Twilight… isn't quite sure of what to think about Razor. Truthfully, he doesn't know what to think of the situation he and his brothers had found themselves in.

First, the portal is so rough that Four is knocked out the second he comes out the other side and Hyrule throws up his lunch — Twilight takes a second to question if the only reason he stayed standing was because of the tree before dispelling the thought.

Then, they run into strange chuchu-like beings — which are taken care of quickly enough — and a camp of bokoblin-adjacent creatures. The small ones fall rather easily, but Time decides that slamming his sword against a wooden shield the size of a door will make it break.

It doesn't.

Unsurprisingly.

Time might be the leader and oldest of the group, but he is still a Link; they are not known for their wisdom.

While the Old Man bashes at the shield with no results, a teen runs in and does something that Twilight couldn't quite catch. All he saw was a flash of purple and then the large creature had roared.

Next thing he knows, the kid is learning what a handshake is from Wind and lowkey threatening Twilight — Actually, it wasn't even lowkey, he looked ready to pounce and rip out his throat if his pack threatened his family's territory. Thankfully it only seemed to extend to actual wolves, so his hylian pack was not a threat.

A few discussions and a trade for a guide to the city later, Twilight finds himself eating a meal made by their cook and his new helper as the sky slowly turns orange from the sunset. Time and Legend had come back from wherever it was they went when Wild had proudly proclaimed that Razor had helped flip the meats and cook them; the teen himself was looking at them like a small child showing their parents their best doodle and waiting for praise. When Time gives Razor an absurdly fond look (he says he's not parental but Twilight can smell his fatherly urges from a mile away) and tells him he did a good job, the teen brightens up so much that Twilight nearly starts squinting.

Who gave this feral puppy of a person the right to be so pure? He's getting heart palpitations, dammit.

Now. Twilight is not the most distrusting of his brothers — that honor goes to Warriors and Legend — but he's also not the most trusting. None of the Chain is quick to trust, their journeys making them wary and distrusting of those they do not know, some more than others. They can tell when someone is shady, and dangerous, hiding their intentions, or masking them as something innocent. They can tell the subtle shifts in someone's body language that mean that they are getting aggressive or gearing up for a fight.

And yet, they looked at this feral teen and practically shoved him into their group. Sure, a few are still watching him for any signs of aggression, but they seemed strangely relaxed. Twilight has an inkling as to why they're so relaxed around this kid they have just met.

Razor just… doesn't seem deceptive; he's not sure if the kid even has a dishonest bone in his body.

Some say that the eyes are the door to one's soul and feelings. One can look at the eyes of a person and tell what they're thinking, although everyone is guarded in some way, walls metaphorically put up in their eyes to hide their deeper feelings from others. Yet, Razor's eyes are open and completely uncovered; he hides nothing and allows them to see everything he feels and thinks. Twilight has a feeling it has to do with his upbringing; animals don't hide feelings from each other. If an animal doesn't like you they'll make that very clear, they won't smile and hide their distaste in the face of being cordial. When Razor pinned him as a threat he did exactly that: he jumped straight to snarling and growling and posturing instead of seeming cordial and trying to figure out his intentions.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, Razor only saw him as a threat. Hm…

He shoved a piece of steak into his mouth to chew on both it — damn it's good — and that thought.

Others usually see Time as the threat, he's large with a stern face and covered head to toe in heavy armor; Razor didn't even look at him twice, so focused as he was on Twilight. It was probably not even Twilight himself who he saw as a threat, but his possible wolf pack encroaching on his territory. He hadn't looked at the rest of his brothers as threats even as Legend antagonized him.

What a strange kid. Or maybe that's just how untraumatized kids are? Maybe just feral kids? Twilight is not sure.

"Twilight?" Warriors jolted him out of his reflections and he took a moment to note his plate was finished while he thought.

"Yeah?" he answered, looking over at the captain.

"You've been staring into the fire for a while, if you keep that up you're going to go blind," he said and yeah, now that Twilight was paying attention, there was that tell-tale spot in his vision of when he looked into a light for too long.

After attempting to blink the spots out of his vision he sends Warriors a sheepish look, "I was just… thinking."

"About?" he asked, shifting to sit down beside him. As a response, he waved his arm towards Razor, who was currently attempting to clean the pot with Wild's help.

"He's… a little trusting, ain't he?" he started, pausing to watch as Wild attempted to wrangle the kids' hair when it kept slipping off his back and near the pot (he had to hold back a snort when the hair tie snapped not even a minute later). Lowering his voice to not be heard, he continued, "We've barely met and he already brought us to his family. He's not… suspicious or wary of us in any way."

"He looked ready to tear out your throat not even an hour ago," he pointed out.

"Yeah, because he saw my pack as a threat, not me. You noticed it, right? How he backed down when I told him my pack wasn't made of wolves, but hylians?"

Warriors adopted a pensive expression, and Twilight could almost see him flipping through the interaction in his head. After a moment he hummed and turned back to him, "Do you know the conclusion I've come to?"

Twilight paused to think about it, but his brain had blanked and was refusing to come up with any conclusions of its own, so he sent a shrug Warriors way. His brother snorted before disguising it as a cough, a small smile slipping onto his face.

"I think he's only wary of animals," he started, both of them looking back to Wild and Razor, who now had Sky helping him keep his hair back. "Or, maybe, just other wolves. He smelled the wolf on you—" the smirk he sent him was not appreciated "—and immediately wanted to fight you with all of us there watching."

The rancher paused and thought. That made sense. A feral child raised as a wolf would see other wolves as threats while ignoring hylians and humans as simply strange animals. And given his early identity crisis, he knows that he and humans are similar, but it seems he doesn't see himself as one. Thus, he's wary of wolves but doesn't look twice at humans, or hylians in their case.

His musings were cut off when Hyrule stumbled into the clearing — when did he leave? — and called out, "Hey, Razor? What's that big arena for?"

Oh dear, his cub perked up, that's probably not a good sign. Please, the sky is turning redder and darker by the second, can't he have peace?

"Arena?" Razor echoed, his hair noticeably fluffier — had Sky been brushing it?

"Mn," Hyrule nodded, pointing with his thumb behind him, "That big circular hole on the ground made of stone bricks."

The teen stared blankly at him before perking up. "Oh! Den of Guardian of this Land," he stated as if that was the most normal thing in the world.

"Your 'guardian' lives in an arena." It sounded less like a question and more like a statement when it came out of Legend's mouth.

Razor paused before sitting up straighter, his voice deepening slightly as he began, almost as if reciting something. "He chall— calleng—" he let out a frustrated huff and gave up with the voice, "He fights who comes."

Oh dear Hylia Wild is vibrating where he sits. "We can fight him?!" both he and Wind echoed asked the same time, and from the corner of his eye he could see Time looking tired and defeated. His old soul is going to leave him one of these days with their antics.

Razor, for his part, just shrugged. "If he wants."

Wild had stood up and looked like he was about to bolt when Time spoke up, "We should all stay here or start going to the city. It's getting dark and I don't want to camp out when we're close to it." Which, was fair, but also Wild had that defiant look on his face when he heard what was said but was going to ignore it anyway.

"C'mon, it'd only be a quick fight! It's not like he's looking to kill us, it'd be like a friendly fight! Right, Razor?" his cub argued, turning to the boy for confirmation.

He sent Wild the strangest look that Twilight didn't even attempt to comprehend, but he could read his body and it practically screamed wary. "I fight him. I'm pack. Did not go easy. You're not pack."

"You fought him?" he chose to ask because usually, the pack does not fight each other unless it was sibling squabbles, and the lead pair kept those in check. "Actually—" his brain turned on "— if you're pack and he's pack and he's the leader," he pointed a finger at the lead wolf, "how come he's 'Guardian of this Land'?"

"Leader's leader" was all that he was answered with. This is the strangest pack of wolves he's ever seen.

"Anyways!" Wind interrupted, almost hopping in place, "It's not like he could win against all nine of us!"

Are all nine of them jumping a singular wolf?

"No!" Everyone and their mother turned to Razor who had jumped up to his feet, hands on their swords from the sudden motion. "Four! Four only!"

"What?"

"Four people only! No more. It is the rule."

Legend scoffed, sheathing his sword but not relaxing. "I doubt we're going to need four people for a single wolf."

"I think we'd rather be safe than sorry," Four piped in, that look in his eyes that meant he was thinking something over.

"So we're fighting him," Wild declared pointedly and Time raised his hands in defeat. "Razor, Hyrule, lead the way?"

The teens nodded and started walking with Razor taking the lead. The rest of the group followed, leaving their camp, because there was no way their brothers were going to fight something with none of them nearby watching over.

As they walked Twilight went back into his thoughts.

He has no idea why some wolf would challenge those who enter the arena, and he seems to be isolated from the rest of his pack. He's never heard of a "leader's leader" in a wolf pack or a wolf staying away from their pack. It was incredibly bizarre behaviour and he wasn't quite sure what to think of it.

As they passed a strange red monument and came up to the arena, he could see that it was huge. A small town could probably fit in the damn thing. The stone walls rose tall and gave it a somewhat sunken look even as they approached from a lower broken section. Even from up there, it looked as if it had fallen into disrepair, which was probably because a wolf considered it its home. There was a strange thin fog or mist that moved lazily through the area, not quite hindering their vision but sticking to their clothes and skin, sending shivers down their spines.

Something was strange here, but seeing as Razor was not worried about it he chose to ignore it.

"So, me and Wind are already going, who wants to join us?" Wild asked, swiping through his slate to find the perfect weapon.

"I really don't think we need four people just for a wolf, but I'll bite," was what came out of Warriors mouth as he walked forward towards the two.

"I'm only coming just to see what type of wolf deserves to be called a 'guardian of the land'," was Legend's reason, a huff in his voice as he pulled out his ice rod.

"Alright!" Wind cheered, turning to Razor. "What do we do now? Do we just go down there and yell that we want to fight him?"

The tiny amused smile that appeared on Razor's face was near invisible now that the sun had left and the sky was still in that inbetween of light and dark before the true night set in.

Near invisible in the thickening mist.

Something's wrong.

"Go down, touch the sword," was what he said.

Looking over the arena, Twilight is not sure how in the world he missed it, but theres a strangely spectral blue sword sticking up from the ground. It pulses with a strange energy that he can't identify, pulling the mist towards it.

"Careful." he hears Razor say as the four fighters lower themselves into the arena, leaving the rest up high to watch.

Something's wrong.

The feeling of being watched intensifies, pins and needles stabbing into his body, and when he looks in the direction of the feeling he is met with carvings on the farther wall of the arena — carvings in the shape of a wolf face.

The mist thickened.

Wrong.

"We should leave," Hyrule whispered, a shiver wracking through his body.

Twilight's eyes are stuck on his brothers as they reach the sword.

It's cold.

"Calm," Razor said, not at all concerned. Can't he feel it?

The weight of a cold gaze falls heavy over his shoulders.

Wrong something's wrong—

Wild brushes his fingers against the sword—

A chill seeps into his bones—

I'm cold—

The wind howls—

something's wrong wroNG wRoNG WRONG—

The arena is plunged into thick, blue,fog.

Two glowing eyes burst through.

"You wish to challenge me?"

Twilight's heart falls to his stomach.

That's not a normal wolf.