Chapter Text
Warrior followed Time outside the safe house and a little ways into the woods, teeth gritted as he mentally steeled himself for confrontation. In the year he’d known Time, there was not one instance where anyone was able to make Time do anything he didn’t want to do. And making the man talk about a traumatic part of his past— willingly —was probably next to impossible. Still, Warrior had to at least give Time the dignity of just asking him first.
“Time, wait.”
Time’s shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep breath before turning around to face Warrior. His expression was tired and annoyed.
Warrior thought he heard some rustling in the leaves behind him, but he ignored it, swallowed entirely by the weight of being Time’s focus.
“What I saw in the memory, in Twilight’s memory. The Mask of Truth, it showed Ordon village. I saw a young soldier.” Warrior gulped as Time’s expression soured slightly. “His commanding officer—my father—he sliced his eye. His right eye.”
“I’m not the only poor soul who lost something valuable in the war.”
“I know it was you.” Twilight stepped around the tree he was hidden behind. He looked like he was fighting an instinct to shrink behind it again after drawing attention to himself.
Warrior was a little taken aback that they were being eavesdropped on, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. Twilight from the first time they saw him had been following Time.
“When I got out of the Twilight Realm, I didn’t know where to go or what to do, but when I saw you, I knew you had to be the one who stood up for my village. I knew it would be safe with you.”
Time’s gaze flickered between the two of them with a bit of a look like someone cornered. He ran a hand down the side of his face.
“Yes, that was me.”
Warrior felt his gut sink. He already knew it in his head that his father was the one who took Time’s eye, but to hear Time admit it caused Warrior’s heart to ache. He owed this man everything he could give him, but he instead was going to end up betraying Time’s trust with what he would do next.
“Warrior.”
Warrior worked to untense his jaw and take steady breaths to relax his fingers out of trembling fists. To prepare for what was about to happen.
“There were much worse acts committed in that war than what your father did to me. Leave it in the past where it belongs.”
Twilight frowned. Warrior imagined that he might have something to argue there, but he chose to stay silent for now.
Time turned to walk away again, but Warrior reached out and snagged Time’s shoulder to stop him in his steps.
“I know I have no right to be asking this, but do you know what happened to those soldiers after you got injured? How did they die?”
“I don’t know.” Time tried to walk away again, but Warrior gripped harder on his shoulder.
“Please. I know he was a horrible person, but he was my father. I have to know!”
“Drop it, Warrior.” Time gave a violent shake of his shoulders in an attempt to free himself, but Warrior jumped in front of him and gripped both of his arms in desperation.
“Don’t make me do this.”
Time’s metaphorical hackles raised, and he drew himself up to his full height. “Move.”
Twilight, who had been hovering shamelessly, started to step in. He tried to push the two apart and de-escalate, but neither of them were listening to him now.
“I’m sorry, Time.”
Time’s eyes widened as Warrior pulled out the Mask of Truth from where he had hidden it behind his scarf. Twilight and Time both made a move to knock it away from Warrior, but before they could reach him, he already had it on his face.
The mask’s magic invaded Warrior’s brain even faster than when he wore it previously. Perhaps the magic was traveling down the same path in his mind that it had carved out the first time its power invaded, making his eyes white-out and his body go stiff almost instantly.
When color returned to his vision, he saw out of his left eye only. The top of a covered wagon came into focus, bearing the symbol of the Hyrule military medical unit.
Time, with Warrior watching from Time’s point of view, flinched when a face came suddenly into his line of sight. The man was Hylian. His mouth held an unsettling number of teeth in his smile, and his eyes were stretched into crescents as he hovered over Time. By the man’s shoulder was a white face frozen in a scream—a mask.
Warrior knew just as well as Time that this man was not a doctor. Why was he here?
“You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?”
Warrior could feel someone, probably Twilight, fighting to rip the mask off of him—the vision fading out to static. But Warrior, continuing his streak of bad ideas, blindly pawed his tattered scarf off of his neck. The hot magic woven into the fibers brushed against the tender skin of his neck like brier needles and leaving a burning sensation behind.
With the scarf removed, the mask latched to his face even harder, fusing a tight seal around his jaw and around his eyes.
Time was now holding a mask in his hands. The mask looked like it was supposed to be a Hylian given the pointed, long ears, but the hair was Sheikah silver. The strangest thing though was that it had the same red and blue marks that Time had on his face now, but this mask had it on both sides of his face.
He didn’t know how Time had suddenly come to have this mask. He assumed he must have missed some part of that memory while he was struggling to keep the Mask of Truth on. He could only guess that the scary man with the backpack dangling with masks was the one who gave this to him.
Time turned the mask around and guided it to his face. The second it made contact with his skin, the vision cut out, flaring brightly in short bursts only to fade back into a limitless darkness. Warrior wasn’t sure if this was happening because the Mask of Truth was eating at his life force again since he had no soul to power it or if this was simply because Time had no clear memory of what happened either.
But Warrior felt everything. His—no, Time’s limbs being stretched, his spine lengthening unnaturally and the confusion and fear.
In flashes, Warrior saw horrifying scenes. Mud, bodies, bones. A giant’s shoes stepping large shoe prints into pools of fresh blood. He saw a flash of a huge, blue sword—two blades interwoven into one impossibly long weapon—slashing as his arm guided it down and through fully armored men several at a time. Screams and screams.
There was misery. There was also a voice that wasn’t his. Wasn’t Time’s. Its exact words were muffled like they were underwater, but Warrior knew they were angry and intent on releasing a rage that the heavens couldn’t ignore.
There was a village now. Soldiers were gone and only an old man stood in their place.
The man’s eyes were kind and full of pity—something struck Warrior as familiar in their blue irises. Warrior could see that the strange blade Time carried in his mutated form had run the old man clean through his gut, but the Hylian still reached forward, gently pulling at the edge of the mask near Time’s chin.
All at once, the vision ended. The Mask of Truth let out a hissing sound as it detached from his face like a burned tick. It took longer for Warrior’s vision to return to both of his eyes, but as he lay there blinking furiously, apparently having fallen to the ground at some point, he felt exhaustion floor his body stemming from his very soul—or lack of it.
He was rolled over bonelessly onto his back. He saw Twilight kneeling over him with concern pinching up his Twili tattoo that ran down his nose and between his eyes.
“Warrior! Are you okay?”
Warrior didn’t think he had the strength to move his lips properly. All he could manage was a pathetic grunt that was pitched to sound affirmative.
There was a scraping sound that drew Warrior’s attention. Time had picked up the Mask of Truth and was wrapping it in what remained of Warrior’s scarf.
“I told you,” Time said firmly. “No mask is worn without consequence.”
Time wasn’t looking at Warrior, but Warrior was glad because he felt like his hollow shell of a body would crumble into dust if he did.
Everything General Impa said made sense. Why the footprints found at the battlefield were so huge. Why the wounds of the soldiers didn’t match any weapons they knew about. Why they never found out who had killed those soldiers—Warrior’s father among them.
He could work on coming to terms with that information later. But for now, he still had one question.
“Who….” Warrior had to pause to force more air out of his lungs, “saved you?”
He didn’t honestly expect Time to respond. He had already violated Time’s memories and likely broken any trust he ever had with the man. Warrior let his eyes fall closed as he let the heaviness of the situation and his fatigue wash over him fully.
He felt himself being scooped up into someone’s arms. It was Twilight judging from the fur pelt that he could feel was wrapped around the other’s shoulders. He was too tired to feel foolish for having to be carried like a baby.
The others began to fuss over him when he was carried through the safe house doors. He pretended to have passed out if only to save himself from embarrassment. Not that he had the energy or guts to explain the situation anyway. He would let Twilight handle that for now. He didn’t have the ability to stand against Legend’s furious volley of questions anyway.
He was left to rest in the loft, and it wasn’t long before sleep actually overtook him as his body uselessly tried to repair a soul that wasn’t there anymore.