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“It’ll be alright, Legend, they’ll find it.”
“It’s not alright Hyrule, I’ve had that ocarina for years, it’s not the kind of thing you just replace-”
Four peers around Wind’s back into a narrow sinkhole in the forest floor, opened up where the ground gave way at the base of some trees. It’s no use though, he can’t see a thing. Even if Wind’s head wasn’t in the way, it’s pitch black down there. He leans back out of the way, crossed arms braced on bent knees and crouched on the balls of his feet, trying to avoid muddy clothes from the damp earth. Wind has no such reservations; he’s laying fully down on his belly, the better to shove his entire arm up to the shoulder down into the hole.
“I understand that, Legend, we all do. They’ll get it.”
“Why couldn’t he have lost something with metal on it,” Wild grumbles, aiming his slate down at the hole to no avail. His eyes flick towards the rest of the group, standing a little ways away where Time gently steered Legend so as not to hover over the ‘rescue attempt.’ Four follows his gaze. Sky still has his harp out, holding it as if he doesn’t know what to do with it now that their attempt at walking music’s gone wrong. Everyone else watches on with dour faces as Hyrule tries with great patience to keep Legend from losing his mind entirely to worry. The unique snapping sound of the picture function on Wild’s tool draws Four’s attention back. “I give it five more minutes before he starts swearing for real,” Wild continues. He lifts the slate above his head and squints at it, as if that will somehow assist with seeing what’s on the screen. “It’s down there,” he confirms.
“I know it’s down there,” Wind retorts, his nose wrinkled and mouth all screwed up with strain. “I can see it, I just can’t reach it.”
“You could let me-”
“You already tried, your giant arms don’t fit!”
“Giant?”
Wild and Wind descend to mild squabbling. Four’s attention drifts.
Legend’s belongings mean a lot to him. Touching his things without permission tends to be a sure way to earn a tongue lashing and even temporary loans of weapons tend to come with a long list of how to handle them and what not to do with them. Four can’t say he relates, but he does understand. They all have their ways of coping.
He’d like to help get the ocarina back, but if Wind can’t reach it he certainly won’t be able to. And they’re lucky enough as it is that the fall didn’t shatter the fragile clay instrument without trying to dig it out with weapons. If they break the thing in their attempts to rescue it, Legend will never let them hear the end of it.
He looks away from the group, deeper into the forest, scratching the hair at his nape as he tries to think. His hand stills, tangled in the strands. He squints.
There’s a stump just visible between the trees. Perfectly illuminated by sunlight filtering through the tallest branches, mostly blocked from view by the thick forest of trees. He glances back over his shoulder. Everyone still appears to be distracted. Four stands. He brushes his clothes into place.
Wild looks up with a question forming at his lips. Wind inadvertently saves Four from having to lie by asking, “Does that thing have a light on it Wild?” Four slips away.
The stump looks just like the ones at home. Magic lingers around it, small and welcoming. As tall as his knees, broad and flat, the middle hollowed out by rot. A hole on one side marks his exit. Four checks over his shoulder one last time - no followers - and steps up with breath held.
Magic surges up to meet him. It feels like coming home, like small treasures and finding something thought lost. The Ezlo charm on the end of his hood snaps upwards, hovering above his head in a way that’s heart-achingly like it’s the real thing. His hair and clothes billow in an unnatural gale, the ribbon on the end of his sword snapping at his sleeves.
For a moment it feels as if everything hangs there, suspended. It’s almost as if the little bird on the end of his hood is alive again, alive and pulling at him, pecking, nagging every moment of every day.
Then Four shoots downwards. The forest grows around him, barely visible past the way magic seems to dance in visible waves from the charm and down down down past his rapidly shrinking feet. Trunks and branches blur, rushing by, and he’s falling, smiling as he goes with a grin so broad he can feel it straining at the corners of his face.
Four passes into the close damp world of the stump’s interior. He has just a moment to feel weightless, disoriented in the sudden dark, before a bed of soft peat moss catches him, welcome embrace. Four hops once. His laugh echos back at him, bouncing off the stump’s close walls. Then he springs to his feet, dusts himself off, and gets down to business.
The ocarina was that way.
The forest always feels so different from this angle. Clover becomes a convenient source of shade, mushrooms turn to trees, pebbles become boulders, and narrow systems of roots turn to a convenient pathway. Four follows one such root down beneath the surface of the ground, into the narrow gorge that should lead him back to Wild and Wind. He stays to the roots as much as possible. Not only because they keep his feet free of mud, but because he can, and because it’s fun. He holds his arms out to his sides for the joy of it, running down the slope of this log and hopping over to the next with a quiet little laugh he has no fear of anyone else hearing.
It’s a bit of a trek at this size, and as much as he’s enjoying himself Four doesn’t actually have all day. So after a few long, self indulgent minutes he comes to a stop atop his own personal highway, rifling through his bag for something the others don’t yet know he has. He stomps his feet in his pegasus boots to settle them, knocks his toes against the ground once, and goes tearing through the underbrush, laughing his fool head off.
Booming voices overhead tell him he’s getting close. Four slows again when they’re nearly on top of him. He doesn’t want to overshoot. He detours off his root system, bouncing over one mushroom top and climbing the next and there it is. The ocarina rests in the soft dirt at the bottom of the ravine, just out of Wind’s reach.
Four circles around, sticking to the shadows cast by the mushrooms and the overhang of the earth above as he takes the roundabout way to where the ocarina sits in the dirt. He peers upwards from his shadowed spot. He can’t actually see Wind’s face from this angle, just his arm. It seems unlikely he’ll be spotted in the gloom. The ocarina moving on its own might be of some note but perhaps he can play it off by suggesting the instrument, precariously balanced, rolled.
Next problem.
It’s huge.
The ocarina is easily longer than Four in his current form is tall. And clay, although somewhat fragile, isn’t exactly the lightest of materials. No mud squelches underfoot here but the earth sinks beneath even his lightweight steps, loose and soft.
Four pushes at the ocarina. It rocks a little. He gets down low, wedges his shoulder under it, and rocks it a little more. Frowning, he turns around, braces his back against it and his feet against the ground, and shoves with all his might. His legs shake with strain. He can feel his cheeks flushing red, his breath coming in ragged pants as he times his breathing with his attempts to move the instrument.
It slides just the teeniest, tiniest bit, and stops again.
Four keeps shoving, grunts of effort fading into the quiet little cavern around him. Even his stubborn nature eventually has to concede to the fact that he’s not getting anywhere. Four slumps to the ground, ocarina a smooth cool curve at his back, staring out at the cavern as he gets his breath back.
A ladybug lands on a low-growing clover near his knee. Four watches it, allows the sedate wanderings of the insect - harmless even in this form - to help settle the frustration that’s risen to burn in his chest. A small smile grows on his face as he follows its progress across the leaf, a smile that grows and settles into determination.
He’s come this far. He’s not going to give up.
“Come on, Four, use your head,” he mutters aloud, trusting the quiet of his voice and the loose damp earth of the cavern to keep his words far away from ears above. He’s no weakling, a life swinging around forge tools saw to that, but intelligence has always been his greatest asset.
He watches the ladybug toddle around, listens to the voices drifting down from above, thinking, running a mental checklist of the tools at his disposal. The Cane of Pacci and his Gust Jar aren’t any safer to use at this size than they are when he’s big.
It’s times like this he wishes he still had use of his power bracelets. If only the magic of them hadn’t gotten quite so tangled up with the power of the Four Sword.
Oh. Of course.
Embarrassing, really, that it took him this long to think of that solution.
△△△
“Knock it off Wild, fat lot of help you are,” Wind grumbles at Wild as the champion tickles at the bare skin of Wind’s calf with a leaf. Wild snickers, goes back to scrolling through his slate. He’s not even pretending to help any more.
Wind grumbles, peering into the hole. He can see it, just there. For a second he thinks his eyes are playing tricks on him because it looks like the ocarina moved. Maybe a big bug bumped it. It’s just at such an awkward angle! His elbow doesn’t bend that way.
Wind rolls down onto his stomach, sticking his entire arm back into the hole up to his shoulder. He feels around blindly. That’s no good either, now he can’t see what he’s doing at all; he’s lost track of where it should be. He pulls back just a touch, still on his stomach with damp leaves pressing wet patches into the front of his tunic and dirt smearing on the toes of his boots. He peers down into the hole again.
There it is!
...How did it get there? Wind swears it’s not in the same spot it was a moment ago.
Is it moving?
Wind feels his jaw drop as he watches the ocarina shift, slowly but steadily, towards him. It moves in twitches and jerks, like it’s being shoved along by something small. As he watches, it meanders out of the shadows and into the narrow shaft of light filtering in through the edges of the hole.
Wind’s jaw drops.
“What the fuck,” he whispers under his breath, low and stunned.
Three little heads come up at his words. The last stays down, focused on shoving at the ocarina.
It’s Four. There are four of Four.
And they’re all tiny.
“Did you say something?” Wild asks, distracted.
The purple one raises his finger to his lips. Which, no shit.
“Nope!” Wind squeaks.
The red one raises a hand, waving enthusiastically. A grin splits his face, larger than anything Wind’s ever seen from Four. The green version of Four doesn’t rise from his low crouch, shoving with one shoulder planted against the ocarina, though he at least looks up to cast Wind a small, conspiratorial grin. Only the blue one fails to acknowledge Wind at all, head ducked and shoulders hunched up with effort.
“Why did you stop? Come on, help me!” he growls. Wind has to strain his ears to hear it, he’s so small. The red one elbows the blue one. There’s a ladybug crawling on his hat. For some reason that, of everything, feels the most surreal. Not that Four could fit in his pocket right now. Not that there are four of him, all neatly divided up by the exact same colors as his tunic. No, it’s the ladybug, easily larger than the current size of Four’s entire hand, crawling up the red one’s hat.
“What, Red?” the blue one growls. But then he too stops and looks up. His eyes land on Wind and then roll in an expression that displays enough irritation to make Legend proud. “You didn’t actually think we were going to manage this without him seeing us?”
“But he can see us!” Red seems very excited by this. He clasps his hands under his chin. Wind swears sparkles dance in his eyes.
“We aren’t actually Minish,” the purple one says in the tones of someone rehashing an oft-repeated argument.
“Most people don’t look down,” the green one agrees.
“Hi, Wind!” Red chirps, waving again. “Um, please don’t tell anyone about us?”
Wind opens his mouth to agree, remembers Wild, and snaps his jaw shut. He gives them all a thumbs up instead, cheeks aching from the broad grin that he can’t keep off of his face.
He watches, smile unabating, as they sort themselves out and get back to the task of pushing the ocarina towards him. Like little helper fairies, or Aryll’s seagulls bringing her gifts.
And he won’t even be able to tease Four about it!
Well. Maybe in private.
Working together, they shove and push and grumble and occasionally stop to scuffle with each other too. But soon enough, Wind stretches his arm and his fingers brush cool clay. Four little bodies scatter around his hand as he pulls the ocarina more firmly into his grip. He lingers there a moment longer, grinning down at them all.
They’re so tiny and cute and he can’t even say anything!
They seem to pick up on the direction of his thoughts. He gets several variations of dirty looks and rolling eyes and one rather convincing innocent expression that Wind doesn’t believe for a second. He lets his grin go a touch evil, just enough to make them all nervous.
“Fine! We’ll explain later, you sneak!” the blue one hisses.
The mischief vanishes from his smile as if it never was. Wind beams down at them all, warmth bubbling happily in his chest. He twiddles his fingers goodbye and pulls his arm, ocarina and all, out of the hole, rolling to a sitting position on the forest floor.
“Oh! You got it!” Wild reaches for the instrument. Wind snatches it back.
“No you don’t! You were no help at all. My prize!”
“No help? What do you mean no help? I supervised!” Wild teases.
Wind hops to his feet. Legend’s gone from yelling to cursing aimlessly to tense silence, and Wind doesn’t want to make him wait any longer. He lifts the ocarina securely in one raised fist so Legend can see, Wild following as he jogs back to the rest of the group. The strangled sound of sheer relief Legend makes on seeing it makes it worth all the trouble, even when he yells at Wind to “be careful with that!” Wind sees the way his hands tremble when he takes it back, something vulnerable and open on his face. For a second he could swear Legend’s going to hug him. Or maybe cry. But Legend does neither, just clutches it to his chest. Wind isn’t insulted. He knows what gratitude looks like on the prickliest of their number.
He glances over his shoulder, back into the forest, and sees Four sitting on a stump. He’s back to normal, sword resting in his lap, a content smile on his face. He twiddles his fingers at Wind, held close to his torso, but still visibly returning the gesture Wind tossed him minutes before. Wind smiles back brightly, happiness a warm bloom in his chest.