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“Why do I always come over at the worst possible times,” Wild said, expression utterly dead.
Twilight, up to the elbows in questionable and disgusting fluids, looked up from where he was cooing over the tiny, bleating scrap of wet and loud that was currently ignoring him in favor of trying to figure out how legs worked. “You mean the best times,” he corrected.
“No. No, Twi, I really don’t,” Wild’s nose scrunch pulled at the skin around his scars. “I- is it still going?!”
“Hm?” Twilight leaned over to eye up the goat Wild was backing up from in all due haste, overblown horror and disgust painting an absolute portrait on his fine-boned features. Then- “Nah, that’s just the afterbirth.”
“Nope,” Wild said immediately, turning on his heel.
Twilight laughed at him. “C’mon, you squeamish?” he taunted, calling after Wild’s rapidly retreating back.
“No!” Wild shot back. “I’m stealing your kitchen!”
“Liar,” Twilight retorted, and- “I never use it, it’s basically your kitchen anyway!”
“That’s horrifying and I don’t know how you’re alive,” Wild was now basically shouting, almost completely out of the barn. “Stop eating microwave meals, you heathen!”
“Never!” Twilight called back, and promptly had his attention snatched away by a very tiny goat kid tripping over its new legs and falling face-first into his hip.
“Well,” Warriors drawled out, “you look like you’ve had a time of it.”
Twilight, hooking a hand on the porch rail to steady himself as he went sliding into his chair, offered up a cheerfully exhausted grin and a little shrug.
“Kidding season?” Time asked, coming in from behind with a loaded plate in each hand and water bottles frosted over with condensation locked firmly between the press of his arm against his side, shouldering his way past the screen door. He placed them on the table, dropping one directly in front of Twilight.
“Kidding season,” Twilight said rapturously, and promptly fell upon Time’s offering like a starving man. Through a mouthful of grapes, he mumbled out, “go’ fou’ry-three kids so fa’. Was up all nigh’ w’-” he swallowed, and reached for the small mountain of cheese cubes in the middle of the plate. “Two of the ewes. One of them had quadruplets, poor thing. Had to take the smallest inside and give her a bottle.”
Warriors sputtered out a laugh. “Wait, wait. You’ve just- you’ve just got a goat? Inside? Does it sleep on your bed? Tell me it sleeps on your bed. What does Wolfie think of that-”
“Jokes on you, Wolfie’s great with the bottle kids, he loves ‘em,” Twilight retorted, before breaking into a sheepish grin. “And, uh, she’s not in my house?”
“You’ve been sleeping in the barn, haven’t you,” Time spoke up, a knowing grin lighting up his face, leaning back in the old porch chair with a creak of wicker.
“He’s been sleeping in the barn,” Warriors immediately agreed, taking a swig of water.
Twilight scratched at his head. “... I’ve been sleeping in the barn,” he agreed meekly.
Time laughed, slapping him on the shoulder. “Malon’s left me and our lovely bed to sleep in the cowshed all last week,” he said cheerfully. “Nineteen calves so far, and half the herd still to go. And that’s without counting the horses. I had to move out into the barn with her. It’s another week of sleeping on hay for us, I’d say.”
Warriors hummed a little under his breath, and waggled his eyebrows. “Sleeping in the haystacks, huh…?” he sing-songed a bit, barely audible.
Twilight sputtered a bit on his mouthful of cheese, and broke into a laugh.
“Oh, hush, you,” Time snorted. “You were born on a farm, I know you know better.”
“Oh, yes, for all my infancy. No, simply existing on a farm from birth to the tender age of two does not a farmer make, and all the more power to you two for staying with it. I admire your tenacity.” Warriors raised his water bottle in mock-toast. “And I do not understand you in the slightest. Where’s the appeal, because from right here- my blissfully hay-free existence- I cannot see it.”
“But goat kids,” Twilight protested, leaning forwards with a teasing grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “The baby chicks and ducks- the calves, the lambs, the foals-”
“All cute,” Warriors agreed, “but not worth the country life, thanks. No all-nighters in the barn for me, I don’t know why you look forward to this time of year so much.”
“The babies,” Twilight said.
“... Is that it-”
“The babies.”
Time clapped Warriors on the shoulder. “Don’t try to dig further,” he said cheerfully, “Twilight and Malon are two of a kind. She lives for this season, too.”
“You don’t get the fuss either though!” Warriors protested, pointing an accusing finger up at Time.
“No, I do not,” Time agreed readily, grinning over at Twilight, who, for his part, was affecting affront at this lack of adoration for his beloved baby goats, “But she loves it, so I support her and her ever-increasing herds of large farm animals. Even if that means sleeping in the barn.”
“Awww,” said Twilight.
Warriors squinted at Time, shaking his head slowly. “The two of you are cavity-inducing.”
Time hummed. “Good.”
“What is that supposed to mean-”
“I love her,” Twilight said, dewy-eyed, of the newborn foal wobbling around the pen. “I would die for her.”
“I know, right?” Malon said, also dewy-eyed, in between making kissing noises at the mother and foal in turn. “And look here-”
A tiny noise from behind a pen wall, and out stumbled-
Twilight inhaled sharply. “Twins-” he whispered.
“I know,” Malon almost cried.
“No, seriously, are they okay,” Warriors asked Time, side-eyeing the two farm-folk of the family almost crying over the pair of twin foals.
Time shrugged. “I’m refraining from concern until after they pass out on an actual bed for at least six unbroken hours.”
“That sounds like you should be concerned.”
“Refraining,” Time repeated, watching as his wife brightened, almost vibrating with the combined forces of sleep-deprivation and the energy high of baby animals, and dragged an eager, willing, and equally as sleep-deprived Twilight deeper in the barn towards the baby cows. “... Mostly.”
Wild crashed in through the barn door, holding a covered basket like a threat, and pointed at Twilight. “Eat.”
Twilight blinked up from the middle of a swarm of goat kids. “... Um.”
With the general air of one forging through dangerous waters, Wild set out to wade through the moving pool of bleating, hopping, darting tiny bodies. “You-” he almost tripped over a little white-spotted black ewe, “-have been in here-” a brown-and-white ram kid skittered away from his path and landed right on top of the runt of the year, sparking up a frantic, startled bleat and a tiny goat riot, “for eighteen hours.”
“I can’t leave yet, Fado’s not here-” Twilight protested on automatic, only to have Wild pull a bagged sandwich from his basket and point it at him like a weapon.
“I’m not telling you to leave, you goat-mad rancher, I’m telling you to eat. I,” Wild waved a hand in the air, using the movement to drop the sandwich back on top of the basket. “Have already been to Sky’s and Malon’s today, and I got both of them to eat at least one solid meal before I left. I’m aiming for three-for-three. Don’t make me lose my streak, Twi, I owe Legend enough money already.”
Twilight blinked rapidly. “... What.”
Wild shook his head pityingly. “You see? You’ve gone hunger-dumb. You should eat something. Real food, not a handful of jerky and a hunk of raw cheese.”
“Hey, I only did that once-” Twilight paused. Reconsidered. “Okay, twice-” Reconsidered again- “It was only three times-”
“Eat the damn sandwich, Twilight.”
“How’s it going?”
Hyrule, hands on his hips, sweat on his forehead, dirt under his nails, surveyed his domain, and by extension, his workers. “... Poorly.”
Legend, laying under the tree in full miserable sprawl, didn’t even bother lifting his head as he made a soul-deep agonized groan of abject despair.
“Very poorly,” Hyrule amended, without missing a beat.
“I dunno what you’re talking about, we’re doing fine!” Wind, sun-gilded and grinning, took a running leap and hooked his legs over the fence to perch like a bright little bird. The dirt on his hands was ruthlessly ignored as it ground soil into the grain of the wood. “Half the field’s been planted already!”
“Legend almost got sunstroke,” Hyrule countered.
“Legend needs to drink water more often and stop insisting he doesn’t need to sit in the shade,” Wind countered back.
“Well,” Wild noted, shifting his weight. “... It could be worse?”
“How,” Legend, face flushed faintly pink, bit out, cracking open one eye to glare up at Wild with a displeased sliver of blue.
Wild hefted up his bag. “I could not have come out here with cold switchel, watermelon, and sandwiches?”
Legend paused.
Then he stretched out his hand over his head, making grabbing motions. “If you’re a heat-based hallucination, I no longer care. Please, blessed vision, come. Bring me the switchel.”
Hyrule laughed a bit ruefully, looking down at his hands. “I guess we’re taking a break, then.”
Wind cheered, hopping off the fence, eagerly circling Wild as he dropped down to unpack his bag. “Oh, wow, that’s a lot of stuff!”
“I’m leaving half of this here with you lot,” Wild said, pouring out cups of switchel. Wind took his with a reverence owed a holy artefact. “I already went by Time’s, Sky’s, and Twi’s, and got them all set. I’m headed Four’s way, next. Time and Warriors might swing by later, by the way, they said something about doing the rounds, earlier.”
“Wait. Why did you-” Hyrule made a vague motion with his hand. “Did you just go around feeding everyone, or something?”
“Or something,” Wild agreed dryly.
“It’s a whole thing,” Legend waved a languid hand, taking another slow sip from his cup. He crunched an ice chunk between his teeth with relish. “You wouldn’t’ve noticed last year, since-” vague movement- “and all that, but this… thing. Happens every year.”
“Twilight's barely left the barn for anything other than bathroom breaks, snack breaks, and showers since kidding season started,” Wild informed Hyrule with a well-worn and nobly suffering expression. “Malon’s in the same boat, and Time tries, but the most he can really do is drop fruit in front of her and occasionally take-out. Sky’s been bouncing between his bird coops-”
Involuntary shudders rippled down the backs of all present spines.
“Tell me you didn’t have to go in the coop,” Hyrule said, horrified.
Wild grimaced.
“... You poor soul.”
Legend raised his cup, solemn as a priest. “Your sacrifice is appreciated.”
“Anyway,” Wild continued, “usually Four’s not a problem specifically because of the time of year, but apparently he took on a big commission and he’s got that pet project of his he’s been devoting oh, you know, the time he normally sleeps to-”
“Ohhhh, that’s not good,” Wind sang quietly under his breath.
“I can’t make any of them sleep,” Wild said, with an air of grim determination, “but I can make sure that when they keel over, it won’t be from hunger or dehydration.”
“But sleep?” Hyrule protested.
Legend shrugged. “They’ll pass out eventually.”
“... But sleep??”
“That,” Legend said with an airy finality, “is their problem.”
“And it will be a problem,” Wild muttered under his breath, before pushing up to his feet, tossing his deflated bag back over his shoulder. “I’ve gotta go, if I try and wait much longer before breaking into Four’s house his neighbors might come home and see me climbing in through his window again.”
“Since when have you cared if people catch you at getting into places you shouldn’t be able to?” Hyrule asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Since they started calling the Hylian Guards on me when I’m trying to do a nice thing for a friend,” Wild huffed, starting to back away, before- “Oh, right, are we still on for mushroom hunting in Rutela Park tomorrow-”
“Oh, I forgot, yeah, totally-”
“Sky,” Warriors said from the door of the coop- more accurately, from beyond the barest sliver of the cracked door, and less ‘said’ so much as ‘whispered.’
Sky looked up from the middle of a peeping mass of pure fluff. In his hands- more fluff. Atop his crossed legs- running balls of fluff. Perched directly on top of his head: a large ball of white feathers, which tilted a malevolent, beady eye Warrior’s way, and released a noise spawned directly from the gates of hell itself.
Sky paid no attention to this.
With moon-blank, wide eyes, he stared at Warriors. Unblinkingly. Unwavering.
A fine beading of sweat broke out along Warrior’s spine. He edged back a little further from the coop door.
This did not stop Sky from solemnly, reverentially, lifting his hands- and by extension, the small, peeping ball of floof within. Behold, the wordless gesture appeared to declare; come. Come. Behold.
“The last egg hatched,” Sky whispered, still staring. Still unblinking. The hen on his head ruffled, releasing another unholy noise. “Her name is Speck.”
The floof formed a tiny, dark-speckled head, and in the way of her mother, fixed a malevolent, beady eye upon Warriors.
Speck peeped.
Warriors closed the coop door, and dropped the latch.
“You can have this one,” he told Time over his shoulder, slowly backing away from the sealed door- would it be overkill to start sketching holy symbols in the air? Would Hylia intercede in all her divine mercy?
Time Looked at him.
“No,” Warriors said, in vain defiance.
The Look intensified.
“Look, you’re the one that wanted to drag everyone to your house! I’m just here for Wild’s cooking!”
You could split a feather on the edge of that stare.
Warriors broke.
“Fine. Fine,” he said, throwing his hands in the air, drawing himself up with a grim set to his jaw. “I’ll do it! I’ll drag the bird-man out of his unholy nest! But when I die, it’s on you!”
“Thank you, Warriors,” Time said placidly, and so off he ambled into Sky’s house, spare key glinting in hand. “Don’t forget to get Four before you head back.”
Warriors-
-keened a bit. Maybe. Just a tad. A bit of an indulgence, for just a sparse second.
“Just because he’s the oldest-” he muttered, forehead pressing against the rough, splintering wood of the coop-
-and then he realized exactly what his head was resting against, and the resulting leap backwards wouldn’t have been out of place on a splashed cat.
It’s long practice that allows Time to keep his balance when he’s abruptly hit from behind with a warm body smelling rather strongly of hay and other… questionable barn aromas.
The wrap of Malon’s arms around him is but a bare obstacle for when it comes to leaning the broom up against the wall.
“All done?” he questioned, tilting his head over his shoulder to look at the top of a mass of red hair.
Malon, inside the house for the first time since they’d woken up to a newborn calf tottering around the barn, beamed up at him with the smile of the deeply exhausted and utterly satisfied. “Last calf and last foal,” she hummed, leaning against him with her entire body weight, causing the two of them to sway where they stood. “A bull and a filly. Cute as a button, slipped out easy as anything.”
Time turned around in her grip, wrapping her up in his arms in return. She melted against him with a sigh, head against his chest, and yawned.
“There’s enough time for a shower and a nap before the boys come, you know,” Time said, and gently began to ease their combined way down the hall.
Malon thumped a hand against his side. “You sayin’ I stink, fairy boy?” she demanded, before blinking as her mind caught up. “-the boys are coming over? When?”
“A few hours,” Time said, and completed the back-step into the bathroom. “Around supper.”
“I’ll need to cook-” Malon said immediately.
“Wild’s cooking,” Time interrupted, and neatly rotated the both of them around so Malon ended up inside the bathroom, blinking up at the lights in a bit of a daze. Time, because he wasn’t a fool, stepped back quickly and started closing the door. “I’ll go get you clean clothes, shall I?”
Malon pointed an accusing finger at him in the scant seconds before the door clicked shut. “I know what you’re doing, you know!” she called through the flimsy barrier, half a laugh in her voice.
Time hummed, unrepentant. “Am I doing something?”
The door opened back up, and freckled hands wrapped around his wrists, drawing him close.
“Get in here, fairy boy,” Malon said fondly, and pulled the door closed behind him.
“Knock knock,” Warriors announced, wisely not wandering through the threshold.
“If this is about going outside-” Four began, not looking up from the molten blob of white-hot metal that was being methodically pounded into shape.
“It’s spring,” Warriors said airily, completely ignoring him. “The breeze is pleasant, the sun is shining. There are all matter of creatures and critters out among the grasses and the flowers and whatnot.”
“I have work to do.”
“All matter,” Warriors said louder, “except for one pasty pale forge rat-”
A twitch. Four, offended, looked up. “You are way paler than I am-”
“You don’t know that,” Warriors said, without missing a beat. “For all you know, I’ve surpassed you. I’ve been out in the sunlight.”
“Yes, I can see the burn from here,” Four retorted.
Warriors masterfully did not make any motion towards his slightly flushed, lightly peeling cheeks and nose. “And I can see your burns from here. Come into the light so I can slap some aloe on them.”
“I don’t have any burns.”
“Four. Four, come on. Drink some water. Take a nap. You’re going to give yourself metal poisoning, Four.”
“What do you think I am, an ameteur?” Four asked, narrow-eyed, shoving a loose strand of hair out of his face.
“No, I think you haven’t eaten anything for too long and that you need at least six hours of uninterrupted sleep before you land yourself face-first into your forge,” Warriors drawled back, shifting even deeper into an even more insufferable slouch against the doorframe. “Wild said you didn’t even notice when he broke into your kitchen-”
“He did what.”
“And that’s hurtful, Four, you know that,” Warriors said, lifting a soulful hand, and clearly enjoying the hell out himself, “to reject the heartfelt offering and care of a sworn brother so callously-”
“What is the actual point of this?” Four squinted judgmentally. “You’ve given up on your other point too quick. You want something.”
“Time wanted me to drag you back to the ranch,” Warriors ratted Time out without the slightest inkling of shame or hesitation. “Wild’s worried about you ending up in the hospital because you wouldn’t eat. Hyrule found out about how you’ve been sleeping and he’s been doing that quiet fretting thing he does. Legend and Wind are trying to make a betting pool on how long it’s going to take for you to pass out across your own anvil.”
“Are you serious-” Four started, incredulous.
“Wh- seriously, with the surprise? Uh, yeah, we’re worried about your health and want you to take a break-”
“No, no, the betting pool- did they actually?”
“... Of course that’s what you’re worried about. Yes. Yes, there is a betting pool. No, I’m not telling you what they bet-”
“Where are they,” Four interrupted Warriors, kicking the switch to shut off his forge, shucking his forge gloves and tossing them aside.
“At Time’s ranch.” Warriors waved a hand, eyebrow raised. “... Where they were told to go to relax after helping to plant the fields, and oh, look, they actually listened-” he added under his breath.
Four, not paying attention, pulled his apron over his head, eyes a hundred miles away. “Tell Time I’m coming over,” he said, absently. “I… need a thing from there.”
Warriors…
Gave up.
“Okay. Yeah, sure. Why not?”
“Well,” Time sighed, one arm around Malon’s waist. “This is nice.”
She hummed, leaning up against him. There was a small, overlooked strand of hay tangled in her hair- Time pulled it out, flicking it to the side. Malon caught the motion, and snorted.
There was a lift in the noise, a surge of seeming merriment, from the flickering fire in the yard, a wild waving of arms from Wind, on his feet and gesturing enthusiastically. Four, dozing against Twilight’s side, startled awake at a particularly vigorous gesture, falling forwards in a mess of flailing limbs, caught by Twilight before he could end up in the fire.
Wild, a smear of flour on his cheek gone unnoticed by himself, and unremarked-upon by the others, flicked a marshmallow at Sky- an apparent easy target, staring vacantly into the flames with half-closed eyes. Alas, but he misjudged his target: Sky, seemingly unthinkingly, caught it out the air with nothing but his mouth. Silence. Sky blinked rapidly, chewing with an air of faint confusion.
And the crowd goes wild.
Among the wave of raised voices and incredulous laughter, Warriors immediately tossed a chip at Sky’s face, only for Sky to duck it, sending the chip to fly and land in Legend’s lap, who promptly picked it up and popped it in his mouth without hesitation. Hyrule, sitting like a quiet shadow, offered up a sly handful of marshmallows to Legend behind his back; the transfer, gone unnoticed by all around the fire, but clearly visible from the porch, went off without so much as a twitch to their faces to betray them. Two seconds later, a marshmallow bounces off of Warrior’s forehead- as he grabbed, and missed, the falling sweet, Wind swooped in, picked up the marshmallow from where it lay upon the ground, and, loud enough to be heard from the porch, declared, “Five second rule!” and promptly ate it.
Yet another wave of mixed, cackling laughter and appalled noises. Wind met the consequences of his actions in getting caught in a headlock by Twilight, and his flailing almost knocked Wild right out of his chair. And so it keeps going, and keeps going, cheerful noise in the night.
In the barns, new calves, foals, lambs, and goat kids slept and nursed. In the coops, tiny balls of new-hatched fluff piled up under their mother’s wings, little chicks nestled deep in their mother’s down. In the fields, thousands of seeds slept patiently, waiting for the rain and the dawn to stir them from slumber, dreaming of the day they’ll sprout.
“Yes,” Malon sighed, settling, a warm, comforting weight pressing against his side. “This is nice.”