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Her sword slides cleanly through the Moblin's head.
The grass beneath her darkens, long stalks of green painted a brilliant red by dribbling splatters of blood. Her stance is wild and untrained, and her off-set grip on the sword speaks only of the barest of practice. Link does not presume this means she cannot fight, or even that she cannot fight well. The dozens of dead behind her would speak otherwise, even if the burning flame in her eyes didn't. She doesn't even notice him, never catching his gaze for even a second, but that fire still licks at his arms until his skin starts to peel.
"Where--" The woman with all the might of a war god speaks, and he's faintly surprised the ground doesn't shake in time with the fury in her voice. "--is my husband?"
The wizard cackles, the fool. Painted red lips split apart, and the man laughs so hard his head tips back. The ruby red crystal on his forehead catches the sun and scatters it, little dots of light on the ground that shake with every incredulous guffaw. Link can see when the woman's eyes narrow in on the wizard like an archer lining up her next shot. Her hand pales as her grip on the sword tightens dangerously. Link feels like a mouse tucked under the paws of a cat, a bug staring up at a boot staring down at an uglier bug.
"Is this what Hylia has sent to stand against me?" the wizard mocks, heedless of the teeth baring before him, "My dear, you would make a horrible painting!"
"Where is my husband?" the woman snaps, her voice snapping sharply against the ground like a whip.
"You'll never find him," the wizard promises with another infuriating cackle. What a fucking clown.
The woman growls lowly and takes a few steps to either side, the low pacing of a wolf waiting to strike. Where the man had leaned away from Green's advances and Blue's snarling threats, he is entirely uncowed by the Hero before him. Link wouldn't expect the wizard to be scared of him, not when he proved he could be caught unaware enough to be bound by nothing more than a forced fusion. But for him to ignore the Hero standing in front of him with a sword ready to cut him dead?
Link giggles lowly, as red as the Hero's brilliant hair and the blood she draws with a single, furious strike. The stupid wizard chokes, his hands reaching up to grasp at the sharp steel pressing through the center of his chest. Red spills across his chest and stains the front of his purple cloak like wine.
"You bitch," he snarls with a gurgling breath as the little color he had drains from his skin.
The bitch in question rips the sword free from his chest and smacks him flat with the sole of her boot. He topples like a bad tower, landing on his ass. He looks up at her with a vicious glare of disgust. She doesn't even seem to notice how that look quickly turns to terror as she lets the tip of the blade drop to rest inches above that tender spot between his eyes.
"You wanna try that again, darlin?" That eager smile of hers doesn't reach her eyes. The look that does is hungry.
Fear is a pretty color on the wizard, even prettier than the sky blue paint along his brows and down his nose or the purple streaks under his eyes. The man pales even more, his skin taking on an ashen tint as the leftover monster blood drips from her sword and splatters on his face. He swallows so roughly that it's audible.
"You won't kill me," he says, trying his luck. He's already bleeding out. Link wonders if he even realizes.
The Hero hums lowly, a deeply dangerous sound. "We both know there's plenty worse things than dyin, sugar."
Link swallows a snicker of his own as, impossibly, the man's eyes get even wider. Link bets his heart is barely beating.
"You wouldn't," the man gambles. It's a stupid bluff to call, especially since it's very obvious that she would.
"You sure 'bout that?"
The tip of her sword gently closes the distance, prodding at his forehead with a featherlight touch that doesn't even draw any blood. It does the trick.
"If--if I give you the information you seek--" the wizard starts with a panicked look.
The Hero takes his worries and softens them like butter over an open flame. "You tell me where he is, an I'll let'cha go."
Her voice is honey-sweet, and even her eyes seem honestly comforting and caring. "I don't wanna hurt nobody, sweetheart. You just let me know where I can find my husband, and I'll pretend we ain't never even met."
"They're cornering them out east," the man confesses after barely a heartbeat of silent pressure.
Link scoffs under his breath. Honestly, it's pathetic. He'd lasted weeks before he started blabbing. Vaati probably could have lasted for months. This wizard is so cowardly he's surprised the Minish Mage could have ever tolerated his presence. Honestly, a little stab to the heart isn't going to kill anyone.
"Who?" the Hero demands, the butter-soft and honey-sweet of her voice starting to sharpen and sour, "Where?"
The man doesn't seem to notice the shift. He stammers, "I don't know. It--a few other sorcerers. A horde or two. I don't--"
"Where?" she demands, her voice suddenly very quiet. It's not the scared sort of quiet, though. It's contemplative and downright terrifying.
The wizard is still too stupid to be scared. In his defense, it's probably at least a little bit because of the blood loss. "The Lost Woods."
All of the sudden, Link's internal criticisms pause as the lungs in his chest abruptly stop working.
"The Minish Woods?" he asks with a voice that crackles like the forge, bruised like a peach, all purple and pained.
The Hero's attention snaps over to him like a whip, quick and sharp. He flinches when it cracks into his shoulders and across his face. His throat starts to lock up with a quiet wheeze, and his shoulders hitch up higher around his neck until the catch on his wrists behind him forces them still. He tries to meet her eyes, he really does, but the ground is just so enticing.
…was that rock always there?
After a long moment, and clearly getting nothing from him, the Hero turns back to the man. Link feels a quick burst of relief, like a balloon shooting all of its air out in a single breath. The wizard clearly does not. He pales further as the Hero lets the sword waver a little closer to his face.
She demands, "One a' your friends?"
The man frantically throws him under the bus. "No, no, not at all! I don't even know the brat! He works for one of the others!"
The Hero's eyes turn back to Link, scanning him from top to bottom. He flinches a bit. She observes, "Awfully tied up for an ally."
Link giggles a little, anxious and unrestrained.
"I don't think anyone around here's calling me an ally," he says honestly. Then, thinking quickly on his feet, he adds, "Except maybe you, ma'am."
She hums a curious, inquisitive sound. "That right?"
"I'll help you find your husband," he says, and it's more of a decision than a promise. Unlike her, he actually means it, and he doesn't intend to stall until she bleeds out on a technicality.
"Don't listen to a word he says!" the wizard demands with a pathetically frantic edge, "He's nothing but a traitor!"
The Hero looks between them for a moment, a brow raised. He'd think she'd be a bit more worried about the wizard attacking while she's looking away, but then again the man can barely even hold up his arms anymore. Any magic he was still holding on to is surely spilling out of him in time with all of the blood, his eyes glazing over with a matte sheen. He's not even holding the forced merge together anymore.
Link would undo himself, but trying to scatter himself now would mean trying to phase four people's worth of skin through rope. He shudders at the thought, feeling faintly green and decidedly blue.
Somehow sounding both gentle and sharply interrogative, the Hero asks him, "You betrayed your wizard friends, hon?"
"They're not our friends," Link insists, a dark curl under his voice and cast along the ground behind him. He swears, "We were never really on their side."
The Hero laughs a little, a smile that seems two parts genuine and three parts calculating. "Bit of a dangerous thing to say right now, don't'cha think?"
Link tilts his head, his hands curling behind him nervously the longer he fails to piece it together. Not even Vio knows what to make of it. "Uh…no?"
The Hero stares at him carefully, and he hastily adds, "No, ma'am."
She snorts.
"Alright," she agrees, to him or to herself, looking back at the wizard. He seems little more than a second from dropping dead, his eyes half-lidded and lips twisted into a pained grimace. She asks, "The Lost Woods, you said?"
"At the eastern edge, coming from the Zora's River," the man says, barely louder than a strained whisper. His next breath shudders. "I've told you what you wanted."
"You did," she agrees, and she lets her sword tip down, "And I appreciate it, sugar."
The wizard's eyes narrow. "My name is Yuga," he says, a dying protest through gritted teeth, "Now, get me a potion. Or a fairy."
The Hero's smile grows, a flame that's caught a lick of oil. "Sure. Where d'ya keep 'em?"
The wizard--Yuga, apparently--pauses.
"What?" Link asks with a childish grin that takes far too much amusement from the situation, "Didn't you bring any with you?"
Yuga ignores him entirely and reminds the Hero, "You agreed you'd let me go."
"I'm hardly keeping you here."
Yuga's breath stops preemptively, the stretching pause followed by a racing footfall of breaths that try and fail to catch up. "I'm…"
"Stupid," Link fills in with a bright, toothy grin. He laughs a little too hard, and his shoulders strain as he starts to curl over with it. His heart's a little too fast, his edges a little too sharp and giddy.
"You can't do this," Yuga insists. It's a move as futile as it is foolish. The pathetic expression and the paint on his face couple together with his ridiculous, poofy, striped pants, and Yuga looks every bit the clown that he is.
"Oh," the Hero says, her eyes wide and apologetic as if she's surprised and hasn't considered this before, "So, you don' want me to follow the terms of our deal? Is that right?"
The wizard splutters, though if it's on his next words or his dying breaths is unclear.
"That's okay. I'd be happy to make this here deal null and void," she says with a vibrant, hungry grin that Link matches, "If you wanna return to our polite arrangement, you just say the word."
She lifts the sword a bit off the ground and lets gravity slam it through the weak bones of the man's hand. The man shrieks without noise, writhing on the ground like a slug. The image is so vividly similar that Link laughs so hard he's surprised he doesn't fall over, his shoulders straining sharply with the curl. Every laugh drags out another one, and his grin is so wide that his cheeks hurt.
The Hero looks up at him, and something indiscernible falls over her face. She wrenches the sword out of the man's hand and slides it neatly back into its sheath.
"Maybe some other time," she says, and Link fights to keep the childish pout off his face.
The dying wizard gasps, his lungs rattling with every breath. The Hero turns away from him and toward Link, eyeing him up and down again. She approaches like she's approaching something wild and liable to spook.
She asks, "Whatd'dya say you and me get on outta here?"
"I'd like that," Link agrees, feeling both more and less settled than he's been since the start of the merge. Every feeling is still dialed up to eleven, and the sunlight is starting to make his skin itch more than the Hero's dissecting stare.
"Hmm," the Hero hums, carefully prodding at the tie holding him together. She makes quick work of undoing the mess tangled around his wrists and helps him to his unsteady feet.
"Thanks," he says, when it's her hand that keeps him from eating dirt right next to the bloody, dying, mess of a mage. He gags a little, but the bile stays in his gut and there's nothing but air on his tongue.
"Course, sweetheart," the Hero says, eyeing him appraisingly, "Now, I don' think I caught your name in all that mess."
"It's Link, ma'am."
"Hmm."
Her expression is indecipherable, and the uncertainty catches in his skin like a cat's claw; sharp, annoying, and unwanted. Curiosity quickly turns the discomfort into a puzzle as it sifts through possibilities. Has she heard of him already? Does she already know his name and what it means? Does she have a quest she wanted his help with, but now she's reevaluating him because she's disappointed he got himself caught by the most pathetic mage to every magic?
Honestly, he's not too proud of that one himself.
"What?" he finally asks, because he cannot take the uncertainty or the embarrassment, a burgundy red-violet pout on his face, "What is it?"
The Hero frowns, looking him up and down. She asks, "Do you know me?"
Link frowns too, embarrassment falling away like it was never there. He considers her. "Can't say that I do. Am I meant to, ma'am?"
She hums again. "My husband's name is Link."
"Oh," Link says, because there's little else to say. He's surprised, certainly. He's never met anyone with his name before, and he's barely so much as seen record of it. It's odd, but she speaks again before curiosity can dig too deeply.
"Y'ain't a Hero, by any chance, are you?"
"I am," Link agrees. Nervously, he hedges, "Is your husband a hero? I don't…I don't think I'm…"
He'd know if he was married to her, wouldn't he? Wouldn't she?
Thankfully, the Hero starts, "Oh, heavens no! No, you're not--he's much older. Even when he was little--No, you're far too young to be--"
"I'm an adult," Link interjects, crossing his arms more than a little grouchily. No matter what anyone says, he's not a little kid. Even if he is kind of acting like it right now. Honestly, his reactions are swinging like a pendulum, and he barely has the presence of mind to notice. "I'm eighteen."
The woman laughs loudly. "Still far too young for me, sugar. I'll take the compliment, though."
"Uh." Link squints. "Thank you? Or...you're welcome? I don't even know anymore."
She snorts, but that indiscernible expression returns. "You didn't take any hits to the head, now, did ya?"
"Only a couple," Link dismisses, "Nothing concussion-worthy."
Sure, Red had been a little dizzy after blocking that moblin's swing with his head, and Shadow had been slightly off-kilter after taking a lightning attack to the face, but none of this had been an issue for any of them before the forced merge that had squished at least five people into one.
"It's probably fine," Link reasons reasonably.
The Hero does not seem especially convinced. She looks up, not quite rolling her eyes but still at least a hairsbreadth away from looking to the skies for mercy. Or patience.
"You Hero types," she grumbles, to which he's only barely smart enough to not immediately retort, "Pot and Kettle." Honestly, this is coming from a Hero married to another Hero.
Rooting around in her pack, the Hero asks, "You got any red potions on ya?"
God, he wishes. He shrugs and admits, "A boko ate it."
"Your potions?"
"My bag," he says disgruntledly.
"A boko ate your bag?" she echoes skeptically, which is very fair.
He wrinkles his nose. "I wouldn't believe it either if I wasn't there. One second, I was running through the Minish Woods, and the next I'm facing down some bag-eating boko twice as tall as usual!"
"Must've been quite the shock," the Hero says. Contemplatively, she adds, "You know, I think Link mentioned this once."
"Do you mean the bizarre monsters, the evil wizards, the hordes, or the multiple Links?"
She raises a brow with an amused grin. "Yes."
"I--" Link pauses, taking that in. It's not just his curiosity who perks up at the puzzle before him. "Huh."
"You wouldn't'a happened to come through on a portal or nothin, would'ya've?"
And, would you know it? He had.
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