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"There must be a road somewhere."
Time frowns, looking down at his phone. There's service, meaning they're in his era, but it's the emergency calls only kind of service. "Close to here, I hope."
Sky stands on his tiptoes again, trying to peer over the golden wheat. The Master Sword's sheath glints in the sun. "Can I get on your shoulders for a second? I don't think I'm tall enough for this."
"And I don't think I'm young enough for this." Despite his grumbling, he gestures for Sky to stand in front of him. The young man does, and he ducks to swoop Sky up in one smooth motion, head between his legs. He makes a startled noise, grabbing onto Time's hair for support before looking around.
"You did that pretty easily for a centenarian," Sky comments. His legs shift Time's kevlar as he twists to look around them. "…hm."
"Anything?"
"Nothing I can see." Sky pats Time's head, and he's deposited to the ground as smoothly as he was picked up. "This is kind of ridiculous."
"Defeated by a wheat field," Time mutters, and Sky snorts, the sound bright and contrasting against the soft rustle of grain around them.
"It's the height," Sky says. "Imagine if Four was in here."
Time purses his lips. The image of Four, tiny, incredibly short Four, trying to navigate this area is horrible, and, worse, funny. He bites down a grin. "I don't particularly want to."
"I'm shorter than it," Sky says, and gestures to the wheat surrounding them. It's a foot taller than him. "Imagine Four. It's, like, double his height."
"That just makes me worried."
"Well, we can't do anything about worry if we're stuck in this field." Sky groans, stretching. The last portal had interrupted what seemed like a lovely nap. "We should walk."
"We should," Time confirms, a wary eye on Sky. "Do you have your inhaler?"
Mid-yawn, Sky shakes the small blue device in his direction, then shoves it back into his pocket. "I want to go back to bed."
"Too bad, soldier," Time says, and claps his shoulder. "March."
They pick a random direction, both of them lacking any navigational equipment. Sky's pace is slower than his, the kid used to conserving energy and making sure his asthma isn't triggered, and that means Time has to actively slow himself a bit to keep up with him. Usually, he was a bit stricter regarding pacing, especially in the wilderness - where they spent most their time - but even Sky was awful at mentioning when he was struggling. All his boys were awfully self-sacrificial.
It's… boring. Sky indulges in conversation for the first ten minutes, then falls mostly silent, clearly focusing on walking and not wasting breath. Time isn't feeling particularly talkative either, so he doesn't mind the silence between them; it's filled with the sound of rustling grain and crunching footsteps. The sun moves directly overhead, then slowly starts heading back towards the horizon. They end up snacking on some of their reserves as they walk.
Then, distantly, a grunt.
Time pauses, reaching over to stop Sky with a hand against his chest. His ears twitch as he listens, more sensitive than Sky's, and Sky pauses as well.
I swear if that's a Dodongo I'm gonna lose my shit, Sky signs. A smirk pulls at Time's mouth. Fire wouldn't be good in a field like this, no. Would probably result in a few third degree burns.
It's not, he says, and Sky lets out a puff of relief. Lizalfos. Wild's. Four.
Annoying, Sky replies. On three?
Time nods. One. Two. Three.
It doesn't take long to take down the Lizalfos. They're irritating to fight, though, especially with all the wheat in the way - Time's Biggoron Sword cuts through most that's in his way like butter, which is helpful for his visibility. It takes a few minutes and a few heavy swings to take down the two on him, and by then Sky's dealing a finishing blow to the final one that had been circling him.
"That wasn't bad," Sky says, and inhales deeply. He wipes the blood - regular - on his sword onto his trouser leg, sheathing it moments after. "We must be close to a road."
Monster camps on cultivated land, such as fields, tended to be closer to roads so they could attack and feed off of travelers. It was unfortunate, but an accurate way to determine how close to civilization they were. There were no monsters near cities, the outskirts monitored and defended closely by their militaries. In contrast, the rural areas and the wilderness were full of monsters - it was usually there that they found their black-blooded camps.
Time checks his phone again. This time, there's a few bars - he sighs in relief, moving to his contacts and dialing Malon. She probably won't pick up at this time - it's when she'd be closing up all the animal pens - but he tries anyways, gesturing for Sky to get on his shoulders once more.
The dial tone rings as Time groans, hoisting Sky up a second time. The kid's only up there for a second before he's being tapped on the head to put him down. He hovers around for a second as the call rings, rings, rings, and then the person you are trying to reach is -
He clicks his phone off, biting down the disappointment. Sky's waiting impatiently next to him, already parting through the wheat.
"Road's right over there," he says, and then notices Time's expression. "She didn't pick up?"
"Probably locking up the animals," Time says, and then nods his chin in the direction Sky's looking. "Shall we?"
"Please," Sky says. He starts pushing through the stalks. "I've seen enough wheat for a lifetime."
Time snorts, sheathing his sword and beginning to follow the kid. There's the quiet, rhythmic crunch underneath their feet and between their hands as they walk, Sky occasionally tripping over stalks, and the sound of him tapping through his contacts, calling each of his boys burners for this era. Hyrule doesn't pick up, neither does Warriors and he's just about to click on Wind's contact when -
Boom!
A blast of magical energy, and Time's thrown forwards by the force of it. Sky, too, is knocked straight off his feet - but the kid's reflexes are faster than his own, and within a blink of an eye he has an arrow nocked in his seldom used bow and released -
The Wizzrobe crumbles to the ground, and Time, dazed, watches as Sky darts to his feet and barely just manages to plunge his sword straight into the monster's torso, panting. He pushes himself up on one arm as the Wizzrobe is finished off, and Sky takes a puff of his inhaler as he stands. Time can see him trembling.
"How did we not hear that?" Sky returns his bow to his back, hand moving this time to the dagger in his belt. He kicks the black ash at his feet, turning to look at Time. "Are you okay?"
"Yup." Slowly, he hauls himself to his feet, feeling disoriented. "You?"
"I feel… weird," Sky responds. He shakes out his free hand, turning it over to observe it. "That was a magic attack, right? I can't tell what it did."
"Me neither, honestly." Which is odd. Time's one of the more magically attuned of his group, and usually the one looked to for guidance in cases of unknown magical attacks if Hyrule or Legend aren't available. But there's nothing specific going on, nothing for him to hone in on and observe - just a general, unsettled feeling. "Something happened, though."
Sky's lips purse, but he looks up. "Well." He brushes through the last of the wheat, the stuff that hadn't been flattened by the magic attack, stepping out of the field. "We got to the road, at least."
They have. Time follows as Sky steps out onto the asphalt, looking up at the sky; which, by now, has become a glorious, rich orange, sun dipping into the horizon. The wind is thin, almost non-existent; and when Time checks his phone, he realizes that they're not too far at all from the Ranch. Of course, considering that they don't have a car, it's hell of a walk; but it's not too bad. They'd been walking in the right direction, at least; at an angle to the road.
Their location hasn't updated in a second, though. He frowns as he refreshes his map, then does it again. Weird. "I don't have any service."
Sky peers into his phone. "Are you sure? I can see cell towers."
It's true. They're on the other side of the l, and barely visible through the tall wheat. Still, when Time refreshes his phone, there's no service. "Check your burner for this era."
A moment of digging through Sky's satchel. No service there either. He can see Sky chewing his lip anxiously. It's not abnormal for them to not have service - they ended up in the wilderness more often than not, untouched parts of nature - but it's clear that something is off. This was a road, one that Time knew well - there was always service here. There was no reason for there not to be.
Nonetheless, he pockets his phone, tightening the strap of the Biggoron Sword across his chest and instead, like Sky, keeping a hand on his more easily accessible weapons. "Well, we know where we're going," he says, nodding in the direction of Lon Lon. "Five or so kilometers in that direction. Won't be more than two hours."
He chuckles at the dismay that crosses over Sky's face. "I wasn't planning on doing cross-country today."
"We can jog, if you want," he suggests, and Sky's dismay becomes further apparent. "If that makes it better."
"I never did marathons for a reason," Sky says, and starts to walk with a huff, keeping to the edge of the asphalt. It's a little funny seeing Sky - usually composed and reasonable - being huffy in a way usually more characteristic to Legend or Warriors. The interrupted nap, and subsequent walking, had probably gotten to him - they were the two things that made him notoriously grumpy, even if it was usually under a layer of good-naturedness.
He wasn't the closest to Sky; Time's opinions on the Master Sword had always kept them at odds, but the behavior was so… young, untarnished by everything Sky had been through. His heart clenched with affection at the behavior.
Ah. Kids, even if said kids were twenty. What could you do.
He falls into step with Sky, keeping an eye and both his ears out for incoming cars. There's a strange lack of them, considering the time; the road wasn't busy, by any means, but there were usually a couple of cars. It was odd. Everything was odd.
Sky eventually stops grumbling and instead stares up at his namesake as they walk, Time occasionally gripping him by the scruff of his jacket to keep him from walking straight off into the long, parallel ditch lining the road. Time - the concept - passes without much complaint, even if Time can see Sky flagging; the kid isn't one to slow down, though, and just takes a couple of puffs of his inhaler to keep going. It's not the correct way to use an inhaler, and usually Sky would get a lecture on it, but he's not really in the mood for it.
The sky remains a brilliant orange. Time reaches into his pack and pulls out a protein bar, which Sky accepts with a wrinkled nose. The next few - minutes? are filled with crunching of a wrapper, and Sky passes him a crumbly half.
"How-" Sky chokes on crumbs. Time reaches over to pat his back. "How long have we been walking?"
Time pauses in his tracks, choking down the dry bar. God, he can’t wait to get home, have a real, non-dehydrated meal - Wild cooked on the road, loved cooking and was the only one who possessed that ability, but they usually resorted to rehydrating their food instead of fresh stuff if they had a goal in mind. These days, considering finding black-blooded camps was getting easier and easier - and more frequent - they hadn't had much freshly-made food.
He shakes out the distant thought of Malon’s cheesecake, instead trying to come up with an answer for Sky’s question. The kid is watching him with a curious expression, dusting crumbs off his cheeks. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember,” he says.
He doesn’t. “I… don’t.”
The frown returns to Sky’s face, no longer grumpy but now concerned. Time finds himself in a similar mood; he's not lost track of time in years, decades, even, not since his last adventure. It brings upon a feeling of horrible dread - something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong.
He checks his phone. It doesn't turn on when he clicks the power button, and Sky stops his slow, contemplative shuffle to turn and peer into it again. He presses and holds the power button, and the screen turns on momentarily with a logo before flickering out again.
"Fuck," Sky says eloquently, digging into his own pockets, and Time agrees. He'd had plenty of battery. This was something else. "None of mine are working, either."
They stand in silence for a moment, Sky scuffing his boots against the gravel underfoot. Time looks up at the sky, trying to determine how much the sun has moved - but it hasn't, it almost certainly hasn't since they'd exited the wheat field. The sky is still the same color, the clouds as heavy as they'd been then - Time didn't know exactly how much time had passed, but it'd definitely been enough that the sun should've set by now.
Eventually, he stops trying to make sense of their situation. "Shall we keep walking?"
"I don't really know what else to do," Sky says helplessly. "I guess so."
Time's never seen this much wheat in his life. Sky, for once, looks entirely put off - he's stopped fidgeting as he usually does, doesn't pull out his carving or stare at the clouds; instead, his hands remain at his waist where a dagger and gun reside, eyes wary of their surroundings. Time, himself, doesn't feel much less paranoid; the world around them has been altered in some strange, uncanny way. If an enemy was actively doing this, it meant they were on an uneven playing field - especially if something as instinctual as Time's track of, well, time had been interrupted.
They keep walking. Time's feet have begun to hurt, and Sky's expression has the faintest hint of a grimace in it. The sky is still orange, and Time begins to count the minutes as they walk.
It's definitely been more than two hours. They should've reached the Ranch by now. He's almost sure their location had been accurate before they'd lost service - so why were they still walking?
His head hurts. He kind of wants to set fire to the wheat. If it didn't end so close to the Ranch, and if he wouldn't immediately get arrested for property damage, he'd probably do it. The others were known for their arsonist urges; Time had them, but didn't talk about them like Wild or Hyrule did. He was discreet like that.
It takes him a moment to notice that Sky's stopped walking. He turns to look at the kid, who's fully grimacing now and shrugging off his outer layers. "I need a moment," he says, passively, when Time meets his eyes.
…he's probably hurt. None of his dumbass kids ever admitted to needing a moment unless they were actually dead on their feet. Which Sky often was, to be fair; but he looks relatively okay right now.
He's proved right almost immediately - the sleeve of Sky's cotton shirt is soaked in blood, so saturated that it's dripping. That's - that's weird, though; they'd been walking for a while, so why was it still bleeding? Unless it was a really bad injury, which it didn't seem to be. Sky was unnaturally pale, yes - something that Time only just noticed - but he would've passed out a while ago if the laceration had been significantly bad.
Sky looks ill, in addition to the general pale complexion. He folds his white jacket carefully, the insulation covered in blood, and stuffs it between the strap against his chest. "That's… so much blood."
"How bad is the injury?" Time's already reaching for his first-aid kit. None of them have Warriors's field training, nor Hyrule's fairy magic, but basic wound care was an unfortunate necessity. Time's mentally preparing himself for stitches - a bad injury needed that kind of help, even with a potion - but Sky shakes his head.
"It was just a nick," he says, and winces before tearing the sleeve of the utterly ruined shirt, which squishes with blood under Sky's hand. He presents his arm to Time. "That's why I didn't bring it up."
Time takes Sky's arm, wiping off some of the blood with his glove to see better. It is, in fact, just a nick; maybe a few centimeters long, not very deep - even more alarming. "Blood thinner?"
"Maybe. Something feels off." He accepts Time's arm around him without complaint, leaning into his side. "Reminds me of that one time Warriors got cursed so his wounds wouldn't heal."
Time grimaces. Those had been a stressful few days - they'd even ended up in a hospital when there'd been too much blood loss, which hadn't been a fun time. This… seemed similar enough that Time was worried. Hypothetically, they weren't that far from either Castle Town or the Ranch, but…
"Are you bleeding anywhere else?" He asks, just in case.
Sky freezes, chewing his lip again. "Um. No."
Time raises an eyebrow. Sky glances at him and then groans, burying his face in his hands. Somehow, despite the blood loss, his cheeks redden. "How are you so good at that face!"
"Where are you bleeding," Time says, resigned, and Sky looks down at his shoes.
After a moment, he realizes that it's not just a vague show of apology. His grip around Sky's shoulders tightens. "Don't tell me your feet are bleeding, soldier."
"…I just really wanted to get in a bed," Sky says, voice small, and Time's need to scold him is suddenly at war with the need to give him a hug. He decides to save the former for later, sighing and pulling the kid into his arms.
"I can't with you boys," he mutters into Sky's hair, feeling the younger male start to tremble. "Come. We're sitting."
He pulls them over to the edge of the road, stepping down into the dirt and helping Sky do the same without irritating his injuries. The kid wavers at the sight of the wheat field for a moment, glancing back down the road they'd come from, and freezes in Time's arms.
"Time," he says. "We've been here before."
Time follows his gaze; down the ditch, parallel to the road, straight at the scorched earth where they'd first been attacked by the Wizzrobe. The place they'd been walking away from for the last few hours.
…
He rubs at his forehead. Sky tips his head into Time's chest with a noise of pure misery, then drops to the ground like a puppet with cut strings before Time can even attempt to catch him.
"I hate this. I hate - I hate stupid Wizzrobes," Sky bemoans, as Time crouches down next to him. "I want to sleep. I'm tired."
Sky sniffles, and Time finally sits on his ass to rub his back comfortingly. The younger male rubs at his eyes, smearing blood over them from the dripping wound. "I want to go home."
"You're okay," Time says, terrible at comforting people. "It's fine. Just breathe for a bit."
"It's not fine," Sky mumbles, burying his face into his arms. More blood across his eyes, and Time reaches over to wipe some off. "I'm always so tired, Time. I don't know who thought having a hero with - with chronic fatigue was a good idea, but it's not, and this is feeling like a really mean joke right now."
Wasn't that just the life of Heroes of Courage? All of them had been through so much, from the youngest to the oldest - Time was just lucky that decades had passed since his last adventure. He was well-adjusted , in comparison to most of them. And Sky - Sky was usually so bright, so cheerful in the face of adversity, filled with belief in the Deity that guided them, that hearing him admit that an adventure felt like a cruel joke was like a slap to the face.
Time sighs, squeezing Sky once more. Then he reaches back into his bag, grabbing the mini portable stove he'd gotten too lazy to pack away properly and had just shoved in an outer pocket. "Do you have any of your dehydrated pumpkin soup?"
Sky makes a wet noise of confusion, shrugging off his pack instinctively to dig inside. "Yeah," he says, voice rough. The blood on his face has been cut through with tear tracks. "Why?"
"We're going to sit here and have soup," Time says resolutely, "until the magic effect runs out. Time will most likely resume then."
Sky blinks at him. Then he rubs at his eyes a bit more, pulling out a sealed packet with thin, rubbery orange-red in it with his free hand. "Are you sure? We can," his voice hitches, "we can keep walking."
"It's okay," Time says, and shoots Sky a rare smile. "We have plenty of time. Hopefully not too much, because I'd like to see my wife."
Sky snorts, the sound wet and pathetic. He curls up with his back to the asphalt, watching as Time lights the stove and looks for one of their pots.
Part of him, the immature, annoying, bitter part that had never really died, wants to gloat. Of course life was an unfair joke - the Gods hated all of them, used them for their dirty work, and Sky's devout love for Hylia was honestly ridiculous. To that part of him, it was satisfying seeing Sky finally realize that - how hadn't he realized it earlier? How couldn't he tell that they were pawns?
The other part was just… sad. It was wrong to see Sky this way. It was upsetting. He wanted to help, to make this kid he'd taken under his wing feel better - no matter how much their views differed.
So. Soup it was.
Sky sniffles again. His namesake is still orange.