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If there was one thing understood by every single Link, it was the unspoken rule: don’t pry into the issues of the others. No one asked about Wild’s scars until he told them willingly. No one asked why Twilight occasionally glanced at his own shadow with hollow eyes, why Sky was afraid of lightning, why Legend hated sleeping. Time had said it himself—the worst scars couldn’t be seen.
Warriors in particular had gotten fairly good at making sure they weren’t.
—
“Can we have one day—just the one!—without a nasty surprise?” Wind snarled, ducking for cover alongside Warriors behind a felled tree. When he next tried to stick his head out, he nearly got a haircut from a Lizalfos arrow.
“Not in this group,” said Warriors sardonically. He spotted Time weaving his way through the forest to take out the archer pinning them down and took his chance, leaping over the log in one smooth motion to charge forward. A Bokoblin—one of Wind’s—tried to lunge, but was felled by a well-placed arrow from wherever Wild was set up. Warriors knew it was coming and set his sights on the Bokoblin just beyond the now-dead one, easily dispatching it.
“I’m gonna go find Legend!” Wind hollered over the roars of monsters and clash of steel. Warriors gave him a swift nod and ran to join Time, dodging two arrows on his way.
“Seen the others?”
“Wild’s sniping for us, Wind went to find Legend, and I saw Twilight chasing a Boko a minute ago. Haven’t seen the rest,” said Warriors succinctly, keeping one eye on the approaching Lizalfos. Too late, he saw their positioning. “Time-!”
“I see them.” Time’s armor gleamed in the sun as he moved back-to-back with Warriors, facing the encircling monsters. These were Wild’s Lizalfos—cunning, deadly, and all too good at leaping from nowhere at the worst of times. It took Warriors all of a second to realize that he and Time had been completely surrounded.
At least these aren’t the ones that breathe ice-
“Look out!”
Only Time’s warning kept Warriors from being roasted alive by the fiery breath of a nearby Lizalfos. As it was, both of them lost their footing dodging it—a deadly mistake in the middle of battle, especially when something caught Warriors’ foot and sent him sprawling on top of Time.
A bold Lizalfos snarled and leapt forward, brandishing a gleaming broadsword already dripping with blood.
Move-
But he couldn’t move, not fast enough, and the sword came down over his chest-
“NAYRU!”
CLANG.
There was an arm tight around his chest—Time’s. Something smoother than another person trapped his arms and legs tight, too tight. The Lizalfos had leapt back, repelled by a shining blue barrier which kept enemies out—
And kept Warriors in.
“Are you-“ Time began, but he was cut off by further assault on the barrier. It might have been better that way—Warriors couldn’t make himself speak.
Not again not again not again please-
Weakly, Warriors tried to push the barrier aside, but his efforts were so ineffective that Time didn’t seem to notice. Instead the older hero somehow tugged him upwards to stand, the barrier moving with him to form an upright, cylindrical jewel around the two of them.
Dimly, Warriors heard the crash of battle around them again. It wasn’t nearly as loud as his own heartbeat.
“Time, Wars, are you two okay?”
Four’s voice, muffled and anxious through the barrier. Time’s voice shouted something back, ringing in Warriors’ ears without registering any meaning.
The barrier stayed up. It stayed pressed against his chest and arms, cold and unyielding, like glass. Fire crashed against it, blinding through the refracted light.
He remembered this. He’d lived this.
You survived this once, soldier, do it one more time-
But the Great Fairy had kept him in a bottle for days.
Time said something again—had he been talking for the whole ordeal? Or had Warriors been unable to track how fast the seconds passed and misjudged it? Whatever it was, he couldn’t hear over the rush of blood in his ears and the rapid wheezing of his own breath.
“-drop the shield?”
Four’s voice again, louder now. He didn’t seem to be speaking over the crash of battle anymore, but Warriors didn’t know if it was over, all he saw was blue-
“Can’t,” said Time, the only word that cut through Warriors’ haze.
Can’t? Can’t what, lower the barrier—no, he has to-
Warriors finally had one coherent thought even as Time grasped his shoulder awkwardly in the small space, saying something-
I’m not staying.
Time’s iron grip shocked Warriors out of his own mind and he lashed out clumsily, hearing something snap in connection with his elbow.
The walls fell away.
He could breathe.
“What the hell?” Four almost seemed to teleport in front of Warriors, who was still nearly flat on the ground after losing the support of the barrier. “What was that for? He was protecting you!”
“What?” Warriors looked around, distantly registering the dead and scattered monsters. The battle was over, it seemed.
Four hesitated, concern breaking through his immediate anger for a moment, and helped Warriors stand—though his eyes still flashed. “I’m pretty sure you just broke Time’s nose. What. The. Hell.”
“I don’t…” Warriors swallowed. Had he bitten his tongue? It seemed to swell and fill his entire throat. “I…”
“Hey! Hey, up here!”
Dizzily, Warriors spotted Wind skidding down from atop a nearby hill. The ends of his tunic were smoking, but he seemed otherwise alright.
“We’ve all been looking for you guys!” he said, pointing in the vague direction of where he’d been coming from. “What happened to Time’s face?”
“Later,” said Four after a split-second’s hesitation, gently pushing Warriors in Wind’s direction. Guiltily, Warriors noticed that Time was standing up and staunching an impressive flow of red from his nose. “Right now, we need to regroup. Of all the times to fall through a portal…”
Warriors ignored the stares from both Time and Four, relying on muscle memory to trek back to where Wind said the new camp was.
His heart still hammered, despite being free.
—
Warriors fell asleep as soon as he possibly could, laying out his bedroll and passing out the instant he was laid flat. He heard the quiet murmurs between Four, Time, and a curious Wild, but he did not register a single word.
And when he woke, Sky of all people was sat on the ground next to him.
“Time told me you freaked out,” he said, keeping his voice low. The sky above was dim and twilit—and everyone else seemed to have settled down early, either motionless on their bedrolls or performing some quiet activity by the fire.
“Is he… is everyone okay?”
“Nothing major. Legend didn’t even have to force any green potion down Hyrule’s throat,” joked Sky. Warriors made a sound that might have been interpreted as an amused grunt.
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad.”
“But are you okay?”
Warriors didn’t respond. Instead, he sat up, letting the cool twilight air fill his lungs.
You can breathe. You can breathe.
“Is it okay if I touch your shoulder?”
The question startled Warriors, who considered it a moment and shook his head. Sky scooted closer but made no attempt to reach out.
“From the sound of it, you had a pretty bad memory in there. Time said you were hyperventilating…?”
“I…” Warriors looked down and caught himself twisting his glove between his fingers—an old nervous habit. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Nobody needs to coddle me.”
“I’m not here to coddle you,” said Sky. “I’m here to ask what happened that could make you lash out at a friend.”
Warriors swallowed. He figured he owed Four, at least, an explanation, and maybe Sky just to practice.
Time should have known what would happen. He didn’t count.
“It’s not the worst thing any of us has ever experienced,” he began, “but I’ve seen things.”
Sky sat back, quiet. Listening. He didn’t speak while Warriors explained in halting words the harrowing several days he’d spent inside a bottle—how the air had gotten choking multiple times when the Great Fairy neglected to release him, how he’d tried to break it from the inside and failed despite the strength he was lauded for.
How he had tried to run every time she released him, only to be dragged back by magic against his will.
“By the time she finally let me go, I wasn’t sure I would ever regain the strength in my legs from being stuck in there so long,” finished Warriors. “I couldn’t move properly for the next day. I couldn’t…”
“Time’s shield,” Sky realized aloud. “It set you off. I’m sorry.”
“You said you weren’t here to coddle me,” said Warriors flatly. “Time… I’ll apologize, of course. I did break his nose. But he was there, he remembers-“
“There in the shield?”
“There in the war.”
That gave Sky pause. “He was what?”
“I call it the War Between Eras for a reason, Sky,” said Warriors. “It took me a while to put the puzzle pieces together, but that’s just because it was a younger version of Time that I fought beside. He didn’t have…”
Warriors waved a hand around his face, indicating the tattoos and the scar. “He was ten at most—not that he ever told anyone his actual age. Mature, but… a kid.”
Sky winced. “That’s the pattern with us heroes, isn’t it.”
“Whatever reason, he was there,” said Warriors bitterly. “He helped me start to get over it in his own way. He should remember. He should have known.”
Sky was quiet for a moment before speaking. “Are you so sure he remembers?”
“I’ve asked before,” said Warriors, flashing back to the first time he’d dared broach the topic.
“You said you’ve only been on two adventures, right?”
Time looked up from the stew he’d been nursing for half an hour. “I did say that, yes.”
Warriors waited for silent permission before sitting in the dirt across from him. “Then you’re a good liar, I’ll give you that.”
Time’s neutral expression didn’t change. “What makes you say that?”
“I don’t know, Time, you tell me,” said Warriors, shrugging in a deliberately causal way. “Or should I use Young Link?”
Time’s mouth twitched, a hint of his old mischief poking through. “I was wondering how long it would take for you to recognize me, Captain. Gone soft in your old age?”
“You’re telling me about old age? How’d you lose the eye, gremlin?”
Sky opened his mouth as if to say something else, then closed it. “Are you…?”
Warriors numbly ran a hand across his cheek, noticing that it came back wet. “I’ll… I’ll take that hug now.”
“C’mere.” Sky tugged his sailcloth from around his shoulders and settled it over the both of them, easily folding Warriors against his chest. “Better?”
Warriors nodded into Sky’s collarbone, wrapping his arms around his friend to tug him closer. He never did this—back slaps were more his style (noogies, if he was dealing with Wind) but just the once, a hug was… needed. And Sky gave the best hugs by consensus, after all.
“I know… I know I’m being irrational, blaming Time for saving my life,” Warriors mumbled after some time, keeping his face buried in Sky’s shoulder. “He had to. I—I just…”
“Fear isn’t rational. We’ve all got fight-or-flight responses to things most people wouldn’t,” said Sky reassuringly. “If he does remember, then he understands.”
“...You’re sure?”
Warriors hated that his voice came out cracked, but Sky didn’t mention it. “I’m sure.”
Without any prompting, Sky stayed where he was for longer than Warriors kept track of in his still-scattered state. The light of the campfire started to blur in his vision as the night crept in. Around it, each hero gradually laid out their bedrolls—Legend near the fire, Hyrule near Legend, Wild and Wind practically on top of Twilight, Four on his own—all patterns Warriors had long since memorized. Time stayed up for watch on the opposite end of camp, settled on a fallen log with his blind side towards Warriors.
In usual Sky fashion, Warriors found he was being held by someone who was far closer to sleep than awareness as the evening grew older. He gently pushed Sky away, murmuring his thanks, and watched his friend sleepily flop onto his own bedroll near Four and instantly pass out.
Warriors, however, wasn’t tired yet.
Whether or not Time’s scarred eye was actually blind was a hotly-debated subject among his fellow heroes. Warriors suspected it wasn’t, so he wasn’t surprised when Time noticed his careful approach across the camp.
He was a little surprised, however, when the first phrase out of the Old Man’s mouth was, “I’m so sorry.” He’d been expecting an “are you okay”.
“For saving my life?” said Warriors wryly—though not with too much humor. Time relaxed slightly.
“I remembered right after I cast the spell,” he said, his shoulders slumping. “But by that point, it was too dangerous to let go immediately… I know what I did to you in the process, and I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too. For breaking your nose.”
Time waved it off. “I’ve had worse. Hyrule fixed it, it’s not an issue. Are you okay by now?”
“It’s passed,” said Warriors, breathing deep. “I forgive you if you forgive me.”
Time sighed. “I forgive you. Somehow, you’re acting like the younger brother now.”
“How old are you again?”
“Fifty-eight,” said Time instantly, his mouth quirking at the edges. Only a day before, he’d answered the same question with “twelve”. Warriors had known he wouldn’t get the true answer—but he didn’t want Time to carry any more guilt. His former bitterness was born of fear, and Warriors refused to indulge it.
Instead, he held his arms open in clear invitation. Time gave different hugs than Sky—quick, usually, with an iron grip—but the silent message was passed on regardless. Warriors felt a hand ruffle his hair from behind before Time pulled away, an affectionate smile on his face.
“Get some sleep,” he said. “And don’t even think about going for either watch. You need rest.”
“I’m not Twilight, you don’t have to tell me twice,” said Warriors.
“I can still try. Sleep well.”
“You too, brother.”