The Hyrulian Valhalla Saga: Side Stories
By Queenie Z
A Team of One
Green reached up from the ground where he lay, catching a falling red leaf in his fingers. He kept it aloft, blocking the sun from his eyes for a moment before bringing it down to examine it closer. After a moment of idle thought, he addressed his companions nearby.
"Hey," he muttered, "you guys ever think about the old days?"
From his perch on a boulder, Red turned and tilted his head. "You mean our journey?"
"No," laughed Green, "I know we think about those days all the time. I meant the days after our journey."
"'Course we do," answered Blue, yawning as he stretched his limbs out across the grass opposite of Green. "Well, I know we do when we're merged, at least."
"I remember them pretty fondly, actually," added Vio, who sat at the base of a tree with colored leaves scattered all around him. "Traveling all over the land as a hero for hire, helping people in need with whatever their problems were..."
"For hire?" scoffed Blue, "Hardly - we ended up doing things for free more often than not, because someone was being a goody-two-shoes and refusing payment." He shot a glare at Green, who waved his off with his free hand.
"You're just as responsible for that sense of justice as I am," he said.
"But the Princess helped us out in return for our service," said Red, "so we were never really in need of much money."
Vio chuckled. "Yeah... we definitely would have starved without her, huh?"
Green nodded. "Mmhmm." He face fell slightly as he continued. "...We owe Zelda a lot, don't we? She was our friend throughout everything - even when we felt like we were going crazy."
His usual cheerful demeanor quickly dampening, Red looked to his feet. "Things really weren't ever the same after the journey, were they?" he said sadly. "No one else knows what it's like to have their soul split apart and put back together - to feel like one person one day and four the next."
"We'd been separate for so long," said Blue with narrowed eyes, "that being just 'Link' again was tough. You can't simply go back to the way things were after something like that."
"Missing you guys didn't help much either," added Vio with a tenderness typically reserved for more emotional counterparts. "We had each other all that time, and then we just... didn't."
"I wouldn't say that," said Red, "We talked to each other in our head all the time, remember?"
Blue shut his eyes. "But that's totally different!" he huffed, "And, besides... you can't talk to yourself without sounding like a crazy person."
"I think that was the worst part," Green said. "We couldn't share how we felt with anyone else. They would have called us insane." He lowered his voice. "...Even we called ourselves insane, sometimes."
Red smiled softly. "Zelda never called us insane." He looked towards the others. "Remember what she told us? Every day of our life, we were always working together, whether we were one person or four."
Green, too, smiled. "That's right," he said warmly, "and working together was what helped us get through the rough spots."
Vio turned to Green. "Yeah. You kept us on the path of truth," he looked to the other two, "Blue kept the fire in our hearts from burning out, and Red - well, he kept our innocence, even after we'd seen and done so much."
"I guess that means you're the one who kept our ass out of trouble," snickered Blue.
"You could say that," replied Vio.
Red laughed. "So all in all, it wasn't that bad being just 'Link', was it?"
"I guess not." Green reached over his head. "...But I'm glad we can talk like this again, too."
Blue rolled over onto his stomach. "What's that hand for?"
"Come on, you know exactly what it's for."
Turning slightly pink, Blue reluctantly reached for the outstretched hand and took it.
"Hey, what about me?" cried Red when he saw that they were holding hands. He leaped off his boulder and layed down beside them, setting his hand on top of Blue's. "Come on, Vio, you too!"
Vio shook his head in amusement, but joined them anyway, a smile gracing his lips as he joined hands with his personas. "You guys, I swear..."
And there they remained, basking in each other's company; for no other Hero could ever truly know such a strange yet amazing comradery.