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Red woke to the pleasant warmth of early morning sunlight on his face, the sound of birdsong in the garden outside, and the gentle creak of his door slowly easing open.He lay still, eyes open just the barest sliver, his body still relaxed as he waited. It wasn’t unusual for one of the others to creep into his room to bring him breakfast in bed or even climb in with him to cuddle for a while. He liked to let them think they hadn’t woken him until they called his name or slid beneath the covers to put their arms around him. Now he waited, curious to see who had decided to join him today.The door opened further and a purple-haired head appeared around it.That was unusual. Despite having lived with them for weeks now and beginning to relax in their company, as far as Red knew Shadow had never made an attempt to enter any of the others’ bedrooms without invitation. For all that he had been half-feral and barely capable of comprehending language when they first found him, he understood the concept of private safe spaces almost better than he had understood anything else. Red had certainly wondered about that, just as he now found himself wondering why their dark reflection had suddenly decided to change his mind and go sneaking into someone else’s room so early in the morning.Shadow’s bare feet were silent against the polished floorboards. He crept two steps into the room with the greatest care and closed the door gently behind him, letting out a slow breath once it had softly clicked shut. There he lingered for a few seconds before daring to approach Red’s nightstand. Red closed his eyes properly, not wanting Shadow to notice that he was awake, and heard something being carefully lifted from the wooden surface. A few more seconds passed before the distinct sound of his slate activating reached his ears.Red let his eyes crack open again. All that he could see of Shadow now was the short mane of purple hair resting against the edge of his mattress. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, clearly focused on the slate in his hands. Red dared to lift his head slightly and caught a glimpse of the screen, currently displaying a picture of himself and Green smiling together in the field.Quietly Red propped himself up on his elbows and watched over Shadow’s shoulder as he scrolled to the next picture; one of Green, Blue, and Vio baking together and covered in flour. Shadow lingered on this one for a long time, clearly drinking in every detail of the captured scene. His fingertips trailed lightly over the screen and he pulled back when the picture moved, only to try again. Tentatively he experimented until he figured out how to zoom in and proceeded to do so, studying each of their amused faces in more detail.“Moments like that are the most special.”Shadow jumped so badly the slate flew from his hands and clattered across the floor. He bolted to his feet and backed away, looking guilty and terrified, his hands moving rapidly as he signed apologies over and over.Red pushed himself upright quickly, feeling bad for startling him. “No, don’t be sorry. I’m sorry for scaring you. Why don’t you bring it over here and we’ll look at them together?” He carefully swung his legs out of bed and patted the spot beside him invitingly.Standing with his back almost against the door and still looking ready to flee, Shadow tentatively signed, “Not angry?”“Not at all,” Red promised. “You know I don’t mind you looking at my pictures. Come here.” He patted the mattress beside him again and finally Shadow crept closer, retrieving the slate from the floor on his way.“Which pronouns feel right today?” Red enquired as Shadow perched beside him.He placed the slate down between them and responded, “He/him.” He had been experimenting with different pronouns ever since he had noticed the different ways that the group referred to each other. So far he had shown no desire to settle for a single set, instead alternating between different ones on various days like Green occasionally did. They all seemed to make him equally happy and Red was pleased to help him express himself.Shadow brought up the baking picture again and Red smiled as he gazed at it. “They were making bread. I’m the only one who’s any good at that, but they wanted to try. They kept disagreeing over measurements and Green wanted to add all kinds of vegetables or spices for flavouring. In the end they added too much salt, Blue didn’t let it rise for long enough, and it came out looking really ugly. But it still tasted good and we all really enjoyed it. Even more so because they had so much fun making it together.”Shadow scrolled to the next picture and pointed questioningly at the unfamiliar people in it. “Those are some of the scientists at the Royal Ancient Tech Lab,” Red explained. “They’re some of the people Vio works with. Director Purah is the one in charge and she does most of the work with the runes, so she’s the one I usually talk to. That’s her looking at Vio’s slate.” He pointed to the elderly Sheikah woman who was in deep discussion with Vio over the slate on the table between them.Shadow tilted his head at the screen. Red waited for a question and, when it didn’t seem to come, prompted gently, “Use your words, Shadow. What are you wondering about?”He ducked his head, embarrassed, but signed, “Confused. Strange rock?” He pointed to the Guidance Stone visible to one side, then the dismantled Guardian lying on a table, and finally the wall of equipment behind Vio.“That’s all Sheikah technology. It’s the kind of thing the lab is all about. I don’t really understand most of it myself,” Red admitted. “This glowing thing here is what they call a Guidance Stone. That’s what they use to make changes to the runes in our slates. And this is a Guardian. They’re weapons that can move and attack on their own. They were built a really, really long time ago and were hidden away up until a hundred years ago, when they were found and activated again to help a hero fight a force of pure evil. But something went… wrong. It was almost a disaster. So the scientists have been making a lot of little changes ever since, trying to make them safer for people but still dangerous to monsters.”He noticed the wide-eyed look Shadow was giving him and decided to change the subject. “Here, let’s look at the next one. Oh, this was our last birthday! I spent the whole day before making and decorating that cake. Blue said it was so beautiful she almost didn’t want to touch it. Green actually cried a little when I cut the first slice and he saw the stripes of our colours in the filling.”Shadow tucked his feet beneath him and made himself comfortable on the bed as the two continued to scroll through pictures, going back further and further. Back to the first time Blue tried on the delicate sapphire circlet Red had bought her to celebrate her coming out. Back to when the four of them had spent their nights together on the living room floor, supporting Green through a bout of intense recurring nightmares. Back to the moment just after the first kiss Blue and Vio had shared, Vio rolling their eyes good-naturedly at Red’s insistence on capturing the moment on camera, Blue blushing furiously but looking pleased with herself.“This was my first time going out to collect flowers after I got my slate,” Red explained when they came across a picture of him out in the fields, looking delighted as he wheeled himself over the grass. “I was still getting used to the chair. The one I had before was so heavy and awkward. I could barely even fit it through my bedroom doorway. The scientists said they’d built as many accessibility features into my chair rune as they could think of, but I wasn’t expecting much different. Then I rolled onto the grass, and the wheels changed position all by themselves so I could move easily, and I realized… I was going to be okay. Vio insisted on taking a picture to save the moment.”He gazed for a moment at the image of his own face alight with pure joy. It was almost the happiest he could ever remember being, aside from the moments that each of his closest friends had become his partners. “And I think that’s all,” he finished, exiting to the album screen. His brow furrowed at the sight of the image before his joyful excursion, which seemed to have been taken within the castle. “Huh? Oh, right… that’s the Chancellor.”He touched the image and it filled the screen; Chancellor Vaati striding along a walkway, looking distinctly displeased about something and seemingly oblivious to the camera pointed in his direction. Red gazed at the image with a frown, remembering how Vio had urged him to take a picture in their place since they had forgotten their own slate at home. They had been convinced that if they studied the image closely enough, they would find evidence of a magical glamour that the technology would be able to see through. Their efforts had come to nothing and they had soon abandoned the venture, deciding instead to focus on his suspicious actions in search of evidence.Red was just opening his mouth to explain as much when Shadow abruptly flung the slate away from himself. It clattered to the floor and he scrambled backward on the bed, hissing sharply between his teeth. His back hit the wall and he let out a high-pitched yelp of alarm before flattening himself there, gazing at the slate with an expression nothing short of terror.“Shadow?” Red turned toward him, alarmed by the unexpected response. “Are you okay?”Shadow unclenched his fists from around handfuls of the bedcovers. His hands were shaking so badly Red could barely understand him as he began to sign rapidly and disjointedly. “Bad hurt scared hide darkness darkness darkness-“He whimpered and dived from the bed, scrambling beneath it before Red could stop him. There was a moment of quiet shuffling before everything went silent. When Red leaned down over the edge to look, Shadow was gone.“He definitely recognized Vaati,” Red signed to the others over breakfast half an hour later. Vio still looked barely awake, unused to being up at such an early hour, but Red had thought the issue important enough to insist on Green waking them. This was something the four of them urgently needed to discuss before Shadow made a reappearance.Green was gazing contemplatively at the slate that lay between them, displaying the image that had so badly frightened their newest housemate. “But he wasn’t angry?” they questioned.“No. He hissed but it was obviously out of fear. Everything about his body language said he was terrified.”“What exactly did he say again?” Vio prompted.Red tried to remember. “Bad. Hurt. Scared. Hide. And then he just started repeating ‘darkness’.”Vio hummed thoughtfully out loud, breaking the silence of their meal. Red found himself glancing into the darkened corners of the room and down the hallway again. Green had reported that Shadow was back in his own room, hiding under his bed, but none of them had yet figured out whether his senses were sharp enough to hear even a whispered discussion from downstairs. He certainly wouldn’t be able to see their signing unless he came out, though.“Hide,” Vio repeated after a moment, drawing out the sign slowly. “That worries me.”“All of it worries me,” Blue put in, almost knocking over her bowl of porridge with the force of her gestures.Green picked up on Vio’s meaning first. “Red, Shadow has seen the call function on your slate, right? Maybe he thought Vaati could see him.”“But he’s never reacted like that to a picture before,” Blue argued.“He’s never been shown a picture of someone who terrifies him before. Normally he sees pictures of us and the people we interact with often. He wouldn’t have a problem with any of them seeing him.”Red picked up the slate and gazed at the image. Vaati was not looking toward the camera, but he looked as though he could glance their way at any moment. Even if Shadow understood that this image was a recorded piece of the past like the other pictures, he had certainly seen Vio’s face onscreen in pictures and responding to him during calls enough times by now to make the connection.He swiped away from the picture and hung the device at his hip. “I have to go up and talk to him. Blue, could you take me upstairs?”“No,” Vio said out loud. Everyone looked at them and they set down their spoon and resumed signing. “No. Shadow understands his room is a safe place. Right now he’s afraid and he retreated there to hide. Invading that space will only make him feel unsafe here. We need to wait for him come to us.”“What if I took him something to eat?” Green suggested.“That might help. But tell him through the door and leave it outside. Don’t go in. Don’t even open the door if he doesn’t.”Green nodded and got up to prepare another bowl for Shadow. It had become clear during his stay so far that he didn’t need to eat at all, or at least nowhere near as often as the Hylians, but that he occasionally liked to share a meal or snack with them. Whether or not he would accept anything while he was so distressed was a question that had not yet come up, but Red certainly hoped it might help calm him down.There was silence in the kitchen save for the occasional clink of spoon on bowl. All of them were listening intently as Green’s footsteps retreated up the stairs, followed by the muffled tone of their voice addressing Shadow. A few minutes passed before Red heard the creak of their weight on the stairs again.“I waited at the end of the hallway but he didn’t open the door,” they explained when they returned. “Maybe he’ll take it now I’ve left.”“We should talk about something else out loud,” Vio suggested. “The sound of our voices might reassure him.”Red didn’t particularly feel in the mood for small talk, but when Vio turned to him and began asking about the progress of the set of bookends he had been working on, he forced himself to answer. He was straining his ears for the sound of a door opening upstairs even as Green and Blue added their own input to the discussion.The bowl of porridge was still untouched when Blue brought it back down after lunch. She replaced it with a plate of cookies from Red’s latest baking session, but those went similarly ignored. Red found himself frequently returning to the foot of the stairs throughout the afternoon, fretting about how much harm he might have done and debating with himself whether or not he should go up, until Vio finally succeeded in luring him away to be thoroughly obliterated in a game of chess.“Don’t you ever get tired of winning all the time?” Blue questioned in exasperation after Vio’s fifth victory in a row. The half-mended cloak draped across her lap had long since been forgotten in favour of watching the game.“No,” they responded with a smug smirk, already beginning to set up the board again. “But you’re welcome to try to knock me down a peg. I think Red could use a break.”“Please,” Red agreed, rolling his chair back from the table. “I need to get started on dinner soon.”Blue glanced between the chessboard and the sewing needle in her hand. “… Yeah, sure. I guess this can wait.” She stuck the needle through the cloak and tossed it over the back of the couch. There was a quiet shuffling sound from behind the piece of furniture, as though something large was backing away from the sudden appearance of the fabric.Everyone stopped what they were doing at once and turned toward the sound. A few seconds passed before Red slowly wheeled around to the side of the couch, keeping his distance from it, until he could see the pair of anxious ruby eyes watching him from within the shadows. He let go of the wheels and folded his hands peacefully in his lap with a gentle smile. “Hello, Shadow. How are you feeling?”It took a few seconds before Shadow’s hands were slowly moved into view. “Scared,” he signed.“It’s all right to feel scared,” Red told him softly, partly for the benefit of the others who couldn’t see his response. “Everybody is scared sometimes. But it’s just the five of us here right now, and nobody here is going to hurt you. Do you think you’d like to come out and sit somewhere more comfortable?”“Bad, hurt,” Shadow signed frantically. “Find Shadow.”His fear made Red’s chest ache with sadness. “He won’t find you, I promise. He doesn’t have any idea where you are. Green and Blue didn’t talk about you at all to him.”“We did,” Green corrected quietly, “but we claimed we fought and killed him. Vaati has no idea he’s even alive. He wouldn’t be searching because he doesn’t know there’s anything to be found.”Shadow’s tense shoulders relaxed slightly. “True?” he enquired hopefully.Red looked up at them. “He asked if that’s true.”“I swear it on my life,” Blue stated solemnly. “We’re the only ones in Hyrule who know you’re alive, Shadow.”There was a long moment of silence before Shadow began to crawl out from behind the couch. Red backed up to give him space and Blue quietly relocated herself to an armchair instead. Shadow’s eyes darted anxiously around the room before he cautiously slunk over to claim his usual spot beside where Vio sat.“Would you like me to put on some music?” Red enquired, remembering how helpful a distraction it had been for Shadow’s first few days with them.Shadow shook his head, eyes fixed on his hands as he rubbed them together slowly. He seemed to be working himself up to saying something. Everybody was silent, waiting patiently, until he nervously pointed to the slate at Red’s hip. “See Shadow?” he signed carefully.“No,” Vio promised. “Looking at a picture of a person doesn’t mean that person can see you. It’s different than making a call. Red can talk to me because his slate can contact mine, but as far as I know Vaati doesn’t even have one.”“I’ve never seen him with one,” Green agreed. “Even if he did, one of us would have to call and the other would have to answer. And I can assure you, none of us would ever try to call or answer a call from Chancellor Vaati, even if he did bother to try to contact us.”Finally the tension began to leave Shadow’s muscles. He curled up in his place, tucking his feet under him again, and shamefully signed, “Sorry.”“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” Red reassured him. “Do you need anything?”“Talk.” Shadow’s eyes were fixed on his own hands. “Bad, hurt. Tell.”“This is how we say his name.” Red showed him the sign but Shadow shook his head vehemently, making it clear he had no intention of referring to the man by name in any language.Blue stood up. Shadow’s attention snapped to her instantly, panic flaring in his blood-red eyes, and she quickly signed an apology of her own. “Just hold that thought for a moment. I’m going to get something that might help.”They didn’t have to wait long before she was back, sliding a blank book across the low table toward Shadow. She placed a stick of charcoal beside it and explained to him quietly, “I don’t mean to make you feel bad, but you’re still learning to talk. This sounds like something important you need to get off your chest. So any time you don’t know the right words, or you feel like you can’t say them, you can draw it to help us understand. It might make it a lot easier for you.”“Good idea, Blue,” Green praised as Shadow reached for the charcoal. He rubbed it between his fingers and sniffed it, curiosity taking over for a moment, before turning his attention back to the task of explaining.The first picture he drew was hard to misunderstand despite its greatly simplified quality. “The castle?” Vio prompted.“And is that you?” Red questioned, moving his chair slightly closer for a clear look at the stick figure Shadow doodled just beneath the castle.“You were living nearby?” Green asked.Shadow shook his head and traced the bottom line of the castle sketch again. “Under?” Red guessed, earning a nod in response. “You lived under the castle? Is there a basement?”The series of vertical lines Shadow drew over his sketched self were unmistakeable. He set the charcoal down and signed, “Cold, rock, water, no food.”He was kept in the lockup. Red’s fingers tightened convulsively over his wheels. For how long? That place isn’t meant to be for long-term holding. The whole time we were soldiers it was only ever used for monsters to test the knights. And he wasn’t given any food… even monsters need to eat. He was treated as less than a monster. No wonder he didn’t know what to do with an apple.“Who put you there?” Red found himself whispering, even though he already knew what the answer would be.“Bad, hurt.”Vio dropped their head into their hands, clearly struggling just as much with this revelation as Red was. Blue stared at the images for a moment, looking almost as though she regretted her idea, before enquiring hoarsely, “Do you remember how you ended up there? Where were you before?”For a moment Shadow clasped his hands together, eyes darting nervously between his companions as though aware they would not like his answer. “No remember. Darkness.”“Two years,” Vio murmured into their hands. “It’s been two years since we drew the Four Sword. If that’s how long Shadow’s existed too… if he was locked up that entire time…”Shadow withdrew uncertainly into the couch cushions, hands clasped close to his chest, clearly reluctant to say any more. Red couldn’t help but be thankful for that. He thought he might have had just about as much explanation of their newest friend’s past as he could handle right now.“Shadow,” Green said quietly, “I want you to keep that book, all right? If there’s anything else you feel like you need to say but you don’t have the words, you can use that. And if you want to get rid of… that reminder, you can tear the page out.”“And burn it,” Blue added.“And burn it, if you want to. We’ll show you how to do it safely.”Vio lifted their head and drew a deep breath. “Red. Could I borrow your slate for a moment?”He handed it over. Vio placed it down on the table where they could all see and navigated to the beginning of the photo album. Shadow adjusted his position slightly so he could watch as well, though Red didn’t fail to notice the way he drew back slightly when the picture of Vaati came up onscreen.Vio strategically positioned two fingers over the screen to cover the Chancellor’s face. Their voice shook with barely contained emotion as they spoke. “Shadow, I’m going to make you a promise right now. This man will never, never, get his hands on you again.”As the other four watched in silence, Vio brought up the menu and firmly pressed delete. The picture vanished at once, automatically scrolling back to the scene of Red in the field. Vio withdrew their hands and sat back, but the fire still burning inside them was clear in the tightening of their fists and the hardness of their expression.“Never,” they repeated forcefully.Tentatively Shadow uncurled slightly, gazing at Vio with something close to amazement in his expression. He fidgeted for a moment before hesitantly signing, “Touch?”Vio unclenched a fist and offered their hand, but that was not apparently what Shadow wanted. He edged closer and, after a brief pause to gather his courage, carefully put both arms around them. Red saw the flash of surprise that crossed their expression before they relaxed, one hand coming up to rub Shadow’s back comfortingly.“That’s called a hug,” they told Shadow when he withdrew a few moments later. They signed the word to demonstrate. “This is how you ask for one.”“Could I have one too?” Red requested, noticing how much Shadow’s shoulders and back had relaxed. This seemed the perfect time to ask. He waited until Shadow nodded his consent before wheeling himself to the side of the couch. Shadow leaned over the armrest to wrap thin arms around his shoulders, his touch gentle and careful.This was the way things were meant to be, Red decided, his own arms encircling Shadow in return. As perfect as life had been with only four of them, with five it now felt even more complete. This was where Shadow belonged. And as he leaned into the warmth, he tried to put all of his feelings into the hug and hoped their dark counterpart felt the same way.