Work Text:
“We need to chill out,” Wild announces, dumping an assortment of pots and pans out of the slate and selecting his two least favourite ladels to use as drumsticks, because the risk of breaking equipment was somehow higher while drumming than fighting.
Hyrule cheers, immediately calling dibs on the largest pot. Wild smiles fondly at him, angled just so he wouldn't see, and sets to work arranging the remainder of his makeshift drums in a familiar pattern.
Legend also hides a smile as he lays out a small selection of his many instruments for those without their own to play with, selecting a fiddle for himself for the night.
“I've also got some new toys to share.”
Four’s first offering is a wooden slab with metal prongs of different lengths protruding off the surface.
“This one's a kalimba. You just flick the keys like this. It's kind of quiet, I'll need to add a resonance chamber or something, but I'm not a woodworker, am I?”
A chuckle passes around the group as Four brings out his regular instrument, namely a metal flute, as well as a second new instrument.
“Twi, I think you'll like this one. I made it for you. In the sense that I don't want to be present when anyone else decides to test this out.”
It's a metal tube. It's just a vaguely horn shaped tube. Twilight lights up; he knows exactly what to do with one of these, he's played horns in Ordon his whole life.
“But wait, there's more,” Four says dramatically, turning it over to reveal three pressable keys on the body as he hands it to the Rancher.
“It's got valves and all,” Twilight marvels, looking over the basic trumpet in his hands. “Thank you!”
Four grins.
“I'll let you figure out the fingerings. My apologies in advance to everyone else, except Wind.”
Wind doesn't hear the joke. Seeing that everyone had an instrument ready, he raises the baton, and the circle falls silent, all eyes on him. He gives them one bar in.
Hyrule starts the song with a bass drum line, and the traveller is going to have an absolute blast playing the same thing on repeat for the next five minutes straight. The layers build up as Wild's drums, Sky's harp and Four's flute join in the tune.
Twilight attempts to come in on the trumpet, emitting a noise that Wind chooses to assume sounds like a fart, because that's the only explanation he can come up with for the way the entire chain erupts in laughter.
“Whatever you're thinking, it was worse,” Warriors signs.
“Definitely a choice to play a brand new instrument with no practice whatsoever,” Sky teases.
Twilight sheepishly grins and blows into the trumpet, takes a minute to figure out some basic notes, and gives a thumbs up to indicate that he's ready.
“From the start,” Wind laughs, raising the baton again. The song builds without issue this time, and at its fullest, the sounds of eight souls blend together as one, woven together through the Wind Waker.
Time and Warriors had been mutually offended the day they realised they owned matching ocarinas. Nowadays, it’s hard to tell who is who when they play together, in unison or harmony. That being said, they can still be caught glancing at each other accusatorily, like misbehaving children, every single time one of them misses a cue or plays a wrong note.
Sky's fingers ache as he plucks the strings of his lyre. It gets harder every day. Not noticeably, but every couple of months, he'll think of how much easier it had been a few months ago. And he'll grieve what he had. And he'll grieve what he has now, because he isn't going to have it forever or even for long.
But as long as he lives, he'll find a way to do what he loves.
Wind wields his baton with the same spritely grace he wields his sword. The silver stick emphasises the flick of his wrist as he counts them in, his sweeping motions as the music crescendos, as the music slows, and he holds them on the final note before he cuts the end of the song with a flourish. He can't hear the music. He hasn't heard it in years. But he watches his brothers move, breathe, play. He can see the music, he can feel it, it flickers like the fire and thrums like a pulse through his veins. He controls the music.
This is how it feels to be alive.