towards their least favorite vegetable. He hadn't even known he had a sweet spot until Midna had found it. He certainly hadn't had one before he'd been turned into a wolf.

The present day was a completely different story. Not only did he have a sweet spot, but it apparently now existed whether he was Hylian or not, and scratching it basically turned him into a content pile of fluff.

Case in point, Link was already leaning into the scratch despite the yelling of his brain at the rest of him to do anything else. If he weren't currently being scratched, he would absolutely listen, but... it felt very nice...

Midna kept up the motion for a few seconds longer before withdrawing her hand and smirking in a very satisfied fashion. Link took a few more seconds to shake himself back into alertness and made to glare at her again-

"Oh, you want more, little wolf?" Midna asked innocently, raising her hand again. Link stopped mid-glare and huffed irritably instead.

"Good," his partner snickered. "Now, we're going to come at this from a more reasonable perspective this time, okay? Talk like nice civilized imps and goatherds."

Link grumbled at the ground. The downside of Midna controlling his transformations was just that: Midna controlled his transformations. She wasn't going to change him back until he agreed.

Even more annoying was the fact that, until she changed him back, he couldn't tell her off for it. And on top of everything else, she was not above using his sweet spot to make him obey, and the sheer nature of their partnership made running impossible.

So really, Link had absolutely no choice in the matter, and both he and Midna knew it. Therefore, Link heaved a sigh and gave his partner a short, if annoyed, nod and flicked both his ears in their 'Change me back' signal.

"Pleasure doing business with you," Midna teased, tapping Link's forehead and drawing out the Curse Stone in one smooth movement. As usual, the Stone took with it an awful lot of Twilight stuff, and the ensuing cloud completely hid Link for a brief moment. When it cleared he was standing on two feet, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, and giving Midna the kind of stare that meant he was not going down that easily.

"You know there are easier ways to get your point across," Link informed his partner.

"They're not as fun, though," Midna pouted.

"How was turning me into an animal who can't talk going to solve this, though?" Link challenged. Midna considered that, absentmindedly tossing the Curse Stone in one hand.

"...It's a lot easier to manipulate you when you can't talk back," she decided. Link groaned to himself and ran a hand down his face; that was classically Midna.

"The only thing it did though," he pointed out after a moment, "was 'force' me to talk about it, which I'd already been doing before you changed me when I wasn't looking."

"Oh?" Midna replied. "And what was it that you were saying? I'm afraid I wasn't paying much attention, there was this cute little wolf and it distracted me."

Link sighed again. "I was saying that I strongly disagreed."

"And why do you do that?" Midna asked, rolling her eyes at him.

"Because it's reckless, liable to get you or someone else killed, and is quite possibly the worst idea you've ever had."

Midna raised a finger-

"Including the one where I got shot from a cannon," Link interrupted, staring her down. Midna just shrugged.

At the time of said cannon idea, Link had been quite adamant that it was the worst idea she'd ever had. It wasn't so much what they were using it for, or where he was going; it was the fact that he was literally being used as cannon fodder, and he was quite sure that there was a distinct possibility of him getting blown to bits rather than up to the Occa's city. The fact that there was a new 'Worst Idea Midna's Ever Had' was a fairly significant event.

"Well then," Midna said after a moment. "Do you have any better ideas?"

Link internally cursed his luck, because of course she would ask that question. The problem was that he actually didn't have a better idea; he just really, really didn't want to use the current one.

"Look, Midna, you know as well as me that the Fused Shadows are dangerous. I know that you've got a higher tolerance than most people, but remember Darbus? Just touching that thing turned him into a mindless monster, and here you want to put on all of them?" Link gestured at the air in an attempt to express his feelings on the subject even more than he already was. "I get that it's to storm the Castle and rescue Zelda, and I'm completely behind that course of action, but could we please find some other way of doing it?"

"Link, I've been wearing a Fused Shadow this whole time," Midna reminded him. "I'm perfectly fine. I'd even say I've built up a tolerance."

"That's just one piece," Link reiterated. "Who knows what could happen if you put on all four! Twilight magic is dangerous, Midna, and don't even try to tell me you don't know that. Remember what happened to Yeta? I don't even think she so much as touched that Mirror Shard. Heck, all she did was look at it, and what happened?"

"She rampaged," Midna summarized in a bored tone. "I know, Link, I was there."

"So was I, and I was the one who had to deal with her!" Link exclaimed.

"So you're worried," Midna stated. Link gave her a flat look.

"I'm a wolf," he said bluntly. "We travel in packs. Right now, I have a very small pack, and it basically consists of you." He thought for a moment, then added, "And possibly Telma. But my point is that it's literally in my nature to worry. Or have you not noticed the fact that I practically need to protect people?"

This was true, in more ways than one. While Link had always been a rather protective person, that particular personality trait had almost doubled once the whole wolf thing kicked in. Wolves in general had a strong family unit and were very closely bonded with their pack members. Granted, Link didn't have much of a pack; as he'd said, Midna was basically the only other member. Ironically enough, in wolf terms she was probably the 'Alpha', while Link was a 'Beta'. He didn't mind this much. He was fairly certain he'd be absolute rubbish at leadership, so being a 'Beta' suited him just fine. He was just a highly protective one.

"Tone down the drama, little wolf," Midna told him. "You make it sound so end-of-the-world-y."

"While you make it sound so frivolous," Link retorted. "I do not want to deal with your weird hair magic powered up by a thousand if you go on a rampage. I've spent enough time trying not to die already, I have no interest in adding more time to that list."

Midna sighed. "Look, Link, it's nice that you care, it really is. But we both know that the Fused Shadows are the only way to break Ganondorf's barrier around the Castle, and we also know that I'm the only one who can use them. If you have any other ideas, I'd love to hear them, but as it stands right now..."

Link glared at the ground and let out a growl that would have been much more suited to come out of his wolf form. He absolutely hated when she was right about things like this.

"...Fine," he conceded. "But if anything goes wrong-"

"You get to tell me, 'I told you so'," Midna interrupted, smirking.

"Which I will relish," Link informed her. "I mean, I'll wait until after I've saved your Twili skin to do it, but I will absolutely do it."

"Yeah, I suppose you need to win at least one of our arguments," Midna mused.

"I've won an argument with you before," Link retorted.

"Really?" Midna said, in tones of great surprise. "When was this?"

Link opened his mouth to reply – and abruptly realized that he couldn't think of a single one. Midna read the look on his face and flashed him her fanged grin.

"That's what I thought."

"Shut up, I'll win one eventually," Link sighed, walking off. Midna followed him through the air, yawning idly.

"Where we going?"

"Hyrule Castle," Link replied. "We might as well get it over with. Besides, I've got this weird feeling that we're supposed to be there."

Midna just shrugged. A 'weird feeling' as Link put it didn't exactly rate very high on her scale of things to worry about.

Meanwhile at Hyrule Castle, things were a bit... chaotic.

For starters, Ganondorf had spawned his barrier in the middle of a guard post, which meant that there were a large amount of soldiers trapped inside the Castle walls as well as outside. For another, Ganondorf himself seemed to have disappeared entirely, and there was an odd black hole-thing in the throne room that nobody could get rid of. On top of that, Zelda had been discovered to be out cold in the same room not twenty feet away from said hole, and regardless of what the soldiers did she obstinately refused to wake up. And as if none of that was stressful enough, the roof of the Castle seemed to have vanished entirely as if it never existed in the first place, and there was an eternally stubborn raincloud that seemed dead-set on sitting right above the place where the roof ought to have been and raining on everyone inside.

This could have been because of the afore-mentioned barrier keeping everything in (and out), because it certainly wasn't raining on the other side of the wall. However, with no real way to escape the weather, the soldiers had resigned themselves to being wet and had basically given up on staying dry. Because, really, there was only so much that holding one's shield above the head could do.

But then the barrier had vanished, not that this did anything to the raincloud, and the whole situation was compounded by the flock of very lost Keese that flew in and got themselves stuck in the hallways, much like an insect gets stuck in an open-ended jar. They just couldn't seem to figure out that 'Up' was synonymous with 'Out'. Granted, they were usually in a cave, which had no 'Up', but still.

The soldiers tried to comfort themselves with the notion that they could at least leave now, but the fact of the matter was that Zelda was still unconscious, and the very nature of their job meant that until she woke up, they were honor-bound to protect her. So, with much (albeit muted) grumbling, the men resigned themselves to being constantly wet and frequently chased by the confused Keese flock.

All in all, it was not a good day to be a soldier.

9/5/16

So sorry this took a while, but I moved back into my dorm this weekend. Packing takes a long time, let me tell you, and then you get to unpack it all just a few hours later!

This is also the reason that the Evil Overlord list has been somewhat delayed, by the way.

On the story side of things, new-and-improved nickname sequence, better introduction to TP Link, and more involvement by the goddesses.

Changeling

Thanks to Nathaniabp and Demon King73 for favoriting/following!

Find me on Tumblr at changeling-rin!

Find the fan-run ask blog on Tumblr at ask-the-dimensional-links!