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Chapter Text

Link and Zelda were taking a nice riverside stroll when a portal appeared.

All they could do was stare. Then, ten seconds later: “Number nine!”

Zelda nearly shrieked with laughter.

Link slumped, the entire upper half of his body dramatically facing the ground. Zelda, disbelieving and incredulous laughter doubling her over, held onto his shoulder so as not to do the same.

A ninth adventure — he might have groaned if Zelda’s glee wasn’t so damn endearing. His smile was quickly becoming impossible to suppress. 

“Well, at this point, you might as well shoot for ten,” Zelda joked.

He rolled his eyes but they shone with a hidden anticipation, a secret that Link—who had once spent an entire year called by his hero title—would once have been indisposed to admit. Six adventures, compared to the other heroes’, at maximum, three (and even that was questionable — Four was never very forthcoming about whether his time with the Colors constituted only one or two adventures), left him indignant, isolated, and impious. Seven years on, thanks to them, Link knew himself, why he loved adventuring, and why he loved being the Hero.

And maybe he would return from adventure number nine with a slew of new scars, but they’d make for some bitchin’ stories.

He brought Zelda’s hand to his lips and gave it a long, strong kiss. She felt his smile, just as powerful, through them on her knuckles. He took off running for the portal in the distance.

“Don’t die!” Zelda screamed.

“You know I can’t!” He screamed back. He thrust his finger to the sky. “They won’t let me!”

His words may have been coarse, but Link’s ear-to-ear smile shone brighter than the sun. He laughed, and it wasn’t the contemptuous snicker of his that Zelda grew so terribly familiar with, but a bona fide, downright joyful sound that spoke of his excitement in a way that he could never find words for.

Zelda would (for the ninth time) miss him, but how could she deny him an adventure he seemed so eager to experience?

Link sprinted into the portal.

“No fucking way.”

A group of men stood in a circle at the center of a village.

Link looked at one man’s facial markings, and another’s green-blue-red-violet eyes. A different man’s eyes, big and expressive, belonged to a body much taller than the others; much taller than Link remembered it being; much taller than he had any right to be. The man with the burn scars had short hair. That scarf was still obnoxiously long, and a bare shirt back showed where a sailcloth once covered, and when he saw his successor — well, nowadays, Link would happily admit to the disbelieving guffaw of glee that left his mouth in response.

Link—Legend—shouted “Hyrule! ” to Hyrule himself for the first time in seven years, and just as fast as he ran into the unknown did he run to his favorite person in the world.

The shock faded. The Heroes of Hyrule crowded each other.

Among the others, Twilight looked for Time.

Wind looked for Time.

He found Warriors.

“YOU!”

Wind’s scream startled a conversation or two to a pause, and heads turned as he stomped across the circle.

“YOU KNEW THE ENTIRE FUCKING TIME!”

The youngest among them towered above Warriors, glare as hot as the volcano nearby; the Captain felt small, and not just in height.

“Oh, what the fuck,” Warriors muttered.

Wind pointed a finger down at Warriors’ face. “I know you knew it was me! I always wondered what those stupid ass glances of yours meant and you let me have to find out by being dumped into your stupid ass war where my stupid ass brother doesn’t even know it’s me!”

“Sailor—”

“I can’t believe you!” Wind loudly continued. “I can’t believe I looked up to such a dumbass! You knew me for an entire year and never once considered how I would take that in my future? You loved me as a brother before I even met you! How could you not tell me?!”

Warriors, the respectable Captain that he was, held up his hands in defense and said, “He was worried about messing up the timeline—”

“Oh, fuck the timeline! We all know it doesn’t mean shit!”

“Take it up with Mask—”

“With Mask?! ” Wind screeched. “First of all, like I’m going to ever yell at Mask. That kid could bring the damn moon down again and I’d tell him how proud of him I am. No no no, Mask gets off scot-free, and second of all, don’t try to pin the blame on a nine-year-old with time travel trauma, you bastard!”

“I’m not!” Warriors squeaked.

“You absolutely are. I don’t care where the idea came from, because you knew, and you said nothing!”

“What were we supposed to say?! ”

Wind scoffed. “I don’t know, maybe a we’ll meet again when we were saying goodbye? A letter? A hint? Instead you just let me flounder in the War like an idiot who didn’t know his brothers hadn’t met him yet!”

Warriors’ face warred with shock and indignation and relief and then, it won, and it relished in happiness.

“…It was still a good surprise, though, wasn’t it?”

A beat passed. Wind’s scowl slowly morphed into a shit-eating grin. “Oh, yeah. It let me fuck with you two so bad.”

“I am so glad to see you again, Tune,” Warriors said, his own smile eating just as much shit (“Oh, don’t you fucking dare” from Wind). He threw his arm around the sailor’s shoulder. His hold on his younger brother was more akin to being supported than supportive , with how much shorter he was—how did that happen both times, Warriors wondered—but to hold Wind again like he did in the War graced him with a happiness he was fourteen years removed from.

Though unlike the War, there was currently only one boy in his arms. Warriors was missing someone.

Warriors looked for Time.

Permanently pink hair caught his gaze instead, its color as blinding to the eye as his other little brother’s wound.

“Hey asshole!” He shouted happily, just as Wind found another target and called out, “Rulie!”

Said asshole jerked around to face the voice.

Legend was back to blond for a while after his first dye job. Then shit happened, and he got cursed again, and changed back again, and the pink didn’t fade, and everyone gave him shit for it for the remaining two months of their journey.

Legend said, “Yeah, dipshit?” as he strut towards Warriors with a smile.

Nearby, Wild looked for Twilight, and found him.

He skittered up to the older hero, smile titanic it was so close to Twilight’s face.

“You just can’t get rid of me, huh?”

“Oh, not again,” Twilight smiled back.

Today, Twilight has met with Wild four times. In four different years. For four different purposes. Twilight has said goodbye to Wild three times, and surely, he thought, the third time would be the last. Wild had cried. Had hugged his wolf form and been hugged back (as best as the wolf could manage). Mineru and Twilight, two of Wild’s third-journey companions, faded from his reality on the same day.

Wild, once so closed off that he stopped speaking entirely, now openly wore his raw and intense happiness on his face. So intense, in fact, that tears fell from his eyes into a mouth that was open from a watery, hiccupy laugh.

“C’mere,” Twilight said, pulling Wild into his arms in a tight hug.

As they held each other, Hyrule’s loud and thunderous voice was heard over the chaos (“Holy crystals you are so tall.”).

When he pulled back, Wild said to Twilight, “You don’t look that much different! How long has it been for you?”

“Seven years,” Twilight answered. “Three since I was with you on your third journey.”

“The same for me.”

“Really?” Wild nodded. “That’s so weird.” Twilight laughed. He shook his head. “Four times I’ve met up with you, now.”

Wild agreed happily, “Four! ”

“Yeah?” Four inquired across the field.

They looked at him. They smiled, but Twilight wasn’t done with Wild. “So how are you?”

“I’m good! I’m really working hard on restoration efforts — I’ve taken up carpentry! I work with Hudson all the time, and I built a house. I’ve actually permanently moved to Tarrey Town with—”

“Your hair!” called Four, attention since grabbed away from his conversation with Sky and Sky and Four then ran over to Twilight and Wild.

“Yours!” responded Wild. 

Wild had cut his hair the previous year and kept it short, trimming it whenever it grew past his ears. Four, meanwhile — Wild wouldn’t have been surprised to hear if he hadn’t cut his at all in the seven years that have possibly universally passed. Four’s hair touched his waist. “What’s your problem, Mr. Even-I-Have-To-Say-Your-Hair-Is-Too-Long?”

Four laughed.

“You don’t even keep it up?” Wild asked.

“You’re one to talk.” Twilight smacked Wild’s arm. From around, Legend and Warriors came over, the Veteran running to Sky and the Captain smacking Twilight’s own arm in greeting.

“Hey. Almost die again?” Warriors asked him.

“Shut up. You crawl through your second dungeon yet?” Twilight threw back.

“Yes, actually.”

“You’re lying.”

“Fuck you.”

Warriors scoured through his pouch for that second dungeon item of his. Sky had his hand on Legend’s shoulder. Wild was telling a wild story to Wind, gesturing frenetically and waving his arms around in the air.

Warriors noticed it and was the first to ask Wild, “Uh, Champion, what the fuck happened to your arm?”

The Heroes stopped talking to witness the arm. The Champion glanced down at the bizarre gray skin, long nails, serpentine wraps, and the number of rings to rival Legend’s on the length of his right arm.

He laughed. “Oh, funny story! I met Ganondorf.”

“I’m sorry?”

Wild now in conversation with Warriors, Twilight looked for Time.

Sky saw Hyrule. 

“Hyrule!” Sky waved their traveler over. “You look so different! Good, though, it’s a good different — how have you been?”

“Good—”

“Sailor?! ” Legend screamed.

“Oh…my Goddess,” Sky whispered.

“Yeah, that’s fuckin’ right,” the youngest said, staring down (figuratively and literally) at those below him. He was tall. Very tall. He must have been taller than the Old Man. In fact, Sky thought, where’s Time for comparison?

Sky looked for Time.

Twilight looked for Time.

The group at large gathered in a huddle, breathless from laughing and reuniting. Wind, now the head that stood the tallest, made an announcement.

“I got married!”

“What?!” Hyrule said, shocked.

“You’re married!? ” Sky said, happy.

“When?” Legend said, baffled.

“Two years ago!” Wind said. “Tetra! She’s the most wonderful woman I’ve ever known and we’re so happy together. It’s everything Time”—he cast a quick glance aside, Wind looking for Time, then he turned back—“said it was. Wild, are you finally together with Zelda?”

“Um,” Wild said.

“Four?” Wind asked.

“Well—”

Wind’s jaw dropped. “Wait, am I the only one here who’s married? I mean, other than—”

Sky interrupted, “I’m—”

“You don’t count, you were already basically married,” Wind interrupted again. Sky could not refute the claim. Still, Wind grinned and offered his hand to the others, and despite the teasing he appraised the ring on Sky’s finger just as a good pirate should.

Wild scrolled through his redone and extended Hyrule Compendium with Legend.

Four and Warriors were talking about smithing and the Captain said something about taking it up.

Hyrule, ever concerned, lifted Twilight’s tunic to examine the seven-year-old scar from the Iron Knuckle’s attack. 

“Wait—”

The boys stood at attention. Now condensed, Sky searched among their numbers. Sky looked for Time.

“Where’s the Old Man?” he asked.

“He’s not…?” Four spoke quietly. Four looked for Time.

Wind looked for Time. Head high above the others, he counted heads.

Two. Four. Six. Eight.

In the high of seeing seven of their brothers, each of the heroes hadn’t noticed the eighth’s absence.

Eight heroes surveyed the village they’d found themselves in, looking for number nine. A windmill, observation tower, volcano up the nearby mountain. A nagging tingle of familiarity was clawing up Twilight’s throat. The dusty air, the Cuccos, the buildings. Something was screaming at him that he’d been there before even though the village was foreign and the feeling felt like rocks in his stomach.

Once again, Twilight looked for Time.

He found Four and Hyrule and Legend and Sky and Warriors and Wild and Wind. But not Time.

Time was not there.

“Well, I’ll be goddamned.”

Eight heads snapped south at the voice.

Red hair, fierce as fire, wafted around the stock-still image of a woman with her jaw open and her hands on her hips.

“Missus Malon!”

Wind laughed and ran to her. Relieved smiles graced the heroes’ faces as they crowded Time’s wife; the cacophony of voices in a group of eight boys was still familiar to her even after just the one time she met them. They met her here where she stood by the tree.

Her eyes were big and wide and blue. She huffed, in shock and happiness and gratitude.

Wild greeted her, seemingly a ball of eternal sunshine, “I’m so happy you’re here, Malon!”

“As am I! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would see you boys again!” she said. “I’d ask you how you’re here, but I know now nothing makes sense when it comes to y’all.”

“It was a fucking portal again!” Legend loudly announced, melodramatically throwing his hands in the air.

“It came out of nowhere,” Sky said. “I was just having lunch with Zelda when it showed up. I don’t even have the Master Sword with me.”

“Did you come through the portals, too?” Hyrule asked.

She shook her head. “No portals for me. Seems like you’ve found yourselves in my Hyrule.”

“Are you serious?” Legend questioned.

“Yes! I missed you, Malon!” Wind exclaimed.

“So are we close to the ranch?” Wild asked.

At Wild’s question, Malon caught sight of him, and jerked back. “Oh, Goddesses, your hair, Champion!”

“That’s what I said!” said Four.

She studied him. She learned the grooves of his burn scar, much more visible now without his sideburns but much more faded after so much time. She happily decided her stance. “It suits you.”

Wild’s smile was blinding.

“You look wonderful. Happier. Older. You all look so much older!” Malon marveled. “So different, and so true to yourselves. Sailor, you look so grown up, and Traveler, you’re glowing. Twi—”

She paused.

“Twilight,” Malon breathed, catching his eye and approaching her descendant.

His breath, and body, was shaking.

“My boy,” she said to him. She laid her hands on his shoulders, and Twilight wanted to smile, because this was Malon, but he couldn’t; Malon understood his language of silence, and she smiled in his stead. Her eyes were full of tears. Twilight choked on his own.

She held him like that for thirteen precious seconds. When she pulled away, Twilight felt empty.

Malon exhaled and said to the others, “I gotta say, when I came to Kakariko for the milk deliveries today the absolute last thing I was expecting was to see you all again!”

“Your husband always did tell us to expect the unexpected,” Warriors conceded.

“Where is Time?” Hyrule wondered.

“Is he here with you?” Sky asked.

The Chain looked for Time.

Malon opened her mouth. Glanced across the group of heroes. Closed it. Bit her lip. Looked beyond them into the village for just a moment, then caught Twilight’s gaze, and then cupped his scarred cheek in her calloused hand.

She spoke, “Why don’t you boys come with me?”

She led the boys, men dutifully marching in the leader’s stead. While they walked, Four had to comically arch his neck to meet Wind’s eyes and tell him about his grandfather. Next to Twilight, Wild was talking to him again, saying something about Zelda, something or other relating to what they’ve been up to since Wolfie faded, but the rocks in Twilight’s stomach rattled, and that knowing feeling pawed at him, and it whispered a terrible fated promise that he had taken this path before.

Then the boys marched into a cemetery and the chatter died.

Malon stopped before one of the graves.

A slab, unremarkable to its neighbors. Chiseled Old Hylian that Twilight couldn’t read.

“He died four years ago,” Malon said.

Time’s tombstone.

“Heroically, of course. He saved…a lot of lives.”

Time’s tombstone.

“There was trouble in the woods,” she explained, voice but a whisper. “He might not have gone if it was anywhere other than there. He gave his life for his kingdom, as I always knew he would.”

Time’s tombstone, in Kakariko Graveyard, four years after his death.

“I’m sorry, boys.”

The boys, reunited minus one, seven years after their journey together, at Time’s tombstone, in Kakariko Graveyard, four years after his death.

“I’ll be in the village.” Malon’s eyes roamed the crowd, looking at each Hero in turn just as her husband—late husband—was once wont. “You boys take as much time as you need.”

She squeezed Twilight’s shoulder, and walked out of the graveyard.

Eight heroes stood on their ninth’s burial ground.

“Hylia,” Sky breathed. A prayer. A curse.

Twilight’s eyes were locked on Time’s grave.

Awkward movements, and shocked glances. Wild stood as a pillar of support next to Twilight’s stock-still size. Wind sulked. Four swiveled.

Legend laughed, startling the others in their respectful moment of silence.

“Veteran,” Warriors growled, an anger he’d never before aimed at any one of them lacing his words and heating his gaze.

Legend choked. “No!” He coughed away the laughter. “No, you don’t understand. After our journey ended, I studied—I wanted to learn everyone’s—I can read this,” he stressed fervidly. “The Hylian on the tombstone says his name. Link. Under that, Husband. Father. Old Man.”

“Really?” Wild questioned.

“Oh,” Hyrule said miserably.

Eight boys, reunited minus one, seven years after their journey together, at their Old Man’s tombstone, with the words Old Man forever engraved upon it, in Kakariko Graveyard, four years after his death, silent again.

There was nothing else to say.

“I…”

In the silence of the graveyard, fourteen eyes upon Four had him feeling very small.

“I…I’m going to go to Malon,” he announced quietly. He offered no other words.

In the silence of the others, he avoided both the others’ eyes and Time’s tombstone. He slunk away to join the woman outside.

“I am, as well,” Warriors said. Then he left.

Hyrule was third to leave. Sky fourth. Legend. Wind, the tallest, the youngest, the loudest, then left without ever saying a word.

What was left was Wild and Twilight.

“Twilight,” Wild whispered. “Do you want to be alone?”

He couldn’t speak. The feeling from before had made a home in Twilight’s throat, squatting in and stopping his words from being heard. The squatter’s residency hurt him, he was hurting, and all Twilight could focus on was the pain.

“Yeah.”

He had to force the word out. It hurt him to do that too.

Wild nodded. He patted his companion’s back. He turned; he paused to look at the tombstone; he left the graveyard.

Twilight faced Time’s gravestone, alone.

In the seven years that passed from their parting to today’s reunion, Twilight tried to find his teacher’s grave on multiple occasions. Time’s Zelda knew he was the Hero, thanks to his Triforce (and, inherited by Twilight, Twilight’s own Zelda also knew the same truth); Twilight thought it possible that Time’s Zelda had him buried in the Castle Graveyard as a way to honor him. When he looked, he found nothing, and when he asked Zelda if she knew anything, she asked him if by ‘Hero of Time’ he meant either of the two ancient heroes. “Are you talking about the Hero of the Sky or the Hero of the Four Sword?” she had asked. It had stung. Another brutal reminder of his forgotten teacher came when Renado also knew nothing of the Hero before him. Neither graveyard held answers, or Time himself.

He would have given anything to stand at Time’s grave after knowing him. He needed to pay his respects and say thank you—say all the things he could never say to the man alive—and cry. He would finally loose the tears held back every time Time unintentionally foreshadowed the Shade, like with his carefully spoken and powerful words; brushing greenery off a pauldron; existing less one eye.

Now he is here. Now he stands at Time’s grave — four years after he died, hundreds of years before Twilight is born, surrounded by the other Heroes that knew him and respected him and loved him just as Twilight had. The other Heroes gave him the space to be alone with the stone Twilight had looked and looked and looked for.

Now he is here.

All Twilight could do was stare.

Twilight could not read Old Hylian, but he trusted Legend’s translation.

Husband. He widowed his wife.

Father. He has a young child he is not able to raise — he could not pass on the lessons of his life to those who came after.

Old Man. He was not alive to reunite with the Chain.

All Twilight could do was stare.

Chapter Text

Time passed.

Twilight, eventually, left the graveyard and rejoined the group. The boys were in a cluster under the lone cedar, conversations spoken in grim tones and sidelong glances periodically thrown toward Kakariko Graveyard — whether in search of Twilight or in grief for Time no one would admit to.

More formal (dismal) reintroductions were made after Twilight returned. It turned out that seven years had indeed passed for all of them. Yes, Wind and Sky were married now. Four was still a smith. Warriors a captain. Hyrule said he wanted to teach prospective swordsmen like what Wars had been doing, Legend didn’t, Twilight said nothing.

The sun was setting. It was dinnertime. Wild told the others, only seven others, that he’d picked up a lot of new recipes over the years. No one asked him to make one.

No one would speak of Time, and no one was hungry.

The sun set. It was nighttime. Legend asked Malon if they could stay with her at the ranch, and she said of course, but unexpectedly reuniting with them meant that none of the milk bottles got delivered, so it would be a day or two until they could leave. They had to stay the night.

And Malon, it turned out, had been on incredible terms with both Zelda and Impa since Time’s death. The Queen and Royal Handmaiden visit the ranch maybe once a month with her young son, the Prince of Hyrule, in tow. Zelda’s child and Time’s child get along quite well, Malon said. She said Impa, in all her Sheikah wisdom, was a pillar of support in her grieving process.

Malon approached the knight who guarded Impa’s house, told him the eight strangers were ‘her and Link’s boys’, and without another question the Heroes had a place to sleep.

She said, “Impa would be happy to know that her house provided shelter for Link’s boys.”

Link’s boys, even in death.

Later, the Heroes settled down for bed. Wild and Four were asleep, clear as their rhythmic breaths and still frames. Warriors was awake but lost in thought as he stared at the ceiling. Under the loft, Sky and Hyrule were having a hushed conversation; they were quiet enough not to bother the people above them and quiet enough that Wind couldn’t distinguish most of their words, but when they were spoken, Time and Old Man echoed around the house like bolts and Wind felt the recoil as if he was the one holding the metaphorical crossbow.

Twilight wasn’t in the room.

Neither was Legend, but he’d left maybe an hour ago muttering to everyone and no one about ‘fresh air’.

Another Old Man from Sky reverberated in his head.

Wind couldn’t stay in that house any longer.

He stood up gracelessly, drawing the attention and concern of Warriors across the floor. It had been at least fourteen years for the Captain since they fought a war together, but Wind hoped the time passed, along with the low light, did not mask the meaningful connection they’d shared from his memory; he offered a small, reassuring, sad smile. He ignored all the people staring at him as he scurried down the loft, and towards the exit.

Wind walked through the door; the air was cold; he shuddered and stumbled on.

He found him north of the house, leaning against the wooden post of a Cucco pen, carefully watching the gateway of Time’s burial place with his arms crossed.

“Hey,” said Wind. Legend spared him a glance when he approached.

“What are you doing up?” he asked the younger, brows knitted and mouth opened.

Wind countered, “What are you?”

He said nothing. They held each other’s gazes instead.

After the moment passed, Legend asked, “Is everyone else asleep?”

“Wild and Four are asleep. Everyone else is still awake.”

Legend turned away, settling his gaze upon Kakariko Graveyard once again.

“Twilight’s in there,” he told Wind. “I didn’t see him but I know he is. I’ve been out here for like an hour and I haven’t heard anything, and I keep thinking, you know, would I want company if I was grieving my father figure?”

“Is that why you haven’t gone in?” Wind asked.

“No. I don’t know.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

Legend sighed. He kept looking away from Wind, pondering the dark pathway ahead.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Legend whispered.

Wind closed his eyes.

He continued, “If we were going to reunite, how could the Goddesses be so cruel as to give us all but one? To leave him out?”

Wind thought of him. How he was the first one he looked for. And the way he couldn’t shut up at their reunion then went completely silent when Malon said he died.

“Of all the ones…” Legend trailed off.

Wind wasn’t a child anymore, nor had he ever held any real opinion of them, but damn the Goddesses, it was unfair. He was denied a reunion with a trusted companion, a loved one even. The elation of linking up with his brothers stopped dead when Malon brought him to his dead friend’s grave. Instead of sharing seven years worth of stories with him in the house, they grieved him in silence. His descendent has refused to speak to any of them since the graveyard, now mourning the man he loved like a father, in isolation, in the cold.

His descendent, their brother, all alone and miserable, and it wasn’t fair and he couldn’t make it right but Wind felt sick out here with Twilight in there.

“We should join him,” Wind said.

Legend murmured dissent. “It’s Time,” he said. “Time is—Time was—Twilight’s…”

His words trailed off again (died).

“I don’t want to disturb him,” he finally finished.

“Time was Twilight’s predecessor, yeah. But we’re—we were—we are his successors,” Wind stated, as a fact that even death could not detract. “All three of us. We should — be with him, right now. With Twilight…” Wind paused, “…with Time.”

“We are, aren’t we,” Legend said.

Wind continued, “Besides, seven years may have passed, we may have changed, but I think we’re all still the same people at heart. And if I know the rancher, he’s been in there stewing since dinner. It’s only right of us to turn the heat off.”

Legend blinked. “I still cannot get over your voice.”

Wind rolled his eyes (he braved puberty with Warriors and Mask as his brothers. No amount of teasing would get to him by this point). He walked forward but, not seeing a companion, stopped in the stone alleyway, looked behind him, and found him still leaning against the same pole.

Legend shifted — his legs, in hesitancy, his shoulders, in timidity, his eyes from Wind to the ground to the graveyard.

“Get the fuck in here,” Wind said, an order spoken with a soft voice and sad smile.

Legend got the fuck in there. 

Legend and Wind walked in procession through the graveyard.

Twilight sensed them as soon as Wind and Legend reached his row of graves, quickly turning their way with a quiet gasp. Just as quickly he turned away, trying to hide the hands scrubbing the tears from his cheeks.

Legend and Wind arrived.

Twilight didn’t greet them.

Legend studied the object of Twilight’s focus, the tombstone only the Veteran could read, under which laid their Old Man. Wind waited. Twilight stayed silent.

Then Twilight inhaled, deeply.

Exhaled shakily. 

Spoke, eventually, quietly, grievously.

“Very early on in my journey, right before I entered my first temple, a wolf was waiting for me.”

Time’s successors listened to his descendant.

“It was a large thing, and it looked ancient, with aged golden fur as bright as the Triforce. I readied to fight it; now, wolves had always been pests in Ordon. They killed our main source of income. Kind of a cruel irony that I would be — anyway, I got out my weapon and prepared to fight it off. It pounced on me then, but instead of knocking me over, it…brought me somewhere.

“It was this…otherworldly plane that seemed to be floating above Hyrule, in the distance, and nowhere at the same time. In front of me was the wolf again, who howled and transformed into a Stalfos wearing a grand suit of armor…

“…and missing an eye.”

Twilight closed his own, too cowardly to witness the others’ reactions.

He never wanted to tell this story. He never wanted to see Time dead in a world where his wife is still alive.

He continued, “It attacked me, knocked me to the ground, then insulted me. It told me my hand was uncourageous and I brought shame to the Hero’s Tunic.”

Wind frowned. “That’s not—”

“No, I needed that,” Twilight defended. “I would have been in for a very rough awakening had it not roughed me up itself. This was almost immediately after restoring light to Faron Woods, and I had just been named the Chosen Hero, and it humbled me before I hurt myself.

“So it knocked me down…but then it helped me up. It offered to teach me the Hidden Skills it knows. It taught me what it called the Finishing Blow; the same move Sky used to finish the Shadow, actually. I used the Finishing Blow to kill Ganondorf. I wouldn’t have been able to kill him without it, and the stalfos—the Hero’s Shade—taught it to me.”

Sky finished the Shadow with a Blow from the Master Sword, which was tossed to him by Time who had wielded it for the entirety of the final battle up to that point. Twilight remembered wondering if after fighting with that massive claymore for so long, not to mention his lifelong distaste for it, if a longsword like the Master Sword would feel unbalanced in his hand, but Time handled it with the same grace—the same practiced, skillful movement—that the Shade displayed in his lessons. As if he had never denounced the Master Sword or been apart from it at all. It had seemed like Time made some sort of peace with the Sword at the end… if not peace then a begrudging respect or acceptable compromise.

Or so he thought. He still had enough regrets to decay into the Shade after all.

(“I don’t understand,” Sky mused. “We’re not raising her against each other. All of us are healthy and strong enough to wield her. Why would she refuse everyone?”

“Not everyone,” Legend said.

Everyone looked at him. Then everyone looked at where he was looking.

He continued, “Not everyone has tried yet.”

“No, I—” 

Twilight immediately started stammering, eyes flying to and from his ancestor’s face. His ancestor meanwhile did nothing.

Twilight’s struggle continued. “We’re not making—there’s no way she—this has to be some kind of joke.”

“Fi eventually smiled, and knew happiness, but she never joked,” Sky told him.

“We’ll wrap it. That’s what I did when Mid—when I had to transform with it still with me,” Twilight explained, searching for and producing fabric from his pack. He reached for the Master Sword to wind it. “This way, we can carry it without it — AH!”

A puff of smoke went up from the site of impact: Twilight’s hand brushing against the Master Sword’s hilt.

(Rejected.)

Twilight’s face contorted in pain and he cradled his burned hand carefully.

Eight boys and men, each who had already proved their worth to the Master Sword, then turned to watch their unmoving eldest with their own burned hands and weighted expectations.

Legend said, “Well?”)

(And after Twilight drew the Master Sword, a weapon much longer and weightier than the Ordon Sword and which at least for the first lesson after he pulled it changed the way they sparred, the Shade had no comments.)

“He said that he had six additional skills to teach me, if I would grow and become a hero alongside my journey. Take sword in hand and find me, he said to me, when I called upon the Golden Wolf through the stones he left me to learn more. So I became the true hero like he told me to, and he passed his seven skills on to me, and at the end, he…he moved on.

“He…he called me his child. Go and do not falter, my child… His last words to me. I eased his regrets, and put his spirit to rest. And I haven’t stopped thinking about him since.”

“Regrets,” Wind said. “What regrets?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight said.

“A wolf,” Legend noted. “Like you?”

“Bigger than me.”

“His Dark World form?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“A stalfos. If that was always his spirit—”

“No…no, I—” Twilight stuttered. He caught sight of, and promptly looked away from, Wind’s despondent expression. “I was always able to — to hit him. He made me knock him to the ground with every new skill he taught me. He was a physical thing, which—you know, when he obviously was not alive—”

Twilight shrugged, his shoulders trembling.

“I don’t know.”

He looked to the grave.

“I’ve never known. Even after my journey ended, and Ganondorf was dead, the Shade always perplexed me. I was grateful for his lessons and respected him as a warrior, but he never told me anything about himself. Not even a name. He was a living skeleton whom I referred to as Shade, to Midna. I literally was just calling him ghost. I described him to Zelda, displayed his techniques to her, but she had no ideas.

“And then the portal came.”

Twilight looked to two of his brothers. A profound grief clouded his vision, broke his voice, and deepened his frown.

“I knew from the day I met him.”

He swallowed hard to ease the lump. It didn’t help. “It made sense, you know? My teacher was strict, he made me display my previous Skill to him perfectly before teaching me his next, and wouldn’t let me leave until I had correctly performed the new one. That first day we were together, my first impression of him was of an experienced and serious warrior. I mean, the tallest of all of us? Half-blind with an impressive facial scar? He certainly looked just as intimidating as the Shade.

“And my teacher… he was strict, but he also… I didn’t understand it, how or why, at the time, but he understood what it was like to be the Hero. He… encouraged me. Told me, though not in explicit words, that I had the strength to defeat my foes. Although I accepted life as the hero, I could not convey the lessons of that life to those who came after. And Midna meant…” he swallowed again, “...a lot to me, and she witnessed all of my hardships firsthand, but to know and be taught by someone who experienced the sting of a blade—who knew exactly how it felt to give all of yourself to your kingdom with nothing back—helped me move forward.

“The first night—none of us were sleeping—he took first watch, because, you know, of course, and I looked over at him and it just clicked.

“The Hero’s Shade wore that armor. He only had one eye. His voice…the way he spoke…every word had weight — every word he said to me as the Shade was deliberate. He had to teach me, and there was no room to misspeak. He waited for centuries just to teach me. The way Time took charge of the group that first day, got us all to focus and work together…

“That was my teacher’s voice. The same voice that taught me everything I know and forged me into the hero I am today, who thanked me for easing his regrets and letting him move on, was standing ahead of the group, alive, keeping order.” Twilight’s own voice felt like sword slashes on his throat. He croaked, “Alive.

“Every time he spoke, especially when we spoke in private, I had to focus so hard to stay in that present moment and not imagine myself back in that ether. I could never distance myself from it because it was every time he spoke. I thought about his fate as the Shade every single day.

“It was easier to deal with, in the beginning. Then he started caring about us. And because of that I worried every day that that day was going to be Time’s last.”

Twilight buried his face in his hands. He cried. Tears slipped from his eyes, gathering in his palms, hidden momentarily from Legend and Wind.

“How can I be this upset over something I knew was going to happen?” he asked, his voice small and rough, grated from tears.

“I knew he was going to die from the day I met him! I thought I accepted this! And yet all I’ve been doing all night is crying because right now, right now, the Old Man is somewhere, with so many regrets, withering away into the Shade. Wandering Hyrule in a physical manifestation of those regrets.

“And I can’t deny that truth. Malon’s a mom. Time’s dead. The timeline hasn’t folded over on itself, so everything I know about this Hyrule’s future is still going to happen.

“So why…why show me this? Just to remind me that Time died so unhappy? I knew it was going to happen, and the future hasn’t changed, so why make me see this? I look at this, and all I see is the Shade. See, the problem is that he’s not resting. He’s not in a better place. He’s still here. He taught me his skills and moved on, but in this Hyrule, I don’t exist yet. This Old Hylian on the tombstone? In my era, this language has not been widely used in at least three hundred years, if not more. Time died four years ago, Malon said. No one knows Time’s language, no one knows Time’s accomplishments… no one knows Time himself.”

His breath stuttered. His misery clogged up his throat. The horrible truth, that Twilight kept secret for seven years, that pained him more than the cut of an Iron Knuckle’s axe, was plunged. But it didn’t save Time from his suffering.

“He saved Hyrule,” Twilight said, “and the kingdom itself has forgotten him.”

“No.”

Twilight’s eyes shot to Legend.

“No, that’s bullshit, Twi.”

“Legend,” Wind warned, voice low, eyes soft.

“Listen to me,” Legend ordered. “Listen. My world forsook him. The Goddesses, some higher power, Fi, Demise, I don’t know who — they ripped a child from his home and put the responsibility of a kingdom itself on his tiny ass shoulders. He was nine, and they called him the Hero of Time. He was nine, and underprepared, and Ganon was merciless. And he was nine.”

“Are you trying to make me feel worse?” Twilight growled.

“I told you to listen,” Legend said. “Do you remember when Traveler and I told everyone the story of the Fallen Hero?”

“Yes,” Twilight said.

“Ganon killed him, and he didn’t care that the hero was a child; age doesn’t matter to him. He doesn’t want a fair fight. He hates us. He keeps coming back because he hates us. Us and Zelda. When the kid here—”

“I’m twenty-one years old, Legend,” Wind said.

“We spoke once about Ganon planning his strike when the Hero is young and inexperienced. Just look at the Sailor. The kid was twelve—”

“Oh, come on —”

“—and Wild was twelve too when he got the Master Sword. Four and Hyrule were ten when they set out.

“Time was nine.”

Twilight shook his head, downcast.

“…But,” Legend said, “that’s not what I’m trying to say.

“Time was nine. And dare I say that a nine-year-old had more courage than all of us now as adults? Just think about how scared he must have been. Ganondorf was what…triple his size, the Master Sword was taller than he was, he grew up completely isolated from Hyrule in a forest — and was courageous enough to go up against an evil as great as Ganon. He didn’t have the strength to defeat him. Because he was nine. But that — that brave little kid…”

He sighed.

“…Okay. Look. My Hyrule is not perfect. There are terrible, ruined places, if you know where to look. The tale of the Fallen Hero is a legend that’s endured over the ages, a parable of sorts that warns children of running off alone — naughty children that leave home are found by the Demon King and lose like the Fallen Hero. Even my uncle would say that to me. But I never blamed the hero. It was always Ganon.

“I don’t blame the Old Man. In fact I am very thankful for him. Even if he didn’t win, he bought us time…” Legend chuckled, “…as Time does. I wouldn’t have a Hyrule to save if not for his heroism. So, in that Hyrule, he is not forgotten…”

He declared, “…because I am him.”

Twilight looked up. He tilted his head.

“Time was the Hero before me,” Legend said. “He was that nine-year-old. I’ve known this for… well, seven years, and I guess I’ve never really and truly stopped to realize that truth.”

Yes, no happy ending. The Hero is cut, and burned, and torn apart at the edges and the seams and the soul, and for everything he has given for his kingdom (his home, his happiness, his life), his goddesses and his people and his teammates forget him.

“Maybe I just didn’t want to visualize the man I trusted and cared about as the dead hero from the stories. Even now I”—he choked—“I wish he was alive. I loved him, Twi, I loved him just as I loved the rest of you guys, and it kills me that I have to face his death. Two times over.

“But listen…the Hero died. He died. He had to reincarnate.”

Legend framed his body with his hands, highlighting the reincarnation, ending the show with a flourish.

“Me. I am the Hero of Time reincarnated. I am him.”

Twilight inspected Legend’s claim, eyes searching the figure he showed, looking for the Hero (Twilight looked for Time).

“You know,” Legend said, “we established early on that it wasn’t exactly reincarnation that was happening with the nine of us. The traveler was nothing like the Old Man. I’d have first killed myself before claiming I shared a soul with the Captain. Back then, we all prided ourselves on that fact, that we were different people. Now…

“We are not the same…but yet we also are?” Legend spoke.

“By the second time my hair went pink, and by the way, thanks for that, Twi, I started to see myself in different, separate ways in every single one of you. Including Time, of course.

“I wasn’t mad.” Legend’s voice was soft. “When I saw myself in him. I was a little mad when I started to see myself in the Captain, but that’s besides the point — I saw myself in Time, and his experience. Maybe in terms of win-versus-lose, he failed, but I don’t think…

“We promised the Champion over and over that he didn’t fail his kingdom,” he pointed out. “I wish I could tell the Old Man the same. I don’t ever want to place that blame on him. Even in death.

“I wish I could tell him. And I wish I could thank him. I know we bitched about it—well, I bitched—but I love this kingdom. Time loved this kingdom, and I saw myself in that, too. I will always fight for its people. I wouldn’t have that if Time had never challenged Ganon.

“...So I’m proud.”

He held his head high.

“I’m proud to carry the spirit of a nine-year-old ballsy enough to challenge the King of Evil with a sword bigger than he was. I’m proud to be the man that risked his very humanity to the Fierce Deity to save our lives. I am him. I’m proud to be him.” He waited for Twilight to meet his eyes. “I’m proud to be Time.”

“As am I,” Twilight said, defensive. “That’s what makes me so upset. I would not be the hero I am today — Ganondorf would not be dead today if Time was not my teacher. And yet no one knew he existed."

“So how many people have you told about him then?”

Silence.

“Oh, Twilight,” Legend admonished.

“It’s been so busy—”

“I don’t want to hear any excuses,” he argued. “You’ve had seven years to find time to tell his story. Time meant enough to you that you’ll cry in front of his grave but you won’t tell Ilia about him? You’ll stand here and lament to us about his tragic fate and how he’s forgotten and how you couldn’t have saved Hyrule without his Skills but you won’t give him his credit to the role he played in your Resistance?

Silence.

“This will be my ninth adventure, yet I’ve still found time to talk about the Hero before me.”

“Ninth?” Wind pondered. “But our adventure was your seventh.”

Legend looked at him. “Uh-huh.”

It clicked. “No.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re joking."

“I’m not!” Legend bemoaned. “And I’ve been thinkin’ about what Zelda said, I have to go for ten now! I can’t end on nine!”

“You are still so dramatic,” Wind laughed.

He casually offered him his middle finger in response.

“I don’t know,” Twilight whispered. “I don’t know why.”

Legend cocked an eyebrow.

(He always did know when Twilight was full of shit.)

“I’m so stupid,” Twilight said. “I said that I needed Time to knock me down, and I did, but he… on our journey together, he told me he was proud of me. After he died, he told me I was unworthy. He finally saw that I was nothing without his Skills.”

“Oh, sweet Goddesses. Twilight…” Legend sighed. “I believe how much he helped you, and I understand just how important those skills were, but don’t sell yourself short. Goddesses know he”—he nodded to the grave—“wouldn’t want you to."

Twilight pursed his lips. A rebuttal cut short. He shook his head.

“You just said he called you his child,” Legend argued back. “Wait, no, no, no, no, let’s backtrack here. He met you for the first time on our journey together. He immediately took to you, and consider how late into our journey it was the first time he called Hyrule Rulie . We’d been calling him that for months.”

(In a moment after Legend and Hyrule spent the afternoon talking with Time, Legend said, “I never considered how beautiful that doorframe really is.”

Legend got up and started for the door. Hyrule realized what he was doing. No. “No.”

Legend turned around and walked backwards. “It’s lookin’ pretty nice.”

“LEG.”

Legend got there. “Okay here I go.”

“Don’t you—”

Legend side-stepped and vanished.

Hyrule was alone with Time, what he’d been avoiding for seven days. Time’s eyebrow was raised at the Legend-less door before turning it on the anxiety-full Hyrule, but it lowered and furrowed in concern when the eye saw him trembling.

Before Time could say anything, Hyrule blurted, “I am so sorry.”

“Traveler—"

“I am so sorry, I — I never wanted to hurt you like that, and because I hurt you I didn’t have enough magic for my Life Spell to heal you and I—”

“Rulie.”

Rulie shut up.

Time went on to say how grateful he was for Hyrule’s invaluable skill and role in defeating the Deity; Hyrule was not able to rebuke and call Time a dumbass for thanking his companion for trying to kill him, though, because he called Hyrule Rulie. Because he’d never called him Rulie before. Because Rulie was the affectionate nickname his brothers gave him, and Time had never called him that before, and he’d always worried that Time didn’t like him, and Time was sitting up and smiling at him after they tried to kill him and he called him Rulie.)

“It says something, just how quickly he trusted you.”

Legend continued, after a second, “He didn’t play favorites.”

A beat.

“But you were his favorite.”

A beat.

“And you knew it.”

Twilight knew it.

“Uh, excuse me?”

Twilight startled and Legend affronted at Wind’s interruption, they looked up at him.

“He literally said out loud who his favorite was?” Wind pointed at himself.

(“I’d be jealous too if I wasn’t my father figure’s favorite son,” Warriors said sarcastically.

Twilight scoffed. “The Old Man doesn’t have a favorite—”

“No, I do,” Time deadpanned.

The Old Man had a favorite, apparently. The boys went quiet.

“The Sailor,” he said.

The Sailor gasped. “I FUCKING KNEW IT!”)

“Okay, first, fuck you for being so tall,” Legend said. “Second, I’m trying to make a point.”

“Facts don’t care about your point.”

“…Second favorite."

“Thank you.”

“Anyway,” Legend said. “Time knew it was you the entire time he was teaching you.”

“He did,” Twilight breathed, soft like he was only just realizing.

“He knew how strong you’d become. He knew how good of a man you’d become.”

“But my strength is not my own,” Twilight said.

“I don’t think he would’ve ever thought that,” Legend rebuked. “I just told you how much it should mean to you, the rate at which he trusted you and the amount of it he placed. And I know you don’t have memory issues. You remember his Hidden Skills pretty fucking well.”

“Like I could forget.”

“He knew how strong you’d become,” he repeated, “but he wouldn’t have taught you those Skills if you weren’t strong enough to learn them. He saw your courage—”

“That pure determined courage.”

“What?” Legend shook his head. “Anyway, he saw your courage, even at the outset of your journey. You said he found you right before your first temple. Even then, he knew your strength, and he was right to trust you to inherit his Skills; like I said, you remember his Hidden Skills pretty fucking well. You shoulder them with pride.”

Twilight shrugged. “They’re what he left me.”

There was a moment of silence, of which Wind broke when he asked, “Did you ever tell Wild about the Hero’s Shade?”

“No. I didn’t tell anyone. You would’ve been upset, wouldn’t you have, Sailor?”

“Well…yeah,” Wind said.

“See? I couldn’t tell anyone,” Twilight languished. “Wild told me he wanted what the Old Man had. A normal life. How could I tell him that that Old Man ended up a restless spirit, just like his Champions?”

“But—"

“It’s like some curse where he can never be known.” Twilight laughed bitterly. “I wasn’t going to burden anyone else with knowing the Old Man’s tragic fate.”

“I understand why you felt like that,” Wind said softly. “But this…this has been eating at you for seven years. An entire month of our journey was spent in a lesson about the toll of keeping secrets — why wouldn’t you have eased your own regrets and spoken about Time, who meant that much to you?”

Silence.

Wind suddenly understood. “You haven’t spoken about any of us.”

“Not really, no.”

“Why?"

“I don’t know,” Twilight said again.

“Did we not mean anything to you?”

“Y’all meant everything to me,” Twilight fought. “Ever since our journey ended, I’ve been traveling across Hyrule looking for things to connect me to you boys’ pasts. I have stacks of items that remind me of you, like relics from Skyloft; Zelda gave me ancient royal weapons that were forged by Four himself; and Time, I…I looked, but I…

“I could never find his grave,” Twilight whispered, a guilt-ridden secret.

Wind considered Time’s grave below them.

“I looked everywhere,” Twilight said. “Zelda had never even heard of the Hero of Time, and she was the only one who might have known something. Even in death, he—”

“Twilight,” Wind interrupted, decidedly, done with the grave. “What Legend was saying before, about his Hyrule not truly forgetting him — he’s not forgotten in my Hyrule, either, Rancher. It’s not true. He’s regarded as a legendary hero, and children on Outset Island dress in green tunics on their twelfth birthday to honor him. His story has been passed down through hundreds of years—though some stories have been changed over time, such as him starting at twelve and not nine—and he’s the example that parents want their children to follow. His deeds are remembered. And beyond that…I think about him almost every day. Not about the legends. I met him. Sometimes, I’ll be telling Grandma a story from our quest together, and she’ll cut me off and say, ‘you remember that there were seven other people with you, right?’ because I got caught up in telling her about something he and I did, or something he showed me, or something we talked about. I know he meant a lot to you. But he meant a lot to me, too.”

Twilight opened his mouth to speak but Wind wasn’t done.

“Do you know what Ganondorf called me, once? He said I was surely the Hero of Time reborn. I don’t have the Hero’s Spirit—or, at least, the one that the rest of you have—but I am also him.”

Wind glanced at his left hand. He held it to his chest. “I don’t know how to explain it. But I know that I am,” the wielder of the Triforce of Courage said. “And he agreed. He said he was proud to have me as a successor.”

“He told me that, too,” Legend added softly.

(“Damn,” Legend said. “How did you get so good at field medicine?”

“Experience,” Time said, knotting the tourniquet.

“Damn,” Legend said again. “I’d’ve never been able to make this as well or as quickly as you did just now, and I’ve been through at least forty dungeons.” He lifted a brow. “How many dungeons have you been through, by the way?”

Time shrugged. “At least two.”

“Old Man.”

“It was at least two.”

Legend’s face was wry. “Right.”

His eye lifted to catch his expression. “I’ve suffered quite a lot of injuries in my time. I did tell you that my eye wasn’t the worst scar I’ve got.”

“So what is?”

Time didn’t respond to that. He inspected his makeshift tourniquet in what Legend knew, after months of traveling together, was him avoiding the question. Instead he said, “Make a new bet about it. If you don’t have one already.”

“No, that would be a new one. Don’t make me go broke, Old Man, I already have a thousand on you being seventy.”

Time chuckled. “Don’t sell yourself short about this. My experience is just a different kind. I may not have the questing proficiency that you do, but I’ve been fighting for a very long time.”

(Since he was nine years old and through three different timelines.)

(On a lighter note, he hoped that that ‘long time’ meant seventy years. Warriors put like five grand into the betting pool on forty and Legend wants that money.)

“It never ends, does it?” he asked.

“No. But you choose to keep fighting, for the people you love.”

Damn, Legend thought.

Damn the Old Man for always being right.

When he washed up on Koholint, he charged ahead without a thought through monsters to find his sword and a way back to Zelda. He fought for Zelda, but Marin, Marin was…wonderful. He fought through a facsimile of his first adventure for Marin. He’s fighting through a time-rending journey with his brothers for Marin. Even if he’ll never see her again.

“The fighting certainly brings you to unexpected places though,” Time said. “After all, I now have the privilege of calling three of you boys my successor.”

Time finished the tourniquet. Legend thanked him for his help, and started for camp.

“Veteran.”

The Veteran stopped. He turned around.

Time told him, “I am proud that you’re one of them.”)

(Legend had turned away again, without saying thank you, before he could do something stupid like cry.)

“And you? I mean, just the way that he looked at you, Twilight. I may have been his favorite,” Wind said, pointedly, “but every one of us could see just how much he cared about you.”

“It didn’t end that way,” Twilight reminded them sadly.

“Because you were a hick who hardly knew how to swing a sword and he was a child soldier who didn’t want his loved one to fight the same evil he did unprepared like he was, you fucking idiot.”

Legend’s sudden words bit at him. He flinched.

But Twilight still argued, “That doesn’t matter when the world he saved doesn’t know he existed.”

“But I don’t think that’s true,” Wind said. “Legend’s him. I’m him.”

“You have his fucking blood!” Legend yelled at him. “You’re his great-great-great-whatever the fuck grandson!

“The world he saved hasn’t forgotten him as long as you literally exist! He saved all of our worlds, by helping us defeat the Shadow, and guess what, the other six — the other five in Impa’s house all remember him. The other five loved him too. Farore’s sake, the Sailor had the worst case of hero worship I’ve ever seen—”

Wind made a very guttural noise of argument.

Legend scowled. “You’re really gonna deny it now ?”

Wind softened, likely thinking of Time.

“We’re grieving him,” Legend said to Twilight. “We’re grieving him because we loved him.”

Twilight was quiet, thinking.

“I loved him, Twilight,” Legend said. “Don’t think that just because you had an extra-special relationship with him it meant that the others didn’t care. Don’t ever think that.”

“And he loved us too,” Wind added. “He wouldn’t have sacrificed himself to the Mask if he didn’t.”

Legend said, “It’s true. Rancher, do you remember when the Fierce Deity—”

“Yes, I remember.”

Of course he remembered. He’s had nightmares about those three days.

Specifically about the conversation the eight of them had on the second in which they discussed the possibility of needing to kill him.

(“We need to discuss what to do if we need to kill him.”

Voices of complaint, saying, “No!” and “Excuse me?” and “WHAT?” sounded through the campsite. Another, smaller, from the Veteran, said, “Kill?”

Sky just shook his head and got up and left.

“Sky!” Warriors scolded. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m not sitting here and making a plan about how to kill the Old Man, Captain,” he said tightly.

“You think I want to be having this conversation right now?” Warriors bellowed. “Time is my—”

He cut himself off. He huffed and turned his head aside, avoiding the gazes of the boys he was leading.

“If we can’t get that mask off…” Warriors felt his eyes water and blinked away the tears. It was not right to break down when seven others faced a very real threat of death by their eldest’s hands and looked to him as the only other with experience fighting him. It was not the time to cry over a lost brother. “If Time is too powerful for us to hold back on, we have to do what needs to be done to stop the attack. I am heartbroken that this is what it’s come to. But I cannot lose any of the rest of you.”

Twilight was as white as a shade.)

(It didn’t come to kill . It came to burns from a Fire Rod and lashes from a Whip and stab wounds from eight different swords to disarm and debilitate the Fierce Deity, and when Hyrule and Warriors wrested the mask from the supine war god’s face, Time was only but a man suffering from such grievous wounds.)

“Well, this all finally perfectly explains just why you were such a fucking mess after the Fierce Deity fiasco,” Legend said. “It was all you could think about, wasn’t it? His life was in the balance, and you were remembering his fate as the Hero’s Shade.”

(On the third night, Warriors tried to get Twilight to leave the room.

“He didn’t leave me,” Twilight rasped.

“That was one night. And I still worried about him the entire time.”

Twilight guffawed. He asked incredulously, “But not about the dying kid on the bed?”

Warriors smiled, a little careful, a little mischievous. He said, “This is night three for you. You’ve barely slept, Rancher. If your roles were reversed I’d have dragged his sorry ass to a bed yesterday.”

A little lighter, Twilight looked again at the bed, resuming his guard dog role. A dutiful, stubborn guard dog.

Warriors laid a hand on his shoulder. “Get some rest. I’ve got him. If he wakes, you’ll be the first person to know.”)

(On the fourth day, Time woke up. 

Sky gasped.

“Good morning. Er, afternoon.”

Time’s eye found Sky’s.

“We’re at an inn,” Sky said, answering the questions he knew he would’ve asked. “The others are safe. No one is hurt. You were…badly injured, though, so don’t even think about getting up right now, because Twilight will bite your head off if you do.”

Time frowned, brow knitted in what Sky assumed was a broken man’s Face of Disapproval. He croaked, “Hypocrite.”

Sky laughed. Loudly.

The Face moved to him.

“Sorry. I am so sorry. I just didn’t think your first word after waking up would be calling Twilight a hypocrite—”

He laughed again, covering his mouth with his hand.

“I’m sorry.” Sky snorted. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Whew. Anyway. It’s been a couple of days since you were hurt. How are you feeling?”

Time shifted, noticing the empty room. “Where…?”

“Everyone’s having lunch right now. I volunteered to watch over you while they all ate. We were never sure when you were going to wake up, so we always kept something here for you, but…” He grabbed the plate from beside him. “…this is definitely cold by now. Wild will be up here any minute with new food, though.”

Someone knocked on the door. “Sky?” someone asked.

Wild, holding two bowls of soup. “Thanks for holding down the fort here. I made your favorite.”

Sky took a serving of pumpkin soup. He thanked him, to which Wild asked, “How’s he doing?”

To which Wild found him awake. He gasped. “Old Man—hi—how are you—how’s the pain—is there pain? We’ve been watching over you very closely — I made soup. You need to eat.” He carried the soup over. “Oh!” he remembered. “I need to grab Twilight!”

Wild went for the door, realized the soup was still in his hand, ran it back over to the bedside table, then skittered out of the room to grab Twilight.)

(And, even once healed and back in charge, the only thing he ever had to say about the whole endeavor was that he was proud of them.)

“I had a nightmare one night that week. It was my first lesson with the Shade, but with his face, not as a Stalfos. I was already avoiding him, but if I had gone in that damned inn room that day I think I would have completely broken down.”

“You weren’t doing much better otherwise, anyway,” Legend said, a hint of playfulness in his voice.

Twilight exhaled. His grief, his exhaustion — expressed all in one heavy sound. “Veteran,” he said, “you said — you said that you’ve talked about him?”

“I have. Ravio, Gully, Sahasrahla — I’ve told so many people about how I met my predecessor, how he was a good man. Zelda, especially, knows how much he meant to me.”

Wind chimed in, “Tetra, too. Aryll and Grandma know about Time because I won’t shut up about him but Tetra always asks me for stories. She knows everything about the Old Man now.”

Twilight was quiet and thinking again.

Eventually, he seemed to come to a conclusion. He nodded to himself. He said, “I know he meant a lot to you, too, Sailor. I’m sorry — I’m sorry for telling you this. I’m sorry that you know that your hero was so tortured. I’m sorry for upsetting you.”

“Don’t apologize, Twilight. If anything, I’m sorry you’ve had to keep this in for so long,” Wind said.

“I’m not the one who died,” Twilight mentioned.

“No. But you’re the one who’s had to live with the grief.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Legend whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Time’s grave sat quietly on that ground. His three successors, Heroes talked out, stood in a comfortable silence.

“So…” Legend eventually mused, “…the Old Man’s a wolf too, huh?”

Twilight nodded. “The Golden Wolf.”

“You told me once that someone’s form says something about their person. I guess I should’ve figured. You two were more similar than you’d ever thought,” Legend said. His signature snarky smile was grave. “I’d be willing to bet it’s what he’d become if he transformed with your crystal.”

“Probably.” Twilight wiped his eyes. “It’s something I’ve wondered about, myself.”

“By the way, I would be a seagull,” Wind commented. “If I transformed using your crystal. I’ve sorta become one before.”

“What?”

“It’s complicated”—Wind waved a hand around—“and also I think Wild would be a dragon.”

“It’s like three in the fucking morning, I am not getting into a debate about what everyone’s Dark World forms are,” Legend said. “…But I can see Wild being a dragon.”

“Please,” Wind scoffed. “Place your bets now on whether Four would be a mouse or a hummingbird.

Twilight chuckled. Legend noticed his sagged shoulders, his level face, and his eyes and head turned to look at the way back to Impa’s house.

“Are we ready to go?” Legend asked.

“No,” Twilight said. “The Old Man won’t be with us.”

“Not to be cheesy, but again, that’s not true, Twilight,” Legend promised. “He lives on in all three of us.”

Chapter Text

(“That’s Nabooru’s Hand,” Tetra taught Link, lying beside him on the blanket they’d laid upon the wooden planks of the ship mast.

Link had returned from his third journey the previous afternoon. The portal apparated on the ship deck and Tetra definitely did not drop the telescope she was holding and any or all responsibilities to wait for him to walk through — and wait she did, because it was probably close to an hour later that Link finally came back. She greeted him with a normal amount of relief at his safety and gratitude at his return. The other pirates, similarly happy, participated in his hero’s welcome and he accepted it with grace until the adrenaline she supposed ran its course and ran Link to the ground. Tetra caught him before he further bruised his knees, helping him into his cabin and onto his bed, where he promptly passed out. Tetra did no such thing as staying in his room and keeping watch over him as he rested in what might have been the first time in multiple days.

He woke in the morning and Tetra got some breakfast in him before he was out again.

By noon, twenty-four hours after coming back, Link woke back up and was fully cognizant, if still a little drowsy. Sluggishness couldn’t dull his smile, though, when he told her about the eight other Heroes that he traveled and saved Hyrule with, nor the emotion in his throat when he spoke of the bond that forged between them (and so what if Tetra’s heart swelled when he admitted how much he missed her?). She’d stayed by his side all day (because, fine, she missed him like crazy too); by dusk, when he finally asked for a private moment together, Tetra made a nest of pillows and blankets perfect for stargazing.

“That one is Darunia’s Mettle, and over there Ruto’s Touch,” Tetra said. She pointed to another. “That one is Eponine the Mare.”

“Epona.” Link smiled gently. “Not Eponine. Her name was Epona.”

“They told you about her?”

“I met her! And her descendant was traveling with us the entire time!”

“I don’t know…” Tetra smirked. “…My mom was pretty damn confident when she told me it was Eponine .”

“Your mom was also Princess Zelda. You’re misremembering.”

“Am not.”

“Do you want me to tell you about Epona or not?”

“Tomorrow.” Tetra shoved his shoulder playfully and they both laughed. “I still have dozens of constellations to teach you about.”

“But is it teaching if you’re feeding me wrong information?”

“Shut the fuck up. That one over there is Rauru’s Light.”

Rauru’s Light was, indeed, very bright, though there was another clump of stars that shone brighter than the whole sky.

“But now Saria,” Tetra eventually said, pointing to that clump, “she guides us southeast. You follow her, you find the Forest Haven. She leads you to the safety of her father, the Deku Tree.

“And in the southeastern sky, you can find The Hero,” Tetra said. “The Hero is hidden, most days. You can’t see him until the night of the full moon. Some say that on the day Ganon first broke the seal, it was a new moon, so The Hero was asleep at his furthest from Hyrule. Most of the pirates I grew up with detested this hero, but my mother saw the far side of the moon, a hidden fact, and always said that the hero could not be blamed for Hyrule’s flooding. How was he at fault when he could not see it?”

Wind was quiet.

Tetra rolled over to see him, elbow on the blanket and hand on her cheek.

“You went on an adventure with eight other incarnations of the Hero,” Tetra stated the truth of his journey. “Which one was he? Our Hero?”)

It was a new moon.

Wind lay upon Impa’s roof. 

When the three of them came back, Twilight, dog-tired from the crying and the talking had collapsed and quickly fell asleep beside Wild, and Legend, with vulnerability and bloodshot eyes on display found a corner to think in. Warriors, still awake, gestured for Wind to sit next to him. Wind just stood there.

Wind had said his words. Wind had held back his tears. Wind had braved the turmoil of a gravesite conversation and now the dead man’s brother was looking at him.

Wind had said his words, and he didn’t want to talk about it. Not to mention he was still pissed off at Warriors for neglecting to tell him they’d meet again.

He pulled a Twilight and just left.

He walked through the door; the air was even colder than before; he took what he learned from Wild seven years ago and swiftly scaled the wall of Impa’s home.

And so Wind lay upon Impa’s roof. The hard tiles at his back were reminiscent of a wooden boat from which he once respected the same stars he was currently gazing at. Each constellation he noticed was brighter than usual, Darunia’s Mettle especially so, so close to Death Mountain as they were. Or maybe it was always this bright, in the past.

A noise, barely a breath, grabbed his attention.

He sat up and turned around.

Behind him, a wolf stood, golden in color and large in stature.

Then Wind realized what he was looking at.

“Hylia,” Wind breathed.

(A prayer. A curse.)

The wolf padded along the rooftop tiles. Its paws upon it made not a sound, as silent as a ghost.

Unblinkingly, Wind watched the animal approach.

“Am I the only one who can see you?”

The Golden Wolf circled the spot next to Wind one, two, three times, settling the best bed it could make on concrete tiles and laying on it.

“No, Twilight said he was able to—”

Twilight said the Golden Wolf—Time—Time, the Golden Wolf, who Wind was currently staring at bewilderingly—was a tangible thing that glowed like the light of the Triforce. Twilight said the wolf waited for him for centuries, and created stones as a conduit through which to call for him.

Twilight said the Golden Wolf was a physical manifestation of Time’s regrets — a fact that Wind couldn’t stop thinking about.

Because the Golden Wolf was lying down next to Wind and peacefully watching over Kakariko Village.

“I think about you all the time,” Wind blurted. “I remember the songs you taught me and all of your stupid jokes. I remember the combat pointers you gave me, and I think about you every time I execute them. I even taught Orca, the man who taught me swordplay on Outset, what you taught me, and he said skills like that were so advanced, so exceptional, so difficult that only a master swordsman—like myself—are worthy of them. You made a difference in my life and I wouldn’t be the adult I am today without you.”

The Sailor’s words faded on the wind’s breath.

The wolf did not move on. The wolf’s regrets were not eased.

(Two hundred and ninety-six years did not pass.) (Even if Wind had a means to make them pass, he wouldn’t know how to because he just nodded and smiled the day the Old Man explained how the Ocarina worked.)

Wind breathed. The dead man continued to watch over Kakariko Village.

“You made a difference,” he whispered. Like repeating it might do something. “We — we found new land. It’s gonna take decades to develop, but the King of Red Lions drowned with Old Hyrule to give us a new one, and besides if Sky can settle the entire Surface then I can settle some random island.”

The wolf moved its eye to Wind’s side.

“I have a future. Because of the King. Because of you.”

Because of Time, who was still staring at Wind’s side.

Then the wolf nudged Wind’s left hand.

He sniffled. “Tetra,” he said. He twirled his wedding ring around his finger — a habit he’d picked up five years in advance. “We started dating two years after we all parted. She asked me to marry her two years after that. Now I’ve been her husband for two years. Marriage is…it’s everything you said it was. By the way, I’m the only one of us excluding Sky who’s gotten married since then, can you believe that? I mean, fuck—”

The wolf huffed.

Wind blinked.

Then he laughed. 

He laughed like he laughed when Legend’s hair went pink again and stayed pink. It was just as hard to breathe as the time the group lost it over one of Time’s practical jokes, ones so rarely performed that it blindsided everyone and only Time’s resounding laughter broke the moment open. Wind laughed and laughed and laughed, and he remembered the moment about five minutes after the Heroes defeated the Shadow, when the nine of them, surrounded by dropped monster weapons and covered in blood, released the stress of a final fight in a fit of laughter, and they all laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Anyway, ah…” Wind wiped his eyes. “I was going to say that Wild was so obviously in love with Zelda even though he wouldn’t admit it. But I guess he still struggles with words. I think all of us still do, even after all this time.

“I always knew how I felt about Tetra, and I wasn’t embarrassed so much as confused. I had no problems ever talking to you guys about anything, really, and I always trusted everyone with my life, but I guess when you’re thirteen and you have a crush on your pirate ship’s captain, it feels like a cat’s got your tongue.

“I know we’re young, but… she’s Tetra. How could I not? Is that how you felt? Did you know right away?”

Wind’s hand hovered near the wolf.

The wolf pushed itself up, sat next to Wind. Eyeing the village again like a perfect guard dog. The wolf, who couldn’t tell Wind of his love story. The wolf, formed of regrets so fierce they wouldn’t let the Hero of Time rest.

Wind took Twilight’s grief and choked on it.

“You weren’t forgotten,” Wind promised. He carded his fingers through the wolf’s fur, biting back any further tears at its coarseness and how it felt exactly like the bangs Wind brushed aside to lay a cooling rag on a forehead slick with sweat, overtaken by fever after three days lost within the Fierce Deity Mask. “Th-the Deku Tree thought I was you the first time he saw me. He remembered you, his… his son. I told Orca that the man who taught me those exceptional skills was the Hero of Time, and he said he was honored to know swordplay from the legendary hero himself. Aryll grew up with stories about the Hero of Time too, just like I did, and after our journey ended, she wouldn’t stop asking about you. My sister and grandmother know all about you and Missus Malon and your adventure that you told me about and how much I looked up to you.”

The boy exhaled. “Because I did. Look up to you.”

The wolf looked up at Wind.

The wolf, a one-eyed beast, considered the twenty-one-year-old youngest with a gentle gaze in a stark opposite to the strict glare of his famous Face of Disapproval.

Wind was hardly ever the victim of Time’s Disapproval Face (a perk of being his favorite, probably). Except for that one time when Grandma wrote him that Aryll was ill and Four, fucking Four, thought he couldn’t handle a little blood (or, a lot of blood, really) after a monster fight and put his hands on Wind’s shoulders to steer him away and Wind was tired and worried and stressed and he let out a string of curses so intense that even Legend jumped and he pulled the hands off of his shoulders so hard and fast that he pulled one of its muscles and Four yelped. Time glared at him and growled, “Sailor. Forest. Now.” Sky said later that he’d never seen the Disapproval Face supplied with that much heat before (well, there’s a first time for everything).

(Even though even that was quickly dethroned the day Legend deviated from the others; the Veteran was the first Hero to walk away, dividing the group into ninths, igniting the month of infighting—both verbal and physical fights—in which the Shadow weaponized their secrets.)

(Also the first time Time had raised his voice at any of them.)

“I was the youngest. I’m still the youngest,” he complained. “I would have died before admitting it, back then, because I wanted everyone to take me seriously so I never let them see how much I admired you. But I guess I didn’t do a very good job because fucking Legend saw it.”

Legend, who stayed with him and Twilight in the graveyard to talk about how much Time meant to him, too.

“You didn’t leave any of our Hyrules in ruin,” he told the wolf, remembering the tale  Legend told last night about Time as the Fallen Hero; remembering the first timeline talk he’d shared with Time. “You said that Zelda sent you away after Ganondorf was sealed. No one could have known that the seal would break, and you’re not to blame for his hatred. From how you talked about it, I don’t think going back to your childhood was really your choice, anyway. 

“Legend said last night that even though you weren’t there in either timeline, you still saved both of our Hyrules. Ganondorf could never have broken the seal if the seal wasn’t there in the first place. He could never have taken the Triforce when he broke it because you shattered Courage, and by the way when I reassembled that it felt like the forest and I could never understand why.

“I always said I didn’t give a — I didn’t care about not having the Hero’s Spirit, and I didn’t, for the most part. But sometimes I worried that you guys didn’t think I belonged with you. You, most of all. Not to sound like Twilight here but I always wanted your approval. I was your successor. I was…I was you.”

(He didn’t know how to explain it.)

“Ganondorf called me the Hero of Time reborn, remember? I wanted to make you proud. I wanted to be equal to Twilight, in the way that you saw him as your successor, so truly that you came back for him.

“But I…I wish you didn’t come back for him,” he said miserably. “I wish you were resting in peace. After everything you went through—saving Hyrule. Saving us—you didn’t deserve this hellish half-life! Why — why does it have to…why do the Goddesses—”

The wolf huffed, but it wasn’t a chiding, displeased noise like the one before. The breath of air from the ghost’s lungs sounded sad.

The Golden Wolf tousled Wind’s hair with his snout, like a proud father, and then he moved to touch Wind’s back with his snout, like a pat and Time’s favorite way of showing affection. Tears fell down the Sailor’s cheeks and Time touched Wind’s face with his snout like he was drying them.

Wind’s chest heaved with the weight of his grief. He struggled for breath, wheezing hard and loud, deadening the sound of the wolf’s comfort.

“You should be here,” Wind wailed. “I don’t want to do this without you. You’re our friend, our brother!”

In many ways, the Shadow would have brought about every Hero’s downfall. Left to fester, every hero’s worst traits and worst fears consolidated into one nasty little Lizalfos, forcing every incarnation of the Hero’s Spirit to link, forging a rift within themselves and between each other (not to mention time itself, with the portals).

In many ways, the Old Man was the glue that kept the group together. The Shadow forged a war, but that forge birthed a connection between nine men and boys so strong that that love persevered across millennia — indelibly scarred upon their skin, in reminders of the wounds they’d suffered in fighting together but also the relationship they’d had. The Old Man, with twenty-something years of experience in comparison to Wind’s thirteen or Hyrule’s eighteen years of age , with inner demons once fought and conquered, chose to lead those still fighting theirs (ignoring the fact the Shadow woke up those sleeping demons, of course). They had complained, occasionally, about his nagging, but he kept them focused and alive when they goofed off at the wrong time; they had complained, but their eldest was a good man. 

(A good man whose favorite was Wind.)

(Time was Wind’s favorite too. Not many could say they got the Hero of Time to respect them both as a child and an adult. (Warriors could, but man, fuck that guy.))

(Mask laid dying.

“No.”

Impa’s eyes darkened. “Captain…”

“He’s hurt, and he is a child. I can’t risk letting him wake up alone.”

“This is a dangerous game you’re playing, Captain. Getting this attached to a fellow soldier,” she said. “I know you care for him, but you’re letting that distract you from your duties, on and off the battlefield. You got that nasty cut on your abdomen when taking an attack for him the other day, and if Lana hadn’t been so close you very well may have bled out. That is unacceptable. You are the Hero. You are indispensable.”

The Captain laid a protective hand on Mask’s chest. “But he’s not?”

“It is his job to lay down his life like the rest of us—”

“Job?”

“He’s not the Hero — ”

“Yes he is.”

“He’s not the one destined to defeat Ganondorf—”

“He was. He already did.”

“Captain—”

“If anything he’s a more experienced Hero than I am and should be the one calling the shots.”

“This is irrelevant,” Impa snapped, waving a hand. “I’ll let this slide today, Captain, but remember where you stand and what your failure means for Hyrule.”

Impa walked out. Link and Wind sat there. Mask shivered.

Immediately Link tucked the blankets around Mask in tighter. It was cold out there after all. “Dispensable…” Link scoffed. He said to Wind, “…When you’re sitting right there? Dispensable, well, Mask might not even live through this. A nine-year-old might die, and all she cares about is whether I come to Battle Brief. A child, he’s just a child, he’s dying of infection, and Impa…”

Thinks he’s cannon fodder.

“Warriors,” Wind said softly. “Do you trust me?”

Warriors met the eyes of his brother, and in him Wind hoped he saw a boy who knew him intimately; Wind knew him better than he could have ever thought, because the Sailor knew secrets of the Captain’s that he was roughly six years away from feeling comfortable enough to tell.

Warriors breathed. He said, “Yes, I do.”

“He’s gonna live,” Wind promised. “He’s gonna grow up. And he’s gonna be a great man.”

“How do you know this?” Warriors whispered, brow tight.

“Mask grows up, and he gets married, and he has a kid, and he gets through it all because of how we, us two, helped him. He becomes a great hero. He becomes a great leader. I know this.”

Warriors watched Wind with a look of (Wind knew this too) disguised hope. He said shakily, “You’re not the one with time powers though.”

Wind smirked. “Aren’t I?” )

“I miss you,” Wind whispered.

The Golden Wolf, unable to do more, gently laid his head on Wind’s lap.

Tears fell from Wind’s eyes. “I miss you and I wish you hadn’t been a hero and sacrificed your life for Hyrule. I miss you. And I wish you were at peace.”

Time stayed with him, patiently letting Wind pet him and cry out his grief.

“I loved you, Old Man. I was honored to be your successor.”

Wind was honored to have known and loved the Hero of Time.

Time didn’t move until Wind withdrew his fingers from within the wolf’s wiry fur. He lifted his head, and Wind missed the warmth. Then he softly put his head on top of Wind’s, pulled back, looked him over, and, satisfied, turned away and stood at the roof’s edge and prepared to jump.

Wind gasped. Wait!

“Mask!” Wind yelled for the wolf (his father figure, his little brother, his predecessor).

Mask stopped. He turned his head.

His voice was hoarse and his cheeks were wet. But he cleared his throat, and he wiped his tears, and he said, “I told the Captain during the War of Eras that you were gonna grow up and be a great man. You did. You were one of the greatest men I’ve ever known. But when you were nine, you were such a fucking gremlin.”

The one-eyed wolf found Wind’s two watery eyes and he held eye contact with Time for a meaningful moment. The Sailor smiled, weak and sorrowful yet grateful and courageous, and a wolf cannot emote but the fluffy golden tail wagged once, twice, three times, and the Old Man’s jaw jerked in what he thought might be a smile of his own. Then he leapt from the rooftop. Wind crawled to the edge, hoping to watch him run, but the phantom had vanished before hitting the ground.

Chapter Text

The Hyrule that Legend called home and saved not once, not twice, but three times was not home to Gorons.

He’d known Zora, but never as anything but monsters until he’d slain Ganon the first time—does that really count as slain, then?—and whatever curse laid upon their people lifted and they became actual beings with souls again. Gorons, a race who lived on volcanoes and existed for as long as the kingdom had stood, were wiped from history in the wake of Ganon’s hatred.

Death Mountain was usurped, and in the Dark World equivalent its colonizer built his palace. The only writings he’d been able to find about the Goron race were buried deep and dark within the archives of Hyrule Castle, reeking of the distinct odor only untouched tomes had.

In those, and in Zelda’s education, Legend learned more about a race he’d never known existed before his adventure with the other Heroes.

The morning after his poignant graveyard chat with Twilight and Wind, Legend stood at the gate of Death Mountain, crossing his arms and craning his neck to look at and think about the healthy volcano above him. And about Gorons. And about time. And about Time.

Time. How easily it (he) slips through a person’s grasp.

And public knowledge, apparently.

Twilight cried last night, bitching and moaning about how much Time meant to him and how tragic his fate as the Hero’s Shade was and how nobody knew about the Hero of Time (all that bitching and all that moaning and nothing about change). Just like Legend’s Gorons, their Old Man’s legacy was erased.

Though, Wild knew of three heroes before him. One skyward bound, another adrift in time, and a third steeped in the glowing embers of twilight. He’d found remnants of other heroes, hats and swords and even Wind’s pajama shirt that he once claimed were ‘gifts from the sky’ and never elaborated if he meant Sky himself from beyond the grave or the goddesses above or whatever he mentioned offhand last night — Wild had woken up when they came back and he talked a little about his third adventure and though Legend’s head was too full from Twilight’s own story just hours before to pay much attention, he’d heard dragons and depths and ruins and skies.

Twilight and Wind were uncharacteristically quiet at Wild’s words because of their gravesite visit. So was Legend, to be fair; he hardly got any sleep, and as soon as the sun started to rise, he left to take a walk around Kakariko Village and on that walk he found the gate to Death Mountain and he stopped and he crossed his arms and he thought about Gorons and time and Time.

Anyway…Wild knew about the Hero of Time.

So at the very least Twilight will eventually get his shit together and tell Time’s story.

Just then, a pressure from below him pushed his elbow up.

Legend startled, swiveling around to stare at the surprise guest.

A wolf.

A golden wolf.

A golden wolf with just one eye.

Holy fires of Din. It looked just as Twilight described it.

“Hi,” Legend said.

The Golden Wolf, expressionless like its spirit often was when assessing the danger of a situation or the safety of his boys in its aftermath, assessed the Hero in front of it.

Time was assessing him.

And what the fuck does he say to him?

“Um, hi.”

Time continued to assess him.

Legend has never needed anyone’s approval. He’d been a Hero for fourteen years. He’s done things, unethical things, damaging things, in the interest of surviving and saving lives. He didn’t care if people condemned him because he knew who he was. Zelda is the only one who has ever understood.

Well, Zelda and his brothers, who up until twelve hours ago he’d accepted that he would never see again.

Yet, today, Legend so deeply wanted Time’s approval.

Under the eye—singular—of Twilight’s mentor; Wars’ little brother; Legend’s own weird sort-of father figure that he would have died before acknowledging, he did not feel judged. In fact he felt understood.

The eye moved from Legend’s face to Legend’s pouch.

The wolf shoved its snout forward and nosed at it.

“Hey, what—”

He stood there baffled feeling the force of the wolf’s pushing against his leg. The invasion of privacy was unrelenting until he stepped back, separating the wolf’s nose from the pouch.

The pouch’s front pocket.

The pouch’s front left pocket.

Legend blinked. No fucking way.

The wolf looked at the front left pocket. Then back at Legend.

“You want…me, to—” Legend pointed at the front left pocket. Then back at himself.

The Golden Wolf chuffed.

Oh, that impatient little bastard.

Legend guffawed. “Sheesh. You’d think a ghost would know how to wait it out.”

The wolf’s eye narrowed. Its nose and forehead wrinkled.

“Oh Farore the Face of Disapproval translates through an animal.” Legend threw his hands up, turning away to hide the makings of a smile.

He supposed the Face of Disapproval there made sense. Jokes and pranks had their place and time; Time knew when to let the boys laugh at each other, and seven years on Legend could accept the partial blame for the Face at the Like-Like Incident. He could be strict, even close to nagging at times, and it frustrated him because damn the Goddesses he knew how to be a hero but after about six months he tolerated it (even, somehow, appreciated it) because by then he knew how much Time cared. How gravely he prioritized the lives of the others, so much so that he’d lose himself in the Fierce Deity Mask for three days before losing one of his boys.

Legend turned back to the wolf. “And don’t even give me it, you know I’m going to do it!”

The wolf sat like a dog.

Waiting.

So he did it. Legend reached into the designated pocket. There was no need to riffle through various tools and knickknacks, for this was a dedicated space. His crystal pocket.

Wind had given him a roll of his sailing rope, that Twilight had carefully weaved around a second condensed version of the curse that Zant placed on him (it wasn’t Zant that cursed Legend into his Dark World form for the second time on their journey, but the Shadow himself. The final two months of their adventure got weird). He never used it much, for his Dark World form being a rabbit compared to Twilight’s wolf is forever unfair and what use does a rabbit even have for a Hero fuck the Goddesses, but he does have respect for it, and by extension himself, now. He wouldn’t have any of those things if not for his brothers.

Legend holds the crystal up by the string, thinking of said brothers. Thinking of the man behind the wolf in front of him.

I’m sorry I never told you but you really did help me, a lot, Legend then thought what he could have said just minutes before. Maybe, I hope Twilight’s peace comes for you soon, because you deserve to rest after all you’ve been through. Even just thank you, a damn thank you would’ve sufficed, but the only word he said was hi.

Take sword in hand and find me, Twilight said were the Golden Wolf’s words to him, words Twilight heard and understood in his   Dark World form.

Ah.

“Conversation with a dead man. Weird start to a Hero’s Journey,” Legend mused. “Well, I guess Wild had something similar, and I can’t let him do something I haven’t, hm?”

He swung the crystal into his palm and held it to his chest.

The transformation was never painful for him. The crystal’s dark magic molded his body, shrinking and growing fur, but a jolt like being shaken awake by his companions to fight a monster horde was the extent of any felt discomfort. Twilight said that it took years for him to get used to the feeling of his transformation; Time said, on the seventh of their nine-day convalescent, that donning the Fierce Deity Mask after so long without was a torture unlike any he’d endured, an agonizing wringing of his limbs as the Deity reshaped his body to house a god and a burn in his throat as the Deity stole his voice and an interminable migraine as the Deity, parasite that it was, infested his consciousness with the wish to fight, kill, consume.

There Legend was with a single heart palpitation between Hylian and rabbit.

The Golden Wolf was a large animal, sizably bigger than Wolfie as Twilight did say, and Legend was small for a twenty-something, but at least he stood taller than a wolf.

The rabbit had to crane its neck to see his fellow animal.

Haloed by the gentle morning sun, the Golden Wolf eyed the rabbit, huffing a noise that sounded suspiciously like a hum of approval.

“You know, Old Man…” The rabbit lowered itself to the ground, like a bow. “I never properly thanked you.”

Chapter Text

“No thanks necessary.”

The rabbit jerked back, watching the wolf with wide eyes.

The wolf, a spirit. The wolf that saved his words, for all that time, for Twilight. The wolf, speaking to Legend. The wolf’s voice, their eldest’s voice, Twilight’s teacher’s voice, Time’s voice.

Time’s voice spoke again.

“Meeting and knowing you all was a blessing.”

…

“And you rot for centuries. Hundreds of years.”

The wolf looked away.

“Twilight wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Impa’s house had two chairs. When the dawn of a new day arrived, Four and Wind had gone around Kakariko Village asking villagers to borrow the other needed seven, lugging them all back inside.

Legend, who was already out of the house when early riser Wild woke before sunrise, came back on the heels of Wind and Four and said only, “out” when asked of his six a.m. whereabouts. He was inscrutably quiet as he helped sort through Wild’s ingredients, wearing a weird expression, but no one asked; the others were still asleep and it wasn’t as if Legend could easily explain his wolf-to-rabbit conversation.

Sky had woken just after Wild. Twilight had a ‘long night’, Legend and Wind claimed, so he and Warriors, who was still awake when Legend and Wind and Twilight returned last night, were the ones sleeping in. Hyrule was the last asleep. Even in the face of such changes, they fell easily back into standard procedure as if more than half a decade had not passed since their parting.

There was a kitchen in the corner which Wild had quickly taken to. As breakfast was prepared, the men took stock of their gear, for the portals had come for them at points of thoroughly inconvenient times, and chunks of their arsenals were missing. They discussed planning, and thoughts of their reunion, and Wild asked Hyrule if he would scout with him after eating, and Hyrule said, “YES.”

Wild eventually called for mealtime. Eight men each took one of the gathered chairs. The various conversations paused, as the gazes then fell upon the ninth chair that was sat beside Twilight.

They’d grabbed nine chairs without thinking.

They were a group of eight now.

The chair was empty.

Breakfast was quiet after that.

“Mm!” Sky exclaimed at one point, when the weak conversation attempts came to grief. “Champion, this is delicious. Fluffy, sweet, and strong. I forgot how much I loved your cooking.”

“Oh, same,” Wind said, “but the way you made this is incredible. How is it possible that you’re better than you were at your best?”

“I don’t remember anything you made tasting quite like this,” Hyrule commented. “What did you do differently?”

“My Hyrule rediscovered cheese,” Wild said.

A moment of silence.

Then Four blinked. “What do you mean rediscovered?”

“I mean that no one in Hyrule knew what cheese was until the farmer in Hateno Village found an ancient scroll that detailed the process of aging milk into cheese.”

“You’re telling us that not one dish you cooked on our journey together had any cheese in it.”

“Yeah. I didn’t know what it was until like three years ago.”

“What?” Twilight questioned. “I know I’ve talked about Ordon Goat Cheese to you before.”

“Yeah. But did you ever show it to me?”

“No?”

“Yeah.”

“Mornin’, boys.”

Eight chairs scratched the floor, said boys looking south at the voice.

“Malon!” Wild exclaimed.

Malon stood before them in Impa’s doorway. The boys joined Wild in greeting, and she gave them a warm smile.

The cook gestured to his food on the table. “I—I made cheese omelets. Please have some.”

“Well how can I resist your cooking?” Malon said, approaching the table. She examined Wild’s offerings. “You know, I always had competition in the kitchen from you. Even years after your journey ended my late husband would ask if we could try to recreate a dish of yours.”

Malon’s comment silenced the group again as effectively as her late husband’s Face of Disapproval.

“Complimented my cooking ‘til the end of time, but I could never get it exact.” Malon waited, then sighed, glancing around the table of grieving boys. “I had just wanted to pop in this mornin’ and see how y’all were holdin’ up. I know yesterday was a shock, reunitin’, only for that joy to fade when you learned your Old Man was gone… I only wish I didn’t have to be the one to hurt you with the news.”

“We’re okay,” Four said.

“Sad,” Wild admitted.

“Shocked,” Hyrule added.

“I’m sure,” Malon said. “I’m sorry you boys showed up now, of all times to come back. I’m sorry you don’t have him. But please trust when I say my husband would’ve been over the moon to see you lot again; you all meant just as much to him as I’m sure he did to you.”

Wind said, “We’re glad you’re here.”

Wild asked, “Would you have breakfast with us?”

Malon responded, “Absolutely.”

She took the empty ninth chair, and a serving of cheese omelet.

Malon made breakfast better. She praised Wild’s use of cheese and conversation erupted at the table.

“Golly, Malon,” Wind avowed at one point, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you. You were always so kind to us—letting us in your home—and you’re so honest. Unlike someone.”

Wind snapped his neck to glare at Warriors.

(If looks could kill—)

Warriors reeled. “You smiled at me last night!”

“Boys,” Malon said, sounding for all the world like Time.

Then Sky finally got to show off his wedding ring, and Malon and he talked about married life.

And then Malon had a hand on Warriors’ shoulder to her right. She was whispering, hushed words meant only for the Captain, and the Captain was responding in a voice just as quiet.

They ate breakfast and talked. Twilight pushed omelet around a plate with a fork.

Twilight didn’t hear why Wind was mad at Warriors, or what Warriors was telling Malon, or whatever other number of conversations were happening at this table without Time.

Because he was dead.

It had started.

It’s been four years.

It will be three hundred.

He died upset.

He died unfulfilled.

He died with regrets.

Knowing them wasn’t enough.

Twilight wasn’t enough.

It didn’t matter what Legend and Wind said last night.

They didn’t understand.

He died and wasn’t proud of him.

He died.

In a fog like the Shade’s ether, Twilight lost himself.

“Twilight.”

Twilight jumped.

Malon was standing at the other end of the table.

“Come take a walk with me.”

Twilight blinked.

The Shade’s widow waited.

“Uh…” Twilight said, “...yeah.”

Twilight stumbled out of his seat. Warriors steadied him. He met Malon by the door, who smiled, and as they walked out, Wild announced to the group, “Oh, by the way, another thing that was discovered — I’m lactose intolerant!”

They shut the door on that.

Crates of Lon Lon Milk were stacked outside, perfectly preserved in glass bottles as was the ranch’s invention.

Malon lifted one. “Still got some of that farmer’s strength?”

Twilight nodded, smile wan. “Only gotten stronger.”

“Well, you wouldn’t mind helping me with the milk deliveries, then,” she tested, smirking, as if just yesterday morning Twilight wouldn’t have given up absolutely everything to be right here with Malon.

Twilight lifted one too. They set off on a very important adventure around Kakariko Village to hand off milk door-to-door.

“How did you sleep last night?” she asked as they walked.

He bit his tongue.

It is a Hero’s instinct to deflect pain. It’s what keeps him alive in the face of death; the gaping wound in his chest cannot distract him from the monster horde lest he be killed and fail his journey, his kingdom, his princess. The chronic pain and the chronic nightmares and the chronic paranoia that arise from defeating his ultimate enemy cannot display for anyone to see — his job is to protect, and he is protecting his loved ones by ignoring his issues and keeping them ignorant to how he has suffered and how he is suffering.

It does not help him. It does not help those he loves.

But in the face of Malon, who had nearly thirty years experience breaking down a Hero’s walls and beating some sense into his dumbass brain, Twilight knew it was no place for lies.

He sighed. “I didn’t get much.”

“I figured. I had a feeling Link’s death would hit you hardest.”

(Because every one of them could see just how much Time cared about him.)

“It was quite a shock,” he said. “He was my favorite, I guess you could say, even if I wasn’t his.”

“Well hold on now—”

“No, at one point he did admit that Wind was his favorite.”

Malon hummed. “He did love the Sailor,” she admitted.

In all honesty, Twilight wasn’t upset about that. Every one of them had been fond of Wind.

“I was in the graveyard for a while last night, with the sailor and the vet. We’re all…all three of us are his successors,” Twilight told her.

Malon smiled and responded, “And he was damn proud about it too.”

He had to bite his tongue again, to stop any tears from coming.

“We talked about him for a while,” he said.

(There was no way on Ordona’s fertile fields he was telling Time’s wife about his fate as the Hero’s Shade.)

“He meant something different to all three of us — all eight of us, really. Time was…very important to me. He helped me more than he ever knew.” He swallowed. “I was up late, because I just couldn’t sleep thinking about how he was gone.”

“I understand.”

“Oh, spirits.” Twilight’s stomach dropped. “Of course, I—I’m so stupid—”

“Link, honey, dear, it’s okay. Don’t say that.”

They made a delivery. They kept moving.

“I understand your grief,” Malon clarified. “I know how much he meant to you, and like I said at Impa’s house, I’m so sorry you can’t reunite with him too.”

Twilight said, “Well, like the Sailor said, I’m very grateful you’re here with me.”

“I’ve always been with you,” she said simply. She handed milk bottles to a thankful customer, and Twilight trailed behind her.

“So…how are you?” he asked.

“Well, today I’m mighty fine. I had a damn delicious omelet for breakfast and now I get to run my errands with my descendant.”

They made another delivery. Malon stopped before moving along.

“But that’s not what you’re askin’.”

She gave a sad smile.

“I’m okay, Link. I promise. I have a ranch, and a family, and I’ve found a way to be happy. I miss him every day, of course I do, but I’m okay.

“And you, Link?” she asked. “How are you?”

“There’s been a lot goin’ on,” he said. “I haven’t been home lately.”

“No?”

“A lot of traveling. If you don’t include my journey with the others, I actually recently left Hyrule for the first time.” He wasn’t even in it when the portal came for him yesterday. “I’d never even been out of Ordon before I became the Hero. It’s a weird feeling not being home.”

Weird. But weirder to be home with people who just don’t know him anymore.

“Have you been traveling alone?” Malon asked, concerned.

“No. I’ve got Epona with me.”

That got her to give him a big smile. “Then I know that you were safe.”

Safe. But not happy.

Malon continued, “How’s she doing with all that traveling?”

“Good. I think she likes the exercise and all the new environments. How’s your Epona?”

She said, after a pause, “Epona died not long after Link did. She was an old old girl, but her health declined very quickly when Link died. Unsurprisingly. It didn’t hurt so bad, though, because I knew they were together, somewhere.”

(There was absolutely no way on Ordona’s fertile fields he was telling Time’s wife about his fate as the Hero’s Shade.)

“I’m so sorry,” Twilight said.

Malon waved a dismissive hand. “I still have her offspring, and those little troublemakers give me so much grief — I can only imagine how much mischief your beloved mare causes after so many generations.”

Twilight chuckled. “I would never tattle on my good girl.”

“Yeah, you’re just like him, aren’t you?” Her eyes narrowed playfully. “Laugh and all. Well at least you didn’t die and leave me a whole ass ranch to take care of by myself.”

“The ranch…” he said thoughtfully. “Is — is the ranch doing okay?”

Malon exhaled. “The ranch is fine.”

Twilight exhaled.

Malon exhaled. Again. “It’s still standing. Link died, but the ranch didn’t go anywhere. I was grieving but still had to plow the fields every day. The cows and Cuccos still needed feedin’. My father, the lazy man, stepped up again when I needed him after I had my daughter.”

Daughter.

“Daughter,” Twilight echoed.

“Daughter,” Malon confirmed.

Daughter. Time had a girl.

And he didn’t want to know, but he asked anyway, “How old is she?”

Malon smiled. “Aria is three years old. She’s an adventurous little one, just like her papa.”

“Wait…” he said. “In the graveyard, you said he died four years ago.”

“That’s right.”

Oh.

Time never met his child.

Of course. Of course!

The hero is cut and burned and torn apart at the edges and the seams and the soul and still he and for everything he has given for his kingdom (his home his happiness his life) his goddesses and his people and his teammates forget him.

(“I could not convey the lessons of that life to those who came after.”)

(Or, he died before his daughter was born.)

“I was very angry, in the beginning,” Malon said softly. “At the kingdom. At him.

“Maybe it wasn’t fair to be mad at him, but I loved him so fuckin’ much—”

Twilight recoiled at the swear word (Time never cursed…except for the final night of their adventure when the Shadow had eight of their necks on his metaphorical knife and though he was losing consciousness he very clearly heard his ancestor call the enemy a motherfucker before all hell broke loose).

“—and I didn’t want to live in a world without him. How could he?” Malon asked rhetorically. “I told him I was pregnant only a month beforehand. How could he leave me when he knew I needed him? He said he loved me then went and got himself killed.

“But…people would have died if he didn’t go. I knew that. I knew he had to go.”

She gave a rueful smile. “It just took a while for that anger to fade.”

Twilight didn’t know what to say. This was so much. So he didn’t say anything.

“You know, he told me once that you boys said, jokingly, probably, that you thought he was invincible. Full plate, and all that. He was powerful, and you boys knew it, he knew it, I knew it,” she said. “It stands to wonder just how someone like that was defeated. When and why and for how long did the great Hero of Hyrule stand vulnerable enough to suffer the wound that killed him? Well, I think…that knowing there was more than the kingdom’s safety on the line, that his coming child’s future was threatened, distracted him. Suddenly there was more to protect than just his family.

“But I will never know,” Malon said quietly. “There’s a part of me that always knew this was going to happen. Maybe not at the absolute worst time possible, being three months pregnant and all, but I knew he would die in battle.”

Twilight swallowed. It still pained him. “You said…you said it was the forest, that took him.”

“Yes. The Lost Woods.”

Of course he never met his child, of course it was the Lost Woods. Saria’s Song, a very special song which connected him to his childhood friend that he played for them one night, was the song that whistled on the fickle breeze as Twilight followed a Skull Kid through the Sacred Grove.

Before he met Time, Twilight spent days of his life looking for an answer as to who his mysterious teacher was. When he knew who his teacher was, he gave even more days in trying to find records of his existence. Twilight ached for answers no matter the time and beside him stood a wellspring of information; no person in the world knew Time better than his wife. His wife would know what killed him.

But, within them, the people that meant the most to each Hero (Marin, Ilia, Malon) resonated deeply. The idea of upsetting Malon further made Twilight feel crushingly ill. And though Twilight’s morbid curiosities wished to know what could kill the Hero of Time, his skilled teacher and a proficient hero, the knowledge of what killed Link, Time, a man who meant more to him than the words teacher or hero could ever pass on, would haunt him like a shade. No matter the time spent by Time’s grave, it would never heal the blow of knowing it. He couldn’t ask.

Twilight coughed. He choked. He cried.

Malon gathered her descendant in her arms. He tried to breathe. He tried to stop the tears, but Time was dead. His teacher was dead. His ancestor, who by all laws and truths of their universe he should have never met—never knew existed—died lost in the woods, and transformed into a Stalfos, and lived in a purgatory for hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of years.

Time was dead.

And his wife was rubbing circles on his back as he cried.

“I’m sorry I’m so upset,” he said, voice wobbly. “You lost your husband and I’m here sobbin’ because someone I only knew for a year is gone. I’m sorry, I—I shouldn’t be—”

Malon was unimpressed. “Link, I’ve had four years to grieve my loss. You’ve had fifteen hours.”

Twilight blinked. She coaxed a weak laugh out of him. “Fair enough.”

She pulled away, and he was sure he’d feel the chill of her absence if his body hadn’t heated up so much from all of the crying.

She tenderly brushed some tears away. “Please don’t upset yourself. You meant so much to him.”

“I…I did?”

“You were all our boys, of course, but… you were Twilight.” Malon held his chin in between two delicate fingers. “You were his pup.”

Twilight gasped, breath shaky and wet.

“He talked about me?” he asked.

“Oh, all the time. He constantly talked about making things right for you. About letting you know you weren’t alone when the time came for your journey.”

He stopped walking.

“I wasn’t,” he said.

Malon turned around.

He said, “I wasn’t alone.”

(Ordona’s fertile fields and all that, but suddenly, nothing is more important in the world than Malon knowing this.)

“When I needed him, he found me. When I called for him, he answered. I wasn’t alone.”

When he knows many of the others had no companion, he feels hot with guilt and sick with sympathy. It wasn’t fair that Hyrule was running for his life without a friend or that Legend was bouncing from one adventure to the next hearing goodbye after goodbye — yet still, Twilight was never alone. He had someone in his corner in every corner of Hyrule. Humans, Hylians, Twili, Yeti, even a Hero of Hyrule from beyond the grave rallied their support for the Hero. There was no place he could go without feeling safe.

(Yet he leaves Ordon time and again, methodically running when it feels too much like home.)

(Just like his ancestor.)

(That he’s never spoken of.)

“No,” Malon said. “No, I knew he would never let that happen.”

Twilight stood still, lost in thought.

“…Was he happy?”

Malon sighed. Long. Slow.

A stupid question. Twilight was not immune to the dumbassery of the Hero Brain.

He choked. But Malon got to him before he could cry.

“Oh, my boy,” she soothed him. “I knew who I married. He claimed he was retired, and I have never doubted what our family meant to him, but I knew that he would always fight for Hyrule. He was the Hero. That doesn’t change. Besides, he gave me my daughter… he gave me you.”

Malon sighed again, but more quickly and thoughtful. “Link wasn’t…unhappy. I’ll never forget the joy on his face when I told him I was pregnant. I’m sure you know all too well the grief that goes hand-in-hand with a Hero’s Journey, and the strength it takes to move on. My husband was no exception to that. He fought to recover, fought to love life on the ranch with me. He fought very similar demons to the ones the rest of you contend with. You even saw him fight a literal one of his on your journey together.”

“So you know,” Twilight said and then immediately felt stupid for thinking she wouldn’t (hero dumbassery at work).

“You boys left a burn scar to rival the Champion’s, of course I knew — and don’t you apologize about that.” She lifted a finger to correctly stop the forthcoming words. “I told you in the graveyard that he died a hero. He saved lives. That couldn’t have happened if you hadn’t done what you did.”

“But—”

“What did I tell you.”

“I still wish he never put it on in the first place, or that I had stopped him. I never wanted to hurt him,” he whimpered.

“Shhh,” Malon said. “We know you didn’t. We never blamed you, Link. We never blamed any of you.”

“But—”

“Link.”

He looked down. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That week… I’ve had a lot of rough weeks in my life. That one was one of the worst.”

“As was for him. He never wanted to put it on again. I never wanted to see it again, even just the aftermath — another thing I got mad at him about.” She rolled her eyes. “Yet, another thing he would always do. It was always about protecting you all.”

“I wish he would’ve protected himself too.”

“That’s exactly what I got mad at him for!” Malon agreed passionately. “All that protection in his armor and yet he constantly exposes his weak spot. And you’d be pissed, too, if you only knew how hard that weak spot was to find back in the day.”

She huffed, but then asked, “Did he ever end up telling you…about his eye, and the markings?”

“Yes. After that week, I…” (Ordona’s fertile fields.) “…He could tell how upset I was by all of it. One day he cornered me and told me the story of what happened to him. So I told him about the markings of my own. I think I may have been the only one who knew about his.”

Malon shook her head. “The Captain knew, but I’m assuming you know their history.”

He did, but he had kind of hoped that—

“The Traveler, as well,” she added. “And the Champion. And the Veteran—”

“Oh — well…”

Malon laughed.

Malon didn’t raise Twilight, but her sweet, melodic, motherly laugh warmed him, like a mother’s touch on a bitter wound (she may as well have been his).

“If it makes you feel any better, you were the first one he told.”

He sniffled. “It does, actually.”

She snorted.

Twilight may have lost Time, but he is so grateful he found Malon again.

She said, “By the end, Link trusted all of you with his life and his secrets.”

(As did Twilight. So much so that eventually everyone knew about Midna, and how she irrevocably shattered the link between worlds — and his heart.)

“Oh, the rest of you… He was so sad to see you all go, and he fought to have those memories as good ones.” She smiled, wistfully. “He couldn’t stop thinking of you boys.”

“Really?”

Malon scoffed. “You boys were all he talked about for months!

“On the day he came home, of course he asked of me, told me to tell him everything I never wrote in my letters. As for him, I didn’t ask anything of his journey; any time he left the ranch on a mission, he came back and couldn’t speak about it at first, but he had twenty years of progress under his belt and would eventually talk. I never worried there. I knew he’d tell me about your journey in a few days when the residual pain and adrenaline wore off. He always did. Normally. Immediately he launched into an explanation of the final fight. And the Master Sword. And the Veteran’s hair. He had all sorts of stories about your time together, and Goddesses forbid if he waited another day to tell them. Months, Link, for months all he thought about were you boys. Wishing he could do something now to help in the future. Wanting to do what he could to remember you. He sketched out what y’all looked like and looked at them, all the time. His weapons had never been in better shape and he finally found a use for all that spare firewood. Bless him, he really did try to recreate the Champion’s meals. Miserable in the kitchen, that man, but oh he tried. And you, well, I already told you that he wouldn’t shut the fuck up about you.”

(Still weird.)

“I…” What does one say after being touched so deeply? “I couldn’t stop thinking about everyone either. Him especially.” And how does one tell his widow of just how deeply he touched Twilight’s soul? “Him thinking about me…means more to me than you’ll ever know.” One must imagine the Hero’s Shade happy.

“I know,” she said. She patted his cheek. “Let’s finish these deliveries before the milk figures out how to go bad, hm?”

And so they finished the deliveries. Malon told him about Kakariko Village, and Twilight told her about the Kakariko Village of his own. She was captivated by stories of her kingdom’s future, delighted by the tight-knit village her humble ranch would in time transform into. She asked him to tell her about Ordon, more so than he had time to talk about it the first time they met, and his heart ached for Rusl and Uli and Colin and especially Ilia. He was…

“You boys have another adventure to go on, don’t you?” Malon asked later as they put the empty milk crates back in her carriage.

He grimaced. “Probably.”

“That can wait a couple days,” Malon swiftly and insistently decided. “I’m dragging you lot down to the ranch tomorrow. Don’t think you can visit ‘my Hyrule’, as you kids would call it, without a trip to Lon Lon Ranch.”

“I—Malon, I would love that, but I—if this is an adventure, and there’s another enemy—”

“Oh, none of those excuses, don’t be like him.” Malon waved a hand. “Lon Lon hasn’t had a single threat since you boys’ journey ended. Link worked very hard to make sure of that. Plus I think a group of eight heroes with even more experience than last time can defend a ranch if need be.” She looked for, and found, Twilight’s eyes. “Besides, I want so badly for you to meet Aria.”

“M—me?”

“Well, of course the other boys, too, but I’ll find a way to get her a moment alone with you.”

Twilight was hesitant.

“She’s your ancestor too, is she not?”

“I suppose she is.”

Malon studied him. “Would you rather not have that time alone with her?” she asked.

“No!” Twilight exclaimed. “No, I mean — I want to, I want to meet her, of course I want—”

“Link,” she shushed him. “It’s okay. You’ve had a stressful night.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t — I don’t know…”

“I know,” she said. “You’re scared.”

Twilight opened his mouth. To deny, to protect. Twilight closed his mouth.

She said, “It’s not shameful, dear. I told you how happy Link was when I said I was pregnant, and he was, but he was scared, too.

“He was scared about being a good father. He was scared for me, and my safety, and the baby’s safety, and the ranch’s safety… even though like I said the ranch had been safe for years.” Malon fondly rolled her eyes. “Despite all the courage you heroes carry, I can tell you’re nervous about the idea of meeting her. She’s his daughter, and he was the unofficial leader—he was scared about that, too, by the way. He was a good decision maker, but when it came to calling the shots for the group of boys he cared for so deeply? Terrified—anyway, you’re scared because she’s his, and you had a special relationship with him, and now he’s gone. Maybe you’re scared because Aria is an extension of him, and she’ll be a beautiful little reminder of what you lost. Maybe you’re scared because you’re related to him — you’re related to Aria, and you’ve always been insecure, and suddenly the only thing that matters in life is whether the three-year-old in front of you likes you or not.”

Silence.

Malon read him like a—and he doesn’t say this lightly—fucking book.

“You truly know how the Hero thinks, huh?” Twilight said.

“Well, someone has to.”

Twilight laughed again, stronger this time.

She angled her head, eyeing him carefully. Looking over him for the wounds he hides. Reading his eyes for the unspoken words he can’t verbalize.

“I see him in you,” she told him.

Twilight rubbed the back of his neck.

And that made Malon smile. She said, “I see a little of him in all of you. And I don’t think it’s the Hero’s Spirit. The sailor doesn’t have it, does he?” At Twilight’s head shake, she continued, “No, it’s not that, because I see him in the sailor too. I see him in your veteran, and in your traveler — those two are more like him than they know. And I know.

“I know about that,” she said. “His death there.”

The night that discovery was made was the first time he saw Time truly shaken; not even the grueling aftermath of the Fierce Deity Mask usage affected him as deeply as the night he learned that, in one reality, Ganondorf murdered him and laid ruin to the kingdom he was supposed to save. Legend and Hyrule tried to talk to him, because this was after the group reformed from their secession and were shamelessly sharing their secrets, verbalizing their promises that it was not his fault nor would they ever blame him, but still that night was one of the few times Twilight saw the weight of regrets on Time’s shoulders that would one day wither him down to the Hero’s Shade.

(Another night Twilight got no sleep. Time found out he died and condemned two children to a life as the Hero, and Twilight couldn’t sleep because Time’s consternated face spurred him into a Hero’s Shade Spiral. If those served anything, they were at least a failsafe to stay awake during watch.)

“He wished it could have ended differently.” (No—) “He regretted every day that, unintentional or not, he made things harder for some of you.” (NO—) “He said he would’ve done anything if only to fix his mistake.” (NO NO NO—)

(Why?—)

“It wasn’t his fault.”

“I know that. You boys know that, and I know you tried to tell him that. But the thing is, and I know this because as you pointed out I know how this Hero’s Spirit thing works, the Hero will always self-sacrifice. I know you do it, when you haven’t been home in how long.” (No, he was…) “The Hero will always help others before he helps himself — will run himself dry to do it, if he can’t. He failed, and his failure caused two of you to suffer, and he tore himself apart in guilt.”

Twilight’s voice was brittle, from blow after blow. “He died with regrets.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I think it was inevitable for someone like him.”

Fuck, Twilight thought and had to bite his tongue from saying it out loud and bow his head so she didn’t see the tear falling down his face.

Malon wasn’t finished. “Someone who cared for y’all as deeply as he did.”

Oh, Twilight thought.

“You boys are all so different,” she began. “In his first few letters home, after your journey together began, he wrote a lot about your differences. He said he was nervous about how the nine of you were expected to work together when everyone came from such different backgrounds.

“I got to know y’all as he did, through his letters. I read along about ‘the boys’. Read when he learned that Four could split, that Hyrule could turn into a fairy, that Twilight was Wolfie. Read when you two discovered that you were related. Soon enough, in his letters, he wasn’t writing about the boys anymore. He was writing ‘my boys’. Those differences he was once afraid would tear the group apart made you stronger, let you learn from each other and how to work together seamlessly.

“It bothered him, you boys thinking he was invulnerable. He claimed it was because that meant you boys might abandon a comrade thinking they can’t get hurt. But his own power was another thing that scared him, and so was losing one of his boys because he wasn’t the impenetrable leader y’all thought he was.”

“I never thought that,” Twilight meekly provided (how could he?).

“When that power of his incapacitated him for nine days, he wrote to me about how his boys nursed him back to health. He told me how lucky he was to have every single one of them. How courageous they were to fight the Fierce Deity.”

Twilight took a shaky, deep breath. “You should — should tell the others that, too. I think Wil—Wild would really appreciate you talking to him.”

“I’ll make my rounds, don’t you worry,” Malon said. “Those letters gave me so many questions that need answerin’.”

“Like why he eats cheese omelets when he’s apparently lactose intolerant.”

Malon’s laughter rang in his ears. “That boy…” she said, “…well, I guess he isn’t much of a boy anymore if seven years have passed. It makes sense, but it’s still wild to me how much more mature all of you look, and I wish Link was here to see that too. Goddesses, I wish he could see you. He would’ve been so fucking proud of you.”

Twilight watched her. Speechless.

Malon watched him too.

“He loved you,” Malon told him.

(—Because he loved them.)

“And, Link, I love you, too. That husband of mine played games with me, the first time you came to the ranch, made me question which one of you boys was our descendant.” She paused. “But I knew. I saw you, and I knew. You have his eyes.”

Twilight thought of Legend in the graveyard last night, framing the body he promised was Time reborn. He saw Time then — not in Legend’s still-thin frame but in his bright, stalwart, courageous blue eyes. His eyes carried Time’s soul, always had, and now Twilight brought to mind their past adventure as he thumbed through memories of Legend’s face. Baby’s First Face of Disapproval, Twilight realized Legend’s famous scowl was. And a face molded Wind, with his rounded cheeks and wide, youthful, stormy gray eyes into the Hero of Winds that Wind molded himself. He promised that he was Time, too. Twilight saw it. In his sense of humor. In his love for his family. And in those distinctive eyes of his was the glint of truth. They were not their predecessor but yet they also were, to use Legend’s words. Twilight, well. Again to quote the Veteran, he had Time’s fucking blood.

Malon held her descendant’s face, gently sandwiched in her hands.

“Just as you were his, you are mine. And though our time together is fleeting, though this may be the last time I ever see you, I have never left you.”

Twilight was shaking.

“Time has never left you.”

Twilight was crying.

Twilight was sobbing.

Twilight held on to Malon, crying, crying, crying, drowning in his sorrow, and Malon held on too.

Chapter Text

“Where are the fuckin’…”

Wild’s third adventure was no help in clearing out his pack. After retrieving his dropped bag beneath Hyrule Castle, he’d long since breached a stock of one thousand apples (with about two hundred golden ones to boot); Zelda had begged him for months to discard his duplicate armor sets but he’d refused in defense of their differing defense statistics and benefits; and damnit he needed that specialized pocket of nothing but bundles upon bundles of Brightbloom Seeds!

He scrounged and pushed things aside (his pack was big but unlike the others’, it was not bottomless, and if he wasn’t bitter about that). (Maybe he was seeing Zelda’s point. It was getting a bit bad.)

“Ha!”

Victorious, he held the bottle of mixed Silent Princess and Sundelion seeds skyward. 

The sun glinted against the glass bottle, reflecting a painful ray of light into his eyes, and Wild winced and turned away and landed his gaze upon Time’s grave.

Wild sighed. He held the bottle close, elation forgotten in the face of their eldest’s tombstone.

After the assault of compliments for his cheese-based breakfast and watching the others dress in familiar tunics, Sky announced that he was going to the graveyard to pay his respects, and say goodbye. He took his time and when he returned, Four followed in his footsteps and had his turn, and a little while later Wind, once boundlessly energetic, walked funereally through the arch for his own. Wind forced Legend through after that.

And then it was Wild’s turn.

Wild was familiar with standing and grieving by tombstones. When Zelda was freed (the first time) and after Wild’s adventure (the second one), she took upon herself a project very important to her, in memorializing the people lost one hundred years prior. She laid monuments in places of mass casualties (garrisons, Hyrule Castle Town, Fort Hateno). The guilt of what came to pass (and what didn’t) was eating her alive, and though she took peace in knowing that the souls lost in the Calamity were remembered, it took both of them a number of years to take to heart the truth of their innocence.

(Wild’s brothers helped.)

But then he and Zelda were called to fight against evil again, and gloom burned all the nerve endings in his sword arm, and he met that Ganondorf person some of the others had talked about.

He didn’t want to think about Ganondorf—not because it frightened him or brought up bad memories—because, frankly, it just gave him a headache trying to reason out how the man he fought and the man Twilight and Time and Wind and Warriors fought were the same person. Rauru and Sonia were the first king and queen of Hyrule, and Ganondorf had been there and been sealed. In the Era of the Hero of Time, Princess Zelda—not the daughter of Rauru and Sonia—carried the blood of Sky’s wife, her divine birthright, into an age maybe a thousand years after the Surface was settled; Ganondorf was a man from the Desert corrupt with greed, and to any of the other eight Heroes’ knowledge that was the first time he existed in Hyrule’s history. He laid ruin to it. After Time defeated him, Princess Zelda sent him back to relive his childhood and prevent him from destroying Hyrule in the first place, of which he did — for three hundred years, until Ganondorf was powerful enough to escape the Twilight Realm where he was banished to and challenge Twilight to a losing battle.

Impa had told him the story of the Calamity of ten thousand years before him. When Wild had told the boys the same story, they all took it to mean that Wild existed ten thousand years ahead of whichever Hero preceded him, so far into the future it was a wonder the stories of Sky and Time and Twilight remained largely intact.

During one of their many “timeline talks”, they agreed that Twilight must have been Wild’s predecessor from the tapestry. Twilight was last in line of the three Heroes he knew; Twilight showed up as Wolfie. Wild happily accepted that. It made sense.

Until Zelda vanished. And harnessed her power (not her Goddess powers, the ones she inherited from Sky’s wife) to help defeat Ganondorf (not Time’s Ganondorf, who wouldn’t exist for about a thousand years post-founding); Ganondorf, the Demon King — Ganondorf, the Calamity. And swallowed a stone to become a dragon to get the healed Master Sword to Wild in the future (ten thousand years in the future).

Calamity was a term unfamiliar to the other eight. In the beginning of their partnership, it made Wild feel isolated, disconnected from the other Heroes that also vanquished a great evil. The way he fought monsters and went about his journey was completely different. 

Then time passed, and their bond deepened, and he thought of them as brothers.

Wild cried, when they slew the Shadow and said their goodbyes. He was going home to a time ten thousand years separate from them all, and though Zelda was waiting for him, he couldn’t stomach the thought of returning to a Hyrule without them.

It wasn’t long before he realized his brothers were everywhere. Three of the four Divine Beasts (the Four Giants) were named for Time’s sages, and one for one of Wind’s. The Bridge of Hylia that was Twilight’s favorite spot to ride with Epona was the same bridge on which Wild fought a three-headed dragon that Hyrule had fought, funnily enough, three times. Koroks were once Sky’s Kikwis. Four’s Minish left Wild treasures in the grass. Legend met hundreds of people on his six journeys and hundreds of places Wild traveled carried the names of those people. Warriors may not have any locations named after people native to his era, but as Wild recalled more and more of his past, he knew then that the ways his Captain taught his squires was derived from the Chain’s Captain’s leadership — Wild may have bested accomplished soldiers by the age of four, but he still learned some things from his time in knighthood training, and as such it means he learned those things from Warriors.

All that evidence of the kingdom remembering the Heroes before him, and yet still no answers of how Time fought Ganondorf when Ganondorf was mummified beneath the castle.

It was a paradox — a fucking headache, really.

He didn’t want to think about it.

Even when with the others, even when Wild knew not of a man named Ganondorf, the existence of their timeline drove them crazy trying to write it. It only made sense with a concept the boys once affectionately referred to as Time Travel Fuckery.

No wonder Time never went into detail about it.

Time, who was dead. Time, who was buried in the dirt beneath Wild’s feet.

Twilight never told him the truth, but Wild spent enough time around him to see the grief in his eyes when he looked at a living man (a ghost. He looked at Time like he was already a ghost. Wild would know. Wild had his own). Twilight knew Time in some way other than just as his ancestor.

Wild felt a twinge of that disgustingly familiar soul-eating pain, the one that steals his voice, climb up his throat. Time didn’t get to experience the blissful craziness of their reunion. Time couldn’t react to Wind’s height, or Four’s hair, or Wild’s arm. Time would never be able to taste one of Wild’s cheesy buns or hear the batshit story of his third adventure that he was planning to regale the group with that night.

But that batshit third adventure of his, after all the breakdowns on the Light Dragon’s back, taught him to move on.

His ghosts, Rhoam and Mipha and Revali and Urbosa and Daruk and Rauru and Mineru, all found peace. So he could too.

He chopped all of his hair off. He let memories rest.

He took a deep breath.

Then he kneeled, and began digging holes. He scooped up the dirt and it got beneath his fingernails, but it was hardly the first time he’d done this; nor was a little soil the worst thing he’d ever had to wash out of them. He had hundreds of seeds, so he’d dig hundreds of holes.

Wild planted a mix of Silent Princess and Sundelion seeds around the grave with care.

They were seeds from flowers that Zelda’s beautiful, scientific brain bred to thrive in the wild. They would grow on their eldest’s burial site easily. Time may be everywhere in the Hyrule Wild calls home but Wild can be with him where he rests.

He flattened the ground where the seeds laid in wait (a secret to everybody).

Wild rose from his knees, cleaning his hands of the dirt from planting on his trousers, and let his eyes linger on the tombstone one final time.

He smiled. He walked away. He let Time rest.

In Kakariko Village, Hyrule and Warriors were talking by the well.

As he approached, Wild heard Warriors say to Hyrule, “No one’s in there right now. If you wanted a moment alone.”

“I do,” Hyrule said, his voice markedly strong.

Hyrule strode toward the cemetery. He put his hand on Wild’s shoulder as they passed, and Wild smiled, and Hyrule smiled too, and their humble traveler took his turn to say goodbye to Time.

Wild took Hyrule’s place beside Warriors.

“Went okay in there?” the Captain asked.

Wild nodded.

“Any luck with Twilight?” the Champion asked.

“No. Stubborn dog won’t budge.”

They didn’t say anything, but after Wild’s years of pre-Calamity selective mutism, he prided himself on his observational skills, and it was obvious Twilight and Legend and Wind had gone to the cemetery the previous night. Though it didn’t take an ace, in Twilight’s case — he slept until ten. Was miserable during breakfast. Malon took him outside to chat privately. He’s avoided the others, said nothing, and spared morose glances at Kakariko Graveyard since then.

He glances to Legend and Wind, too. Knowing glances, like keeping a terrible secret. Legend and Wind were mainly the ones telling Twilight to get his ass into the graveyard, with Warriors and Wild mildly contributing too, but Twilight wouldn’t go.

“I’ll give him the rest of the day,” Warriors said. “If he’s still refusing to go in by nightfall then I’ll get the rest of us to bully him into doing it.”

“I see you’re ready to take charge of the group,” Wild said.

“Hardly,” Warriors scoffed. “Honestly, I’m kind of hoping I won’t have to. I’m under the assumption that since everyone here is now an adult that we can handle ourselves.”

“I don’t know about that. I still like to dabble in arson from time to time.”

His arms were crossed, but Warriors’ eyes were hardly angry. “How old are you now? Twenty-five?”

“A hundred and twenty-five.”

Warriors huffed, the sound part of a breathy laugh. “Wow. It really has been seven years.” He threw an aimless glance over his shoulder at the village. “Wind’s in his fucking twenties now, can you believe that?”

“It was hard to miss his post-puberty voice insulting you yesterday,” Wild said in between laughs.

“Yeah, that’s gonna take some getting used to.”

(“YOU!”) “He had some choice things to say about you in that voice yesterday, too,” Wild noted. “You knew Wind before all of us met?”

Now he smiled. Now he said, “Oh yes I did. He was older then, probably around fifteen, and his voice was in the middle of changing. It cracked every time he spoke. It was kind of hilarious.” Wild followed the sentimentality in Warriors’ eyes. “It was never awkward with him back then. He acted like we were brothers from the day I met him, which, even if I didn’t know it, I guess we already were.”

“So then why did you and Time keep that secret the entire year we were together?”

Warriors snorted. “The asshole said that time travel was unfamiliar to this Wind, Time had done enough of it already to know and, ‘besides, won’t it be a nice surprise for him when he meets us again after we say goodbye?’”

“Why did he think that?”

“I don’t know, I stopped trying to understand Mask’s logic a long time ago.”

Mask . 

(“You scared me, Mask.”)

(“Just because you can walk again doesn’t mean I’m okay with you going off alone after all that. Don’t make me get the rancher involved. No, Mask.”)

“That’s right; you knew Time when he was a kid, yeah?” Wild asked.

“…Yeah.”

In the aftermath of the Fierce Deity, the nine heroes needed nine days to stitch the group back together. The first night, after the damage was wrought by and against the war god, they had brought its victim to the inn (the inn that was very nearly destroyed in the First Day’s attack) and brutal reminders of Twilight’s own near-death experience lingered like a shade; this time, if the Hero died, it would be by his companions’ hands and not his enemy. Then he made it through the first night, and then the second, and the third, truly waking up on the fourth day. Warriors as the unofficial second-in-command commanded well. He helped keep the group grounded in an air thick with loss and indecision. But in the quiet moments, when the boys were behaving — Wild could feel the Captain’s anxiety that he successfully repressed wafting from his body in waves.

It was one challenge after another: a body plunged in shock, a fever, an unrelenting nightmare. It was three days of not knowing if they’d lose him after just having saved him (it was three days of paralyzing terror that the wounds they’d inflicted to save him would kill him).

Twilight was a mess. He refused to talk and refused to leave the room. The worrying grief eternally in his eyes for his living ancestor grew as if preparing for his death.

And now he’s dead.

Next to him, his companion went quiet. Time’s brother was lost in thought. Warriors looked at nothing.

“Wars,” Wild called.

Wars looked at Wild.

“It’s okay to be upset. I am,” Wild said. “There’s no shame in grieving for him. We all loved him. Don’t take the moniker of leader and ignore injuries, pass up meals, pretend nothing ever bothered him for us like he did. He hated that stupid word, anyway.”

(“I mean, you’re the leader—”

“Don’t call me that,” Time interrupted. He turned back to what he was doing. “Rancher, you’re on perimeter duty. Sailor, Smithy, you go to town. We need supplies, and fast…”)

The Captain sighed. “I’m fine, Champion. Really.”

“Hm.” Wild watched the alley through which Hyrule was taking his sweet, rightful time. “You told me to go in, you told Traveler to go in, you told Twi to get his ass in there and say goodbye to his ancestor even though he’s not listening. You deserve to go in, too.”

He shrugged. “I will.”

Wild raised his eyebrows.

“You better,” he said. “And you better not isolate yourself to hide this pain. I know Mask wouldn’t want that.”

Warriors closed his eyes tightly.

Out of the woods but not fully healed, Time, who was banned from watch for the next forever (“Your back is still paining you, Mask, don’t think I don’t see that, if you take watch so help me Goddesses I will take it away.”) (it lasted all of a week), was still called upon by the others when traveling again; Wild demanding he take seconds, Four asking how he was feeling, Hyrule sitting him down for a wellness check.

And Warriors, well, any time Warriors addressed him, for at least a week after Time was on his feet again, he called him ‘Mask’. Not ‘Time’, not ‘Old Man’, not any variation of affectionate nickname given to their eldest; Warriors chose to call him ‘Mask’ in the brutal aftermath of the three-day horror show that the Fierce Deity Mask’s usage wreaked. A bit morbid, Wild remembered thinking, thinking it before they knew that they knew each other in Warriors’ war. Officially, none of the others knew of the truth behind Warriors and Time’s relationship because neither man admitted to it but it wasn’t difficult to deduce even with the two trying to keep the secret — honestly, they tried, but straight to his face that week, Warriors called Time “my little brother”.

(Twilight was still hardly speaking to Time that week.) (And then Time confronted Twilight and he cried in his aching ancestor’s arms.)

“You know, before the Calamity, people always told me that actually talking about my problems would help,” Wild began. “I never believed them. After I woke up, I did talk more, and I was open with you guys about most things, but it wasn’t until Zelda and I went through all…this…”—He raised his right arm—“…that I actually talked. I actually told her everything, from my nightmares to my survivor’s guilt to how close all nine of us were and how much I missed every single one of you. She listened. And I felt like myself again. For the first time since before I ever drew the Master Sword.

“I started to get more memories back, too. I remembered my father, and my sister.” Wild smiled. “Her name was Aryll, by the way.”

Warriors laughed. “No shit?”

“None. I should’ve known, and maybe I should’ve been more concerned with finally remembering her when it first happened, but my only thought for like a straight minute was that I wished I could tell Wind.”

“That might really cheer him up. Tell him before dinner.”

“Oh, I will. Just like you’re gonna go to the graveyard too.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“But anyway, Captain, if you want to talk about it…losing him…well, it helped me, and I have experience with losing a loved one.”

Warriors caught Wild’s eyes. Held on. Held on.

Let go.

Warriors glanced morosely at the graveyard.

“I appreciate that, thank you Wild,” he said quietly.

Wild smiled.

But Warriors didn’t listen to Wild. Like an immortal dragon, he stood the same as the conversation started, with crossed arms and eyes at the graveyard. Thinking, You have a nine-year-old little brother, six years after that he’s pushing forty, give it another seven years and he’s dead and you’re only thirty-three.

Warriors leveled Wild with an appraising glance.

“So did you really meet Ganondorf?”