Archive of Our Own ^beta

Mask wished with all his heart that he had a door he could slam. A door he could close would be nice, for that matter. It just wasn’t satisfying to storm out of his shared tent without the finality of a latch closing behind him, the shock of wood striking the frame.

His cheeks hot, he marched towards the outer sentry picket. The Captain wouldn’t follow, not after that argument. Mask had made it quite clear that he wanted to be left alone.

He didn’t make it as far as the second picket line. Somewhere in between the inner and outer boundaries of camp, he came upon the Engineer standing just to one side of the path. The older boy was staring eerily into the distance and whispering to himself, but he noticed Mask approaching — not like he was being quiet — and stopped before Mask could hear what he was muttering about.

“Ho, hello there!” Spirit said brightly. Then he got a closer look at the storm that clouded Mask’s expression and frowned. “You okay?”

Mask glared, hardly in the mood for conversation and definitely not in the mood to rehash his latest blow-up with the Captain. “Fine,” he signed brusquely. “Going for a walk.”

Spirit looked up at the dusking sky, where faint stars were already emerging from the firmament. “After curfew?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

Mask kicked the ground and looked down. It was answer enough.

Spirit’s eyes were sympathetic as he took in Mask’s dejected stance and red face. “Why don’t you come back to our tent for the night?” he offered. “We’ll tell Link where you’re at, so he won’t panic when you don’t return. You know how he worries about you.”

That’s the problem, Mask wanted to say. But instead he folded his arms tightly over his chest. Then, just for good measure, he spat on the ground like he had seen the soldiers do.

“Uh-huh.” Spirit steered him by the shoulders and turned him back towards the tents. “Come on, let’s get some tea. I could certainly use some, and it won’t do you any harm.” The Engineer’s face lit up. “Actually, I might have some drinking chocolate left. That always makes me feel better!”

Mask tried to maintain his aura of anger, but it was hard in the face of chocolate. Though he didn’t have Spirit’s sweet tooth, he was still a child of the Kokiri, and the fairies’ attraction to sugar was at least somewhat shared by the forest children who bonded with them.

Spirit guided him back into camp and to the tent Spirit shared with Wind. His “twin.” Mask didn’t understand what the connection was between the two other Heroes stolen from their own times, but he was determined to find out someday.

But that wasn’t his focus tonight. Tonight he just wanted to be left alone, and that was going to be nearly impossible if Wind was there — the Sailor just would not shut up sometimes, and right now Mask felt like if he had to listen to any type of conversation he would scream. His ears twitched every time Spirit drew in a deeper breath, certain that he was going to start asking questions or telling Mask that he needed to go apologize or something else that would give Mask an excuse to yell at him. He wanted to yell, to release the anger and the shame that was burning under his breastbone like a coal.

But Spirit didn’t give him the chance. He just kept up that easy, gentle smile, the one that Mask wanted to hate and interpret as condescending but somehow couldn’t. Kept his mouth shut for the most part, murmuring the occasional greeting when they passed a soldier he knew (Mask didn’t know any of them) until they reached the tent belonging to the two displaced Heroes.

“Wind?” Spirit called just before he entered. No response. “Thought not,” he said agreeably as he shooed Mask through the entrance. “I think he’s with the Captain.”

Mask pulled up short. “Why?” he signed in surprise.

This time it was a bit of pity that Mask saw in Spirit’s gaze. “You two weren’t exactly quiet,” the older boy pointed out. He tilted his head towards one of the cots, and Mask returned his kind look with a glare. But he was tired from traveling all day — curse this child's body sometimes! — and Spirit didn’t budge, so reluctantly Mask stomped across the cramped space and hopped up onto the cot, kicking his sagging boots off and tucking his knees up to his chest.

Satisfied that he’d gotten what he wanted, Spirit busied himself getting the cups ready and digging out his mostly-empty package of powdered chocolate. He ducked outside for a few minutes to fill the brass kettle at the nearest campfire. There was always a pot of water on the boil at this hour, ready for the soldiers to make tea or coffee or — for the lucky ones — drinking chocolate.

Mask sat alone in the tent as the walls grew darker and night truly fell, and stewed in his own guilt.

Outside the tent walls, he could hear harsh laughter, heavy footsteps, a clatter as someone dropped a metal pot on the ground. Every sound triggered a flinch, a twitch of his ears, a jerk as his muscles responded unconsciously. He couldn’t stop himself and it was driving him to distraction. It had never been like this on either of his previous adventures — the sense of danger, the feeling of always being on edge, that was nothing new to him… but there had never been so much noise.

It was hard to explain what it was doing to him, being constantly surrounded by all these sounds, all these people. It made him itch underneath his skin. It made him angry in ways he couldn’t describe.

The Captain didn’t understand that.

Mask’s jaw worked silently as he recalled the words he wished he had said. But now, as then, the words simply didn’t reach his tongue.

It was just so frustrating. And when the Captain got uppity — which he did frequently — when he got too proud, when he stopped listening to Mask or when he pushed him around because he was a “child” — that, more than anything, made Mask’s throat close up tighter, made his gestures become clumsy, made his signing become self-conscious. And he knew it was frustrating for the Captain, too, when his signs became uninterpretable or when Mask lost his ability to communicate entirely. But it was hard to feel sympathetic for the man when Mask was already so frustrated by his own inability to express himself.

Mask could tell he was getting worked up again, but he couldn’t stop. He was spiraling. The longer he sat alone on that cot, shivering a little but feeling unable to move to get a blanket, the lonelier he felt and the more tangled and bramble-like his thoughts became.

Spirit reentered the tent with little fanfare. He pushed open the tent flap with a mug in each hand, saying as he did, “Sorry I took so long, I’m out of sugar rations so I had to borrow —” He stopped short.

“Oh, Mask,” he said sorrowfully, looking at Mask’s tear-stained cheeks.

Mask scrubbed at the tear tracks, smearing them but doing little to hide them. He wished that he were anywhere else right now.

Well, not really. He wished that he were back in his own tent, with the Captain who made him feel safe. He wished that he were back in his own Hyrule, where he knew the rules and things weren’t so big and loud and scary all the time. He wished that he were back in his forest, with the Deku Tree and the Kokiri and Navi.

He missed Navi.

Spirit sat down on the edge of the cot, the two mugs of precious chocolate in his hands. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, and that was the wrong thing to say.

Mask didn’t want to talk at all. He wanted someone who understood without him having to find the words. He wanted Navi.

So Mask stuck his tongue out, snatched one of the mugs of hot chocolate from Spirit’s hands, and promptly scalded his tongue on the steaming drink.

“All right, then,” Spirit said mildly, not fussed in the slightest by Mask’s rudeness. “Do you want to sit quietly and enjoy our drinks? Or do you want to hear a story about my adventure?”

Mask’s ears perked up. The chance to hear more about the mysterious Engineer? He would take it, especially if it would get his mind off the aching hollow in his chest and the tightness in his throat.

He nodded and took a second sip, more carefully this time, as Spirit began his tale.

“Once, on my journey, I found a large, beautiful vessel made from the finest clay and the clearest water. It was handcrafted by the village maiden with the purest heart. I was tasked with bringing this vessel to the Snow Sanctuary…”

Mask wasn’t sure exactly when he started nodding off, only that he eventually shifted to be leaning heavily on the — older? — younger? — older boy, and he had to be careful not to spill the last drops of chocolate. His emotions had, once again, gotten the better of him tonight, and that made a nasty knot of guilt form in his chest as well.

He was barely aware when Spirit took the mug out of his hands and set both cups on the desk.

He missed it entirely when Spirit eased him down fully onto the cot, stood, and stretched. The older boy looked around the tent, as though casting about for something. Then Spirit pulled out the chair from the small desk and sat down to start sketching.

Later that night, Spirit killed the lantern light and slipped out of the tent with a paper in his hand. Mask cracked an eye, but if Spirit noticed he was awake, he didn’t give any sign.

Then Mask was left alone.

The camp around him was almost quiet, but for some reason that only made him more sensitive. Any of the shuffling steps outside might belong to a creeping enemy, a monster, a villain. He heard someone cough — what if a terrible disease was already spreading through the camp?

He wanted Spirit to come back. He wanted to go back to the Captain’s tent. Hell, he would even accept Proxi if the little fairy decided to show up. Just somebody, anybody he trusted to watch his back while he slept, in this foreign Hyrule when he was surrounded by strangers.

But his traitorous child's body objected to his plan of staying awake all night, and he lost his awareness again.

When Mask woke again, it was to the sound of metal rasping on metal — a thin sound, not enough like steel blades crossing to bring him instantly to battle-readiness, but enough to scrape on his nerves and set his teeth on edge.

The tent was dimly lit again, but this time it wasn’t by lantern light; instead, Spirit was sitting at the desk, and on top of his worktable was perched a small glowing fairy. She was clearly an elemental sort, based on the faint aura of static electricity that burned around her. Tiny lightning bolts zipped and crawled along every surface she approached, twined up and down her legs, and tangled in her colorful butter-yellow hair.

Spirit looked up from his work when Mask sat up, a small but genuine smile on his face. “Sorry,” he whispered, as though whispering at this point would make a difference. “Didn’t mean to wake you. I can do this in the morning.”

Spirit set his tools aside and stretched like a cat. “I didn’t realize it was so late,” he admitted.

Mask cast another glance over the desk, unsure exactly what he was looking at. Spirit was wearing knitted gloves and holding what looked like a jeweler’s saw. Clamped to the edge of the table was a flat copper disk, which he appeared to be sawing into a many-pointed star shape.

“What the hell are you making?” Mask signed, interrupting himself with a yawn.

Spirit’s smile grew wider. “You’ll see,” he said mysteriously.

The tinkerer turned back to his table, picking up a pair of pliers and some copper wire instead. “Go back to sleep, Mask,” he encouraged.

Mask grumbled, but laid back down. He hated not being told things… but at least Spirit seemed to be doing it out of some sense of mischief, not because of a misguided idea about Mask’s supposed youth.

He fell back asleep to the soft snick, snick sound of Spirit’s wire snippers shearing through metal.

By the time dawn’s gray light had started to filter through the dingy tent canvas and the campfire smoke, Mask was feeling thoroughly wretched. He knew there was no practical difference between Spirit’s cot and his own, but for some reason his body ached like he had slept on the ground.

He pushed himself up and rubbed at his gritty eyes. They stung with dryness. His rumpled clothes shifted uncomfortably against his skin, constricting him and reminding him of their harsh texture with every tiny movement.

Spirit had moved over to Wind’s cot and was stretched out on it, sleeping with his red cap over his face. He too was wearing his clothes from yesterday.

On the desk, the fairy rested in a little tin cup piled with fabric scraps. She swirled her hand idly along the edge of the cup, tiny lightning bolts trailing after her fingertips. She noticed Mask was awake and sent him a cheerful wave in greeting.

Checking to see if Spirit would be disturbed by his movement (he wasn’t, Spirit was dead asleep), Mask crept over to the desk and looked over the items laid out there.

In the middle of the table was what looked like a magic wand made of copper, except the head was that many-pointed star disk that Spirit had been shaping last night. Arrayed around it were a small glass jar half-full of something silvery, a wooden block with three copper rods and some copper wires attached to it, and something like a horseshoe. The tin cup that the fairy occupied was surrounded by clipped bits of wire and wood shavings.

“What was he making?” Mask signed to the fairy.

She giggled. “He wouldn’t tell me much, either,” she admitted with a delicate chime. Her accent was different from the fairies he was used to back home, tasting like persimmons and bee stings to Mask. He had to work a little harder to understand her than he did with the fairies from his own time. But it still nearly brought tears to his eyes to hear his mother tongue spoken.

“He said it would be ready this morning, as long as I was willing to help him with it,” the fairy continued, with the air of someone revealing a secret.

“Help?” Mask asked with a tilt of his head.

“Good morning, Mask,” came Spirit’s voice from the cot, interrupting the conversation underway. The teen sat up and flapped his hat at Mask vaguely, then cracked his spine.

“Oh, I take it you’ve met?” Spirit said, his eyes lighting up when he saw Mask and the fairy together. “Mask, this is Ting. She has generously agreed to help with a project of mine.”

“He promised me a sugar cube,” Ting said slyly to Mask, who had to stifle a giggle at her tone.

Still, a whole sugar cube? Spirit had said last night that he was out of rations for sugar. It must be something important, if he was paying in precious resources like that.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re making, now?” Mask demanded, fingers flicking sharply.

“After breakfast,” Spirit said firmly — but that was more of a promise than Mask had expected, and he was briefly stunned.

Stunned enough, at least, to put up no resistance as Spirit ushered him out of the tent and over to the nearest wash station. He did, however, draw the line at letting Spirit help him wash his hair. Whenever he let one of the others help, they always ended up getting water on his shirt collar at least, and the texture of his clothing became absolutely unbearable when it was wet. No one seemed to get it; they told him to calm down, or said something useless like “just let it dry.”

After their morning tasks and breakfast at the mess tent were done, Spirit made good on his promise.

He brought Mask back to his shared tent, a bit of a spring entering his step that meant Mask had to hustle to keep up with the energized Engineer. Ting was still there, curiously examining the metal star, which was longer across than she was tall. All the metal pieces lying on the desk were glinting with static electricity by now.

Spirit grinned and grabbed his thick gloves out of his pocket before touching anything. “Let me show you both what I’ve been working on,” he said eagerly.

Ting stepped to the side as Spirit picked up the star-tipped wand. He spun the star on its axle, testing to see that it rotated freely. Then he positioned the wooden block in the middle of the table and sat down in the chair, gesturing Mask to come closer.

Mask watched with fascination as Spirit screwed the wand onto one of the three copper poles on the wooden base. The star hung suspended over the horseshoe, and Mask noticed a groove carved into the base that the star points dipped into.

Spirit turned to look at Ting. “Will you help me, honored one?” he asked respectfully.

The lightning fairy saluted and lifted off the desk with a bright buzz of her wings. At Spirit’s direction, she settled herself between the two other copper poles on the wooden base, just behind the wand. Ting placed one hand on each of the poles, her tiny fingers wrapped around the rosy metal as though they had been made to fit her grip.

She flicked her wings once, then the air around her filled with static.

Tiny bolts of electricity crawled over her limbs. The little lightning bolts seemed playful, almost, zipping along her arms and legs like living creatures, meeting and parting like children playing tag.

A look of concentration and a furrowed brow crossed Ting’s expression, and her lightning magic flared, buzzing and humming around the device. It made Mask’s teeth ache, but he was curious enough to put aside the discomfort. As he stared, miniature lightning bolts crawled up and down the copper poles, creeping along copper wires to reach the suspended wand and star.

And nothing happened.

Mask turned his head to glare at Spirit, but the Engineer put a hushing finger to his own lips, a smile escaping him.

“Watch this,” he said slyly.

Spirit picked up the glass jar of silver stuff in his gloved hands and removed the lid. He was careful not to spill, and it took Mask a moment to realize that he was looking at silver liquid, not solid or powder or any other thing he was familiar with. Before he could ask what it was, Spirit was tipping the liquid into the groove in the wooden block, in between the arms of the horseshoe, and suddenly the star began to spin.

Ting flinched when the metal began to move, but then a bright smile bloomed and she gave a happy, wordless chime. The little lightning storm she was generating burned brighter and the star spun a bit faster.

Mask simply stared, awed and confused. He finally looked up to see Spirit watching, not the strange device, but Mask’s own face, his expression full of poorly-concealed worry.

Mask didn’t know how to handle that worry, so he settled for curtness. “What is it?” he asked with his hands.

“It’s called an electromagnetic homopolar motor,” Spirit answered eagerly. He pointed at the metal parts. “Copper conducts electricity to the star wheel.”

Next he pointed to the horseshoe. “That’s a magnet. It generates a field around the device.”

Finally, he pointed to the jar of silver stuff, once again lidded and sitting on the desk. “That’s alchemical quicksilver, also known as mercury. When it goes in the basin, it completes the circuit and makes the wheel spin.”

“But what’s it for?” Mask demanded.

“It’s just a proof of concept, I guess,” Spirit said a little shyly. “A toy, really. But what it proves is very cool!”

His eyes shone as his words picked up speed. “Electricity and magnetism aren’t separate — they influence each other, they can even be combined! And it proves that electrical power can be translated into motion, just as steam and heat can be. Imagine, someday, trains that run on lightning instead of coal!”

Mask still couldn’t imagine what a 'train' was, despite the number of times Spirit had drawn them in his diagrams. But Spirit’s enthusiasm was charming nonetheless. The 'wheel' was still spinning, the shimmering silver fluid beneath it shivering. The star points were moving so quickly that they turned into a blur.

Spirit’s gaze had moved to the device and settled on Ting.

“You know, fairies are very rare in my era,” Spirit admitted to the other two. “I only met one in my whole first adventure. So coming here… Seeing how widespread fairies are, how — how integrated…”

There was a light in his eyes that Mask couldn’t attribute to just the lightning. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

Mask shrugged, an uncomfortable “I guess.”

“Thank you, oh spirit,” the Engineer said gratefully. “You can stop whenever you’re ready. Unless you’re having fun?”

Ting gave another cheery chime that, to Mask, sounded like a smug “Did you see what I did there?”

She let her lightning magic die down, and as she did the spinning wheel slowed. It still retained some momentum, but with each passing moment it shed more and more speed.

Ting took her hands off the poles, shook her wings out briskly, and stretched. “That was fun!” she exclaimed. “I would do that again anytime!”

Spirit, who (as far as Mask knew) didn’t understand fairy speech, simply smiled blankly at her. He dipped a gloved finger in the silver fluid and watched it morph around his touch.

“It’s not practical yet,” Spirit said. “The lightning fairies don’t generate enough power to do much. But with enough of them together… Or with Lana’s magic…”

Something about the way Spirit trailed off into thought turned into a seed of discomfort in Mask’s heart, as light and ephemeral as dandelion fluff. It nestled into the back of his mind, waiting for an opportunity to grow.

Mask hummed softly, reaching out to poke the star. “Wanna go again?” he signed to Ting with a hint of a grin.

“Absolutely!” she trilled, springing back to her feet. Spirit laughed with surprise as she enthusiastically grabbed the poles again and charged them with electricity.

Mask felt the tingle of static across the bridge of his nose as he crossed his arms on the desk and leaned his chin down close to the device. His eyes unfocused, mesmerized by the spinning, flashing copper star and the wobbling silver liquid.

After a few moments of watching peacefully, he looked up at Spirit again. That look of worry was back on the Engineer's face, but softer, more hidden beneath a relieved smile.

“What is it?” Mask signed dismissively.

“Are you feeling better?” Spirit asked.

That brought Mask’s drifting thoughts crashing back down. He had, for a bit, forgotten that he was — had been — should be upset.

But now that he was thinking about it… he did actually feel better.

It must have shown on his face, or in the relaxing of his shoulders, because Spirit also seemed to lose a bit of tension despite his lack of answer.

After another moment, Ting let go of the rods, shaking her hands out. The wheel spun down slowly, the soft ting ting sound of the star wand filling the silence of the tent.

“Then would you be willing to go see the Captain in a bit?” Spirit asked hesitantly. Seeing Mask’s expression tighten, he hastened to add, “I’m sure he’s worried at this point. You’ve been gone for a night and a morning. Even knowing you were with me, he’ll want to see you.”

He’ll want an apology. I don’t wanna.

“You’ll have to see him eventually,” Ting pointed out shrewdly. “Might as well get it over with.”

“I don’t wanna hear it from you,” Mask signed back sharply, ignoring Spirit’s look of confusion.

Actually… Now that he saw Spirit in the daylight, supplemented by Ting’s illumination, he noticed that the older boy looked tired and drawn.

Mask was suddenly struck by the realization that Spirit had stayed up most of the night to make this… device, this toy. In the middle of a war.

They fought in battles nearly every day, and there was always work to do and never enough hands to do it. They could very easily have all been mustered out this morning. Spirit could have used the time last night for sleeping instead. But he spent it trying to make Mask feel better.

Guilt boiled up from Mask’s belly, bubbling in his ribs. He didn’t know what to make of this feeling.

Just don’t hit anything, he grumbled to himself. He didn’t need one of his 'outbursts' to make him look and feel even more childish than he already did.

Mind only half made up, but shame itching between his shoulder blades, Mask turned sharply around and stomped over to the tent entrance. “Coming?” he asked Spirit with an inclined head.

Spirit smiled broadly and heaved himself out of the chair. “Shall I take you back to the Fountain, honored one?” he said, offering a hand to Ting. “We can drop Mask off on the way.”

Mask tugged on Spirit’s coveralls to get him to look down. “Wait, what are you going to do with this thing?” he signed, gesturing to the device.

Spirit looked at it, and a wistful expression came over his face. “I’ll probably have to scrap it,” he guessed. “We need every ounce of metal we can get.”

Mask frowned, unsure of what to say. But then Spirit was out of the tent, head high and steps confident, Ting riding on his shoulder and making his hair cling with static.

Mask sighed through his nose and went to follow, preparing what he was going to say when they reached the Captain.

**********

1842 diagram of Barlow's Wheel