Work Text:
And then I pressed the shell
Close to my ear,
And listened well.
And straightaway, like a bell,
Came low and clear
The slow, sad, murmur of far distant seas.
***
Twine was quiet, lacking the curious energy he usually never seemed to be in short supply of.
Ghost thought for a moment, then spoke.
"I wanted to weave you a bracelet when I first added a bead for you to mine. I didn't, because I knew if the other's saw it they'd want one to match you. And they wouldn't care about how offensive it was. I...."
It took the engineer a long time to speak again, tossing phrases and half baked explanations in his head. None of it sounded right. Anything he could say would always fall short of the truth, and everything he couldn't was further still. There was not a singular combination in the Hylian language that could account for this. From the way Twine's brows knitted together, frustration sewing his lips shut, he knew it, too.
And maybe, that was enough.
"I didn't want them to hate me more. For being all serious about rules and stuff for a culture they don't care about. They already hate dealing with me, I didn't want them to have to deal with all the rules they didn't want, too.”
“They wouldn't have hated you,” the words were spoken softly. Ghost cringed at the unsaid accusation.
"I know it sounds insane, but as I said the bracelets are not a joke. They aren't just an accessory, they're a huge part of my culture. And if someone isn't apart of a Lokomo's family, they traditionally wouldn't be allowed to wear one.”
“Huh,” Twine pouted. “You don't consider us family then. Otherwise, why take so long to weave me a bracelet.”
It took a second for Ghost to figure out what Twine was referring to.
"It wasn't because I didn't care about you, Twine. It was… the others are… well, Shire is…” Ghost groaned into his hands, ignoring the feeling of oil and grease from his gloves as it smeared across his cheeks. “Shire went ahead and weaved one without asking. If I'd given one to you before, they would have all wanted to know why I didn't make any for them, too, since I seemingly made one for Shire as well. And as I said, only those who are apart of a Lokomo’s family can have one. They don't like me, so they don't count. Even though they're your family and you're mine. It doesn't work like that.”
At last, Twine's amethyst crusted gaze rose from the leak in the cave wall. The little jeweler took a moment to marvel at his friend's eyes. Pure silver, like the very edges of a stormcloud, glimmering against the dusk.
It was ruby that met silver once his chin was lifted. Twine had always hated having to look up at his companions.
He never felt looked down upon when it was Ghost.
“You do consider me family.” Twine grinned, cute dimples in his cheeks and a light in his eye.
It wasn't a question.
Ghost hurried to answer it.
“Yes. Sort of.” Each syllable was like venom on his tongue and sugar on his teeth. Sticky, and terrible for his health. Hard to swallow and spit out, both.
Twine couldn't help the giggles that escaped him, filling his body with a strange fizzy feeling he couldn't describe.
“Only sort of? I'm offended, Navy.”
Ghost smiled.
“Don't worry,” he said, smile almost flicking out. Twine had forgotten things again. That, or he's a better actor then Ghost gave him credit for. “Most people are.”
***
Whipped by an icy breeze
Upon a shore
Windswept and desolate.
***
Ghost frowned, anger gone. He seemed to deflate, all the steam that had been fueling him thus far pouring out of him in one single, dispirited puff.
"You still aren't listening to me." The engineer leaned on the words, choking them out into the frigid wind. His eyes - still red from tears - were begging with Shire, and the farmhand didn't get it.
No matter how hard he thought, Shire's brain wouldn't move fast enough to piece it all together, and it tore apart his mind with childish abandon, destroying all his prior endeavors to convince himself he wasn't an idiot. That maybe he was more than just the dumb one, that maybe he could keep up with these amazingly talented, wonderful people.
Then again, Shire had always been a little slow, and maybe that was okay. But when face to face with someone with a mind as beautiful and strong as Ghost’s, it was nigh on impossible not to feel inferior. He truly was absurd. How could a lowly farmer like him have ever hoped to match Ghost’s stride?
“Shire, please,” Ghost's voice was quieter now than before, muffled, like Shire were listening from under water. It felt like it, too. He could drown in that gaze. “Just leave me alone. You can't make this better. I don't want you to. You can’t understand, so please go back to camp.”
Shire huffed in frustration. This kid was stubborn. Here he was, trying to say he was sorry, to admit he was wrong, and all Ghost had to say was that Shire still didn't understand. What was he missing? What else could Ghost want?
He wanted to argue, to defend himself. Everything in him was screeching for him to fight back, to show this kid just how serious he was. Outrage bubbled just below the surface, threatening to break past the threshold in his head he'd ever so carefully constructed to hold back all of the most unsightly parts of himself. His lip started to curl, snagging on bent canines.
But Shire shoved it back just as hard, thrusting the fury away with a shake of his head. He taped it down with all of the kindness his body had, smothering it beneath every good thought he had conceived about the little engineer throughout their journey. If Shire ever wanted to get Ghost to trust him, to fully trust him, he had to make a change.
Not getting uncontrollably, violently upset any time Ghost dared to speak a different opinion from him was a start, and it was one he should have led with.
'Deep breaths, Shire.’
"Alright. Okay. I'm listening, Ghost. What am I missing? I'm listening, okay? It's alright. I'm not going to get mad this time.”
With his eyes closed, Ghost was almost a saintly vision in the dusky zephyr, the moonlight filtering in between the foliage illuminating his white blonde hair in a halo of silver above his head. Shire swore for a moment he could see the Spirits swirling around the younger Hero, cradling him in their ethereal combers of light. He had this nagging in his breast that if he just focused he'd be able to see into the Astra and into Ghost's heart, to peer into his soul and see for himself what it was that made the younger so bright and warm.
Ghost was the western winds blowing in off the sea, lulling his heart. Ghost was like the dawn, he was the fresh sunlight reflecting the dew, he was the oranges and yellows painting the horizon in fire. Ghost was the world itself, the sun and the moon and the stars all at once. He was hope.
Shire's attempts to wrangle back the urge to follow that light straight into the void were pathetically weak, and Shire desperately chased after it, willingly plunging into the deep end of the seemingly never ending pools of starlight staring down at him from above, framed by pale skin and faint freckles.
And then Ghost took a breath, and the illusion shattered. Shire was back in the tree, his skin tingling with numbness. Ghost was glaring down at him with hard eyes, a storm brewing in his gaze, thunder surely pounding in his veins, lightning under his nails where they dug into the bark of the branch he was perched on.
And then,
"I don't want you to apologise, because I don't want to forgive you.”
And was that not the very heart of the issue, the exact thing Shire had been too stupid to pick up on.
Ghost didn't want to forgive him. Of course he didn't.
Shire slowly descended the tree, paying no mind to the sticky blood now coating his hands from the rough wood, and ambled back to camp.
It must have been hours. It should have been hours.
It was a minute before he was cleaned and washed and lying on his bedroll, Dune’s hair in his face and Archive cuddled up against his side, a warm weight on his chest that could have been Twine.
No. Twine was with Ghost, because Twine loved Ghost and Twine hated Shire.
Why did Twine hate him, too? What else had Shire screwed up? Had Ghost been talking to Twine, telling them exactly what was wrong in Shire's head to make him so slow? If Ghost knew what was loose in his head why hadn't the engineer told him? Helped him fix it?
Shire didn't sleep that night.
Far away, balanced precariously at the top of an oak tree - a fresh burn on his wrist and tobacco on his lips, staining between his fingers - Ghost wondered the same thing.
***
It was a sunless strand that never bore
The footprints of a man,
Nor felt the weight.
***
If you'd asked Twine his favourite colour a few years ago - before a broken sword landed in his hands and before his world shattered into pieces, before the sanded down shards were forced back together, or even further back still when a mysterious hat had attached to his head and the world shrunk - he might have answered with the green of the grass, or the blue of the sky. After everything went wrong, he'd have said the red of the blood that dripped from his wounds, or the shade of purple his bruises turned after he poked them too much.
Then, it was the colour of dusk. Dark, and cold. Yet oh so inviting. Yet oh so far away.
More recently, Twine would probably answer with silver, after a short debate with himself first to answer with cobalt or navy.
His least favourite colour was harder still.
Or so he thought.
Watching Shire and Ghost argue from just out of hearing distance and seeing flashes of fangs and claws where there were only flat teeth and nails, Wonder and Crown crammed into the thin crevice with him, he knew the answer was crowberry.
***
Since time began
Of any human quality or stir,
Save what the dreary winds and wave incur.
***
Shire's voice was rising again, getting louder and louder with each word. "Yes, it is like that! Everything I do just ends up hurting him, no matter what I-"
"Shire-"
"It's pathetic, Spade!" Shire's voice cracked, growing strained. "I can't do anything. I just end up making things worse every time!"
Spade gave him a sympathetic look. "Shire, it's not-"
Shire interrupted him, practically yelling. "No, stop, shut up! It is pathetic, I am!" He clenched his hands into shaking fists, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "I can't help him. I-I should've stopped earlier, should've gone easier on the kid instead of yelling so damn loudly-”
The older man only stood silent in the face of his frustration. Watching with pitying eyes as Shire slowly tore himself apart from the inside with grief. And once more he wondered why Shire always made himself exempt to the kid rule.
Shire knew Spade didn't understand. He knew it wasn't either of their faults.
That didn't lessen the anger.
“You always stick your nose into things that have nothing to do with you! Just- just leave me and Ghost alone. I'll figure it out - I'll make him forgive me -”
“Shire you…” Spade finally cut into his tirade, brow creased in worry. “You can't force the engineer-”
“Watch me.” He spat back, venomous.
And Spade did, feeling useless as he remained frozen in place, only able to observe as Shire marched up to Ghost and dragged him away.
***
And in the hush of waters was the sound
Of pebbles, rolling round;
For ever rolling, with a hollow sound.
***
The campfire burned low, casting flickering shadows across the forest clearing. The night was calm.
Feather was not.
She never found herself all too concerned with the affairs of others, before. Apparently, neither had Oracle or Ivory.
Yet that night, all three sat in heavy silence where there was usually giggling banter or gossip being passed around.
“So,” Ivory leaned back against a log they'd been using as a makeshift bench for their campfire. “Should we… talk about this, or…?”
Oracle stayed deathly still, as if not hearing Ivory, before saying-
(‘Still refusing to actually sit on it like a normal person, Iv’?’ Isle had gently teased as he handed the younger veteran a blanket. ‘Says the one who prefers the ground over a bed,’ Ivory grinned back, nudging his good leg with a booted foot.)
-“Nothing to talk about,” her voice was ever level, composed.
Feather hadn’t quite worked out how she did that everytime without fault.
Ivory fell back into silence, but not without glancing at Feather. Maybe for help, or for a distraction, she couldn't tell.
Maybe that was what cemented Feather’s decision to keep what she had overheard to herself.
***
And, bubbling sea-weeds, as the waters go,
Swish to and fro
Their long cold tentacles of slimy grey:
***
Archive usually considered himself adept at solving things others couldn't. Including things he himself hadn't been previously able to solve.
The calamity, for one.
The group's disgusting lack of a proper cook, for two.
(‘I'm just as good a cook as you!’ Dune yelled one night, brandishing a ladle at him. Archive didn't bother correcting himself, too distracted with the way the runes on her cheeks lit up for a brief second in blue, trails of light snaking down her neck like lightning. Was it wrong that he was jealous?)
Something he had tried many times to fix was whatever was going on between Shire and Ghost. The two seemingly disliked each other from the get go, Ghost refusing to acknowledge Shire's ideas and Shire conversely trying to get in Ghost's way the entire time.
They hated each other.
But Archive was an optimist when it came to things like this, believing there was always more to it. Because there had to be something else going on. Hatred was far too simple. Even thinking of it and them in the same sentence felt like an insult to their characters.
No, what they had was sharper. More like a series of unspoken jabs, glances laced with something far heavier than disdain. Something heavy and complicated.
Once before, Archive had made the brave - yet in hindsight purely stupid - decision to talk to them about it. Separately, of course. He wasn't so dumb as to corner them in a room together.
Ghost offered Archive nothing, yet so much all at once. ’I have no thoughts on the Hero of Twilight,’ he'd said, voice flat and devoid of emotion as usual, but his fingers twitched and tapped his prosthetic. A nervous habit.
Shire had somehow managed to be less helpful, mentioning vaguely about how difficult Ghost could be before abruptly switching topics, every word spoken as if he'd never said them before, awkward and clumsy.
It was maddening.
Especially because when they worked together, when there was little time and little choice, they were terrifying. Moving fluidly together like silk or water, filling in for each other's weaknesses with nary a word shared. No wasted effort, nothing done without purpose. Archive had seen them take down an entire outpost together in under five minutes, speaking only a handful of words between them. It had been beautiful. And then the moment the fight was over, the distance snapped back into place like a drawn wire.
It was like watching a pair of magnets. Push them the wrong way, and all you get is resistance. But flip the orientation, just for a second, and they lock together with violent force.
Archive had theories. He always had theories. Dune had approached him recently, sharing her thoughts on the two as well.
They poured over what they knew, and yet nothing ever clicked quite right.
Maybe they’d known each other before, somehow, like how Twine always seemed to know so much and yet nothing at all. Maybe they were too similar and hated what they saw reflected in each other. Or maybe - just maybe - it wasn’t hatred at all. Maybe it was something worse.
Because sometimes Archive caught Shire going uncharacteristically silent on the rare occasions Ghost was laughing, like he was trying to imprint the sound and sight into his memory.
And sometimes, he'd see Ghost studying the way Shire moved when lifting the heavier things, eyes stuck on his arms.
Archive didn’t have answers.
This problem might take more than even he was capable of.
***
There was no day;
Nor ever came a night
Setting the stars alight
***
Wonder was, in short, sick of Shire's shit. Ghost was his successor. His.
Was it selfish to want the other teen to himself?
Twine hadn't seemed to think so. Isle hadn't either, when asked, eyes trailing after Feather as she shoved Lore into a river with chiming laughter.
Wonder didn't mind sharing with Twine. Or Crown. Or Heart.
So maybe, then, the problem was Shire.
Wonder sat with his back against a tree, one leg bent and the other outstretched in front of him. His tunic was damp with sweat and morning dew, but he didn't care. His gaze flickered through the thinning trees, trained on the distant figures moving through the woods. He couldn’t make out who was who - just blurs of color and shape, fragmented by the mist curling low across the forest floor - but he knew Ghost was out there.
He always did.
It wasn’t something so pedestrian as tracking footsteps or listening for the telltale hiss of the engineer’s breath when he was irritated. It was instinctual, primal - like knowing when a storm was about to break. Like the moment before lightning strikes.
Ghost was his. Not like an object, not like a tool or possession, but like a heartbeat, a tether. Someone that belonged in his world. Someone that made sense. Watching Shire stumble through conversation after conversation, hurting Ghost again and again despite the fumbling sincerity, lit a fire in Wonder's gut that refused to go out.
He knew Ghost wasn't perfect. No one could reasonably look at the boy, hear the clipped way he spoke or see the exhaustion dragging at his shoulders, and believe otherwise. Ghost was standoffish, secretive, too clever for his own good. But Ghost was also kind - quietly, insistently, and in ways most people never noticed.
Wonder noticed. Twine noticed. Feather, too. Even Lore and Heart, and Archive and Oracle. All the others noticed.
But Shire? Shire saw only what he wanted to see. And the worst part was that he seemed to believe he deserved Ghost’s forgiveness, like just by feeling sorry hard enough, he could wash away the pain he’d left behind. As though Ghost hadn’t earned the right to be angry. As though his wounds weren’t real just because Shire didn’t mean to cause them.
If Shire hurt Ghost again, really hurt him this time, Wonder didn’t know what he would do. All he knew was that he couldn’t keep watching it happen. Couldn’t stand by while the last good thing in his life was chipped away at by someone who didn’t even understand what he had.
The wind shifted. The fog began to rise.
Wonder stood.
He wasn’t going to let Ghost suffer alone again. Not when he knew the path that pain led to. Not when he’d once walked it himself.
If Shire wanted to keep marching forward blind, let him. Wonder would be right there to catch Ghost when it all inevitably fell apart.
And maybe, if Ghost was finally ready to let someone really hold him up, Wonder would be the one waiting.
***
To wonder at the moon:
Was twilight only, and the frightened croon,
Smitten to whimpers of the dreary wind
***
For the past however long, Ghost had been carefully keeping his distance from the others, only letting Twine near through lack of energy to argue, and Wonder for the same reason.
Heart didn't see anything wrong with it.
He'd heard about Ghost and Shire arguing, but at the end of the day, with Shire leant against a tree and Ghost curled into his side, Twine on Ghost's chest and Wonder to his right, Heart failed to see why any of them should be intervening at all.
What was there to fix?
Ghost wasn’t alone. He had Twine, soft and loyal, curled up on top of him like a gemstone set into silver. He had Wonder, alert and watchful, one hand never far from the handle of his blade and the other practically glued to the engineer's shoulder.
And Shire, for all his faults and misgivings, was still there. A boulder for them all to lean on. Someone strong enough to carry the weight of their problems, even if a skewed proportion of them were caused by the man himself.
Heart often thought that unfair. Shire was only 17.
Heart had never been one to meddle. Hed lost the will to do so after countless months - maybe years - spent trying to fix something one 10 year old boy couldn't ever have possibly done alone. He learnt instead to wait. Some needed time, space. Ghost was clearly one of those people that shattered under pressure, rather than forming a brilliant diamond from the carbon ash.
So no, Heart didn’t see anything wrong with the little orbit Ghost had constructed around himself. It was loud, and maybe a bit brittle at the edges, but it held.
There were no words that could fix this. No sweet nothings that would mend the cracks, no gentle kisses to soothe away the hurt. Ghost would come back to them in his own time, if he wanted to. Or he wouldn’t. And if he didn’t - well.
Heart supposed they’d adapt. They always did. That's what it meant to be heroes. You always found a way. Even if the way was terribly painful. And terribly long.
Still, he couldn't help the way he glanced back at them occasionally, to the mess of limbs and blankets that rested at the edge of their camp. Ghost had curled around Twine like one might to a child, Wonder at his back holding tight to Ghost's shirt with his legs intertwined with the other teens, unflinching when whole foot met a severed knee.
It was messy.
It was real.
And Heart had seen far worse attempts at love.
***
And waves that journeyed blind -
And then I loosed my ear... O, it was sweet
To hear a cart go jolting down the street.