Chapter Text
"Hey, Twilight?" Malon had maybe intended to wait, but once they’d settled to milking this morning, she’d realized that maybe now was the right time to ask, since none of the rest of the boys are around. Knowing the ranch-hand, the lad won’t want to let on how he’s feeling about anything important when the younger ones are around. They’ve only been here so long, but she can tell he sees himself responsible for them in a similar way to her own Link, though less in a leadership manner and more something sibling like. It’s good of him, heartwarming to watch, but she does worry it would mea he might not be honest with her if there’s someone else around.
So, maybe now is the bets time.
There’s a sound of recognition from where milk hisses against the metal sides of a pail, and a glance over her own shoulder shows him squatting over the low milking stool, focused near fully on his work but with one ear flicking her way, the other focused on the cow chewing merrily away in front of him while he works. She’s glad to see it, that he’s attentive to the animals as well as his work, though she’s not surprised about it at all.
“I have a question, sum’in a bit sensitive.”
The hissing stops and he shifts around, stares at her with ears all lopsided and worry on his face and, oh pities sakes, he looks so terribly like a little lost pup and it’s darn near precious! “Everythin’ alright? Are you-”
“I’m fine,” she’s quick to assure, turning back to her own milking and prompting him to do the same, though it takes a moment more for her to hear anything that says he has. It's only when milk starts to strike the pail’s sides once more that she continues. “Link too, it’s jist....” how does she explain this to him without causing concern? She doesn’t want to bring Wild into the conversation because even she knows his focus will be on his younger brother more than on answering her question. After a spell though, and when the level of milk has gone up near an inch, she finally sounds out, “Link an’ I was talkin’ last night and we were wondering... how’re you handlin’?”
“Pardon?”
She keeps her own eyes focused on her work, some amount of attention on the old cow she’s tending, but the old girl’s more concerned with her cud then whatever the two hylians are chatting about around her. “Y’all thought you were goin’ home not long ago, an’ now.... well,” he doesn’t speak up or interject, so she keeps on, “we were wondering how you’d feel if... if there isnt a way back.”
It’s not the best way to ask, but she knows that being direct with these hero types is usually better than dancing around the question. Her husband can handle it on occasion, he’s gotten used to her and sometimes it’s him conceding to her manner of talking, and sometimes it’s the other way round, but these boys- yes, these boys need honesty and for her to be direct with them. For now at least, until she figures out how they communicate for herself at least.
Again, there’s a pause from behind her, and one of the cows hifts somewhat, making a low soundas though in question. The rancher goes back to his milking after just a moment, not answering immediately, but Malon doesn’t push him. She waits. She waits until her bucket is full and his is too and he’s turning around with it in his hands to face her and then he answers., all nervous hair ruffling and a chewed-on cheek. “Y’all think there’s no goin’ fer us?”
Malon shakes her head. “I don’t know, hun. But we were considering the possibility.”
He nods, slowly, gaze fixed somewhere else, out the barn door and towards the paddock, she thinks. “Yeah, I guess I have been too.”
The farmwife doesn’t say anything to that. She waits.
Her patience is rewarded. “I guess,” another drag of a callused hand through his hair, through shaggy bangs that don’t cover his eyes just yet, but pities sakes, she’s really tempted to announce a sheering day for these boys, if they want it, just so they’re not all getting blinded as often as they seem to. “I guess, well...” he hesitates, glances at her with a worried look again before averting his eyes, face flushing faintly and brows tight, like there’s some sort of shame stirring up inside of him. “This sounds shitty, but... I don’t think I’d mind.”
That- that wasn;t what she was expecting.
“Don’t get me wrong!” Twilight is quick to add, “I miss my folks, I do. I wish I’d seen ‘em all one last time afore we’d all ended up ‘ere, but...” he’s shaking his head again, fluffy mane flying about his face much like it does in his wolfish form, eyes careful not to meet her own as he grabs their buckets and places them with the other ones they’d filled earlier. “But....heck, I ain’t like the rest.”
“How so?”
His eyes are so blue. Most of theirs are, but twilight’s are a darker shade than all the rest, something brilliantly midnight, and they’re near mournful as they turn to her when the two of them move to start on the last two cows. The second his hands are busy, the words come flooding out. “The rest- most've ‘em were jist kids, y’know? When teh adventure started they were wee mites and near babies, an’, well, Sky and Wars an’ I was the only ones even sum’at grown.”
Malon nods. She did know that. Mostly just through Link, but she did know that.
“An’ when yer small, you know, you don’t have a plan or an idea jist yet, they was all startin’ out and the hero thing, I mean, fer some of ‘em, that’s been their whole life! Legend? I don't think he’s ever done anythin’ else, and Rule’s been rebuilding his Hyrule since he was like...ten!”
Far too young, in her opinion, but since when would the goddesses ever consult her on such a thing?
“An’ Wars ad Sky, they were both knights, or becommin’ knight leastways,” there's something tense in Twilight’s tone as he speaks, something strained and hesitant. “They were at a crossroads in their lives, gettin’ started on a new path when they got all diverted into bein’ a hero- which ain’t too different from soldier stuff, I guess, but more intense.”
“But you’re not like them?” She infers.
There’s a nod. She’d seated herself across the barn from him this time, the isle between stall forming a distance between them, but this way at least she only needs to look to ne side to see his face, all furrowed up in a frown as his hands move deftly to pull milk from the cow’s udder and into his bucket. He's gentle, but firm, familiar, and that’s good because his eyes are distant as he nods, ever so slow, and then looks up at her, not once starting to find her looking back.
“I finished school already, had a job, had a house. Heck, ‘fore the village was attacked, I was considering goin' courtin’- settlin’ down, y’know? I had a whole plan, was already down the path to makin’ it happen, an then this hero thing starts an’....” he’s shaking his head again, attention turning back to his work, a small frown on features that are her and Link and yet wholly his own. “I don’t resent it. Rides’s worth the fall an’ all that. There’s people I’d never have met...” he trails off, cuts himself off with a huff and starts again. “I’m glad I did what I did, but comin’ back home... I mean, I got turned into a wolf, became a hero, did all this stuff I never woulda thought I would or could do.” A huff, a sigh, a lick of the lips and a sag of the shoulders, “I thought I knew who I was and what I wanted before, but when I came home after, I realized that I’d changed.”
“Life tends to do that to us.”
There’s a breathy chuckle from his direction, a long pull of milk hitting the bucket and then a pause before “yeah. Yeah it does.”
Malon considers the young man a moment before asking, gently, “Is it hard trying to come back?”
A nod, hair flopping about like his ears do in his animal form. “Yeah. I love ‘em all, but we all changed a lot with what happened, and settlin’ back down again.......” a huff, “we grew in different directions, y’know? Like when you stick something in the fork of a tree and it sends the branches spreading out further from one another after a spell. My roots are still there, theirs too, but I was off bein’ the hero and they were at home defendin’ it from attack, and we all changed and got braver an’ stuff, but because we was so far apart, we missed out on watchin’ each othergrow an’ now we’re not quite familiar anymore.”
Oh, the poor dear.
“It’s hard,” he admits. “I tried, tried settlin’ back in my house, my job. I wasn’t up fer courtin’ no more, ain’t sure I will be for a while, but I tried going back.”
She can infer what’s coming, but lets him say it himself.
“I couldn’t,” is whispered softly into spotted hide, “I didn’t fit anymore, like we was all a puzzle and I lost a bit and grew a bit an’ the place I used to sit jist wouldn’t take me. They would; Rusl, Ulli, Colin, Ilia- all of ‘em, they took me back with open arms and never once made me doubt it, but...” another huff, a sigh like Daddy’s old ranch dog used to give sometimes out of the blue. It’s a long wait this time, but at last Twilight sounds out “I didn’t come from Ordon. I was born out desert ways and when my village fell to dark magic, then I ended up in Ordon fter wanderin’ a bit. When the war ended though, when we fought off the darkness, we found out my folks, my birth folks, they was all alive an’ well and my old illage had jist been swallowed by the shadows fer a spell.”
“oh!” She was definitely not expecting that!
Twilight chuckles, a bit pained, but he’s smiling when he looks over to her. “Right? Now I have two families and two homes and yet- I changed after I left both. I grew up, an’ heck, I have little siblings I never met ‘till recently! I could ride home- in my world- any time and talk to my Ma and Pa any time I like!”
“But you were away a long time.”
“And I grew up separate from alluv’em.” His eyes remind her of the desert sky when the sun is near fully set. All big and beautiful but so empty and lonesome. “Love ‘em all, and they love me, an’ I know it, never doubt it, but I don’t belong either place any longer. I try and I can’t fit. I can visit, heck-” he motions vaguely with one hand “- I left Ordon even afore I met the rest of the guys, was jist sorta wondering an’ trying to figure myself out, sort out who I was now that everything changed- and I go back to Ordon, to my old hometown, here and again, but they all knew I was planning to travel.” He shrugs, focused on her more than the cow he’s tending, but he looks near done so Malon olds her peace and lets him talk, explain. “Bein’ here, it’s..kind of a relief. I mean, i miss ‘em all, and if I can never go back then yeah, that’ll be hard, I’d hate to never go home again, but being in a place where I can do what I’m good at, with people who know what it’s like being’ a hero and just a guy? It’s...it helps. It’s like home; work like home, lifestyle like home, but no ones comparin’ me to what they remember or wondering why I changed, and I’m not lost when lookin’ at them either.
“Being here long term? Yeah, I think I’d struggle, be homesick and miss my folks, but that’s the worst of it. Again, I ain’t like the others. I don’t have a kingdom restin’ on my shoulders or any responsibility to anyone really. I trust my queen to handle without me- an' maybe it’d be different if we was close, but we ain’t. We’re like....” and he chuckles again, but this time it’s genuine and real and bubbling up out of him, “we’re like the weirdest kind of co-workers I’ve ever known about! An’ I think the world of her, but I trust her to be fine even if I never came home.” Twilight shrugs again, the smile he cracks just a bit sad, but real all the same. “So yeah, i miss home, but I was plannin’ on being away a while anyways, so this? Fer now? This is okay. Better’n okay even,” and the smile ticks a bit wider, “cuz I’m with family still, jist...a different kind.”
If she wasn’t still working a cows udder she’d be pouncing on that boy to give him a hug, but as it is, she settles for a smile and a gentle “we’re glad to have you too, darlin’” that has him beaming back before he turns back to his chores.
He’s humming Epona’s Song as they walk up the house, and Malon can feel her heart swelling in her chest as she hears it.
At least one of them is finding peace here, feeling they belong, not struggling too very badly.
Now she just needs to make sure the rest are okay too.
-
Time is not a morning person. He just isn’t. There are some days he wonders how it’s possible that he and Malon suit each other the way they do when they’re such different people, but he supposes part of it is their willingness to work with the differences. For example, when his darling wife gets up at the crack of dawn and lets a chill creep up under the covers in her place, he either just deals with it or follows her, tromps down the stairs in a robe and lingers until she’s heading out the door and into the cold, bundled up in whatever wrap he can grab for her, and leaing him behind because being up this early and being outside this early are very different things, especially when he has the option to be inside in a warm kicthen instead.
He's been a bit spoiled since he hung up his hero’s title, he’ll admit it, and the adventure with the boys just makes him value the luxary of a warm kitchn all the more in those early mornings as he settles down with something hot to drink at his table, in a chair, kept warm by a fire and usually watching Warriors, already dressed and ready and in uniform, working at tendig his gear.
This morning though, Malon’s worries from the night before are rolling about in his head, and the captain must sense it too, because a deft hand drops his polishing rag to instead lift and tweak one of his ears. “You good there, Sprout?”
Time hums, something noncommittal as he sips his coffee. Malon says he has a resting angry face and he knows she’s right, but Wars also has pointed out that his ears twitch a lot when he’s thinking very hard, and they must be now, because the other man point it out.
“Your ears are twitching,” the cloth is retrieved and deft motions continue, cleaning creviced that haven’t been dirty in days- weeks now, but are attended to just the same.
Meanwhile his own armor had been cleaned all of once since coming back before being tucked back where it belongs and almost forgotten since.
Warriors doesn’t press further than that statement though. He never does. Malon is the same way, actually, and Time himself will admit it’s probably because they both know that method is the most effective against him. Where they get the patience, he’s got no idea, but they weild it like a weapon and he’s weak to it every time.
With a sigh, the now older man settles down his mug, although he keeps both hands curled around it. It's a colder morning again, and something inside of him reminds that winter hasn’t yet come in this era. “Captain?”
“Hmm?”
He feels like a kid again, and it’s kind of nice. Wind is still sleeping and it’s just them in the kitchen, just him watching Warriors clean his armor the same way he always does, has done since they were fighting a war together, and the way the man answers his inevitable question hasn’t changed either, not even now that he’s not a child anymore. “Might i ask you a question?”
“Just did, bud.”
“You know what I mean, he huffs, rolling his one good eye.
The captain shifts an arm guard to get at Its underside, lips tugging faintly. “Do I?”
Time huffs, ignoring the tease and leaning forwards to rest his arms against the table, just the slightest bit closer to hid adoptive father as he asks, “what would you do if another portal doesn’t open?”
Blue eyes flick up, a question in them. “Ever?”
“Ever,” he agrees, thumbing the handle to the mug that he ideally should use, but which is just a bit too small for him, even if he only slips three of his fingers into it.
The arm-guard is settled gently on the table, cloth carefully placed atop it where polish won’t smudge from it’s surface and onto the mostly clean surface of his wife’s kitchen table. The captain’s gaze doesn’t leave him, lingers nstead, one ear flicking ever so faintly- his don’t expess ear as much as the rest do, even Wild’s, and Time’s never been able to figure out why, just that the man’s harder to read as a result. “Well, I don’t image that will happen. Even if one of the gates we’ve- we had been using doesn’t show, eventually, I imagine Lana will notice my absence has gone on too long and will find some way to come get me, especially if something happens back home.”
“But what if it takes years for that to happen,” he presses, “or what if she ever does?” He lacks Malon’s tact, the captain’s own, especially with the man. Some of teh younger ones, he can muster it, but with someone who knew him as a child, who helped raise him, it’s like all his good sense sort of...slips through his fingers and leaes him as blunt and brutal as he was when he was twelve.
A faint furrow forms between Warriors’ brows, a thinness to his lips appearing as they purse together for a moment and blue eyes drift down to sater at the armor settled before him. There’s silence for a spell before he sounds. “I don’t know.”
Oh.
“This is an assignment, same as any other. This mission- this adventure- I was commanded to take it on, so I did. I’m being paid for this, or was. If I never came back, I suppose they’d stop sending my pay to my mother, maybe move to a death stipend like they did with my father,”
He’s so still, so....soldierly. It bugs him, makes Time want to slip a beetle down the back of his shirt or something. He doesn't of course, instead just grips his mug and takes a sip.
The sight seems to trigger something in the captain, because Warriors pushes away from the table and moves for the hearth instead, pouring himself his own cup of bitter black coffee before moving back to join him, armor apparently either done for the day or to be put off until later as the man takes a sip from his own mug and some of the creases of his face immediately smooth somewhat. It’s only once the mug is resting again, half empty already, that Warriors continues. “I won’t lie, it’d be a relief to be able to walk down the street and never again be recognized as the Hero who caused a whole war over his face, to never again be compared to my forebearers and their accomplishments or features, but... I have a family who relies on me. Sisters I promised to walk down the aisle one day when they find that perfect person, an ailing mother who needs someone to look after her and- you've met Linkle, Time, she’s not the kind of person who tends the elderly.” The look leveled his way is so tired. “I love her, I do, but my twin is a nutcase and no matter how much she loves anyone, she is not caretaker material.”
“But you have six sisters.”
“All of which deserve their own lives,” Warriors declares, terribly firm, ”as the eldest, that sort of thing falls to me, not them.”
But if he can’t....
There’s a sigh, a heave of the shoulders as the man settles back in his chair, stiffness bleeding away with warm coffee and any talk of home, eyes trailing upwards to the ceiling above them, tracing the grain of the boards between them and the six slumbering heroes upstairs. “If I couldn’t go back.... I don’t know. It’s not as though I could swear allegiance as a knight in this era, not when my queen is still alive and well. I don’t rightly know that I’d want to either.”
“So what would you do?” He asks around the rim of his own mug.
The soldier shakes his head, hair flying yet somehow falling back perfect and poised and styled terribly neatly despite. “I have no idea. I’m a man of limited skill and I’d rather avoid falling back on petty theft,” it’s said like a joke, a smile shot his way and eyes twinkling, but Time knows for a fact that if he did have a mind, Warriors could probably rob Castletown blind. It’s a mercy he hasn’t a mind for that though. Instead, he just sighs, stretching out long legs in front of himself and crossing them at the ankles as his eyes travel back upwards once again. “I mean, I can’t even read this eras Hylian, so....”
Oh. Oh right. “The library....”
“Useless. I should have thought about it before,” the once-elder hums, cradling his half-full mug a bit closer to his chest, like he’s seeping heat off it, “but it slipped my mind until I was looking at all that text and realized I couldn’t read a word of it.” A shake of the head, a small laugh. “Guess I have to learn to read a second time before I can help the lads out with this delayed healing mess. And if we’re here a while, I guess I have time, I’m just worried how much they will have before it really becomes an issue.”
He’s about to nod, and then he realizes that Warriors is doing The Thing again. “You’re redirecting on purpose,” he drawls out, “aren’t you?”
A faint flush over high cheeks says a world more than the look shot his way, a scolding scowl that doesn’t actually soud because he’d not done anything wrong this time, just stated the facts.
“I’m not dumb, captain,” he reminds the other, “and I know you.”
A roll of blue eyes ad the man sits up again, feet scraping the floor momentarily before his posture is matched, hunches just a bit over the table with mug held in hand, handle forgone in favor of cradling warm ceramic between chilly fingers. The captain’s hands are always a bit colder than they should be too, which may or may not be related to his signature tremor, but Time can’t say so for a certainty. “Alright,” it’s a bit groaned out, strained like he might be stretching or maybe just straining something, and Time has to bite back a jab about “old bones” now that his are at least a bit older, “yes, fine. If we’re stuck here i have no clue what I’d do. Am I attached to my era? Somewhat, yes. I finally bought us a house, bought the shop for mum, and that took ages! So many paychecks! Could I start again? Maybe? I’m young-” a glare shoots his way, warning him away from contradicting that, and he’d about to as well “-able bodied enough, even with these darn hands of mine,” and he chuckles it, because the man’s long since accepted that fact about himself. “I could probably find employ, start again-”
”You’re welcome to stay here,” he reminds the other, “you’re my not-father, after all, and Malon and I are happy to let everyone stay as long as they like.”
A nod, thanks, recognition, but then the man’s gaze lifts again, over his shoulder, focused on something as a frown furrows fine features. “I appreciate that, truly, but I’m not keen to rely on someone else’s kindness to survive by. Pride is folly, I know that, but I can’t help having just a bit still, and I’d rather offer something in return, make use of myself than simply fall back on the kindness of those around me. What I’d do, i don’t know, but if we are here long-term, if we can’t leave, then I’d like to make use of myself somehow. Improve myself maybe. And when Lana comes looking, because I’m sure she will, then maybe when I go home again I can bring back some sort of skill or knowledge that can help my era too.”
Malon wanted to know what they’d do if they couldn’t go back, how they’d handle it and...yeah, Wars is definitely not telling him everything, but it’s good at least that the possibility is something he’s aware of, is considering, is trying to sort over. And maybe it will take a while, but it’s something at least.
“I will say though,” the other states abruptly, pausing with his mug half lifted and something wry twitching about his lips, “if we are here for a while, I'd like to look into putting Wind into school. There’s gaps in his education I’d like to see filled, and if this is permanent, he should also start spending more time with his peers.”
Of course. Time snorts as he lifts his own mug again. Of course Warriors is considering the kids and their situations as much as his own. Of course he has a plan for Wind before he’s got one for himself. That said, it’s not a bad one, so he nods, sips his coffee, and then says, “I’ll ask around. I think Malon says school starts in the fall, but late arrivals happen all the time in the country, so we can look into it.”
A smile, a nod of thanks, and then, eyes twinkling, the captain says, “by the way, the walls in this house are terribly thin.” And then the captain is staring at him pointedly, smirking. “If you two are planning to expand, you might want to place it away from your bedroom.”