Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

cacophony

noun

[ca·​coph·​o·​ny] /ka-ˈkä-fə-nē/

1 : harsh or jarring sound : dissonance

2 : violence in the sound of words or phrases

3 : an incongruous or chaotic mixture : a striking combination

On Sky's third or fourth visit to Wild's untamed world,  the Champion takes a few of them up to the Hateno laboratory. He's told them all about his friend Purah already: about her rather inquisitive attitude and tendency to get right to the point, a character trait that Sky is in great need of more exposure to, someone who will give him far less useless words to parse amongst the meaningful communication. Apparently, she wants some help moving some heavy equipment and asked if Wild had a minute.

So now Wild, Sky, Twilight, and Warriors make their way through the rain—a gentle, though cold patter of droplets falling at first as a soft mist, the tempo increasing the higher the path takes the—up to the tower at the top of the hill. Sky enjoys the walk, the stiff wetness of the air notwithstanding. The view from the hill is gorgeous, as most views in Wild's world are, and Sky likes seeing Hateno Village from this angle. Here, up on the path above, he can finally get a true sense of the scale of the town, of the ambling laziness of it, even with all of the people that are inside of its borders. It reminds him a bit of Skyloft—roads not empty, but not crowded, town rising and falling in steps and cliff-sides, seeming to exist in three dimensional space.

It is green, a cacophony of so many shades, tree leaves and grass and unripened crops. It is blue, in the running brook and the sky. Red in the tile roofing and the faint tinge of the dirt path, a soil that crumbles beneath his boots in a way that says clay. If he looks right, he can see Hyrule climbing the tree near Wild's house, and Legend leaning against the trunk of it. They're just blobs of color, from here, but Sky would know their colors anywhere—the shapes of them, the way that the traveler blurs into whatever background he stands in front of, only his unending motion allowing the eye to track him; the way that Legend always stands so drastically out of his surroundings, even whilst sitting perfectly still.

He pulls his attention back to him companions for a moment, checking to be sure that no one is trying to talk to him, or is in need of any kind of assistance. Seeing his brothers marching up the muddying path in as much of a state of self-containment as he, Sky retreats back into his own awareness. He breathes in deeply, letting the taste of the air fill his nose, his mouth. Rain in a forest—by Hylia, rain at all—this dense is still new to him, but it's becoming one of his favorites. The way that the dusty cling of dirt shifts to something more pottery-like. The drag of woody heaviness that seeps into the air. The indescribable smell of 'cold.' 

Wild knocks on the door of the odd tower, and sure enough, a white-haired young girl with large glasses and wide red eyes wrenches the door open, staring up at them. She jumps up and down, and her hands move with clear deliberate intent. Sky's eyes narrow in on her, on the V handshape, and then he frowns as no actual dialogue comes. Her mouth moves, at a bad angle for him to follow, and clearly accented in a way he is unaccustomed to.

There isn't going to be any kind of meaningful intelligibility, lipreading off her in this moment. So Sky lets it go, and focuses instead on his surroundings.

His brothers walk through the doorway, and he follows, taking the space in as quick as he can. The great room is crowded, not with people, but with things: books, and papers, and bits and bobs of materials scattered about. Sky could take a long time properly investigating if he wants to (and he does rather want to). But his brother has another idea.

Wild waves at him, and then starts babbling away, going off on a tangent like he does sometimes, and letting his normally good lipreading speech fall away into something more chaotic. Sky rolls his eyes, not annoyed, not really. He knows that he signs too quickly when they are at his home, with his people.

Warriors catches on to the glazed look in his eye, or he must have, Sky assumes, because the Captain waves out into the open space, a clear "Look at me."

Sky picks his head up—having previously been watching Purah's mouth very, very intently, trying to parse out her particular phonics—and focuses on Wars' signing.

His brother angles his body to mimic the way that Wild is generally facing, and says, "I'm going to interpret."

Sky smiles back a flash of poorly concealed relief.

"And I know that you wanted to meet some of the other Links, and I know what you're like so I figured that I could bring them in for observation without you getting too close," Wild's words are carried to him off Warriors' fingertips.

The Captain rotates his body, facing the other ways, and labels his orientation, "P-U-R-A-H."

Sky nods, and signs back, "P-SHORT."

"Purah," Wars repeats the sign-name, and then interprets for her. "What, L-I-N-K-Y, you don't trust me in a room with so-called Heroes unsupervised?" The little one does in fact look scandalized. Sky nearly laughs, but holds it in.

"No," Wars turns back to the orientation meant to mimic Wild as he signs, and Sky sees the Champion cross his arms in sync. "I don't. I have been subjected to far too many of your experiments, I know better now."

The words themselves are confusing, alarming, concerning. But Wild is smiling, and Wars' uplifted eyebrows are saying that this is being said in a friendly, even teasing, tone of voice.

"I wasn't lying when I said I needed help, though," Wars says for Purah.

He then pivots back to Wild, "You never are, which is why we came."

There's a pause in the dialogue, and Sky takes the second to shift the two people actually speaking from his peripheral to his main focus, taking in the genuine fondness on both of their faces, the relaxed nature of their body language. Wild and Purah are two people who are very, very comfortable around one another, and Sky feels himself relax all the more for it. Regardless of the remark about 'experimenting' on her friends, clearly there is no need for actual alarm here. It is most likely the type of mad science that Groose gets up to at Sky's own frequent—but minor—expense. Elaborate, possibly embarrassing, but most of all brilliant and (on average) harmless.

Sky can work with that.

"E-a—" Wild starts, and Sky doesn't bother trying to parse out the shape of his lips, just jumps his focus right back to Warriors' steady interpretation. "Anyway, these are a few of my brothers that have come to lend a hand. That's Twilight, Warriors, and Sky."

At his own introduction Sky turns back to the young girl and smiles politely, signing, "Nice to meet you," making sure to vocalize as he does.

"Your eff" Oh, that is worse than normal. Sky gives up fast and shoots a quick, pleading expression at the Captain who is fast to repeat Purah in sign. "You're the Deaf one, right?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replies, tongue clumsy in his mouth. She stares back at him with the same careful focus Sky knows that he levels out at his own oral conversation partners, and suddenly finds himself to be feeling self-conscious of his own vocables.

Purah taps her chin, then turns toward the others, and Sky can see her jaw moving from profile as she gesticulates broadly. With a wave of her hand toward a doorway, off Twilight and Wars both go. Sky hums, debating to himself. Did she mean for him to go with them? Was he supposed to follow? He isn't sure, so he goes to ask Wild, and then pauses, even more uncertain. The Champion is cutting in between Sky and the girl, gesticulating nonsense back and shaking his head. This… seems to be about him.

Sky does not find that thought reassuring.

Wild visibly surrenders, shoulders slumping, head dipping down in clear defeat. Sky furrows his brows, tilting his head to the side, "What?"

No one answers him, because no one seems to be aware that he talked. Wild steps out of the way, removing himself as an obstacle, clearing a path for Purah to grin up at him point directly at a chair.

Sky frowns, and turns to Wild, beyond lost. "Hold on. I can help, too," he signs.

Purah makes no visible attempt to remain in the conversation, just smiles at him and hops over to her shelves to grab a few bits of incomprehensible technology. 

"I know you can, but she thinks she can help you," Wild signs in answer, "and that what she has to do will only take three of us."

Help me? Sky wonders. "Help me with what?

Wild smirks, "You'll see."

Unhelpful! But okay, Sky can play along with a surprise. He pivots to his next concern. "You're leaving me alone?" Sky signs back, not panicking, but just a touch startled. 

"Don't worry, Sky, I trust her. But I can insist you come too, if you don't want to stay."

Sky glances back at Purah, who kneels on the table as she assembles some… thing, muttering to herself. He can see some switches, wires, and shaped bits of metal that he can't even begin to puzzle out. The sudden resemblance to Groose is uncanny, and lessens the knot of tension in his chest. And she really does just look eight or nine years old, hardly anything threatening. And if Wild trusts her… 

"I'll be all right, thank you though."

Wild nods at him, smiles, and heads out of the room to help Warriors and Twilight do whatever Purah called them here for. And then, well, he waits.

After a few moments, the girl jumps back to her feet, and points even more firmly at the chair. Taking the directive, Sky takes a seat as well as the object thrust eagerly into his hands. It is small, circular, and thin, a hard shell—looks like a can lid with dark fabric stretched across it.

Sudden motion in the corner of his eye, Sky looks up just in time to see Purah smack her own forehead, looking rather flustered. She holds up a finger, verbalizes "Wait," and then reaches back to the papers scattered about the table.

After a few awkward seconds, Purah hands Sky a note, then climbs back onto the table to sit with her legs dangling off of it. 

He reads: Put the speaker up to your right ear. Sound will come out of it, a variety of pitches and volumes. What you need to do is raise your hand when you can hear something. Then we'll switch to the left ear. I think I can make a device to help you hear more, but I need to know what you can hear, first.

Sky blinks. He reads the note again. He blinks again. A way to make him hear more? He did not know that such a device could exist. But if it does, if it could, well, he figures it would come from Wild's time. From the people that made the Champion his slate, another device he would have called impossible had he not seen it work for himself. And well, if Purah knows how to work on Wild's slate, maybe she knows something about this, too. 

He decides to just… go with this, and see where it leads. After all, what's the worst that could happen?

He smiles up at the girl. "Well, I hope I'm not distracting you from anything important," Sky tells her in spoken Hylian, setting the note down and lifting the thing to his right ear as she's directed. 

She smiles back at him, and waves a hand in a clear signing of "Bah." And it is good that that seems to be a sign that hearing people also use the same way, considering that Purah clearly has no good lipreading behavior whatsoever. She says something—she is clearly saying something, her mouth is moving and he gets the 'oh' shape of a syllable before she is looking away from him, down and out at what is in her hands, the rest of the sentence lost.

No matter. He's agreed to this little experiment, so he shall continue to play along, to be a good sport. He holds the little disk to his ear, and waits. Sound does come, and he nearly jumps at it—the shrill pitch, the suddenness—entirely unexpected as they are. At first, the sounds seem random. They jump and skip with no tempo or rhythm, and Sky can't pick out a pattern. He does as Purah asked, though, and raises his hand when he can hear something. As the tones continue, he can tell that she's trying to determine how loud something has to be until he can hear it. It's strange. He doesn't know if he's ever heard some of these sounds, as high as they are. 

His world is soft, his world is quiet. His world is the gentle hum of distant thunder and the jumping skip of deep voices. This machine is angry, it is shrieking, it is what he imagines the angry buzzing of a bee to be, the startled scream of a wounded bird.

He focuses on the task, and tries not to think about the sounds themselves.

It takes a while until she's satisfied and has him switch to the left ear, where she runs through the same process. Some time during that, the other three come back, a little more tired and a little more dry. They wave to him as they enter, and Sky perks up, saying "Hi!" back with enthusiasm.

The little test of Purah's has quickly shifted from strange and interesting to boring and monotonous, ironic as that word might be used to describe it. He does his best to keep listening to the sounds as they come—or fail to come—to him, and watches his brothers.

They sit around, leaning on furniture as they talk, voices only, no signs, no way for him to join the conversation. He could try to lipread, but that takes far too much active attention, way too much focus, for him to be able to do it and still remember to raise his hands for the beep. He sighs to himself, and stares unfocused at the far wall, not letting himself get any more distracted. (And he keeps calling it that, potential distraction. Not frustrated, not annoyed, not left out, no. They are not excluding him, he's busy, and it is fine.)

There's a small shake to the floor, a gentle tremor. Sky looks up, and sees Warriors raising his hands, about to talk. Excitement jumps into the Skyloftian's chest.

"It's nothing interesting," Wars says. "Just chit-chat, don't worry."

The brief hope curdles and dies. Sky forces a smile, an affectation of nonchalance. "Yeah, no worries."

The wall over Purah's shoulder isn't very interesting, either.

He's almost startled when Purah tugs a little on the wire that connects the disk to her boxes on the table, zoned out as he was. He hands it back with a genuine smile. As awkward as it was, he truly was happy to help with a project. Her mouth moves again, and then a tap comes on Sky's shoulder. He looks up, and Wild signs, "I'll interpret."

"Thanks," Sky signs, and then says, vocalized, to Purah, "Can you say that again?"

Wild's hands move fast. "I was just saying that I really am very excited to be working on this kind of a project, no one has ever been willing to sit down for me to do an A-U-D-I-O-G-R-A-M before, which isn't much of a surprise, most adults aren't willing to grab something off a shelf for me if they thinks kids shouldn't have it, let alone let me shove a wire in their ears. Anyway! Excited! Wild knows I work fast, so this will be ready for you lickety-split, and then we can find out how well the theory holds up when it meets the road."

Sky… does not know where to begin with most of that. He elects not to begin at all, and instead offers his best encouraging smile and says back, "Good luck, then!" He makes sure to move his mouth as he does.

Farewell is a hasty affair, and they rush back down the hill, all eager for the meal that Wild had promised them that morning. The scent and sight of Hateno washes back over Sky, exciting and familiar all in one in a way that he finds oddly soothing, the crazy inventor (and the lack of an understanding of personal space held by said inventor) quickly slotting in his mind as another thing that reminds him of home.

The day falls quickly into memory, the entire incident with the sounds and the strange circle fading into another anecdote of a peculiar thing he can tell Zelda happened to him on his journey across time.

It never occurs to Sky that is could end up being more than that.

Until it is.

It's somewhere around two months later when they walk through another portal to see Hateno Village again. Sky can't help but feel a little jealous, since they hadn't been to Skyloft in the time between, and he misses Zelda so much he aches. But nobody here controls where the portals go, least of all Wild or Sky, so he just lets out a soft sigh and smiles at Wild's clear surprise that they're back so soon. 

His own homesickness will not get in the way of his joy on his brother's behalf. He will not permit it to, he loves them all so much.

Besides, all in all, Wild's world is a good place to be. They'd come from Hyrule's, which is a rather rough world, considering that fires are dangerous beacons and monsters are more numerous than insects. The group always comes out of Hyrule's world a little worse for wear. The relative peace of Wild's world, whether in a village or traveling to a stable, is very welcome. 

With lighter hearts—and lighter bodies, due to the blood loss and rationing—they climb across the last hill to make it to the house. In a matter of minutes, the fire warms up the interior, and they're all laying damp clothing out in front of the hearth, changing into nightclothes and settling down for an evening under a roof no longer a commonplace activity, not something taken for grated, but a rare near-miraculous treat. 

Sky sits down at the table (a real table!) with paper, ink, and a pen to write a letter. Nearby, Time and Wild hold a conversation, and the occasionally sufficiently low rumble in Time's voice that Sky can hear is soothing. He gets halfway through a letter to Zelda that he doesn't even know if he'll get to send when abrupt motion makes him pick his eyes up off the paper. The faint blur of color that had attracted his gaze turns out to be—when looked at properly—Time standing and walking to the other side of the quaint, cramped house. This is something that Sky would normally ignore, but the thing is… Time seems to be going towards the door. And they are all already inside, and he can see the rain pelting down like buckets dumped against the window from where he sits.

So he obviously isn't going out in it.

Someone must be coming in.

Brief thoughts have a chance to flit through Sky's mind. Is it an enemy, are they in danger? Is it someone in need of protection, someone who needs help? Did they somehow forget someone on the road and it is one of his brothers out there in the cold, the rain, the—

The door swings open, and to Sky's inordinate surprise, there stands a small, hooded person, cloak dripping like a fountain. Wild perks up and rushes over, saying something and taking the cloak off of the child. Purah, Sky quickly recognizes, seems more than happy to enter the cramped quarters, to come in and out of the pelting rain.

Sky isn't sure why, but he half expected the girl to be upset; mad, even. He has trouble otherwise understanding what it is that would drive her all the way down the hill and across the town to Wild's home in this kind of storm other than anger, or perhaps urgency.

But their eyes meet, and the young lady lights up. Her mouth moves far too fast for him to even have a dream of parsing, and he gives up on lip reading quickly, instead casting his eyes about for a volunteer interpreter. There is usually a volunteer interpreter. However, on this occasion, the rest of the Chain does not seem to be running at full speed. The sudden intrusion throws off his shyer brothers.

Hyrule has somehow disappeared, and Four decided to (oh so casually) hide behind Twilight. The rest of his brothers—the older ones, the more socialized ones—are very clearly trying to intervene. They all face the girl, mouths moving, none of them at a good angle, none of them in a way that he can understand easily. If he focused very very hard he might be able to, but his own attention is jumping around.

Apparently, Purah has no interest in them. She comes right up to Sky and offers him the small box in her hands, and only then does Sky suddenly remember the details of their strange prior encounter. She'd said she could help with his hearing. She said that she would make some kind of contraption.

Sky takes the palm-sized box, blinking, and at her encouragement—big smile, a "go on" gesture—opens it up. Inside, there are three devices: two are shaped somewhat like bananas, smaller than his pinkie finger, with small wires coming out of their tops like flowers on delicate stems, while the third is like a small version of Wild's slate, with switches instead of a screen. There's paper inside, too, and Sky can tell with a quick glance that the little book details how these are made and how to use them. 

He's not sure what to do with it all.

He looks back up, at his brothers who are all now either very crowded around him or very pressed out of the way, and finally finds a volunteer. Time towers over Purah's back, and very quickly signs the second Sky is looking at him. "Hey, here!" Relief shoots through Sky's heart with more force that he was ready for. "She is asking if you need help getting them on?"

"On?" Sky asks. "I wear them?"

"Yes!" Time interprets for Purah. "They're a bit like earrings, can I put them on you? It won't hurt."

"Oh!" Sky smiles, even more tension leaving him. Earrings are fine. He has no trepidation about earrings. "Yes, go ahead."

Not waiting for any more permission than that, she hops up onto the table, avoiding the unfinished letter, so she's more level with Sky's head, then picks out one of the banana-shaped devices. Wild is suddenly there, crammed right into the small personal space bubble with them, and flashes a lopsided grin at Sky before turning to face Purah and saying… something. Sky can feel Purah answer. Feel the exhalation of her breath on his cheek.

Four, curious, comes out of hiding and wanders closer on his crutches, drawn in by the promise of learning something new. 

Purah hooks the device over Sky's ear, putting the banana part behind the ear and the wire part in front. She pushes the end of the wire, an even tinier device covered in what Sky thinks is rubber, into the actual inside of his ear. It itches slightly, like a stray hair, like a briefly imagined bug, and then shifts to simply steady, but not painful, pressure. He makes a face at the feeling but lets her work, and turns so that she can do the other side. 

It's sort of funny to watch Wild and Four's faces as she works—they look excited, albeit a bit confused, to which Sky can certainly relate. They don't look very nervous, though, so Sky feels a little better about this whole thing. It's hard not to be curious about the devices being fitted over his ears, about what they will sound like, if anything? Will it just be more of those scream-like tones? Will he be able to hear a little more of his brother's voices? Is he not going to notice any change at all?

Sky tries not to fuss so hard about the possibilities, not when the reality is directly in front if him. Not when he is about to find out one way or the other, right now. If it works, that's wonderful, if it doesn't, that's all right, too. He's trying not to wonder too much or ratchet his hopes up too high. 

When she's done, Purah reaches for the tiny slate-like thing in the box and hands it over to him. She points at one of the buttons, clearly meaning for him to press it. 

"Is that it?" Sky asks, and notices that using his voice feels just a touch more uncomfortable. The motion of his jaw pressing on the tiny bits of rubber inside.

Purah nods and gestures at the little button again.

For the first time in this entire strange process, Sky feels real, actual fear. He has no idea what is about to happen. He has no idea if he wants this to happen, it's all been so fast and so poorly explained. He doesn't know what he should do, he doesn't know how to back out, he only knows that there is an expectation, heavy and imposing, that he presses that tiny, innocuous-looking button.

Courage, now.

His finger presses in, and he feel the little click of the switch slide in.

A light on the mini-slate flickers, then begins to glow, and Sky can hear… something. It isn't very clear at first, but then he's listening to a tone like the ones Purah had used to test his hearing. He isn't sure if he is disappointed or relieved, that of all potential outcomes, the nonsensical high screaming is what the devices can produce.

Ah well, at least they aren't entirely useless. They can let him know about sounds he couldn't hear before, Sky is sure. The scream of a monster, probably a voice higher than the bottom of Time's range.

Yes, Sky decides. The little banana earrings will at least tell him where to look. Not a waste of time. Not anything to fear.

And then the tone stops. Sky frowns, doubting that all of his brothers have in fact shut up so suddenly. He opens his mouth to ask what the device is supposed to do, exactly, how to tell if it's broken, and then… well, then, he hears.

"səʊ haʊ duː wiː nəʊ ɪf ɪt wɜːks?" 

Sky's heart leaps into his throat—what in the name of the Golden Three was that? He turns towards the sound (what a concept that is, tracking sound!) and finds himself staring at Wild, looking at him with a curious expression. "What was that?"

"jɔː ˈkɪdɪŋ!," Wild immediately smiles, his whole face lighting up like the sun.

And Sky… doesn't really know why.

"ɪt wɜːkt!" Sky jerks his head to the new sound, to Four's wide, eager eyes. "kæn juː hɪə miː, skaɪ?" The sound jumbles up in his head, unknown, foreign, without a reference to process it in.

He's staring right at the smithy's lips and he's not getting a single syllable in all the noise.

"aɪ hɪə—" Sky stops mid sentence, cutting off his voice the moment that he hears it. That… that is not what he was imagining. That was not how he though his words would sound like if he could hear them. Without making a conscious decision to do it, he switches back to sign. "I can hear your voices."

A tidal wave of sound fills the room. So much from all around, and a shrill high whine jumps and then stops abruptly. Sky turns his head to each member of the Chain in turn as they talk—chasing the sudden noise, following the unexpected information.

"ðæts səʊ kuːl," Wind is grinning, nearly jumping up and down. "skaɪ, wɒt dʌz maɪ vɔɪs saʊnd laɪk, ɪz ɪt kuːl ɪz ɪt—"

"—səʊ wɒt, naʊ hiːz ʤʌst kjʊəd?" Legend is glowering in the corner, something in his eyes that Sky doesn't like but cannot parse, not when he doesn't understand the words.

"aɪ ˈwʊdᵊnt seɪ kjʊəd, ˈiːvᵊn ɪf aɪ ɡɒt ðɛm ʤʌst raɪt." Sky frowns at Purah, at the way that she is peering at him like a lab specimen. "aɪ dɪd traɪ tuː ɡɛt ðə bɛst reɪnʤ ɒv ˈfriːkwənsiz æz ˈpɒsəbᵊl ðəʊ."

More sound, more voices, more garbled packets of input that he has no idea what to do with, how to begin to understand. He doesn't understand, and he can feel himself sinking, spiraling in. His hands won't move. His mouth won't open.

He wants everyone to be quiet, and he can't even figure out how to tell them that.

Contact, and for the first time in a very long time, a hand on his shoulder makes Sky jump. He looks up to see Time peering down at him with genuine concern, eye warm and searching. "haʊ duː juː fiːl, skaɪ?" And his voice is so much more than Sky was prepared for, it is more than a gentle rumble, it is loud, and it is rolling, roiling like the sea, and Sky is so very familiar with the shapes that words make on his brother's lips, but he has no idea how to marry that idea to the sound.

Say something, anything, Sky pleads with himself, staring up at the old man in fervent desperation. The polite concern on Time's face shifts quickly to alarm, and Sky watches as his brother turns to the rest of the room and barks something, sharp and quick, "ˈɛvriwʌn niːdz tuː biː ˈkwaɪət, raɪt naʊ."

Silence falls with sudden and blissful familiarity. Sky finally lets out the breath he had not even noticed that he was holding, and drops his head into his hands.

There's a bit of a soft ʃʌʃ noise that lingers, a kiss of sound, and Sky cannot help but find it akin to the texture of a soft cloth, passing over bare skin. It's not unpleasant—actually it's one of the most pleasant things that he has noticed since he pressed the button of regret.

"hiːz ˌəʊˈkeɪ, ɪts ʤʌst ə lɒt æt wʌns, aɪ θɪŋk," the low voice that Sky is now pretty sure belongs to Time rumbles through the room.

"ˌəʊˈkeɪ, wɛl, lɪŋk-iː, lɛt miː ɡɪv juː ɔːl ði ɪnˈstrʌkʃᵊnz bɪˈfɔːr aɪ—"

"pɔːʧ, kʌm ɒn."

A completely new sound, like the feel of a stretch comes, and then another he has no words for in time with the tapping reverb on the floor he associates with steps. Suddenly the soft-cloth sound grows in intensity, before being hushed back into the background once more.

It's calming.

He picks his head up, and makes himself meet his brothers in the eyes, lets Warriors take the center of his attention. "Do you need them off?" the Captain signs.

Sky shakes his head. "Not, yet, I—" he frowns, not even sure how to say the thing he wants to say. "Hearing… what?"

Confusion passes over Wars' face, and then clarity. "Rain, Sky." His brother smiles. "You're hearing the rain."

"Rain makes sound?" he asks, genuinely dumbfounded.

"Yes, Sky," Time signs with a laugh. And it is low and it is heavy, and it sounds like how thunder feels.

The rain sound rises and falls again, and Sky looks out toward where it seemed to have come from, and sees Wild come back in, and voice, "aɪm ˈɡəʊɪŋ tuː stɑːt ˈdɪnə."

Sky still doesn't understand what the words are, but when Wild starts pulling vegetables out of the void of his Slate and chopping them up over in the little kitchen area, Sky does in fact understand the message.

They all fall into companionable silence, and Sky falls into the gentle sound of the rain, the occasional rise and fall of a voice punctuating the fragile calm as the aroma of roasting meat fills the room. Slowly, the table in front of him is set, and his brothers crowd around him. Their presence does not bother him, could never bother him, but the ambient noise is edging closer and closer to too much. (And what a concept that is, ambient noise.)

A headache is growing, right between his ears and spreading like corruption, like rot.

Another tap on his shoulder, and Sky turns to see Four, concern writ large on his face as he leans forward in his seat, elbow on the table. "kæn juː ˌʌndəˈstænd ðɪs?"

Sky frowns, trying and failing to parse out the sounds, to find meaning in the cacophony.

Understanding blooms across Four's face like the rising of the sun. At the same moment, the rain-sound rises and falls again. Four turns to the rest of the Chain, "jɛs, hiː kæn hɪər ʌs. hiː ˈdʌzᵊnt ˌʌndəˈstænd wɒt wɪə ˈseɪɪŋ, bɪˈkɒz hiː ˈdʌzᵊnt nəʊ wɒt wɜːdz saʊnd laɪk."

"huː ˈdʌzᵊnt nəʊ wɒt wɜːdz saʊnd laɪk?" a new voice, a new sound, and Sky frowns at the smithy's forehead, trying to figure it out without looking.

"Sky," Four signs with a simultaneous vocalization of "skaɪ", and understanding strikes like lightning.

So that's what his name sounds like. The moment of discovery is drowned by another new sound, another thing that is pleasant, though jarring, and Sky has no idea what it is.

Another noise, melodic and even, coming from Legend. "ðeə juː ɑː, haɪ-ruːl, weə wɜː juː?"

"æt fɜːst? əˈvɔɪdɪŋ mɔː ˈsəʊʃᵊl ˌɪntəˈrækʃᵊn. ðɛn aɪ fɛl əˈsliːp." Hyrule is quieter than the rest of the Links seem to be, but there's a very sweet tone to it that almost reminds Sky of sugar, that buzzes in his head like the pulse of vibration that Fi would give off when she wanted to tell him something. 

Sky turns around in his chair to see Hyrule approaching the table. "Hyrule!" Sky says with intent, careful focus, paying particular attention to the shape of the sounds in his mouth.

Hyrule raises a hand to wave at him, and heads toward Legend, where there's an empty spot between him and Sky. Sky can't begin to imagine hearing well enough to know where people are in a room like that. His respect for Hyrule increases a few notches at the thought. 

"wɛl, wɪər əˈbaʊt tuː iːt," Legend says, "səʊ juː pɪkt ə ɡʊd taɪm tuː weɪk ʌp."

"aɪ smɛld ɪt," Hyrule responds with a smile and a laugh of his own, shoulders shaking in time with that same strange bright-colored noise as before. 

Sky's voice is still sticky in his mouth, but he finds he doesn't mind fighting thorugh it as much, when it's for Hyrule. "Hold on, Hyrule, would you do that again?"

Hyrule pauses, leaning his cane up against the table. "duː wɒt əˈɡɛn? əʊ, weɪt." He pauses, thinks for a second, then does his best to sign the words instead. "Do what again?"

Sky almost feels like he's going to cry from the sharpness of the relief, from the harsh reminder of how confused and lost he has been, just from having a simple phrase spoken in a language he can parse. He forces the vocables again. "You're getting so good at that, Hyrule. I meant, laugh?" 

"Laugh?" Hyrule repeats, and then signs, "Why?" 

"It sounds different," Sky signs to himself in confusion, and then shakes his head, and makes himself speak aloud, for Hyrule's sake. "It sounds different, when you laugh."

That makes Hyrule pull up short. "'Sounds different'…? weɪt, you kæn hɪər ɪt? You hɜːd miː?"

Hyrule turns sharply in his direction, mouth open in a little 'o' of surprise. Voices all rise, sudden and overlapping, and what little progress Sky feels like he has made, the simple joy of being able to discern disparate voices and parse things like rain or laughter falls away to an even more percussive pounding in his head.

It's like a hammer, a bludgeon, growing stronger and stronger. He can't take it anymore.

Sky grabs the little wires in his ear and yanks, dropping the pair down on the table with an abrupt jerk of his hands.

Silence.

Blissful, blessed, sanctified silence.

He draws in a ragged breath, and then finally looks up, to a crowd of faces looking at him in shock. Well. Most seem shocked. Hyrule is confused, Four looks like he just solved a particularly pesky puzzle.

But Legend? Legend looks very, very mad.

Chapter Text

"It's okay, Sky, you're okay," Four signs at him, offering a gentle smile and a bracing squeeze on his shoulder.

And Sky is grateful for it, so very grateful indeed, especially under the weight of that glare—that glower, the near hatred—he can see coming off of Legend's glinting amethyst gaze.

A vibration through the table, and Sky looks for the source, finds Four rapping his knuckles on the wood. His brother smiles, patient, protective, kind. "I'm going to tell them what happened, okay?"

Sky barks a short laugh, genuine, if not a touch manic. "Could you tell me, too?"

The mask of kind patience on his brother's face lips, cracks, turns into something more alarmed. Sky feels himself wince—part sympathy, part anxiety—and tries to force a more calm expression.

"You were overwhelmed," Four signs with careful, slow movements, the kind used to avoid startling a cornered animal. "It was just too much too fast, and you were suddenly surrounded by a foreign language.

That… doesn't make much sense. Sky says as much, "But I speak Hylian."

Four's mouth twists in discomfort, "Kind of. You do speak it, and read it, and write it. But you don't hear it. You have no listening comprehension."

Oh. Oh, Sky feels stupid now, that makes so much sense.

A tremor, sharp and sudden runs through the floor. Sky jerks his head up to find the source, sees Wild waving a hand in excitement as he literally jumps up and down. "So you're saying he's a bad listener."

The Captain cuffs the cook upside the back of his head, and then signs, "Not now, Wild."

Sky flashes a smile, making sure that Wild knows he isn't mad. Honestly, it was the exact type of joke that he would normally find funny, he just… doesn't have the energy for humor right now. He turns back to Four, "So how—"

In the corner of his eyes, Sky sees motion, and his eyes automatically flick towards it. It is a subconscious action, one that happens all the time. See something move, check, evaluate as either his problem or not, and thereby engage or go back to what he was doing, as normal.

He's sees Legend, crossing his arms and looking quite unpleased. Which isn't that unusual for Legend. But what makes Sky pause, what makes him falter, is how that displeasure seems to still be aimed at him. He catches a small snippet of read speech, "—is you."

Is that what Legend said? Sky doesn't know, there is no context for him to parse, no framing to see if the vocables fit. The sensation of knowing that information is absent with no way to rectify, to patch the hole, it roils and simmers in his mind like a pot about to boil over.

Something suspiciously like anger jumps into his mouth, bitter like bile.

He swallows it down.

A brief sound. A small roll of audio, the familiar kind, the kind Sky recognizes: the bottom register of Time's voice.

Sky flicks his eyes over to his eldest brother to find Time looking very displeased himself. But in the case of the old man, the annoyance seems to be aimed not at Sky, but at Legend.

Drowning for something, anything at all that he can reach, Sky turns back to Four, to the person that seems to want to make things make sense. "But why can't I understand?"

"Because you have never been asked to understand it." Four pauses to consider, mouth pursing before he continues, "Or… at least, not for a very, very long time."

It makes sense. It makes sense in a way that Sky does not like, is not particularly happy with, but cannot argue with the logic of.

He hates it when that happens.

Frustration builds, sour and curdling his stomach. All of that, and the problem is still him. It's all his fault after all?

His hands fly, flick, irritation stiffening his joints. "So what, I just have to keep working at it? Like a drill?"

The table shakes again, this time a hard whack rather than a gentle rattle. Sky looks over the group with wide eyes, and catches that glare again. "Exactly," Legend signs, finally looking less mad. "It's just something you need to work on."

Four jabs a finger into Sky's peripheral, and he turns to see him angrily pointing at the vet, then signing as his mouth moves, "Only if he wants to!"

Wait… what?

Back to Legend, "Of course he wants to." The young man turns to speak directly to him once more, glowering a molten threat. "Sky, you want to. You can try again after dinner." So saying, Legend nods as though that settles the matter, seemingly suddenly pleased with himself.

What is happening now?

Sky raises his right hand slowly, hesitantly, almost worried about whether or not he should be starting the motion when he signs, "I don't—"

"Have you considered that he might not?" Four snaps back at Legend, and neither of them are looking at Sky.

"Why wouldn't he?" Legend looks… really annoyed. "It's a fix, it's a solution, it's a magic little item—"

Sky flinches away. He doesn't know why, he really doesn't know why, but something about that felt… bad. He looks around the room, for what—reassurance, help, escape—he knows not; neither what ails him nor what would serve as a balm.

Wild catches him searching, flashes him a crooked smile, "It's not actually Magic, it's—"

Back to his other brothers, to the ones fighting one another on behalf of their ideas of his wishes. Sky stares at the three of them, at Four and Hyrule and Legend, and sees moving mouths and angry expressions; and he can only catch a few words, but he doesn't like what they are—

"—Stupid," jumps off of Four's lips, and Sky looks away to see—

"—Dumb," spat out of Legend's mouth like something unpleasant, and Sky cannot wonder what it is that he thinks of him when—

—Hyrule shakes his head, calling for the idea of "Wrong," sinking the judgment into Sky's guts and—

"—Ungrateful," Time calls him and Sky flinches, he doesn't mean to be, he never wants to be someone—

"—Selfish" Twilight scoffs, and the admonition sinks into Sky's heart like a stone. He doesn't know what to do, it isn't like he's—

"—Not trying!" Legend hands out the words like judgment.

Okay, that is certainly not helpful. Sky looks back at the table, and the gentle soft wood of it, and the way that it has been visibly sanded down by careful hands wielding abrasive tools. He wonders why the world works the way it does. That roughness can make things so soft, and people so harsh.

The table shakes, hard and violent, and Sky jerks his head up.

"ENOUGH!" Warriors signs, scowling something fierce. "You are all talking about him like he isn't here. So you are all going to behave yourselves right now, I cannot believe what has gotten into you."

Everyone at the table has the decency to look a little bit ashamed. All of them except for Legend that is, who keeps on going, this time at least having the decency to sign along as he says, "It can fix him. If he just pushes through then he won't be broken anymore and—"

"WHOA!"

More than one set of hands moves in a harsh gestural plea to stop, Sky can see them all yelling again, wide-eyes and shocked.

A pit sinks into Sky's stomach, the stone in his chest heavy and deep, it carves itself down another layer.

Legend keeps going, ignoring their protestations, eyes only for Sky as he glowers. "—you're all talking about how he doesn't have to want it! What is wrong with you people? What has gotten into your heads?"

Hyrule's mouth moves, Sky can see that much. He doesn't catch what it is that he says. Legend…

The vet keeps going. "Of course he wants it. We would all want it! And lying about that to make yourself feel better about not having it isn't helping Sky."

The rancher laughs, a solid guffaw that shakes his shoulders and makes him toss his head back, his signs a touch accented by the one-handedness, even of the ones that should be done with two, but nevertheless understood. "And you're the one helping?"

"Yeah, I'm acknowledging the reality of the situation. There's a piece of technology that can make everything better—"

But it didn't make everything better, it made everything so much more confusing.

"—and you're all too busy coddling his feelings to see the fucking miracle for what it is!" Legend stops yelling at the group at large and points a finger directly at Sky, less of a summons of attention, and more an accusation. "Sky, use it. Get used to using it. Go and listen to the rain and Hyrule's laughter and don't feel bad for one second about being the only one of us who got to have their broken parts stitched back together."

It all makes sudden, terrible sense.

Sky takes care to make his mouth move with his hands. He doesn't want to exclude Hyrule. He moves and speaks slowly, carefully. He doesn't not want to misspeak, here.

"Legend, it's not like that. I'm not—"

"Like me? Yeah, I know." Something like pity flashes through Sky's heart and it tastes like poison. Legend deserves so much from them: love and support and admiration, but never pity, no, anything but that. "So take it from me, Sky, you want to be fixed."

"But I'm not broken!" Sky signs back frantically, hands nearly shaking as tears prick at the corner of his eyes. He hates this, oh how he hates this. "Yes, my ears are broken, but I am not. There is nothing wrong with me. Not like—"

'You,' the word he does not say, but explodes into all their minds just the same. Same, like the sign he's just finished negating. Pointed, towards Legend like his finger is merely by the flow of the sentence.

Sky didn't finish that sentence. He didn't say 'you.'

But it looks like he did. And he doesn't think that the hearing people can tell the difference.

No one is moving, no one is talking, they are all just looking at him with these wide, shocked eyes, a half-dozen "What?!" faces thrown at him in accusation. Legend though, does not accuse. Legend does not glower. Legend just looks at him with these wide eyes and a subtle trembling to his bottom lip that makes Sky wish he had never decided to fight back. It isn't worth it.

Not if it is going to make his brother—so kind, so strong, so brave—look at him the same way he only ever watches lightning.

Sky sucks in a ragged breath, something that is on the verge of becoming real tears, something that catches and jumps in his throat whether he wants it to or not. He needs to get out—of of this conversation, out of this situation, out of this house—before he does something (else) he regrets.

With shaking hands he pushes his chair back, away from the table, and stands. Four makes a gesture to him, Twilight reaches out a hand, Time takes a step forward.

Sky isn't having it.

He shakes his head, ignores them all, and starts towards the door. Wrenching it open, he looks out at the wall of rain, cascading off the lip of Wild's roof like a waterfall. He pauses, having a brief internal debate about whether the storm or the shelter is worse at the moment.

A soft shaking to the wood beneath him, footsteps not his own carried up through the soles of his boots. The hand on his elbow is not a surprise when it comes, unwelcome as it may be. With a heavy sigh, Sky looks back, over his shoulder, to Wars' hopeful expression.

"Let me interpret," the Captain says.

Sky shakes his head. "I don't want to say anything else."

The hope on his brother's face buckles, cracks, but does not break. "That's okay, you don't have to talk. But I want you to listen." Warriors points back over at the table where Hyrule and Legend are mid-conversation, and the haunted look is receding from the vet's eyes.

Some of the dread eases, ever-so gently, off of Sky's chest.

"Please, Sky," Warriors tries again. "Listen."

"…okay."

A smile jumps up out of the cracks Sky left behind on the Captain's expression, and then faster than he has ever done before, Wars sets himself into space. "Legend," he says, facing left, and then pivots right, "Hyrule."

"I have to catch you up," he signs, facing Sky straight on, and then starts going quick.

"I wouldn't," Wars says for Hyrule, and then turns quick.

For Legend, then, "What?"

Back to Hyrule's words, "I wouldn't want to be fixed, because I can't be fixed."

Sky can't help the small twitch of a smile. Wars sees it, and a bit of that hope jumps back into his eyes. But he doesn't slow down, just keeps trying to report the conversation he recalls as it goes on ahead of them, just out f focus over the Captain's shoulder.

Legend then had said, "I know that, but if you could be—"

"I can't be fixed, because there is nothing wrong with me. Not like there is with you."

Instead of words, what Wars next interprets for Legend is merely an expression so scandalized that Sky nearly laughs despite the seriousness of the moment.

Hyrule's words again, "No, really, I mean it. My eyes don't work, and sometimes, that can make me sad. Sometimes it can make things harder. It would be easier, in a fight, if I could see. It would be nice, I think, to see colors. But if I had a magic little box like Sky just got, I don't think I would want it either."

Sky never thought that heartbreak could feel good.

"I'm me because of the way that I don't see the world, and because of the way that I do see it. I don't know who I would be if I suddenly had colors." Wars' hands slow, move to a more natural conversational pace, and Sky understands that they are now caught up to the words that are being said in live time. "I don't know how I would recognize you all. I don't know how I would move around a room. I think I would need a blindfold."

Sky actually laughs at that, he can't help it. Over Warriors shoulder, he sees Four and Hyrule look up. Sees Hyrule smile in his direction. Sees Legend's ear twitch, but the veteran make no other movement.

Four signs as his mouth moves, and another bolt of love cuts through Sky's chest. "Hyrule, can I—"

Wars stays in his orientation for interpreting Hyrule's speech, and signs, "Yeah, go ahead."

Four signs slowly, carefully, taking the time to keep his sentences clear for his entire audience. Sky sees his mouth stop and start, like he is thinking the words through in both manners of speech. "Legend, we're broken. You and me, our bodies are just broken, and there's no other way to put it, once you strip all the niceties away. I have made my peace with it. I've figured out how to still be me. I'm proud of everything I've managed to do and to be, just like this."

"But we're still broken," Legend's words dance off of Warriors' hands, a twisted expression tinging the tone beyond sadness.

"Yeah, we're still broken."

He can't just sit here and watch this anymore. He walks past the Captain with a hastily signed "thanks," and drops back down into his seat. He reaches across the cramped table and squeezes Legend's wrist.

At last, Legend looks at him again. At last he stops hiding. And this time Sky knows what it is that he needs to say.

"You are broken," Sky signs, barreling through before he can be interrupted again. "And I'm not. My ears are, but I'm not. And I'm… I'm just realizing how important it is that you understand the difference, Legend."

"I'm sorry," he signs back with a small shake of his head. "I just—"

"I'm not you."

His brother's cautiously hopeful expression shutters, breaks, shifts back into something more guarded. "No, No I guess you're not."

It is no longer Sky's own confusion or hurt that is ravaging like a maelstrom through his heart, no. Now it is only sweet sorrow for his brother, the one of them that is always the harshest, the sanding block that abrades upon the rough and misshapen world to try to make something softer in return, getting back only a worn down and scared exterior for himself.

It isn't fair.

Legend's face twists into further displeasure, into something that looks suspiciously like a match to Sky's own barely held back tears.

Another hand waves into the center of the table, and Sky looks up to find Time looking at them both with an equally pained expression. "That's enough," the old man says. "You've both said enough."

Warriors huffs, "Both? Sky didn't—"

"Both," Time signs harshly, his eye flicking briefly to the twisted expression on Legend's face getting tighter and tighter by the second.

They separate then, dinner still not fully eaten, a knot in Sky's stomach not allowing him to try to finish it no matter how much he is loathe to waste any food, let alone Wild's cooking.

He doesn't sleep easy, that night. In fact, he finds himself waking often, blinking up at the moon-washed rafters and the pale stillness of the dawn in short order after that.

As usual, Hyrule is the first one awake, picking over the lot of them on the floor with feather light brushes of is bare toes and the tip of his cane.

The door opens slow, even, and Sky knows that his brother has gone out to sit with the rising sun, as he often does in the mornings that they have just slept inside.

Sky gets up the moment the door closes, set on following him, though he does not know why. It's easy enough to make his way out of the pile of Links spread around the floor, easy enough to manage to get himself out of the grip of Wind's enthusiastic unconscious heat-seeking, he does it often enough.

He eases the door open, feel the subtle grind on the hinges and it shivers through the wood. Steps outside and carefully eases the door closed, not knowing if Wild's door is the kind to slam in a way that would wake the hearing people.

He finds Hyrule on the edge of the small cliff-side that borders Wild's yard, staring into the the valley as it is awash with the light of the rising sun.

Blue lays like a blanket over the hills, tinting the grass as it rolls, creating the illusory effort of waves gently lapping upon the cliff-sides on the village steppes. A pink wash is cast upon the white stone of the buildings, sharpening their contrast to the stalky sea. Above them, streaks of yellow paint the greyscale clouds, kissing life and color back into a sky that teeters, moment by moment, more towards tipping fully into morning.

"It's beautiful," Sky says aloud, as he approaches Hyrule.

The travel turns to him, smiles, and nods. "It sounds amazing."

Sound, yes. The box from the day prior sits heavy like a rock in Sky's pocket. He carefully eases himself down beside his brother, throwing his own feet over the cliff-face.

Hesitation is sticky, like sap.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You just did."

Sky laughs, and Hyrule leans in, gently bumping their shoulders together. "What's up?" he signs.

"Did you mean it, what you said to Legend last night?"

"Yes."

Sky gulps, another rock forming in his throat.

Something that is uncomfortably close to pity flashes across Hyrule's face. "Are you okay?"

"…What is it like, hearing the way you do?"

Hyrule pauses with his mouth open, and then shuts it, bites his lip, literally chewing it over, whether to answer the question or to confront Sky for having dodged one.

"Sounds have shapes to them," he says at last. "A brightness, or a gentleness. I can hear feelings, the tears that stick up a throat. The laughter that shakes a voice. I…" Hyrule flashes a bashful smile. "I'm sure nothing I can say about sounds would make sense to you."

"No, it doesn't make sense," Sky agrees. "But it's beautiful."

"What is it like, to see?"

"Colors talk to each other," he settles on. "They are not separate things, a bit of blue here, a dash of red there. It's a conversation."

Hyrule smiles at him. "I don't understand that, either."

"No…no, you wouldn't." Sky frowns, trying to figure out the way to explain. He looks out over the valley, and starts to speak.

"The sky is gray, like the feeling of a blanket pulled over your head. Like the cold that makes you want to pull it up in the first place. It talks to the sun, which is yellow, and screaming, flaring like the wings of a bird. It calms the wild thing down. The clouds are white and silver, splashes of pink. They distract from the back and forth of sun and sky, they let us ignore that there is a fight going on above our heads, let us allow the sky to just become blue."

Hyrule smiles. "What's blue?"

"Cold water, the churning waves of the sea. It's the shock of quick air and the heat you just realized you began to miss. It's the absence of dark, it's relief."

"That's what rain sound like!" Hyrule tells him with visible cheer.

Sky laughs, the excitement a touch infectious, "Hyrule, rain is dark."

"But it sounds so alive!"

"Yeah…" Sky smiles to himself. "I suppose it did."

He pulls the box from his pocket, and flips the lid open, staring at the little banana-shaped objects inside. The weight of the box in his hand somehow increases at the sight of them, at the memory of all of that sound rushing back in in a turbulent sea of stimuli.

"I don't want it," he says aloud, noting the irony to himself. "I don't want to accommodate them."

Hyrule reaches out and squeezes the top of his leg. Sky looks back up to carefully read his usual slap dash combination of sign and careful lip-reading-friendly speech.

"Then don't. Sky you work so hard for us. You make sure that we are all… well, heard in ways that the others don't really appreciate, I think, sometimes. But you do it."

His stomach twists, uncomfortable again with being the center of a conversation.

"Let us work harder for you," Hyrule signs, he signs, and that makes his point more than the words ever could.

A tap on his shoulder and Sky jumps, turning his head around sharply.Four has wheeled himself out, and is bent nearly in half to reach him, grinning in conspiracy.

"You should keep them, though," the smithy signs as his mouth moves, and Sky feels the shake of laughter move through Hyrule still pressed beside him.

"Yes," Hyrule signs. "Not trash."

Four pokes him again. "And you know that you can change your mind, right? That this isn't a permanent decision?"

He does know.

Amongst all the relief, a tendril of the discomfort, unspoken, remains. Sky drags it out into the light of day. "But Legend…"

They all sink.

Four grimaces, but barrels on. "It's not fair, what life has dealt Legend. Or me." Four taps his knee rather than his chest for 'me,' and Sky's hand is halfway to the apology before the smithy continues. "You don't need to barter your happiness against my dreams, Sky."

"That's right," Hyrule agrees.

"You don't need to think about what other people would want, in your shoes. You don't need to think about what you would want, in my chair. All you have to figure out is what you want to do with your own ears."

"And we'll listen," Hyrule agree. "And we will make the others listen, I promise."

"Okay." Sky smiles at the both of them. "Okay."

The sun breaks over the edge of the mountain, and all the colors change; a new conversation starting right up where the old one left off, shifting and changing, but not stopping, not as far as he can see.