Chapter Text
Time felt himself feeling more anxious after Twilight’s miraculous healing, than all the nights leading up to it.
Twilight was very tight lipped about that night. Still shaken, Time hadn’t wanted to overwhelm the teen. Instead he’d kept the retelling to the Captain and other boys short. Sky in the end said nothing.
Warriors had attempted to pry, more for medical sake than anything else because Time didn’t know how to explain Twilight’s blood on his own knife, or the severe wounds that layered existing ones. Scabbed over with remains of a potion.
“They’re self-inflicted.” Warriors’ eyes shot up to him. Gauging his response. Granted, Time kept his face neutral, passively nodding to whatever Warriors’ inferred because even he was blind to what really happened.
The Captain sighed. “For my sake.. sit.”
Time didn’t know how fatigued he felt till his hand hit the back of a chair and he all but collapsed. His armor hitting the chair, heavy sounding.
“Considering the injuries, nothing looks worse for wear.”
Warriors trailed his thumb down the younger’s ribs where the gash had started and down to his hip bone. It was a fairly large chunk of himself cut away. The rancher’s hunting knife had been somewhat clean cutting but no knife wound was a good knife wound. Even with a potion healing the damage internally it still required stitches.
“You assume he stabbed himself?” He looked up incredulously to Time.
More than assumed, truthfully. “He admitted to it.”
The captain’s expression was as complicated as Time felt. “Somehow that’s the least concerning thing.” He muttered.
The knight glanced over Twilight. He suspected Time knew more but that was a losing fight he didn’t have the patience for.
Time reached out, holding the rancher’s numbingly cold hand between his.
The knight’s sharp glare that had settled on Time ever since he’d returned with a worse-for-wear Twilight on his back, had softened when glancing over the bed-ridden hero.
“Did he tell you anything before he left?”
Time frowned, unable to look away from the teen. “No.. I don’t think he’d planned it.”
Everything from how little Twilight had on his person, to the lack of direction he’d traveled, it showed no sign of intent. Even from Wild’s later confession, it seemed to be just an act of restlessness.
“You said he found the Shadow? I thought he’d killed it back when he first got hurt?”
“I don’t know. Something died there, too much black blood for it not to’ve. And he seemed certain..”
Twilight was bent over him sobbing that he had to. It was hard to fake that.
The knight watched him. It was as if the man always knew when Time lied. Even as a child he could never get away with it.
“If it were two separate Shadows—“ that thought alone already provoked some ill-feeling between them both, “then why show up when he was already dying? If anything, their interference helped.”
It was frustrating.
Shadows were manifestations with only driven thoughts based on their creation. Without ever knowing whose shadow it belonged to, there was no way they could—
“Because it was angry.”
They turned to the door as it was already shutting.
Sky slipped in, his face tense as he glanced at Twilight. “It was.. very angry.”
“So he pissed it off, killing the first shadow?” Warriors questioned. His arms crossed.
Shadows weren’t bonded to each other, at least, it wasn’t assumed. They worked together, but were mostly independent. Each driven independently.
Sky folded his hands together with a troubled look. “I don’t know.” He said finally.
They were silent, working that troubling thought over in their heads.
“It’s too late, or,” he glanced to the window with the sky already turning a lighter shade of purple. “Too early for this. He’s had a potion, it’s cleaned, wrapped and sewn up. At this point it’s recovery.”
Time nodded, though still quietly rubbed his thumb across the teen’s knuckles.
Warriors sighed, “I’ll let the others know and let the inn keeper know we’ll be here a little while longer.” He paused at the foot of the bed. “Get some sleep, Sprite.”
“I’ll try.” He said finally.
As Warriors left, Sky replaced himself at the rancher’s side. Pulling up a stool the knight had been using on and off the past few hours while he worked on Twilight’s side.
With a quiet side-eye of the door, Sky leaned close.
“It loved him.” Sky said, leaning over his knees. Placing his chin delicately in his palms as he looked down at Twilight like a mother would her sleeping child. His voice carried a heavy tune.
Time’s hand curled. “Who did?”
Sky’s jaw set. “It went against its biology, but maybe loving him was something it inherited. Something,” his attention narrowed on Twilight. His eyes flicked to Time’s hand holding Twilight’s, “he, inherited.” He theorized leaving Time grasping for what Sky was rambling about.
“Sky— quit.”
He was far too stressed with everything the past few weeks. Rambling nonsense was not something he wanted added to his growing list of concerns.
Sky’s eyes snapped up to him, quick and sudden. The rising sun behind his head casted an eerie halo around the teen making Time still. “You’re jealous.”
Time was affronted. “Excuse you?”
“Its what it felt too. It couldn’t stand being replaced.”
Replaced, Time thought. He looked back to Twilight then Sky who, after blinking and sitting back, looked more himself than before.
“What do you mean?”
“Hm?” His head tilted out of the light. “Did I.. say things?”
Despite that innocent question, Sky didn’t look disturbed. Not to how Time felt.
Perhaps he owed the captain that drink. There was something definitely future-sight going on with the sky-hero.
He sighed, rubbing his sore legs from all that running. “Nevermind. It’s.. early. If we don’t get out of this room soon they’ll think Wars was lying.”
Sky’s lips twitched into a hair-thin smile. “He’ll be okay.”
Time felt those words didn’t come from whatever divine lips that spoke through Sky, but the teen’s genuine intuition. And Twilight always trusted Sky’s intuition.
“Of course.” Time nodded leading them out the room.
He took a quick right after exiting. Leaving the sky-hero in the hallway to be in his own room— alone. Sky didn’t seem bothered by this, his hands closed together as he watched with those unforgivingly somber eyes.
Time felt bullied under its weight that he needed to escape. He leaned against the far wall, the paneling was thin allowing him to hear whatever happened in the next room. It was depressingly silent.
.. jealous? Was that how the divine being that spoke through the hero saw him as?
He thought to scoff, but hadn’t the energy for it.
Shuffling towards the bed, he collapsed into its warmth he hardly knew. The sleepless nights had made him less than acquainted with the soft, warmth of bedding.
He stared up to the ceiling with blank attention.
The room beside him was still so quiet.
“Enough,” he pleaded quietly. “I beg you.”
Allow this to be it. He doubted his heart could take much more grief before it laden him in death. Don’t take such an innocent boy after all he’d done to hold his head up proud.
He closed his eyes and prayed away the thoughts.
Time leaned further and further into the covers. Sinking into the blankets while straining to hear a noise from the opposite room.
“Let this be enough.” He grimaced, letting sleep drag him down the rest of the way into unconsciousness.