Archive of Our Own ^beta

Mask's heartbeat echoed in his ears when he finally slid to a stop, kicking up dried grass and dirt behind him. He wanted to pant for breath, but it was more important that he was scowling when the others looked up from their spar.

And they did. Look up, that is.

Mask met them with his arms crossed tight across his chest and the scowl in place.

Captain Link lowered his sword—the regular one—and turned away from General Impa to look at him. The hollow places of his face were coloured pink from exertion. Sweat stuck his hair to his temples. The heaviness under his eyes was still there. His brows drew closer together. Lips tilted down. "Everything OK?"

Behind him, Impa was making one of her faces that Mask didn't like. Like she could read his mind and was laughing at him. Mask's face contracted harder.

One hundred responses ran through his head at once. You didn't say you were going to be here. Why didn't you tell me? I didn't know where you were.

Mask looked at how Link's pauldron was just barely out of place; it didn't fit like it should anymore, but it was the best the smiths could do under present circumstances. They all said that he'd grow back into it soon anyway, so it wasn't worth the time and effort to correctly fit it.

Mask felt taut as a bowstring, and it took conscious effort for him to uncross his arms. Stiffly, he pulled the enchanted bottle filled with milk from his pouch and threw it toward the captain. Magic protected it from shattering when it hit the ground and bounced a little, rolling just wide of the captain's boot before it came to a stop. He crouched to pick it up, but Mask already turned his back on them and stomped off the same way he'd come.

He wasn't moving fast enough to outrun Impa's voice though: "Forgot to tell him you'd be late to dinner?"

Mask knew the meter of the captain's footsteps. Knew when he was moving with urgency or was compensating for a wound. He knew when the captain was still keyed up from the rush of battle.

Now?

His steps were heavy with fatigue that didn't match up with how minor the conflict had been. Mask could have sworn he felt the vibrations of the steps before he actually heard them crunching over the singed remains of the battlefield. Mask tipped his head toward the sky; it was still daylight. Not long after noon. Less than two hours. Sighing so heavily that it almost sounded like a groan, he pushed himself up to his feet and turned toward the captain.

The Master Sword was in its scabbard at his back. He arched a brow at him. His hands turned at his sides. Empty palms facing Mask.

Despite the obvious question, Proxi still asked aloud, "You good, Mask?"

The pauldron still wasn't sitting quite right on the captain's shoulder.

"I'm fine." Mask gestured to the lack of casualties and bloodshed around him. "It wasn't even a real battle."

The captain was looking around. He nodded. Grinned. "Well done. Need any help collecting materials for the apoth—"

"I got it," Mask cut him off. "It's just picking stuff up. I can do it myself."

The captain didn't miss a beat. "Alright."

"OK."

"Let us know if you need anything," Proxi said.

"OK."

He'd already turned his back on them and headed for the nearest pile of old rags. Already he knew that he'd only give the apothecary half of them. He'd clean the rest the way Captain Link had showed him and keep them in his bag for use as bandages.

The captain's eyes might as well have been physical weights on Mask's back. He felt his shoulders creep up toward his ears. He would not turn around.

And yet, he angled his head so many degrees to the side to say over his shoulder (eyes anywhere but on the captain), "Don't you have to give an intelligence report to Zelda?"

A short pause.

"Yeah." The captain's voice sounded dry, strained. It was a good match to the weariness of his footsteps.

Mask scowled at an old rag. Shoved it into his pouch with more force than necessary.

"Yeah," he repeated. "I'll see you later? I'll bring dinner back to the tent."

Mask shrugged at the ground as if there weren't already a clock ticking in his head, counting down the seconds until the meeting would be over. He just barely managed to make his voice sound neutral when he gave his third, "OK."

"OK," the captain echoed him.

"See you then, Mask!" Proxi chimed.

She wasn't impressed with either of them.

The sides of Mask's hands dragged through the dirt, pulling rags into a more convenient pile. He breathed out heavily. Pulled his hands back so he could rub them over his eyes and then push them up into his hair. Fingers gripped tight. His cap was unseated.

Mask wanted to scream. He wanted to go with to the report. He wanted home.

Stupid.

His eyes opened. His hands fell away from his hair.

The sun was bright overhead. Only a few thready clouds were out, none powerful enough to block any of that light.

He drew in a measured breath through his nose and finished collecting the old rags.

Link coughed, and Mask's eyes jumped up to look at him.

He was at his desk across the tent, as he had been for the past few hours, bent over reconnaissance reports and maps. Mask had watched him mouth words in a language he didn't understand, but it had the cadence of counting and calculating. The captain drank from the milk bottle at his elbow at such regular intervals that Mask thought there must have been a ticking clock in his head, too. Each swallow looked like punishment. Every sip forced and uncomfortable. His posture had waned as time went by. The pinched look on face growing steadily deeper.

It had been a while since he'd needed the emesis pot. Mask hadn't even seen it for a few weeks now, not that he missed seeing the captain heave into it at least twice during every meal. He felt his heart crawl a little higher inside his chest at the thought of needing to bring it back.

The captain cleared his throat. It was quieter than the cough had been. He kept on studying his papers and counting his foreign numbers.

So Mask let his eyes fall back down, too. He was sat on the floor, back leant up against the frame of his bunk. The mask he was carving was propped up on his knees, its empty eyes starting back at him. Mask gripped and then re-gripped his carving knife. Frowning, he ran his blade along the contour of one would-be cheek. The wood shaving fell to his lap and then the floor. He moved the blade, pressed his fingers to the edges, and scraped another precise stroke into the wooden face.

Sometimes Mask could get lost in the carving. The sound of the blade shaving bits of wood away could make the ticking in his head quiet down. He could pretend this was his first and only time being small and he was sitting cross-legged in the long grass of a familiar forest; people he'd known his whole life all around him. Like he'd always been there and always would be.

"Maybe you should call it a night."

Mask's eyes jumped up at the sound of Proxi's voice. He caught the end of the captain's massive yawn. He could even hear his jaw click. The captain swiped a hand at the moisture that had gathered in the corners of his eyes. Mask's eyes caught on the knobbiness of his wrists and the way the veins and tendons strained against his skin. But then he moved and it all flattened back together, normal.

Link took another deliberate swallow of milk. The bottle was nearly empty. Finally.

"Maybe," the captain said through another jaw-cracking yawn.

Mask clamped his teeth together to fight the tension that was gathering in his own jaws just from watching.

But something always had to give. The carving knife slipped, opening a gash across two of his fingers and the meat of his hand. He gasped through his teeth reflexively and dropped the knife.

Immediately, he knew that the captain and Proxi were looking at him. But he kept his eyes on the blood pooling in the creases of his palm. His hand curled into a fist and he used his other hand to hold it closed even tighter.

"Mask?"

The familiar rhythm of approaching footsteps, cushioned a bit this time by the threadbare rugs on the floor. Mask's heart settled back into its rightful place.

A shadow fell over him, and he was reminded of the way sunlight dimmed when he used to crawl under a leafy canopy on a hot day. A hand came to rest on Mask's knee. He felt the calluses and scars.

Crouching.

Mask finally looked up.

The captain offered his other hand, and it was an offer.

First his right hand uncurled. Then he loosened his left and put it into the captain's. Before examining the slices, Captain Link slid the work-in-progress off Mask's lap and put it on top of his bunk, safe from any bloodshed. It was a miracle he hadn't dripped any on it already.

Link uncurl Mask's fingers and grinned at him. "Got yourself pretty good."

"It's fine," he said back without thought. The default response that was always ready on his lips.

"It will be." His eyes dropped to the wounds; a clean rag was already being pressed into Mask's palm. "Hold tight. Gonna get some water and be right back."

Mask made a fist around the rag and nodded. It was hard not to notice how tired the captain looked when he was this close. Proxi was right: it was past time to call it a night. It had been a long day. Marching for hours and that ambush near the end of it. No resupply for the mess in a few days, so things were running low. That bottle of milk had been one of the last ones Mask could find. If they couldn't resupply soon, they'd be in trouble. Impa insisted that the captain be on regimen of bland, heavy food since his rescue from the Temple of Souls, and, after a really rough patch with some poison at the start, it had been working well. Mask found it obvious why the captain rarely ever had an appetite these days, but he soldiered on with the scheduled meals as if it were just another of his duties—or a punishment for being taken captive in the first place.

(The captain hadn't been able to handle much more than a few bites of the fresh fruit that Princess Zelda had given to him. Mask didn't feel bad about eating it in his stead. Better than letting it go to waste.)

He'd physically recovered from his captivity quick enough. He was gaining weight back slowly but steadily. Impa had told him that she and Zelda thought the captain was rushing his return to full duty but that they'd worry about that when it happened. They wanted him to call his own shots. He'd sparred with Impa, making sure his speed and technique were back. They'd been in a few small conflicts since the rescue, and the captain had done fine. He hadn't taken any major wounds or needed help. Mask couldn’t help but notice the fatigue that followed the captain afterwards though. It was different from before. Even several days-long battles before the sorceress had captured him didn't make Link as tired as the small ambush did today.

But Link wasn't talking about it. Or, if he was, it wasn't with Mask. He just carried on as if the captivity hadn't happened. As if Mask hadn't suffered here, alone, for fifty-six days and eleven hours, listening to the soldiers say horrible lies. Like that Link had been in cahoots with the sorceress. That he'd led all of those soldiers into a trap in the temple. That his blade may not have been the one to strike them down, but he'd killed them all the same. That he was spending all those days he was away in bliss with his lover, the dark sorceress.

Mask hadn't believed a word they said. Not that he'd ever needed proof, but the state the captain had been in when Impa brought him back should have made it clear that he hadn't experienced a single second of bliss in captivity. The people of this era had already proven themselves stupid beyond measure to Mask. Not even when he heard them talking about him as he stalked through the mess, praising him and saying that he was what a real Hero looked like, not the captain. Not even then did Mask like the soldiers of this era. The approval of people who said such things about the captain meant less than nothing to Mask.

For every one of those fifty-six days, he'd gone out of his way to make sure none of them had anything nice to say about him.

"I found something better than water."

Mask jumped at the return of the captain's voice. He was carrying a bottle of the disgusting swill the soldiers got drunk off of in the mess area. Mask wrinkled his nose at it.

"I know," Captain Link laughed, "but it'll help clean it. Still no good ingredients for red potions."

Mask shoved his hand, still clenched tight around the rag, at the captain before he could ask for it. Then looked away, frowning at his dropped carving knife. Undeterred, the captain worked at tending the wounds.

"OK, Mask?" Proxi prompted him.

"Fine. It just slipped."

Her chime was teasing as she said, "Thought you never goofed up with a knife?"

"I don't!

The circles under the captain's eyes looked especially dark from this angle.

"I'm just tired," Mask said. "I must've started drifting off with it in my hand."

Just like he'd hoped, Proxi jumped on the explanation. "Didja hear that, Link? It's time for bed for everyone. You're both doing yourself harm staying up for no reason."

Captain Link shot a conspiratorial look at Mask through his fringe and smirked. "Proxi, if you're too worn out to stay up with us, you can go to sleep. We won't think you're an old lady or anything."

The fairy chimed at the teasing, playing it up and bantering with the captain so that Mask didn't even notice the sting of the alcohol in his cuts or the pluck as they were pinched and bandaged closed.

"You'll be fine in a few days," Link finally said, giving Mask his hand back. He picked up the knife and held it out toward him, handle-first. "Clean this off and put it away."

It wasn't a request, but he still said it like Mask had options. Link was always doing that to him.

Mask nodded, already getting his feet beneath him and standing. He made sure his project got back into his bag before cleaning the knife though.

They both dressed down for the night without saying a word. Mask was relieved to see that the knobby bones of the captain's spine weren't so prominent anymore, with the exception of the ones near his neck and shoulders. They pressed hard against his skin when he ducked into a plain woollen tunic. No matter the weather, the captain grew cold at night now.

Pulling the Fierce Deity mask off felt like peeling the flesh from his face sometimes, but it especially did now. The moment the magic read his intent, Mask felt the transformation reverse: his body was compressing in on itself. Bone ground against bone as he returned to his regular body, air rushed out of him as his lungs and guts were pressed together to fit in his shrinking chest. The receding of magic always left every piece of him feeling unhooked from each other. Mask used to fall to his knees every time, but he'd gotten accustomed to it by now. He could catch himself even though it didn't feel like his feet were connected to his legs, nor were his legs connected to the rest of him. He'd found a way to bear his own weight and carry on since he'd come to the war, found ways to resist the sticky malaise that threatened to drown him after using magic like this.

Despite feeling stretched out and crushed at the same time, Mask regripped his sword—its blade no longer a helix—and pursued the few remaining monsters in the field. He'd been positioned near an outpost between two keeps for most of the battle today. There was a lot of ground between him and either of the keeps for the monsters to flee. Though there were soldiers already engaging them, something hot and painful in Mask's stomach wouldn't let him see even a single one escape.

He fought until every last monster was felled. The field was saturated with blood, chipped masonry, broken arrows—all the usual stuff—by the time he was done. Mud with a rust-coloured tint sucked against the soles of Mask's boots when he shifted his footing. He eyed the nearest soldiers warily but recognised them after a moment of shared eye contact.

"Alright?" one called. The voice sounded echoey from the helmet.

Mask was breathing too hard to trust his voice, so he just nodded. Without really thinking about it, he pulled the Keaton mask over his face.

"Rendezvous at the keep." Blood slid down the blade of the soldier's sword when he used it to point to the east.

Mask nodded again and pointed to the materials left behind by their enemies.

The soldier nodded his understanding and then headed off toward the keep with the rest of his squad.

They'd been engaged in battle here for six straight days, trying to bust the blockade Cia's forces had on their supply route. The tide had finally turned in their favour yesterday evening. Mask knew that today was a matter of capitalising on that progress. The route would be secured and open again by this time tomorrow.

Mask's breath was warm beneath the Keaton mask as he collected the enemies' dropped materials. Things he intended to keep for himself went into one pouch and things he'd turn over to the apothecary went into another. Most soldiers left everything in the field for the clean-up team to take care of, but Mask liked to dig through the mess and find useful things. It helped his heart stop beating so loudly. That thing wound tight in his chest had time to unspool. It was what he was usually doing when Captain Link found him after combat ended. It had become something of a routine for them.

He felt his exhale condense around his nose and lips when he crouched to pick up a pile of monster horns and teeth. His bones ached when he straightened back up again. They were always tender after such frequent use of the Fierce Deity mask. Over the past six days…Mask had lost count of how often he'd transformed and gone back to himself.

Another group of soldiers was jogging toward the rendezvous point. None of them looked his way. Stowing old rags and metal plates, Mask slid the Keaton mask off to the side of his face and wiped the sweat and condensation from his breath onto his sleeve. The breeze was nice. It suggested it was going to rain again, like it had early this morning.

The items were heavy in Mask's bags even with the weight lightening enchantments. Looking up, he checked the movement of the sun. He'd passed more than two hours out here collecting materials.

Somewhere inside his head where things echoed, a great clock was ticking.

Mask nibbled at the inside of his bottom lip for a moment and then decided: he headed for the rendezvous point. Slowly, though. Dragging his feet and sliding the Keaton mask back in place. He reasoned with himself that this was because of the magical fatigue and come-down from the rush of battle.

No one called out to Mask when he made his way to the eastern keep. The officer taking headcount and a few of the less-terrible soldiers nodded to him inside the walls, but none of them made the sudden uncomfortable stretch in his stomach ease up. He wove his way through the higher-ranking soldiers, slowing his pace and lingering just long enough to eavesdrop. It was easier than outright asking any of them a question.

Cia's forces were gone and the supply route was clear. The battle was over. Perimeters were being secured. The wounded were being tended to.

Mask's stomach cramped harder. Maybe he was hungry. He'd had little appetite over the past several days of fighting, but how many times had he been told that having no appetite didn't mean that his body didn't need to eat? He was worrying his lip between his teeth again. The weight of all those transformations pressed down on him even harder.

Every step toward the northern wall ached. When he squatted down, his knees protested, hips popped, back strained. Overbalancing, Mask's ass hit the dirt for the last bit of the way. Dampness from the ground seeped into the seat of his shorts, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. His clothes were already in dire need of washing. He had things that were clean enough back in the tent he could change them out for. Not long after they first met, Captain Link had made sure that he had a few sets of clothes. Even things heavy cloaks for when winter hit. There'd been no gloves in Mask's size; he'd fallen asleep one night to the captain sewing a pair for him.

Crouching down like this wasn't helping the knot in his stomach. Maybe he was sick. Or he needed to sleep. Maybe this stupid child's body was trying to immobilise him so he'd have to rest. Link said crap like that all the time when Mask insisted that he wasn't the kid that he looked like: "Maybe not, but your body is. Give it a break."

Sliding the Keaton mask up just enough to expose his mouth, Mask drank the last few swallows in his waterskin. It roiled against the tension in his stomach at first before it finally seemed to settle down. He breathed out long and hard before tipping the mask back in place.

The sun had made steady progress toward the horizon. More than an hour's worth.

Ticking inside Mask's head was getting louder.

Farore's teeth, how long was he supposed to wait here?

A horn echoed in the distance signalling that the perimeter was secure. Groups of walking wounded soldiers wrapped in field dressings ambled toward the egress points to begin the long walk back to camp. One of them Mask recognised as a soldier who'd said some of the vilest things about Link when he'd been the sorceress's prisoner. On and on he'd gone about how the captain was a puppet of Cia's, no different than Wizzro or Volga, and how he was enjoying his time with her.

Even in the first few days after Impa and her squad had rescued the captain, this soldier had said it, loud and drunk. He'd speculated about the cause of the captain's limp to the scornful laughter of the others.

The thought came to Mask fast and vicious: he hoped the soldier contracted an infection in that wound. He hoped it hurt. He hoped he suffered for a long time before succumbing.

But a second thought quickly followed and quenched the anger in him entirely. He'd overheard that what was left of Cia's forces had fled. He hadn't seen her or heard any word that the sorceress had personally been in the field, but what if she had been?

The tension in his stomach was painful now. The ticking in his head echoed off the inside of his skull.

It had been too long. Captain Link always found Mask by now, and they walked together back to the camp. It had never once taken the captain even a quarter of the time that had now passed to find Mask.

What if Cia had been in the battle? What if she'd taken him again?

This was stupid!

Mask had just gotten him back! He wasn't going to lose him again!

Without thinking about it, Mask jumped to his feet. Fingernails bit into his palms as he clamped his hands into fists. All the fatigue and soreness that had been pinning him down were pushed aside. His insides might as well have turned to molten rock, and his heart beat a little harder in his chest. But none of it was worse. This was something to do. A task. A puzzle. He had to find the captain. Link was probably fine. If something bad had happened, the news would have spread like a wild fire.

He was going to find Captain Link and tell him off for changing the routine without telling him. At the very least, he could have sent Proxi to let Mask know he wasn't coming.

Shoving a few idle soldiers out of the way, Mask headed for the nearest door of the keep. South was where the worst part of the fighting had been; Link would have been in the thick of it. Never mind that the fighting had ended hours ago and, if he were fine, the captain would have had plenty of time to move somewhere else. Mask decided that it was still the right direction to go.

He checked everything. In any pile of debris. Around any corner, at every owl statue and outpost. He avoided speaking to the scattered soldiers going around identifying the dead and salvaging any resources from their corpses (there were never enough boots and socks). He wasn't sure what he was looking for exactly, what condition he thought the captain might be in. Mask didn't even consider that Link might have been wounded and taken back to the aid station. He didn't consider that he might be dead. Only fear of him getting taken again drove Mask to search.

He hardly noticed that it had started raining. The drops plopped against the Keaton mask. It might have been a soothing sound if Mask weren't so annoyed about how it made the ground soft and muddy. His boots slid under him a few times, and he stomped on the ground harder so that it knew he was irritated with it. He stopped that after one slip sent him all the way down to his hands and knees. Mud splashing everywhere. It dripped from the ends of his hair. Rose up between his fingers. Caked in the open scrapes on his knees. Soaked into his boots.

At least his face had been spared thanks to the Keaton mask. Still, he growled in frustration and pulled his hands out of the mud just to punch one down again.

Thwack.

"Hey, you OK, kid? Need a hand?" a soldier called. His steps made squelching sounds in the mud as he headed in Mask's direction.

There was still a job to do. Mask clamped his jaws together and pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth as hard as he could. Before the soldier could get too close, Mask pushed himself back up and walked in the opposite direction. It annoyed him to have to slow down his pace, but it was a clear enough message. The soldier didn't pursue him.

Part of Mask hoped to run into someone he could trust: Zelda or Midna—anyone. But there was no one but soldiers doing the dirty grunt work left after combat. Once, he heard Impa's voice echoing from somewhere to the west, but it sounded too far off to convince Mask to deviate from his path. He was sure the captain was in the southern sector. He could feel it in the way that he'd always been able to feel the captain.

But fifteen more minutes of checking any place that could conceivably conceal a person and even a few that could not, Mask hadn't found a single sign of him. His lack of progress in this puzzle was making his hands shake. His face stung beneath the Keaton mask. Despite the chill of the rain that thoroughly soaked him by this point, Mask felt hot all over. The tightness in his stomach was nauseating. His heart had crawled up to his throat to beat in time with the ticking in his head; both of them were faster than they should have been.

He should have found the captain by now. He should have heard from him.

Cia's forces had suddenly fled after stubbornly refusing for six days of fighting, and now Mask couldn’t find Captain Link.

There wasn't enough air.

He smacked the Keaton mask off his face and took several heaving breaths. It didn't make him feel any better.

The ticking inside his head was deafening. Slapping his hands over his ears, Mask crouched down until his face was tucked against his mud-caked knees. He screamed as loudly as he could without opening his mouth. He wished there were still monsters around. He wished Cia were here so that he could attack her. He wouldn't even need the Fierce Deity mask. He'd rent her limb from limb with this stupid prison of a child's body. He wanted to fight and make something hurt.

He wished Captain Link were here so he could strangle him with that scarf of his. He'd tell him how stupid he was. That he wasn't ready for combat again. That he clearly wasn't well enough for this battle. His armour didn't fit; how did he think he could fight like that? Underweight and deconditioned. He'd tell him that it was selfish of him to say that he was ready for this battle when it was obvious that he couldn’t even use his magic right anymore. He never had been since he came back from the Temple of Souls.

It was stupid and idiotic to fight anyway.

It was shitty to leave Mask alone.

As soon as he had the thought, Mask felt it. Barely anything. Not something tangible. Not a nudge or a scent, but something. He looked up in time to see across the field something move in the midst of a pile of metal plates, the sodden remains of a Deku Baba, and the still-steaming corpse of a Fiery Aeralfos. He couldn't hear the sound of the plates shifting over the rain and pounding in his head, but Mask didn't need to.

He tore through the mud as fast as he could, not dwelling when he slid off his feet. He just righted himself and continued running. The captain's magic was in the air. Mask didn't know how to describe it, but he could sense it. Nearly as familiar to him as his own. The captain's felt massive, tired, depleted.

Mask couldn’t stop his momentum and let himself crash into the Fiery Aeralfos corpse. He suddenly didn't feel tired at all as he scrambled to get his feet back under him and shove the beast off the pile of debris. It left a streak of thick blood, but the rain quickly washed it away. He chucked metal plates and muddy old rags as if they were nothing. His hands burned from the Deku Baba poison that had settled on everything. It would blister later, but that was later. He kept digging.

He was here.

The heat inside him turned ice cold when he caught his first sign of the captain. It was just the green of his tunic.

Cia hadn't taken him again.

Relief was so strong that Mask swayed from the sudden lack of tension throughout his whole body.

Cia hadn't taken him. He was right here. Whatever the explanation for his condition, Mask could fix it, because Link was still here.

Despite the viscera and mud, the captain's tunic still looked vibrant. That was the benefit of having several-times-enchanted clothing. The scarf alone was nearly buzzing with spells; it had fascinated Mask the first time he'd touched it.

Where was Proxi?

He dug. Metal plates and monster parts cut his skin as he dug and threw everything he touched aside. Until at last—at last—Mask found Link's head and freed it. His skin was cold and slack. No response when Mask shouted his name or shook him by the shoulders. Mask smeared rain-diluted mud and blood with trying to find a break in the captain's skin or hair, some type of wound that would explain why he was lying here useless in a pile of death and poison with the air thick with his own spent magic.

But he couldn't find anything. No cuts or caved-in spots on his skull.

The captain looked worse from Mask's attempts to clean him up.

Memories stuttered through Mask's head as he tried to remember the first aid the captain had taught him. What was he supposed to do when he found someone who wouldn't wake up? Mask pulled the scarf away from the captain's throat and pressed two fingers down hard against the side of his neck. A pulse like a ticking clock met him. Steady. Slow. Maybe? He couldn’t remember how many counts was OK. It was probably fine. Mask pressed one of his ears against his chest. He felt stupid and weird but eventually picked up the rhythm of the captain's breath.

He was alive. Heart beating and lungs breathing. No obvious wound on his head.

What the fuck.

Mask went back to digging while he tried to remember what came next. All the debris was cleared, but he wasn't able to do much more than lift the captain's head and shoulders up. It was too heavy. All of it. The mud offered nothing for Mask to brace his feet against. When he hooked his arms under the captain's armpits and tried to drag him, it only earned him a swift slip onto his ass.

"Wake up, wake up! You idiot, you need to move!"

No response.

He pulled the Fierce Deity mask from his bag and pressed it to his face, but the transformation refused to take. He didn't have enough of his own magic left to force it. Not under a big enough threat. It might as well have been the same as the unfinished mask he'd been working on back in the tent. Growling, Mask shoved it back into his bag.

There were a few small wounds on the captain but nothing he thought would explain the lack of consciousness. Mask had no potions. He had nothing, not even water. He'd drank it all himself back at the keep. Not that he was confident enough to try to get an unconscious person to try to swallow something. Not like he knew the captain had done for him on at least one occasion, gently coaxing his throat to accept this era's version of a green potion a few drops at a time. Never letting him choke on it.

It really did feel as if Captain Link had set off his magic like one of those massive Bombchus: violent and destructive, tearing even itself apart. Like the usual focus spirit attacks but turned up by a factor of one hundred.

Mask blinked against raindrops and his drenched fringe.

He was weak with relief and fatigue. Breath wavered in his chest. Captain Link hadn't been taken by the sorceress. He'd been downed in regular old battle, apparently from something as stupid as magical exhaustion.

Mask's hands were shaking. He balled them into fists and pounded them down against the closest surface—which happened to be the captain's chest. It elicited a slight wheeze. Mask snatched his hands back, contrite, at the sound, but there was no other reaction.

He was cold all over, except for hot, sticky shame blooming inside him.

It was time to admit defeat: Mask clambered to his feet and went looking for help.

Darunia was the first person Mask found. The Goron followed him back to the captain, pulled him from the mud as if he were filled with feathers, and made haste back to camp. Mask kept sliding in the mud as he struggled to keep up, but he'd rather fall behind than ask Darunia to slow down.

The Allied keep was within sight when they came upon Zelda. Or Sheik, based on the disguise which she was wearing. She ran up to them.

"I was just about to go searching for him," she said in a low voice.

Mask blurted, "He's OK!"

Zelda looked at him. Her hair and cowl hid her expression (both were saturated with rain but didn't shift from their carefully arranged positions), but Mask had learned long ago how to read emotion from just the one eye. She believed him. She was relieved.

"It's his magic."

She held the eye contact, just looking at Mask. He wished he'd put the Keaton mask back on.

"There's no more magic enhancers," he said just to do something. To get her to stop looking at him.

Didn't work.

"They're always the first to go," Zelda said. Lines appeared around her eyes: smiling. "You both need aid. Come. Back to camp."

"Lead the way," Darunia said, hefting the captain in his arms into a more comfortable position.

Somewhere along the way, Impa joined up with them. She had a conversation with Zelda that was partially made up of just gestures and facial expressions. Even if Mask weren't swaying on his feet and shaking from the rain that had turned icy cold, he wouldn't have had a hope to follow along with what they were saying. If he'd been more present, he might have tried to get Darunia to explain it. The Goron seemed to be following their conversation just fine.

Between one blink and the next, Mask was back in the tent. His hands stung and he pulled them closer to his body.

"There you are," Zelda said. She'd pulled her cowl down. "You're exhausted."

Mask scowled, but his heart wasn't in it. He leaned around her to see Impa supporting the captain's upper body and rubbing a cloth into his wet hair. He'd already been undressed and the smaller wounds had been tended to.

Zelda shifted to block his view or recapture his attention; it was hard to tell which. "Can I bandage your hands? That looks like it hurts."

He looked down at his hands. Mud and blood and oozing blisters from the Deku Baba poison. It did hurt, but he could barely feel it. He didn't want her to touch him, but Mask nodded.

Zelda was quick and efficient. Mask couldn't help but notice how differently she applied the Deku Baba poison neutralising ointment than Link would have done it.

"You were right," she said at one point.

Mask blinked and then squinted at her.

"He's going to be OK."

The bandages on his hands couldn't get wet, so Mask tolerated Zelda's help getting the worst of the battlefield muck off his face and hair. He was allowed to struggle into a change of clothes on his own. He remembered getting the tunic over his head and looking over at the captain's bed. Impa and Zelda were beside it, standing close. Their voices were low. Didn't want Mask to overhear. But they didn't look particularly grave or serious.

Mask flexed his stiff fingers. The tension in the bandages resisted the motion. Zelda had soaked the inner wrappings in the last diluted dregs of a red potion. Combined with the topical poison neutraliser, his skin was already healing. If he really concentrated, he could feel the interaction between the potion and his own magic. What little of it that had begun to be restored was converted and directed to his hands.

He kicked at one of his pouches on the ground. Metal plates, horns, and teeth clanged against each other. Both Impa and Zelda turned at the sound.

"For the apothecary," he mumbled.

Impa was suddenly crouched down in front of him and holding the pouch. "They'll be really grateful to you, Mask."

He blinked, and there was a meal in front of him. Bread was in his bandaged hand. A bowl of thin stew balanced precariously in his lap. Proxi rested just to the side of it on his knee. Something soft was wrapped around his shoulders and back, trying to keep him warm. Mask's head and neck felt filled with stones. Too heavy to lift or move. So he just stared into the broth and listened.

Ruto was there.

Darunia and Midna, too.

Mask was leaning back against one of the log benches that surrounded the small fire pit outside their tent. One of Midna's wolves was pressed close against his side. Link wasn't there. Must not be awake yet. Weights might as well have been tied to Mask's eyelids. He was so tired. And a little cold still. He idly wondered if the fire had been started for his benefit. Even the ticking in his head felt muted and sluggish. He focussed on the food in front of him as if he'd never been faced with something more important. It kept him awake.

But then he finished eating and blinked.

The first thing Mask realised was that he felt loads better but was still tired. His joints had been filled with jelly. He was in his bunk, tucked into his bedding in a way that he didn't like. There was a single lamp going, and it was so dim it seemed in danger of guttering out. His eyes were drawn to the captain's bunk. Only his blanket-covered legs and feet were visible. Impa was there and blocking the rest of him.

Mask scrambled to sit up. "—awake?"

She looked over at him. Unhurried and unsurprised. She shook her head and turned back toward the captain. "Just missed him by about ten minutes."

Something hot burst in Mask's chest.

"No one woke me up!"

Proxi made a loop around him, chiming a comforting sound. Hovering beside him, she said, "He was only awake for a little bit, Mask. I went to get Impa to check on him. She got him to drink a little."

There sat a half-empty bottle of milk on the floor by the bed. A tiny bottle with a green stopper was still in Impa's hand.

Proxi was saying, "He barely said a word, but he's OK. Really, really tired. Just like you are."

Mask didn't appreciate that.

Impa held out a hand in invitation. "Come see, if you like."

He kept his hands clenched in the blanket he wrapped around himself as he joined Impa at the captain's bedside. Link had turned onto his side. One of his hands was visible under the edge of the blanket. It was bandaged just like Mask's. The reminder made him acutely aware of how itchy his hands were; a good sign for healing but annoying.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Impa raise a hand toward his shoulder. Mask stepped away from it. He was scowling without really meaning to, but he was too tired to fight it. He turned toward Impa. "No one's telling me what's wrong with him."

Proxi said, "We swear it's just exhaust—"

He shook his head. "I don't mean today! I mean since her! Since he was taken! Since he came back! Something is wrong, and you're all pretending it's not!"

Impa wasn't reacting. 

"His magic is broken!" he shouted at her. "It's wrong! You brought him back and said he was still under her spell but that it would go away! But he hasn't gotten better! The simplest spell wipes him out! I've seen it! I notice! His magic is ruined, and everyone acts like it's fine! Even him!" He threw his hand out of blanket and pointed at the captain. "This never happened to him in battle before her! Magic was easy for him! He'd never collapse in battle because of magic depletion before! That's stupid! Something's wrong. He's broken! Why won't anyone tell me anything!"

That was when he saw that he hadn't been wrapped up in a blanket at all, but in the captain's scarf. Uncomfortable, unbearable heat flooded Mask. Damp pressure built up behind his eyes. His jaws clamped together to fight a growl of pure anger surging up from the centre of him.

Before he could rip the scarf from his shoulders and cast it away, Impa took him captive in a hug. It was comfort as much as it was a restraint. Mask fought against her at first just to see what it would take for her to let him go. She held on, and the heat inside him was smothered by how tired and heavy everything else was.

Small mercies that Impa wasn't entirely terrible and let him go not long after he stopped fighting. Her eyes were on him. Patient as anything.

What was another loss on top of everything else today?

Mask stared back at her. Jerked his chin up.

"I know you're worried about him and frustrated that things haven't gone back to how they were before, but you will not call Link broken. Do you understand? Cia and the Temple of Souls hurt him very deeply in ways we cannot see from outside, and he is doing the best he can to recover from it while there is a war going on. But he is not broken or ruined or wrong."

His stomach felt hot and sick. Maybe the soup he couldn’t remember eating had gone off. It had happened before.

His chin wilted into his chest. Despite being freed from Impa's hold, Mask didn't chuck the scarf away like he'd meant to. He frowned but still didn't let it go. It was easier to look at the captain's bandaged hand poking out of the blanket than anywhere else in the tent.

"Things will be different, Mask, I won't tell you otherwise. One thing that hasn't changed is how much Link cares about you. Remember how you were the only one who could get through the effects of Cia's spell and calm him down the day I brought him back? He loves you." Impa was making one of those faces that was a smile without her needing to smile. She tilted her heard toward the captain. "We all knew he'd do something like this. It's a good sign, don't you think? That he wants to get back in the fight?"

Mask knew she was talking about how despondent Link had been those first days after his rescue. How guilty he felt when he found out how many casualties they'd suffered in the first attack on the temple. How he hadn't disagreed with the assholes in camp who said that he might as well have killed all those soldiers himself. He'd never swung at them like Mask would have done to make them shut up. He just took every insult, didn't complain when he suffered the poisoning. One of their own had done it, but they still hadn't found exactly who'd sabotaged the meal. Not for lack of trying on Zelda's part.

Looking at the captain now, Mask thought maybe him having to relearn how to use his magic was a small price to pay.

But he shouldn't have to.

Mask's mouth bent into a frown and his brows drew down. "I still don't understand. What happened? Did she make him sick? Make his magic sick so that it hurts him? Maybe we can cure it."

He could fix this; he knew that he could. If they just told him what the problem was, he could fix this. He'd done it before. Over and over again, he'd figured out puzzles and found solutions. He'd figured out how to wake the sages. He'd fought the moon for Termina. All the things Mask had done, the people he'd helped—just because no one else remembered, didn't mean that he hadn't done any of that. He had the scars to prove he'd lived through it! He could surely help Link with whatever was wrong with his magic.

Mask could undo this.

His determination turned cold when he looked back at Impa. She looked too patient. As if she knew what he was thinking and it made her sad.

"You'll have to ask him about what happened, Mask. It's not mine to tell you."

His face bent into an even tighter frown. He'd already tried that. "He won't tell me."

"One day he might."

"Yeah, right."

Then she was laughing. "We'll just have to wait and see. Maybe don't ask him right away, OK? It's still fresh. The princess and I will make sure he has a good, long time to recover from this. The supply route is open again, so we'll be able to get him anything he might need by tomorrow evening. What about you?"

"Huh?"

"Do you need anything?" She nudged at him. "It's been a long battle for you, too."

Mask shook his head reflexively. "I don't need anything."

Impa sighed and looked at Proxi. Rolled her eyes.

"They're all the same, aren't they?"

"I think so," the fairy agreed.

To Mask, Impa said, "So, are you going to be able to sleep?"

He shrugged, and the fabric of the scarf rustled around his shoulders.

"Proxi has agreed to stay up the rest of the night," Impa said. "Will you be able to help her in case Link wakes up and tries to do something stupid?"

"Uh huh."

"Thank you, Mask."

"Uh huh."

Mask spent the rest of the night wrapped up in the captain's scarf on the floor trying to find the answer to a question he didn't know yet.

"Mask."

He finished dragging the blade of the knife along the wood before looking up. The captain was still in just the woollen under-tunic and trousers. No scarf or green tunic. No armour. No cap. His convalescent outfit, he called it.

Boots were on though.

Mask's weren't.

"Hmm?"

"Help me out?"

Proxi was hovering near the captain's head. She chimed a little cajoling tune when he looked at her. "Believe me, he needs it."

Sighing heavily, Mask put the knife and wood aside, slid off his bunk, and went to join the captain at his desk. It was clear of maps and condolence letters for once; Impa had taken them all from the tent when Zelda ordered Link to do nothing but rest until he was better. He'd apparently managed to get his hands on some sort of document anyway.

The captain put one his spindly hands over the neat rows of writing on one of the sheets. There was a mostly-blank sheet beside it. A small section of the top of the page had a few characters carefully drawn. Mask recognised the script as the captain's but the characters were more familiar. They were his, Mask's. Not Hylian, but the first he'd ever learned from the other children in the forest.

One of Mask's eyebrows arched when the captain turned to face him.

"I'm trying to translate this."

"Into Kokiri?"

He nodded. "There's a code, I think. I'm trying to figure it out. I'm struggling a bit so far. The princess might be right about me needing to rest." He shook his head. Both sheets were pushed toward Mask. "Will you look at it for me?"

The rings under the captain's eyes reminded Mask of the trees in his house back in the Kokiri Forest. He dropped his gaze from the captain's face to the papers. The completed document was in the captain's era's common Hylian. It was similar to the kind Mask had seen in his Hyrule Kingdom. It hadn't taken him long to discern the differences. He probably read the captain's version of it better than his own by now.

"This is wrong," he said, pointing to one of the captain's first characters. "And you've got the words in the wrong order. Kokiri doesn't do it that way."

The captain squinted at his wrong characters as if they'd just embarrassed him. "I knew it wasn't right."

"Told you he needed help!" Proxi said.

"Will you show me how to do it?" the captain asked.

Without needing a moment to think, Mask nodded.

The captain jumped up and gestured for Mask to take the chair. A new sheet of parchment was put in front of him. Crossed out characters Mask didn't recognise at all were on the back of the captain's sheet.

Crossing out his initial characters, the captain said, "OK if we just take it from the top since I had it wrong anyway?"

He shrugged.

The full sheet in the captain's Hylian was between them. Mask read the first sentence aloud. It was almost entirely nonsense to him, so the captain was probably right about it being in code. One stroke at a time, Mask showed him how to form the Kokiri letters and in which order they went to replicate the same message as the Hylian. It was slow going at first. Mask had to explain almost every little thing for the captain. His head must have really been hurting to make him ask so many detailed questions.

"And this is a kid's language?' Proxi said once they'd made it a third of the way down the page.

Mask shrugged. "The Great Deku Tree made me practice a lot. Saria, too."

"Must have been strange taking lessons from a tree," the captain said. His eyes were on his sheet, but they weren't moving. One his cheeks twitched toward a smile.

"Not really. Not for us. It was just normal." Mask shrugged again. Smiled as he transcribed the letters for 'farm.'

"What's funny?" Proxi asked.

His house from the forest was still on Mask's mind. His bed. The terrace. Saria and even Mido. He never had figured out how Malon managed to get the cow into his house. He told the captain and Proxi all about them.

They were together for six years of war, but it didn't always feel that way for Mask. Those fifty-six days and everything they stood for stayed stuck between them, ignored but stubbornly present, until the last.

In the end, he never did find a way to get the answers he wanted, and Captain Link seemed relieved to have never been asked outright. He probably assumed Mask found out from the soldiers around camp, the way Toon did. But all the soldiers ever did was talk, and even a broken clock was right two times per day. Mask would never believe a word the soldiers said until the captain himself confirmed it. Captain Link should have known that.

It was nearly a decade after he said good-bye to the captain that he figured out what must have happened—and it was only thanks to Malon, really, that he got there.

About another decade after that, he still didn't know what exactly he should have done, but he got a second chance anyway.

Camp was quiet now. The exhaustion of a full day of fighting and hiking, a few non-critical wounds, and stomachs full of the best meal most of them had had in years rendered their group of nine the most docile they were likely to ever get. Buds of trust were springing up between them. Guards were lowered enough for them to test each other with snapping. The cook was free to throw furtive glances at the ranch hand who was in turn throwing furtive glances at Time.

Time was who he was to these people, his fellow Heroes. He didn't mind. He could be Time. Names were as easy for him to slip on as the masks had been. Being Time didn't even change him. It was one of the easiest identities to assume he'd ever been given.

The looks from Twilight were something he'd have to deal with soon.

But not now. He looked once more around the loose circle they made around the crackling fire. Teamwork and fatigue had sanded the rough edges off of Legend. He was being a good sport about letting Warriors demonstrate how to wrap a bandage for Wind on his wounded arm. He was letting the sailor have a few tries, too, even though Time was sure he was wrapping too tightly on purpose.

Warriors—he'd always be the captain to Time.

And Wind, not yet Toon as he'd known him. This was a version of the sailor from before the war, and that truth seemed to make the captain look at him with even more fondness. Neither Wind nor Toon had ever known the captain before his captivity in the Temple of Souls.

What had Toon seen of this time the nine of them had together? At the time, when Time was Mask, nothing about Toon had struck him as suspicious. He couldn't recall the sailor ever knowing something about him that he shouldn't have. He hadn't given anything away. Time spent the first several nights the nine of them were together picking apart his memories of the three of them during the war to find a hint. What had Toon known about them? What did Time need to know now about Wind?

Wind looked at him with such adoration and wonder in his eyes. Toon hadn't done that.

"No, wait, do it one more time!" the sailor said in a voice just a little too loud for the night.

"There's not going to be a cut if you keep making Pretty Boy wrap it up," Legend complained. "It'll fall off from lack of circulation."

"Last time. Pay attention," the captain laughed while unravelling the bandage two turns. "Apparently the Hero of Legend doesn't train both hands with the sword, so we can't let him lose this one."

Wind snorted. Bumped his shoulder against the captain's.

"Look who's talking! Haven't caught a whiff of magic off you yet, Captain!"

Time forced his gaze away. It was bizarre for both of the people Time had come to think of as older brothers to be younger than him now, and markedly so. Nearly twenty years had passed for him, and was he still jealous of the attention the captain gave the sailor?

Without meaning to, Time's eyes settled on the Master Sword beside Sky's pack. It wasn't something he wanted to deal with any more than the looks from Twilight. So, he moved on to looking at the smith. He was already asleep, same as Sky. So far the smallest Hero seemed to enjoy the company of their new group, though he preferred to observe them from the edge until he felt like engaging. 

Time could hardly blame him for that. They were a lot to take in.

His gaze skimmed over to Hyrule: curled up and ready to sleep, pretending not to watch the first aid demonstration. He had done a lot of the heavy lifting in battle today. Time was still impressed by the seemingly bottomless well of magic at the traveller's disposal—and he was more than intrigued by the accent of the magic. He was itching to understand how, but for the time being, he could content himself with the fact that it wasn't a secret he could pry at.

The bandage demonstration was over now. Legend was lying down and telling the sailor about one of his magical items, a ring that boosts healing. Wind was asking questions about it in a way that would sound like curiosity to the veteran Hero, but Time had been on the other side this type of questioning too many times to not recognise that it was an invitation for Legend to talk about home.

The more one travelled, the more sacred the idea of a home became.

The captain was grinning to himself as he listened and packed up his aid kit.

The captain didn't look at Time the same way he looked at Wind. Time knew the captain recognised him, of that he was certain. They'd exchanged eye contact and knowing expressions. They knew the other knew. Time had seen the look in the captain's eye when he'd noticed the wedding band and then later when Time caught him wandering Lon Lon Ranch with a look that couldn't be anything other than proud.

But they left the ranch behind days ago, and they haven't talked about it. He could feel the strain of their not-talking grow every hour that passed by.

Time's armour, his markings and scars, those might work to make the others hesitate to approach, but he knew the captain too well to believe that was what had him keeping his distance. He couldn't think of anything else that could cause it besides time itself. It was painfully clear that what had been twenty years for him was no more than a quarter of that time for the captain. He looked mostly the same to Time. A change in height was hard to gauge since his own had grown so much, but he was relieved to see that the starved look of prolonged war had left the captain. He remained lean, but it was leagues better than when they'd last seen each other.

And it served the captain well. He hadn't lost a single step. Discounting the influence of any items, the captain was by far the fastest amongst them with the greatest stamina. With magic? Time knew he had the potential to be faster than all the others even with their boots and potions. But like the veteran had said, the captain hadn't yet shown much of an inclination to use magic yet.

The captain's mail rustled as he stood, and the sound brought Time back to himself.

It was only the three of them: Twilight, the captain, and Time. They'd agreed to watch over their others through the night.

"I'm going to take a final perimeter sweep," the captain said in a low voice, mindful of the others sleeping around them.

Time caught his eye, and he nodded. So not everything had changed. Wild clearly came from an era with abundant resources. His food was delicious, but perhaps too rich for the damage done to captain's stomach from the repeated poisonings.

"Alone?" Twilight said with a frown, brows pinched together. "At night?"

The captain and Time looked at each other. A stupid grin stretched Time's face.

Twilight said, "What?"

"Must not be a phrase where he's from," he told the captain.

"What isn't?"

"I'm going to have a shit, Rancher," the captain deadpanned. "Alone. At night."

"Oh. Why didn't you say so?" To the captain's retreating back, he called, "Holler if you need anything!"

The conversation he didn't want to have with Twilight yet pressed on the space between the two of them. Whatever ability Toon had had during the war, the rancher hand didn't have it now. He'd seen things. He knew things about a future Time hadn't seen yet. They had to talk about it, but Time didn't want to. It was too soon after the one the three of them had had: him, Malon, and Twilight. He was grateful that Twilight didn't seem to want to talk about it right now either. He seemed fully satisfied to keep looking at Time with that despairing look on his face.

The captain came back from his sweep of the perimeter, and Time felt something in his chest relax.

"Everything come out OK?" Twilight asked.

Reflexively, Time thought, The issue was always keeping things in.

Again—again—he and the captain made eye contact, and he swore the captain could hear his thoughts. They were both smirking. Time could practically feel the captain's retort: Don't tell me that after all the time I spent lecturing you about washing your damned hands that you lost your eye to another pink eye infection.

Time could feel the words between them. They would have said them twenty years ago in a war zone without a hint of hesitation. But here in this unfamiliar forest, the captain let his eyes slide from Time to the ranch hand and said, "This time. Wake me in three hours."

Twilight nodded. "Sure will."

The captain dressed down for the night, his armour shed and arranged beside his mat just so.

Time eventually followed the good example and freed himself from his own armour. It was a longer affair, and it gave him something to do besides not talk to Twilight. Fatigue hung off of him, but he knew that he wouldn't be getting much sleep. It was the reason he'd offered to take second watch, but he'd been overruled by the others. They'd taken far too much of a liking to the old man jokes.

Twice he woke because Twilight sneeze-shouted, and he was sure he wasn't the only one. Time woke a third time when the ranch hand went to wake the captain to keep watch for the darkest hours of the night. Time must have been more tired than he thought, because he slept soundly for a few consecutive hours. He only woke on second watch when a pinecone bounced off the side of his arm.

Tracing its trajectory back to the source, Time found the captain, his hand still raised from tossing it. The fire had burnt down to embers, and its light was reflected just barely in the captain's eyes.

With the hand that was still raised, the captain formed the old signs from the war, "Your turn. I'll be right back."

Time pushed up to an elbow and looked around at their party. Light snoring and heavily spent magic. Battle fatigue, wounds. He looked back at the captain at the same time that he looked away from Wind and back at Time.

Time acquiesced.

The captain's face broke into a smirk that could have come directly from the war. He could not have looked more familiar. He flicked Time a lazy two-fingered salute then stepped silently out of camp.

Holding in a sigh, Time heaved himself up and began to put some of the lighter layers of his armour back on. He brought the pinecone with him when he moved to sit beside the fire. He dropped it on the embers with some other bits from their kindling pile.

The ticking clock inside his head had quieted over the years so much that he rarely heard it. He felt it when he looked up toward the patches of sky visible through the trees. The captain had let his watch run a little too long but not by much.

He was splitting his time between looking at his sleeping companions and at the beams of moonlight, dreading what this adventure would take from him, when he felt it. Twenty years were gone in no more than a second. That rush of desperate, violent magic was as familiar to him as his own.

Somewhere, the captain had just used a focus spirit attack.

He knew what came after that. All those years of war, and the captain had never gotten command of his magic back like he'd had before.

Time was armed in a heartbeat. On his way out of camp, he bumped Twilight, and left the ranch hand with a rushed, "You're back on watch."

Time was crashing through the woods with only the feel of the captain's magic as his guide. Time could feel it through that force that pulled all of them together, all the Heroes of Courage. It was a compass, pulling him in the right direction. Forget potions, enchanted boots, or jewels—nothing was faster than Time in this forest. Nothing could reach the source of that eruption of magic faster than he could.

Because he knew what was on the other end of that eruption.

Because Legend was right about the captain and magic.

Because he knew what happened when the captain used magic like that, and the captain knew, too. The cost had become too great after Cia. It was why he only used it when there was no other choice—

A monster appeared from the shadows making a pathetic, wounded sound.

Without time or space to raise his blade, Time decided to let himself barrel into the creature. They collided at full sleep, and it collapsed beneath him when they hit the forest floor. Immediately it began to darken and dissolve. 

He scrambled to his feet, but there was no need to run. Really, that monster had been an effective stop; Time found what he sought and was hit with a dizzying sense of déjà vu: If he didn't know any better, he would have thought that one of the captain's massive Bombchus had gone off in the woods. Even a few of the trees had been forced to lean at unnatural angles. The groaning of their straining roots was nearly audible. The air was heavy with the scent of monster blood and death, but it buzzed and popped with the residual power of the captain's magic.

In the centre of the carnage and chaos: the captain. On his hands and knees. Swaying. Barely conscious after purging himself of all his magic in one destructive burst.

Before—all the way before—he had seen the captain kill hundreds within seconds with that kind of power. It looked like he had just come upon another instance of that.

Another monstrous silhouette shifted, and Time didn't hesitate to put it down for good. He hurried through a handful more that dared to gurgle on their blood where he could hear it. The captain needed help, but the field needed to be clear. Fraying nerves had him stomping the monsters' bones in his haste to get to the captain. It couldn't have taken more than twelve seconds for him to assure it was safe, but it was too long.

The ground squelched when Time hit his knees beside the captain.

"You fool." Urgency and adrenaline put an edge on the affection.

Time yanked the captain toward him, steadying him. The attack had left the captain shaking. Empty. Time could feel it. It was a miracle he was even awake.

Maybe he had gotten a little better.

Then the captain went a bit boneless into Time's shoulder and the hope shrivelled.

"Sorry." The word was barely more than a whisper.

"It's fine," he grunted.

The two of them were an awkward tangle as Time rearranged the way they were sitting. The manhandling didn't rouse the captain at all. The weight of another's head had never felt so heavy on Time's shoulder when he sat them down in a more natural position.

Well, it should have been natural. Didn't actually feel like it. Time was inexplicably self-conscious and unsure of what he should do next.

"What were you thinking? Pulling a stunt like this when you're alone? You know what happens."

The captain's eyelids were heavy, but he was putting up a valiant fight against them.

"Stay awake," Time told him. His heart was in his throat. Relief and anger at being scared like this were choking him.

"Hmm. OK. Sorry."

Sloppy tension was building in the captain. He could feel it. Made it easy to hold fast when he tried to lurch away from Time.

"Stop. Are you hurt?"

"'s fine. I'm fine. Stupid, I know. Sorry."

He wasn't the only one who could be stupid.

"I've got a potion with me. Just a moment. Stay awake, Link."

The captain tried to throw himself off Time's shoulder the instant he lifted his hands.

"Stop."

He guided the captain's head against his collar bone and held him there. Hoped he felt how worried he'd made him in the pounding of his heart. Not until he felt the captain go lax again did Time reach around for his pouch. Their cook was eager to show off his skill with brewing elixirs, so there hadn't been a need to consume Time's stock of potions yet. He thanked any deity listening that he brought one of his bags with him when he ran from camp.

Just to fill the silence while he reached blindly into the enchanted bag, he babbled to release the tightness of his nerves. "Honestly, Captain. Eight of us Heroes right there. Eight! Why in the world didn't you alert one of us? You wake me up but don't have me come with you? I thought you were just having another shit."

A reply fluttered against the skin of Time's throat: "Sorry. Sorry. Stupid. Won't do it again."

"You're damn right you won't. Hey, wake up. It's fine if you're OK. Are you OK?"

"'m fine."

He tried to pull away again, but Time didn't let him.

"Good."

The captain was trapped against Time's chest, hugged, when he brought the little green potion around: one hand to hold the potion and the other to pull out the stopper. He shrugged to encourage the captain to sit up more and hold the weight of his own head up.

"Wake up."

"Sorry."

"It's fine. Stop saying sorry. Drink."

Seconds ticked by but the captain didn't lift his head into a position conductive to drinking potion.

"Link."

"I don't think I need it. I'm OK. Give me a minute and then let's go back."

Time's grip tightened. "We can go back when you drink the potion."

"I'm fine."

"Come on. Get it over with. You're being stupid."

"Sorry." His eyes pinched shut, and he turned his head away.

"Just drink it. You'll feel better, and we can move on. It's a simple solution here."

A long moment during which the captain tried once again to escape.

"Save it."

Something hot ignited inside of Time. "We're not at war, Link! We'll get another one."

"You don't—"

"You can't go around on your own and do this shit! You know what happens! Now, if you want to be of any use to anyone, drink the damned potion!"

Time didn't give the captain a choice about the first swallow, holding the bottle to his lips with frazzled pressure and tipping it. Just as quickly, regret curdled Time's insides, and he loosened his grip. The captain turned his head away. Nearly a quarter of the potion poured on his cheek and down his neck before Time could pull it back. He made no attempt to stop the captain from dragging himself away.

They sat there with a chasm two steps wide between them. The captain was more awake, alert. Sitting up on his own. One mouthful of potion already working wonders for him.

It didn't make Time feel any better.

When the captain finally looked at him, Time wasn't prepared for the shame staring back at him. Time tried to find an explanation for such an expression. Who'd made Captain Link look at him like that? Had there been someone else? Before the monsters attacked, had something—or someone—led the captain here? Time wanted to pick over the  monster corpses and try to find an answer, but he knew there was no one living in this part of the forest except for the two of them.

It could never have been Time that made the captain look so ashamed of himself. This didn't make any sense. There was no need to maintain the illusion that Time was a kid in need of protecting. It was stupid. It was years ago. It was just magic.

It was just—

The words were pressing down hard on Time's tongue, but he felt too small for them. Dread made his stomach stretch and cramp in equal measure.

I'm sorry.

I shouldn't have done that.

When are we going to talk about this?

He didn't want to, but they needed this over with. He felt like Mask again, staring at Captain Link the night General Impa rescued him from the temple, not sound but safe at last. He couldn’t figure out how to say it but hoped that the captain could read the thought in his eyes anyway.

"I'm sorry. I won't fuck up again like this," the captain said.

Time inhaled sharply, ready to speak. Apologise.

But the captain wasn't done.

"Who's on watch? We should get back." Clumsily, he slid his hand along the ground until it found his sword. Shaking hand gripped the hilt like a lifeline.

Later then, Time thought when both of them got to their feet.

When he's recovered, we'll talk, he thought as he led the way back to camp. 

We can't avoid it forever, he thought when the captain surrendered to his sleeping mat, out like a light.

It had to happen someday soon.

Both of them died before someday came.