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“This is ridiculous,” Warriors groans as he slumps away from the bars of their holding cell, flopping onto one of the benches. “I know they’re just doing their job, but can they, like, do it less?”
Twilight smiles, settling his shoulders back against the stone walls as he lets out a laugh. "What, never had the pleasure of a cell, captain?’"
Warriors huffs, rolling his eyes. “Of course, obviously. A few times. I got into bar fights a lot as a teenager– don’t repeat that,” he says quickly, seeing the glint in Twilight’s eye. “Wind and Time will never let me hear the end of it.”
Twilight nods sagely, fighting back a smirk. "Time’s Dad Look™?"
“I don’t know how he got so good at it,” Warriors bemoans. “He doesn’t even have kids, for fuck’s sake! Where did he even get it?”
"Probably the tree that was his pa," Twilight says with sarcastic certainty. He, too, lives in fear of Time’s Dad Look™– and Sky’s ‘ I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed ’ one. He’s pretty sure Sky knows it, too, because he always whips it out at convenient times. If anyone ever says Sky is not chaotic as the rest of them, they clearly don't know Sky at all.
“There’s no way that’s real,” Warriors says, rolling his eyes. “A tree , Twi? They don’t even have faces! Plus, it’s not like they can move, so even if he was raised by a tree there’s no way Time had any sort of real supervision ever when he was a kid. And I can attest to that, because I did have to supervise him and let me say, that kid was crazy .”
Twilight’s been grinning for at least a minute, shoulders shaking in silent laughter. Warriors is smiling too, blue eyes lit up with the memories. “Seriously, I cannot tell you how relieved I am that he’s not eleven anymore. Or whatever age he really was– even back then he was weird about it. Except for that damn look.”
"You’re probably the one he got it from." Twilight deadpans.
Warriors’ mouth falls open, his eyes going wide in horrendous realistation. “Oh, shit.”
He laughs, their conversation moving into companionable silence. Twilight leans his head against the wall and tries not to think about the fact that he and Warriors first knew Time at completely opposite times– which means he does think about it, of course.
Warriors met Time as a child, physically eleven though there’s no telling where he was mentally. He was the big brother, the commanding officer, someone who probably helped Time along through whatever he’d experienced at that point. It’s clear that they’re still close even now, when Time is probably a decade older than him. They and Wind make quite the trio, playful and teasing, and Twilight hates the slight burn of jealousy that light in his chest whenever he sees them act like that together.
He shouldn’t be bitter. He shouldn’t be angry. He shouldn’t look at the current Time gently smiling at Wind and hate himself, but he does.
Sometimes, on the worst days, he thinks he might hate Time, too.
He immediately feels like smacking himself at the thought. He doesn’t hate Time; he never will. He just can’t help but wonder—
“Now, I think the real question is: have you ever had the pleasure of a call, rancher?” Warriors interrupts his quickly spiralling thoughts. Twilight glances up to meet his gaze, and finds that it probably wasn’t an accident. Warriors can be eerily good at picking up emotions.
Twilight forces a snort, trying to ground himself back in the present. "Obviously. The finest cell, too, most sought ‘fter in the entire castle dungeons."
Warriors whistles softly through his teeth, eyebrows flicking upward “What’d you do to land yourself in the castle dungeons?”
Twilight pauses, and again feels like smacking himself. He just had to bring that up, did he? He can’t say he’s been the most forthcoming with the details of his adventure; none of them are, really, except Wind and Wild. They know how old he was— seventeen—,and he’s pretty sure they know he dealt with an invasion of some sort, though he’s never truly specified about Zant and the Twili. He thinks Time has suspicions, though. As close as he is with his mentor, Twilight finds it’s him who it’s the hardest to open up about his adventure with. Maybe it’s because he knows he could’ve done better. Maybe because he’s afraid it will spark some sort of memory in Time. Maybe he’s just simply afraid.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Warriors says softly, the atmosphere between them abruptly changed.
Twilight blinks himself out of his thoughts, shaking his head slightly. "It’s alright," he says. "I’ve just never really told nobody a’fore, y’know?"
Warriors nods, eyes gentle, and Twilight finds he doesn’t actually mind that much. If anyone would understand what it was like for him, it’d be Wars.
“At the beginnin’ of my adventure,” he starts. “Hyrule was attacked. It was a complete ambush. No one saw it comin’ at all. They stormed the castle and killed the king, forced Zelda to surrender, and then held her captive in her own castle.”
He has to hesitate, then, gathering his words and courage. ‘I dunno how, but they knew about me. Ganondorf, probably. Bulbos ransacked my village and kidnapped the youngins, so I was goin’ after ‘em when they got me. Next thing I knew, I was wakin’ up in the castle dungeons.”
Warriors is completely silent as Twilight finishes, lips pressed tightly together. He exhales slowly, Twilight watching as he loosens his fingers from their white-knuckled grip on the edge of the bench. “Shit,” he chuckles weakly. “How did you get out?”
“I had some help,” Twilight says, lips twisting into a bittersweet smile. “I think it was only two or three days I was there, but it’s kinda… hazy . ”
“I don’t want to push or anything,” Warriors says, eyes dark as a muscle in his jaw works. “But did that have to do with…” he waves a hand vaguely over his throat.
Twilight reaches up his own hand, skimming his fingertips along the three horizontal scars on the left side of his neck, remembering the clawed hand digging into his throat. He drops it, giving Warriors a nod. He’s not sure how serious of an injury it actually was, but Midna had healed him, thankfully— she’d complained about having to wait for him to wake up and get accustomed to his new form.
For some reason, sitting here in the stillness of the holding cell, Warriors a sure presence across from him, Twilight feels like he might break. There’s a pressure in his chest, tight and hot, threatening to collapse in on itself and take him down with it.
In truth, when Twilight was scooped up by that portal not six months ago, it'd been less than a year since he killed Ganondorf. He’s been running ever since.
Warriors hauls himself off his bench and, without a word, plops himself down next to Twilight. Twilight leans on him without even thinking about it, and the tightness in his chest loosens a little. Warriors is quiet, letting Twilight breathe and absorb his brother’s warmth. Twilight closes his eyes, exhaling slowly, letting the memories fade away with the breath.
There’s another few seconds of silence, until Warriors says quietly, “Does Time know?”
About which topic?, Twilight thinks dryly. Does Time know about his imprisonment? About his scars? About Ganondorf’s ambush, or about Hyrule falling?
He simply shakes his head, because that’s the answer to all of those. Everyone knows that Time is notoriously mysterious about his adventures— because there had to be more than one—, only letting the most confusing or contradicting hints out. So Twilight just… doesn’t. He thinks that if he were to ever try talking about it to his mentor, he won’t be able to stop, especially for the part he needs to. Even more than that, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to keep himself together.
They sit together in silence, Warriors’ breathing even enough that Twilight almost thought he’d fallen asleep. But when he shifts to check, Wars just turns his head and smiles at him with a quirk of his lips. Twilight smiles back and mouths, ‘asleep', to which Warriors laughs softly and offers his shoulder. That isn’t what he meant, but he takes it anyway, flopping onto his brother with exaggerated force.
He doesn’t think he’s actually going to fall asleep, but finds himself dozing after only a few minutes. When Warriors’ fingers find his hair, weaving through the strands gently, he drifts off entirely.
And if Time and Wild come to bail them out and find them like that, Twilight completely out on Warriors’ shoulder and the captain leaning his own head on his brother’s before glaring betrayed eyes into Wild’s slate as he snaps a picture… obviously what happens in the cell, stays in the cell.
(And if Warriors notices Twilight gravitating a little more towards him for the next few days, he doesn’t mention it. For that Twilight is grateful.)
Maybe one day the words won’t stay lodged in his head. Maybe one day he’ll have the courage to approach his mentor and let it all spill out— everything he hates about himself and everything about his adventure and maybe even about her. Maybe one day he’ll be able to shake the sense of worthlessness that tears at his chest and go home, even if it is without her.
Twilight doesn’t know what it is exactly that makes a person enough, but sometimes he forgets to wonder.