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The sun rises on their camp, its light bleak, faded. The fire is dying out, coals cooling off, luminous orange giving way to grey ashes.
Time watches it fade as the others slowly rise from their bedrolls. They yawn, they talk quietly, emerging from sleep.
Time hasn’t slept at all.
Warriors sits down next to him, gently pries the blue ocarina from his trembling hand.
“Go lie down a little, old man,” he gently says. “The champion is going to start cooking, you should rest until the food is ready. We’re going nowhere today.”
Time takes the ocarina back from him and clips it to his belt. He rises.
“I’m going to wash. I’ll be back for breakfast.”
He heads into the woods, feeling Warriors’ gaze on the back of his head.
—
“Tell me… do you ever feel a strange sadness as dusk falls? They say it’s the only time when our world intersects with theirs… ”
Time remembers Twilight telling him this, one time when they were walking alongside the river at sunset, only the two of them, coming back from fishing. His gaze had lost itself in the horizon, and his words had rung like an echo, like another voice was saying them through him. He’d felt the hidden weight in his protégé’s voice without understanding it.
Now Time looks at the horizon too, although this time the sun is rising, and he is alone, with only the memory of Twilight’s words.
It is not the regret of departed spirits he feels, only his own, acute and throbbing.
He washes like he said he would, with quick and mechanical gestures, without enjoying the moment at all. He splashes water on his face, hoping it will relieve him in any way. It doesn’t. He just shivers in the cold river, watching as dried blood dissolves in the current.
The ocarina shines in the grass next to his stained clothes, useless. Time has never felt older.
But with age comes responsibility. He sighs, straightens, dresses in the fresher outfit he brought, and braces himself to head back to camp.
The day will be long and difficult.
—
When he arrives back at the clearing, where the fire has been restarted and Wild’s pot rests on top of it, you could cut the tension with a knife. Nobody looks sleepy any longer; some of them have red eyes, but not from tiredness.
They know. Selfishly, Time is glad he wasn’t there when they learnt, that he didn’t have to tell them.
Wild looks tiny and young sitting next to Hyrule, who has an arm around his shoulders and seems just as shaken. Legend is picking at his food. Four’s bowl rests down next to him, and he stares gloomily into the fire. Sky is nowhere to be seen. He slipped away to pray before dawn, when he and Warriors first woke up and joined Time, and Time thinks he might still be at it. He wouldn’t blame him, even though he himself never found comfort in these things.
Warriors sends him an inquisitive glance, without moving for fear of disturbing Wind who is nestled against him, hiding his face in his neck, sniffling in his scarf. Time manages to muster a smile to return him; a tiny, faded thing, but none of them is capable of much more right now.
He is the farthest thing from hungry, but he should give the example. He will need that energy. So he picks a bowl and serves himself a moderate portion of the porridge Wild made before sitting down in the circle.
“I’m sorry,” Four tells him. “I wish there was anything I could do to help.”
A pang goes through Time’s heart. Four seems composed enough, but Time remembers him riding on Wolfie’s back. This must be hitting him hard too. In fact, how well he seems to be taking it worries Time.
“Thank you,” he says, and it is honest, even though he wishes these children would stop pretending to be adults for the sole sake of impressing him. He sets a hand on his shoulder. “How are you holding up?”
Four shrugs.
“I’ll be fine,” he whispers. “I think it hasn’t really hit yet.”
Time nods. Four is hard to read at times, but Time would wager he isn’t lying. He makes a mental note to keep an eye on him. It’s bound to catch up with him at some point.
He squeezes his shoulder, but doesn’t find anything else to tell him, so he just focuses on his porridge instead. He very much avoids looking towards the bedrolls and the shape he knows lies in that direction, a bit further.
The Champion is as good a cook as ever, but Time cannot taste his breakfast, and swallowing it is difficult. He ends up leaving half of it.
—
A second was all it took. One blow, one slash of a blade. Nobody could prevent it. They were all taken aback by the sudden transformation of the injured Lizalfos into an Iron Knuckle.
Time sees it happen, again and again and again, and each time he can’t help but imagine what he could have done. The answer is nothing, of course. He wasn’t close enough, even if he’d seen it coming, and he didn’t.
He digs the fresh dirt with vindication, trying not to think any deeper about the gesture than the mechanical reality of it. Physical work has always made him feel better. That’s why he didn’t break down during his adventures, he supposes. As disgusted with himself as he felt in the evening, when he had time to breathe and no one but his companion fairy to comfort him after an exhausting day, the actual act of cutting through the monsters and the adrenaline of battle carried him through.
Right now he aches for a fight. He yearns for it in the tension of his arms, in the violence of his breaths, in the pain in his chest.
There’s one enemy he burns to see destroyed above all. He imagines it yielding under each push of the shovel, pictures it falling under each spadeful of earth he sends flying behind him.
By his side are Legend and Warriors. The others wanted to help too, but Time insisted that it wasn’t necessary. In fact, the fact that he is not doing this alone is already a concession.
They don’t talk, something for which Time is grateful. He doesn’t think he could handle conversation right now. He’s already got enough on his plate with the thoughts in his mind, the swirling stormy thoughts that nothing purges save for the regular movement of digging – pulling up – throwing away –
He doesn’t know how long it takes until Legend remarks with a subdued tone that the hole is big enough, but he feels helpless at the realisation.
He doesn’t stay for what follows, disappearing into the woods instead. He trusts the others to do what’s needed, but the thought of being present for it is unbearable. He doesn’t trust himself.
What for, he’s not sure.
—
Time has always felt better in the forest. There’s something about the softness of the light as it filters through the leaves, something about the smell of dirt and rotten wood, something about the whispers of the branches in the wind, that feels serene. It may be the moss stretching lazily on their barks, or the clusters of mushrooms gathering like children at their roots, he isn’t sure.
Forests feel like home.
But even their soothing secrets cannot lift his spirits today. The ancient wisdom he can hear better than any other doesn’t relieve his loneliness.
Fairies gather around him, feeling his distress. He waves them off with more irritation than he means, and then he regrets it.
Even now, he is still on the lookout for a specific one among them. But Navi left him without an explanation. He knows he will never see her again; he will never know why.
She left him. Of her own power. He saw her fly away and disappear through the window of the Temple of Time without even a word to him.
It has been so long, and yet the wound still isn’t completely healed. He resents her; he misses her.
He misses Malon.
He can feel himself slipping into old habits. His wife would have berated him, playfully hit him on the back of the head or shaken him up with a few choice words. He tries to imagine what she’d say, how ridiculous she would make the voices in his head sound.
But it doesn’t sound ridiculous to him now. He’s done this more times than he can count, but the pain hasn’t lessened with experience. If anything, it seems more acute each time. The hope Malon managed to reawaken in him, the vulnerability and willingness to try only makes it worse, like he’s put his hand in the fire knowing it would burn.
Time swallows, clenches his eyes shut.
Whenever there is a meeting, a parting is sure to follow. The Happy Mask Salesman didn’t teach him that, life did far before they met in Termina, but his words resonated so hard Time never forgot them.
He is tired of partings and goodbyes.
He knew this journey was setting him up for a few more. The boys that have grown on him will all have to return to their own time, in the end. He thought he’d accepted it; he thought the pain of the goodbyes would be infinitely worth the joy he experiences knowing them.
He hadn’t expected it to come so suddenly. Not like this.
He hadn’t expected it to hit him so hard.
For the first time in years, he feels like giving up again. Abandon everything. Start travelling on his own once more, a lone wolf without ties.
Time looks at the forest around him, soaks in its mysteries that beg to be explored.
He takes a long breath in, pushes a long breath out, just like Talon taught him when he was a lost little kid come to work at the ranch. He swallows against a painful throat.
That is cowardice speaking. Malon taught him that. The others need him; he has to pull himself together.
He can’t fail them like he failed –
His breath catches in his throat, and he almost breaks down there.
No. He can’t. They’re all shocked and shaken. They need him to be their pillar. He is the only adult in the group, with the exception of Warriors, who is still so much younger. He has to be there for them. This is no longer just about himself.
He grits his teeth and turns around.
—
The sun is high in the sky when everything is taken care of. They haven’t touched Twilight’s belongings; Epona can carry them like she always has. Even she seems sorrowful, despite the apples Wild treats her to.
Warriors categorically refuses to get back on the road.
“Stopping for longer than necessary will give them time to regroup, plan, heal,” Time says. “Their leader is injured. We have gained an advantage at last. We need to press it.”
“We need time to regroup and heal too,” Warriors retorts. “Usually, I would agree with you. But look around you. We have wounded. We are grieving. We need this rest.”
Time knows he is right. He can see Hyrule cradling his burnt arm, Four sitting in order not to put weight on his leg, Wind occasionally wincing when one of his bruises touch something. The battle was rough on all of them, even if one ignores their downcast shoulders and the lassitude of mourning permeating the air.
But he is burning with restlessness. The thought of letting the Shadow get away is unbearable. They’ve paid such a heavy price for what is barely a beginning of victory. They need to pursue.
They owe it to Twilight.
“Then I’ll go,” he says, his voice low. The emotions all press inside him, boiling, and he no longer knows any save for this burning need to go on.
“That’s out of the question,” Warriors retorts immediately. His tone suffers no protest, even from Time. “It’s too dangerous. You can’t take them all by yourself. We need to stick together.”
Time is about to retort, and Warriors hesitates for a second before dealing his next blow.
“We can’t afford another loss.”
Time grits his teeth, tries not to show how hard these words hit him. It’s a blow in the centre of his chest, and he has to brace himself not to physically recoil.
He knows Warriors is right. But on top of wanting the monster’s head, he’s grown to hate this place, this nondescript and random place with the memories it carries.
Warriors suggests he take a nap once again. Time shakes his head, says he’s not tired.
The truth is, were he to lie down in the corner where the bedrolls are laid out, he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
—
It is the middle of the afternoon. The camp is calm. For once, Legend has gone wandering with Hyrule and Wild; Time hopes it will end in the three of them coming back unscathed rather than another argument about maps breaking out between them.
The camp is too calm. Time can hear the sound of his feather scratching his notebook. It bothers him, itches far into his bones.
If he were just writing and not crossing out every sentence as soon as he laid it onto the paper, it wouldn’t make nearly as much noise. He never had such trouble finding words to talk to Malon before.
He can feel them though, the words, bubbling under the surface and only waiting for a slab of ice to shatter in order to rush through the cracks. It’s that ice he can’t bring himself to break. He can’t write to Malon about all the turmoil in him, because – because then –
He can imagine her face, angry, sad, disappointed. He remembers her concern, her fear for their descendent being wounded in battle, and Time – oh, how stupid he feels now, remembering his careless reassurances that Twilight would be fine.
He cannot be a coward and tell her in a letter. He needs to be there for her when she learns. But that means he cannot confide in her, either.
He doesn’t want to see the words on the paper, black on white, implacable.
He crumples the page with satisfying violence, barely refraining from tossing it into the wild. This is useless. He’s been sitting here for hours. He has ants in his limbs.
So he stands, stretches, looks around him. His gaze falls on Sky, who is absent-mindedly whittling something. A wooden wolf, it seems. Time’s heart sinks.
He comes closer.
“Are you down for a spar?”
Sky raises his eyes to meet Time’s, and his eyebrows.
“Sparring? I thought you were too old for that kind of thing.”
Any other day, a playful glint would have accompanied the words, a teasing smile. Now there’s only concern and confusion on Sky’s face.
“I feel restless. Unless you don’t think you’re up to the challenge?”
That tears a smile out of Sky at last.
“Let me just borrow the Champion’s sword and I’m yours.”
Right. Sky can’t use the Master Sword. Time carefully avoids making any comment on that.
After Sky picked up the sword he always uses for these things, which Wild allowed him to take even in his absence after being asked once too often in the middle of cooking, they head a bit outside of camp, just at the border of the forest.
They softly cling the flats of their blades together, then they stand back, observing each other.
Time flings himself forward. Sky meets his sword with a smooth and relaxed movement.
Their round lasts for a few minutes and ends with Sky winning. Time knows he chose his partner well. The next rounds he holds back less, throws himself into it with more confidence. Sky is more than a match for him, and so he lets himself go and allows himself to vent out all his frustration.
He gets so swept in it that before he realises, he’s dodged Sky’s blow with a roll, jumped to strike, then swung his sword and stopped it just a few inches away from Sky’s head.
Sky whistles.
“That’s a nice move,” he says. “Mind teaching it to me?”
Time smirks, hiding his surprise. He most definitely didn’t expect to actually beat him, even once, with his old bones and his tired joints. So he explains to Sky what he internally dubbed the “helm splitter” when he was seventeen and had just figured out that move to do away with moblins.
Sky is a fast learner; he’s focused and is already an expert with the sword. Time only needs to demonstrate once and Sky has already analysed it all; he repeats the movement a few times to get it in his body, then proceeds to disarm Time with record speed.
He doesn’t try to hide his pride. Sky soaks it in, glowing in a too familiar way that sends a pang through Time’s heart.
He never sparred with Twilight. All the boys seemed to have it all well in hand, and Time never felt the need to spend his energy in such a way; he was more than happy to leave it to the younger ones.
But teaching feels right. And he can’t help but wonder… had he taken the time…
Sky nearly surprises him with his next attack. Time defends himself with a bit more strength than he meant, then retaliates with gritted teeth.
Sky’s sword shatters. He falls to the ground, and for a second Time sees someone else fly backwards and crash down –
But Sky receives himself smoothly, with no more than a grunt. He rolls, blinks, stands up, and dusts the dirt off his sailcloth.
Time stands frozen, sword in hand. He hastily puts it away.
“I’m sorry. Are you all right?”
Sky laughs.
“Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” He looks down at the severed sword. “That’ll teach me to spar with the Champion’s weapons. It was to be expected.”
They call it off after that, walking back to the camp in silence. Sky is a bit winded, and Time, too, can feel the sweat down his back. It’s a good kind of exhaustion; something seems to have settled in him.
But the things Time hasn’t done haunt him still.
—
The rest of the day drags out in a mindless grey mist. It feels like forever, but when the sun finally nears the horizon, Time doesn’t know where the hours have gone. It is the late dusk of summer, and so they have finished dinner and are about to settle for the night as the last glow of the sun diminishes.
Time isn’t sure why he longed for the day to end. The shadows make everything worse, and the thought of lying down is still unbearable.
“I don’t think you should,” Warriors says when Time asks for first watch. “You need to recuperate from last night. There are more than enough of us.”
“I know my limits, Captain,” Time retorts, perhaps a bit more dryly than is warranted. “I insist.”
“And I insist on saying it’s a bad idea,” Warriors answers. “Old man, please. You’re not in your right mind, haven’t been all day. Please. Take care of yourself at last and get some sleep.”
Time knows it only comes from a good intention, but Warriors’ steadfast denial annoys him.
“I don’t need to be coddled,” he spits out. “I am not a child.”
“You are a grieving man who hasn’t slept in forty hours,” Warriors says, and there is a note of desperation in his tone. The proud captain isn’t one to beg, and that makes Time pause. “You need the rest.”
Time nearly yields. In truth, he wants to; he can feel his body’s fatigue. He knows very well how the ailments of the mind are made worse by the neglect of the flesh, and his flesh is very much neglected.
But he fears that the restless part of him, the one that hasn’t settled since the early hours of the morning, that wants to scream and howl at the goddesses for their cruelty, will claw at his scalp and tear his hair out if he unwinds but for a moment.
He is torn. He wants to leave this place and all the memories, but the thought of walking away leaves a bad taste in his mouth. He wants nothing more than for the morning to come, but he loathes that time passes at all.
He doesn’t know what desire should take precedence, for neither will assuage his suffering.
His eyes wander, and for a second they find Twilight’s grave. When they come back to Warriors, the captain’s face has softened.
“Let’s take the first watch together,” he says. “Promise me that you will go to sleep as soon as you feel able to.”
Time nods. It’s the best he will get.
Sky volunteers for the second watch, and Wild tries to take the third, but it’s the first time he’s spoken since that morning and thus Legend offers himself instead. Wild doesn’t protest too much, looking exhausted. Once that’s settled, they retreat to their bedrolls and start preparing for the night.
Time sits in silence while they do, staring into the orange light that is slowly fading behind the horizon.
He is alone. Warriors has gone to fetch something from his pack and is probably saying goodnight to the others.
He is alone, and that is both a burden and a relief.
His eyes fall on Twilight’s grave again. He looks at it for a long time, thinks of heading there; but when he goes to kneel in front of the headstone, it feels as if his feet were carrying him there without any thought to guide them.
The stone is irregular, the engravings on it not as clean as would have been ideal. He deserved much better, but at least it isn’t a nameless pit on the side of the road. It is, if nothing else, a testament to their love for him.
Tomorrow they will leave. Twilight will not be with them, for he sleeps forever under the earth, his resting place barely marked. They will leave him behind and never see him again, probably unable to even find his grave any more.
Time’s breath catches in his throat as he realises how little time he has left. He has done nothing today, the very last day, but try to avoid the truth. And now he will have to leave Twilight behind after barely saying goodbye to him.
He didn’t even attend his funeral.
Shame rises in him, deep and powerful, and with it the tears spring out of his eyes. All the times he snapped, all the times he stayed closed off or berated him rise to his mind, and with each memory comes a wave of regrets. He’s never been good at opening up to others; only Malon had the necessary perseverance to break through his walls. Now he wishes he’d brought them down more quickly for Twilight.
He remembers his smile whenever Time complimented him. He remembers how he asked for his advice, how he imitated him in the way he frowned or crossed his arms or fiddled with his feet.
Time should have told him more how proud he was of him. He should have told him how much he loved him.
He was such a fool.
“You idiot,” he whispers, his voice shaking, because he still is one. “Taking such risks, even knowing nothing about the enemy's abilities.”
He sets a hand on the earth. It’s the closest he will ever get to embracing him again.
More sobs escape him, cracking him wide open. He shrinks on himself and collapses upon the grave, pushing his fist to his mouth in order not to wake the sleeping heroes with the sound of his pain.
It’s strange, he reflects, how at past thirty he sometimes still feels like a kid. It’s as if his nine-year-old self forever dwells in the depths of his mind, unable to process what seems like an unfathomable nightmare, disarmed and helpless in front of a reality he doesn’t understand.
Even the child he used to be was no stranger to grief. But this agony is a kind of hell only adults know, the wrongness that makes him want to scream, the injustice of something that should never, ever happen. He certainly couldn’t have comprehended it at such a tender age.
He remembers yesterday’s vigil all too vividly; the shades of night stretching over the world bring the memory even closer. Horror as he realised none of their remedies would work on Twilight’s wound. Franticness as he pushed against the injury to quell the bleeding, as he tried to keep him awake by any means. Despair as he understood nothing would stop Twilight from slipping out of his fingers, his fingers that were slick with his blood.
Tenderness, hearing his nonsensical whispers, feverish with blood loss. He brushed his hair out of his face and kissed his cold forehead, heedless of the tang of iron on his lips. He kept him close and murmured reassurances to him, rocking him as he sunk into unconsciousness. He watched helplessly as his chest stopped moving, as his pulse stopped thumping, all the while praying for a miracle to goddesses he didn’t believe in.
Only an adult can comprehend the loss of a child.
Twilight wasn’t even his, he tries to rationalise, choked with tears that are too silent, too violent. He might have been his descendant, but Time didn’t raise him. He had a loving family who took good care of him. It would be unfair of Time to forget that and pretend to take their place.
His heart screams after a lost son all the same.
He thinks of the way Twilight spoke about his parents, about his little sister he was so proud of, about the starstruck Colin he was about to teach horse riding to. He thinks about Ilia he only talked about shyly and with pain, about his travel companion he never mentioned by name but who left such a big hole in his heart. He thinks about the way he laughed, his protectiveness over the Champion, the wide grin he wore around the horses at the ranch.
He had so much to live for. He deserved so much to heal.
It is so unfair.
“Rest in peace, Hero of Twilight,” he eventually manages to utter, even though what he yearns to say is Come back. Don’t leave me. “It was my honour and my pride to know you.”
The words are inadequate, far too weak to convey the depth and sincerity of the affection Time held for him. But it is all he has.
He takes a deep breath, relieved to find that his sobs have abated and he can let his lungs expand normally. He dries his tears on his cheeks then stands, exhausted. His outburst has left behind a chasm of sorrow and regret so deep he's afraid to look into it, throbbing in the place of his heart.
The road to healing is only beginning, shrouded in shadows and in pain. Time doubts he will ever see the end of it.
“Goodbye,” he whispers, “my child.”
He needed to say this, needed to feel the words on his tongue at least once, for they're the most precious joy he had these last few months.
They come too late.
Twilight cannot hear them.
So he does the hardest thing he’s ever done, the only thing he can do, and turns his back on the grave.