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It is always dark in this area of the temple. The veteran and the smith bookend the group with their lanterns starkly lit and reflecting off the walls. Soft discussions start and end frequently in the musty dark of the stone hallways.
“I wonder what time it is,” Wind whispers absently. With no sense of daylight in this dungeon, they all wonder.
“22 hours 52 minutes,” Time says without thinking. The group is silent as his heart beats twice in his ears.
Tick. Tick.
Shit.
Wind is looking up at him. Legend has stopped mid-conversation, turned to give the old man a bemused look.
A moment of eye contact. Time blinks one eye slowly and considers how lucky he is that only two of the boys heard the slip.
The veteran squints. “He’s pulling our leg,” he says dismissively and looks away. (He files this moment away to bring up to the old man later.)
Wind snorts. “Huh, I don’t know. I think it’s no wonder they call you the Hero of Time in the old legends.”
Time hums softly in response. He’s thankful that the sailor doesn’t press further.
Conversation across the group goes quiet briefly. Time thinks about what just happened. In the stifling darkness of the temple, he can hear his thoughts too well. They pass by a puddle of water. Droplets from the ceiling hit the puddle rhythmically.
Plip. Plip. Plip. Plip. Plip. Plip.
He can always hear the second and minute hands ticking. Every hour he hears the click of the hour hand. At the turn of every day he can almost hear the bell tolling.
The air smells strongly damp. There’s a loud sound; Time turns and his armor clinks. It’s a squealing keese flying by. The puddle splashes.
Plip. Tick. Plip. Tick. Plip. Tick.
Are the clocks he hears real or imagined? The truth is that he doesn’t know anymore. Either way, the seconds keep counting. It’s been decades.
The old man can hear his heartbeat, muffled. His teeth click loudly in his skull with every step on cold slick stone. Click. Click. Click.
Goddess, it’s cold down here. He shivers. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Back then he’d spent so long keeping track of how much time was left. Now it’s just subconscious, but he still keeps counting. He can’t stop; he’s tried. The bells and that scowling face haunt him if he so much as thinks about trying.
The bells.
His vision drains of color. Heartbeat stutters. Stomach drops—and then he’s plunging through a white corridor of spinning clocks. (Gods. My hands are too small…) He reaches out but finds no grip to stop his fall.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
His hand twitches towards the ocarina on his belt. He blinks, revived by the cold blue porcelain at his fingertips. The white corridor whirls back into the long stone hallway. His brothers are around him, lit by lanterns.
Time notes that his breathing is fast and shallow. I’m thinking about this too much. I need to focus. (I am afraid.) The boys need me. The boys need me. The boys…
“Hey,” the sailor at his side says tentatively, “you okay, old man?” (Wind is looking at the tense hand hovering over that ocarina Time never wants to talk about.)
Time inhales the smell of mildew and dust. The soft idle chatter around them goes even quieter as the other seven companions walk and wait for the answer to Wind’s question.
“Yes. I’m okay,” the Hero of Time lies.
Chatter resumes, and the old man is again left alone with the ticking of clocks.