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There’s never any quiet. Wind and Hyrule in the grips of a fierce debate with Warriors, Wild loudly cooking and telling Twilight some story about a hunting accident and skidding down half a mountain on his ass after snapping the bowstring of his weapon, while Four bangs out dents in Time’s pauldron with an actual hammer – oh, and Sky’s writing, Legend will give him that, he’s not making much noise.
With eight companions and a horse you can hardly hear yourself think sometimes. Legend – fuck, Legend didn’t know he himself could talk this much.
He has the book open in his lap but there’s no point in trying to focus, not with this racket. Legend sits and lets the noise wash over him – deep in the woods, it would’ve been quiet enough to hear a pin drop if Legend were here alone. Back then, as a child, a teenager, sword in hand and alone on the road.
Wind laughs, sudden and loud, piercing through the din. Warriors starts to protest something, voice raised but falling as he goes on, “That’s – that’s not what I meant-!”
“Dinner’s ready!”
It’s never quiet. Even while eating, someone’s trying to carry on a conversation, bowls clatter, someone’s making an obnoxious slurping sound to annoy everyone else.
When Legend wakes in the middle of the night or early dawn hours before sun’s risen, before anyone’s gotten up, there’s still sounds. Twilight and the old man snore. Hyrule coughs in his sleep. Sometimes Sky is up and playing the harp, sleep eluding him.
On the road, they talk as they walk. Even when silences grow long in their conversations, someone will eventually start humming. Compelled to make noise again. So much stifled sound contained between all nine of them that it leaks and bursts out at any moment.
“Oh, shut the hell up,” Legend snaps sometimes, and Wind will just blow a raspberry, Warriors smirk and tease, Twilight apologize-
Legend walks away for a moment, just far enough to not hear them anymore, and the silence rushes in. It falls on him and he can feel the weight of it, its shape, the heavy blanket of it, and then he goes back to camp and they’re all there talking at him like he never left.
They’ll leave after this adventure is over.
And what the hell is the idea with that, huh?
The sailor and the smith said they had companions on their quests, the captain had a whole army, even the rancher and the old man admitted to having had companions. Legend’s been alone on all his travels and he’s been just fine – so why now?
Ravio sings when he thinks Link can’t hear him.
Link’s bed is shoved in a corner thanks to Ravio’s remodeling, but they’re still in the same room, and in the mornings Ravio sings to himself – or maybe to Sheerow, who knows – as he arranges the items. He must think Link is asleep. He seems to find it funny to wake Link up, exclaiming in mock-horror that it’s almost noon, Mr. Hero, this kingdom isn’t going to save itself!
If only Link got as much rest as people seem to think he does. Ganon is gone, Link’s made damn sure of that, but every night Link is a little kid again trying to lead Princess Zelda out of the dungeons while fending off rats and snakes and with his uncle’s blood still soaked into his sleeve from where he grabbed him and choked out that Link needed to save Zelda.
Ganon is hurling that trident at Link and he can barely dodge in time, and the ground is crumbling from underneath his feet, the castle falling apart – he wakes and sees Ganon’s red eyes seared into the backs of his eyelids.
-and now, Ravio singing about magical rods.
Link refuses to be content with a mere four hours of sleep and stays put in bed, and that has literally never fucking worked, and especially not now with Ravio bustling around the house. But Link keeps lying there anyway, listening to Ravio until Ravio decides to wake him.
Oh, Ravio doesn’t know. The one time he sang in front of Link he then cut himself off and said my bad, he’ll keep it down.
Link hadn’t even said anything. His face must be very eloquent; too bad Ravio’s not listening.
They have many tales recounted by song in Lorule. Tavern ditties and little rhymes to keep a rhythm and songs for children’s games. Many more than the hyruleans sing.
Sometimes, Link has another dream. He never remembers it, only wakes hearing her voice, her song. A voice that could make wild birds stop singing to listen to her, call flowers to sprout and the rain to stop.
Ravio sounds hoarse, singing so quietly, randomly stopping at continuing and fucking up the rhymes all the time as he makes it up as he sings.
No, he doesn’t remind Link of her.
But it’s another voice in this house.
Cooling down by a creek in Twilight’s Hyrule, and the rancher plucks a grass from the bank and whistles through it. “Can I try?” says Wild, Wind hanging off his back to ask the same question, and wouldn’t you know, soon half the camp are asking him to learn how to do it.
So Legend gets a piece of grass too, and then Twilight is there in the middle of them all, flushed a bit from the attention because he’s so humble or whatever, and he says, “Alright, so, you’ll need to hold it a bit like…”
It’s a piece of grass. There’s no good way to hold the damn thing.
Twilight blows through his piece of grass and it becomes a melody anyway, and Epona looks up from where she’s drinking, ears swiveling.
“Where did you learn this song?” Time has his eye fixed on Twilight.
“Ah…” Twilight rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t really remember…”
Wild tries to blow in his grass and makes a godawful shrill shriek that has several of them wincing and slapping hands over their ears, Legend too late to actually protect his ears. “Dude!” shouts Wind. “Fucking watch it!”
“Sorry, sorry!”
Twilight fusses over Wild, showing him how to fold his fingers to hold it angled correctly.
Four cautiously tries on his own, blowing a few limp notes before seemingly figuring it out just like that.
Warriors observes Twilight over Wild’s shoulder before trying anything.
Legend turns the grass over in his hands. It’s nothing, really, just grass – and Wild beams up at Twilight when he finally blows a clear note through it.
Legend whistles through the grass. Ugh, not like that. He adjusts minutely and tries again, and Wind answers his note with one of his own. Four chips in, then Warriors and even Time. One shrill sound after another, replying to each other. Wind’s face is flushed and he grins at Four, who smiles back.
“Alright!” Twilight decides. “I’ll show y’all a melody, so listen...”
For the next week there’s hardly an hour between the bouts of whistling with the grass. Wind, of course. Twilight, slightly bashful – Hyrule and Wild, experimenting. Legend catches Warriors at it too, and he only smirks and shrugs, unrepentant.
Through the others messing around, that song Twilight played follows them through the country lanes and the fields. It pops up everywhere until Legend swears he can hear it in the wind at night when they camp in the field.
The first time Link played the ocarina, a man transformed into an animal by the dark world told Link how to place his fingers on the instrument and when to do it. When Link finally played the song straight through, the man turned into a sapling and Link was left with the ocarina.
He couldn’t just leave it there after that. So he brought the ocarina along and fucked around with it until he could play more than just those few notes.
No one else grew roots and leaves. But Link had already seen proof of it the very first time, and he doesn’t need to be told twice: music has power. The right song at the right time can make anything happen.
Of course it would be a ballad that would wake the Wind Fish.
Marin’s voice still lingers in his dreams, echoing from that far-away dream. She’s dead because she never was and yet part of her rings out forever, free as the wind, as the seagull she wanted to become, her voice echoing through foreign lands she never saw.
He carries it with him wherever he goes.
The first time Legend saw Wind conduct the wind itself, Legend hardly realized that’s what he did. They had set up camp against a cliff-side, trying in vain to escape the harsh wind. Wild was fussing over the campfire and feeding it tinder with a magical fire spear shoved into the embers but the fire was still guttering.
Wind then pulled out a small white baton from his bag. He stood up, with purpose, and Legend wondered what he was trying to do as he didn’t go to help Wild or anything. Then he’d waved his hand around, staking out a pattern in the air that Legend couldn’t follow, and the wind had turned.
The fire took to the logs at last. Wild sagged down with a relieved sigh, Wind tucked his baton away and chirped if there was anything else Wild needed?
Was there a melody in the wind as it shifted? Legend can’t say for sure. He’d wager on a yes, but he doesn’t want to ask. If he’s the only one who hears music in the wind.
Forests grow and burn through time and rivers change their course. So too does the wind change – but Legend swears he can still hear the same melodies, in the plains and in caves and by the sea. If anyone else hears it, perks their ears to listen for it… Legend can’t say.
Wind directs the melody to change, and the wind follows.
Someone’s ear twitches. Another looks up.
The question sits on Legend’s tongue, but he does not really need to know the answer.
It’s sweltering in Subrosia, but slightly less so inside the buildings. Rosa said this was their third date and it’s about time Link treats her to a meal. She showed him this cafe and now they’re sat at this table for two while the other patrons all eye them with envy, well, sucks to be you, thinks Link. They can ask Rosa out all they want once she has finished helping Link out with her skeleton key.
“What do you think of these?” Rosa shows him the menu. “The molten muffins… no wait, let’s have lava cake! It’s a Subrosian specialty, you have to try it!”
As if it isn’t hot enough already. Link shrugs, sure, and takes off his cap. His hair is flattened to his scalp with sweat, his fringe sticking to his forehead. He stuffs his cap in his pocket but no, that one’s full. Whatever. He empties out a fistful of gasha seeds on the table, a bracelet and his old ocarina.
Rosa’s eyes fall on it and she jumps a little in her seat. “Oh! Do you play?”
Link shrugs.
“You should play for me! You know I’m a singer, don’t you?”
A famous pop star, that’s what Link has heard.
“No,” he says shortly.
“Aw c’mon, why not?”
“I don’t play that anymore.”
“Why?” she drags out the sound playfully.
Link shakes his head. Drop it, already. They’re not even really friends, Link doesn’t have any of those. He’s here on a mission, and Rosa can stop being nosy.
“Please? Just one song?”
“No!” Link takes the ocarina, but there’s nowhere to put the damn thing, so he just squeezes it in hand.
Rosa ducks her head. “Okay. Well…” But she struggles to think of a new topic.
Link feels too hot, boiling inside, outside, so hot and everyone is staring at him. The ocarina feels slick with sweat in his hands and he feels a little crazy, he’s not, traveling through Holodrum all alone he’s sharper than anyone, he can deal with it, none of these people know about the Wind Fish or dreams or songs that pierce the heart.
It’s none of their business! Just let Link be, so he can finish restoring the seasons to Holodrum and defeat Onox already.
The server finally comes. Link tells Rosa, looking down at the table, “The lava cake sounded good.”
Rosa chirps. “Perfect! Then we’ll have that! You’re going to love it.”
Link says nothing.
Wind asks Time about his armor and his mirror shield, ooh-ing and ah-ing over all his shiny armory. Wind asks to play with Wild’s slate and wants to look at all his jewelry and weapons. Wind asks to see Four’s gust bag and cane of Pacci and whatever else, Legend only kept half an ear on their conversation.
Wind sniffs at Legend’s bag, too. Legend makes sure his medallions and canes are tucked away, and the ring box too. So instead Wind decides to pounce on…
“You play the ocarina too?”
“No.”
Wind jumps up. “I can literally see that ocarina in your bag! C’mon, surely you know some songs?”
“Why else would I carry around an ocarina,” says Legend.
“So play something! Please, please, please-”
“Maybe he’s forgotten how to,” says Wild, from his spot in the grass across the campfire from Legend. Teasing. “Gotten rusty?”
“Ooh, are you bad at playing?” Warriors smirks.
As if Legend could be goaded on by such childish, transparent taunts. He rolls his eyes.
“It’s a magical instrument, though, right? What’s it do?”
“It doesn’t,” says Legend. “Do anything.”
“Wait. Really?”
“It’s just an ocarina.”
Music and magic are two threads of the world’s fabric woven one beside the other. Sometimes a song can turn a man into a tree or a tree shrub back into a hylian boy. Sometimes a song is just a song no matter how much you play it, however much you try.
“I don’t believe that.”
Legend shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
He’s not going to play it. Wind asks a few times more, then gives up and goes to pester Sky.
Link got his second ocarina in a dream within a dream. He woke in the shrine in Mabe village with it cradled in his hands, a bit warm from his palms, as real as he was. This makes no sense, he thought, but only briefly, and that was the first fracture, wasn’t it. Some things only ever seem rational in dreams.
Later he heard Marin singing, only a snatch of it carried by the wind but it pierced him through his tunic, his ribs and straight into his heart.
Clumsily he tried to play it for her, from memory. That’s horrible, she didn’t say, too nice for that. “More like this,” she instructed, and then she sang.
The whole village stopped to listen. Butterflies and bees would stop fluttering, the wind would quiet, just to listen to her. Her voice, her song, was truer than anything else in that world. Pure and aimed straight for the heart.
He played after her and then together, she sang and he played and the air itself became truer, clearer, brighter, he could feel her standing next to him as clearly as the warmth of a fire. The world stilled and was remade in each note, creating itself again in more color, more sound, more life.
The last note faded and it was like a spell was broken.
“There you have it,” said Marin, smiling a little. “The ballad of the Wind Fish.”
Please don't ever forget this song.... or me...
“What’s that song?”
Legend ceases humming immediately. Why’s everyone so nosy? “Just something I picked up somewhere.”
“Wow, secretive much?” Wind says, hurrying to keep stride with Legend. They have another two hours’ worth of walking to do, if the captain is to be believed. The road winds through miles of fields, only some scattered trees here and there breaking it up, and a lazy river meandering through the plains. There’s barely a house to be seen.
Legend rolls his eyes. “Why are you so interested?”
“I like music!” He throws up his hands, so sincere and unashamed it’s almost a taunt, if it weren’t for how he’s literally thirteen. “Me and Aryll played grandma’s music box to death, and you know how hard it was to get any more music to our tiny island?”
His uncle didn’t especially care for music. Legend can’t say he ever used to like it, not until…
Time, walking in front of them, says, “We used to sing the same songs together over and over, when I was a child. But I always wanted to learn how to play music.”
“We sang together back home, too,” says Twilight. “I’d always sing with the little kids.”
“We sing sea shanties on Tetra’s ship!” Wind jumps back into the conversation, taking the lead. “That’s why I wanted to know what the collector was humming!”
“It was just a tavern song,” he says. Sorry not sorry to disappoint.
“Oh?” Warriors slows down, looking back over his shoulder. “You know any tavern songs, really?”
“I get around. What about you, huh?”
Warriors laughs. “I know plenty. Ah, but they aren’t the most polite… let’s see, ‘I met a girl from Faron’-”
He cuts himself off before Twilight can even swat at him, smirking. Hah, of course he wasn’t actually going to sing anything.
Holding direct eye contact with Warriors, Legend takes a deep breath and launches into the Lorulean folk song ‘Swampy road to Castle town’.
Wind grins and tries to sing along, joining in the refrain. Warriors stares for the first verse then nods, conceding. Twilight grins too, watching Legend as he sings.
The others slow down a bit too, to watch. Legend determinedly keeps on walking and powers through the last of the song.
Wind cheers as soon as Legend stops. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes, now my turn next, c’mon-” and he starts on a sea shanty about shooting octoroks.
After that, Twilight sings a song about counting goats, then Time is convinced to share a song about welcoming the spring. Legend prods Warriors into putting his money where his mouth is and he, in a surprisingly clear and strong tenor, sings a short song about a poor peasant enlisting.
Eventually everyone gets in on it. They sing songs nearly the whole walk to the town Warriors wanted them to reach. Legend figures might as well, and shares a few more Lorulean ditties and a Labrynnan song the oracle Nayru sang.
When they make camp that night, Legend catches himself humming something new – one of Wind’s.
Hah. The kid must be pleased.
It wasn’t the truth, really, that Legend never heard any music before. His uncle did know a few songs.
A few harvest songs, some songs in praise of the goddesses, a song about welcoming the spring and another about octoroks, somehow. The melody was different, of course, but Legend remembers sitting on the floor with an old book as his uncle sat behind him and helped him count one octorok, two octorok, three and the ship’s going down.
Zelda plays the violin. Ravio says Hilda plays the piano, that he would hear her playing in his dreams years before they met. He said it like it was a joke but Legend knows it wasn’t.
He heard Zelda’s plea carried on the clear notes of a violin. He’d never heard that instrument before. It would forever be her instrument in his mind.
It’s a sound of rising to him, high up into the ceilings of the castle. Thin and sharp as Zelda draws it out, controls it with precise, quick strokes and adjustments.
“This is an old song,” she’d say, and play what her mother and grandmothers played before her on the harp and the ocarina. Legend hears it in the wind through the castle courtyard, if he’s tired enough to forget not to listen.
Only sometimes.
It’s tricky like that.
They’re traversing the Hyrule field of an in-between era one afternoon when Four is the one to cause a panic, but Legend’s with him on this one, literally how could he have known that Wind would react like that to the bird? Legend’s played the ocarina a fair bit too in his day to summon a bird to take him back faster, it’s not strange. And anyway Four’s bird is much smaller than Legend’s (because Four is absurdly fucking short), so there’s no reason to panic over that.
Wind goes after it with his sword, screaming. Sky tackles him down, but Wild, probably inspired by Wind since he doesn’t know anything about anything, tries to shoot the poor bird down, so Legend has to wrest the bow out of his hands.
“What’s wrong with you?!”
“That bird!” screams Wind.
In the commotion the bird quickly flees, and Four rounds on the gang. “Wind! That was supposed to be my transport! This is close to my era, we just agreed I would head to Hyrule town ahead of you guys!”
“What the fuck does the bird have to do with it?”
Legend snaps, “It picks you up and brings you where you tell it to! Do none of the rest of you have magical cheats for getting around?!”
“Mine doesn’t involve a fucking bird snatching you away!” Wind grumbles, “Nor the frogs doing it…”
“Four is a bit… small,” says Warriors, probably trying to be reassuring, for fuck’s sake, look at Four’s expression, “But he’s not small enough to be snatched up by a hawk.”
“That wasn’t even a hawk!” says Wind. “And loftwings are huge, don’t pretend there aren’t birds big enough to eat hylians around!”
Sky says, “Loftwings don’t eat people, they’d never-”
Legend raises his voice to be heard over Sky’s raised voice, “Okay, great, now let’s all remember that if I or Four play the ocarina and then a bird swoops down, it’s because we summoned it.”
(Wild says, “Does it count if it’s the ghost of a bird launching you into the air?”)
“You too?” says Four, looking to Legend.
“Evidently.”
Among many other tricks up his sleeve. Not that Irene would come anymore if he used her bell; she told him she’d done enough ‘looking out for green’ to eliminate bad luck for the rest of her life, after carrying him around on her broom through that whole adventure. Fair enough.
“Alright,” says Time, with a hand on Wind’s shoulder. “If you’re all done, we should continue.”
Four walks off for a bit, probably to not risk his bird getting shot again, and Legend trails along. Just in case Wind gets any more bright ideas.
They crest a hill and once they’re down on the other side and can’t see the rest of the group anymore, Four sighs. He turns the ocarina over in hand. “I’m worried I might be getting too heavy for him to carry. And now this…”
“If he doesn’t want to help you, then he wouldn’t come.”
“I know.” Four raises the ocarina. “Let’s see if Wind scared him off.”
Four plays, clear and sure. Above them, a bird cries out and then there’s that rush of wind Legend knows, quickly holding his cap to his head with one hand as the blue and white bird swoops down and hooks his talons underneath his arms.
The next moment, the bird’s already in the air, taking Four away to town.
How else do you chase someone back through time but with magic woven through music, and the oracle Nayru left her harp for him in her attic. The harp was nowhere close to an ocarina – for better and for worse.
Nayru taught him the tune of echoes. Link memorized how to place his fingers and as soon as he could play the song straight through, Nayru’s apparition faded. No time to waste.
Back and forth through Labrynna’s history Link traveled. Divert a river in the past then play the harp and the landscape in the present has changed accordingly. He could go back and do it again, but in the opposite direction. As many times as he wanted.
He started keeping careful notes of what actions would change what. Three adventures under his belt and he wouldn’t underestimate consequences, even as he rolled them back and flipped them over. The harp of ages was only his to borrow.
He never played her song on the harp. He only played those three songs to change time, over and over again.
A few hundred years later, and even islands could move. Different people, different settlements, some peoples just disappeared entirely. Yet others stayed, the same family in the same spot for generations and generations.
Link could leave marks of himself all over the place. But that wasn’t the point. He was there to help, and whatever traces he left behind weren’t on purpose.
If he helped someone, that was good enough for him.
Warriors and Wild don’t play any instruments; Warriors shrugs and Wild says he doesn’t really remember if he used to play anything. Wind swears he plays the flute, he just doesn’t have it with him right now, okay. Time wears his ocarina on his belt like it’s an item he can’t go without.
Sky is the one who starts the idea. He starts playing the harp when Wild is making dinner, and one evening he turns to Time and says, “Why don’t you join in? This song would sound lovely on ocarina, I’m sure.”
Everyone sneaks their own glances at Time. Time looks at Sky for a long moment.
“Alright,” he says. He hardly needs to listen in any before he can join in.
Four watches them intently, as if holding a silent debate with himself. Legend pokes him in the arm. “If you want a go, no one’s stopping you.”
He rolls his eyes. “Not now. I’m busy.” With half the group’s swords, indeed.
Polishing them could wait until later – but Legend won’t push.
The next night, Wind bemoans the fact that he can’t join in. Warriors ruffles his head and says, “Too bad, so sad. Guess you’re stuck with me and the cook.”
Wind yanks on his scarf.
“Traveler,” Wind then goes over to him. Hyrule looks up from patching a shirt with a look as if he hasn’t been following the conversation at all. “Do you play anything? You said you did but we’ve never seen it!”
“Sure, but only a little.”
“Show us!”
Hyrule puts the shirt away and slides off the log to rifle through his bag. From probably the very bottom, he pulls out a wooden flute – a recorder.
Sky and Time fall quiet, and Hyrule rubs his neck sheepishly. Wind says, “C’mon! Please!”
He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to, Legend thinks but doesn’t say. Hyrule doesn’t seem the type to carry deep dark secrets, not Hyrule with his dimpled smiles and easy-going manner.
Hyrule plays a short cheery tune.
Wind whoops when he’s done and starts clapping, and Hyrule flushes. “I don’t really know any songs… just the tune for warping and some other bits.”
“That was good,” says Legend. “Don’t sell yourself short. Anyway, it’s not that hard to pick up other songs.”
“Indeed. You should join us,” says Time.
A few nights later, when all three of them are playing together, Four finally gets up and takes the ocarina out of his bag. Sky smiles and moves over on his log, and Four sits next to him and starts to play.
There’s really no point in adding another ocarina to the mix, and Legend’s other instruments are back home. When Four catches his eye, Legend looks away.
Legend is trying to fall asleep, that old struggle. Why can he never fall back asleep again if he wakes in the middle of the night?
Hyrule is lying next to him, breath rattling in his sleep. It sounds awful but Legend has checked, damn, they’ve all asked Hyrule but he says it’s normal for him.
Beyond him, Legend can hear Sky playing the harp. Not that absent-minded plucking he usually does at night, but a proper melody. Maybe a ballad, or a lullaby.
“That song…”
Time’s voice is low, soft.
Legend can only just hear Sky’s, “What about it?”
“...what’s it called?”
Sky says something, but Legend can’t make it out. Time says, “Nevermind,” and bids Sky to continue playing.
It sounds almost familiar. Not a song Legend knows, no, but maybe he’s heard it somewhere… in the wind, or the trees, sung by birds… maybe in the castle, some sunny day standing with Zelda in front of the mural of Hyrule’s history… Zelda with her violin balanced on her shoulder, bow in hand…
A lullaby quite like Sky’s playing softly from another room, trembling on the strings of the violin.
Wild sets up the cooking pot over the fire, the pot with water next to it and another empty pot balanced on a piece of log to hold his ingredients while he heats the pan. Meanwhile, Sky pulls out his harp and Time his ocarina. Four has been learning from him a bit, Hyrule too, and they too join in when Sky begins.
Legend is darning socks. What with all the walking they’ve been doing, their socks are on the verge of disintegrating entirely, really, but Legend’s not ready to give up on these just yet.
Wild bangs a spoon against the pot, winces. Then he gives the pot a considering look and does it again.
Good goddesses. Luckily, Wind jumps up and rushes to Wild, saying, “Hey, you should try it with hitting two spoons together instead!”
Wild quickly realizes the meat is burning and rushes to tend to the cooking instead, but Warriors seems to have gotten an idea. He starts to clap a beat, which has Time changing course to a much faster melody. Sky catches on quick.
Twilight joins Warriors in clapping a beat. Hyrule rushes to raise the tempo and Four follows.
Now this is starting to sound more like Lorulean folk music.
Wind seems more familiar with this style of music too, stamping his feet along. He then rushes around the campfire and up to-
“Sailor, I told you I don’t play!”
“So come dance!”
The socks fall to the grass somewhere. Wind pulls Legend to his feet, holding his hands tightly as he skips away from the logs but still in the light of the fire. Warriors and Twilight egg them on, Sky shouting an encouragement.
“What dance do you imagine the two of us can do on our own?” Legend says, as Wind lets go.
“Like this!”
Wind dances in front of him, then grabs a hand and starts to skip around Legend. Legend twists with him, and they twirl, and Legend has seen a dance like this before, of course, but you’re supposed to swap partners. Wind doesn’t care.
Together, then leaping apart. Hop, hop, and face each other again.
Ha. How about this? Legend goes through the familiar motions of a Goron dance, to the beat that Warriors and Twilight provide, and Wind makes a delighted shout and copies him. They dance around each other and then meet again, so Legend can twirl the sailor around, spinning him around and around. Wind laughs.
Marin wanted to wake the Wind Fish.
That’s always what her song was meant for. Not because the whole of Koholint island, every dungeon with their instruments, all the people and that owl ushering Link forward, were constructed to serve that goal.
But because Marin wanted to. She wanted to fly.
When he had climbed the stairs to the top of the mountain to where the Wind Fish slept in its egg, and Link took out his ocarina and closed his eyes, the instruments he had collected begun to play themselves. The cello, the harp, the drum and the organ, the sea lily bell all followed along to her song.
The egg cracked and Link fought the nightmares and won.
The dream of the island faded and there Link was, clinging to a log from his broken boat in the middle of the ocean. With no sword, no mail, no ocarina – treading water.
The salty breeze hit him in the face as the Wind Fish curled above him, flying past.
A gull cried out. The sky was nearly cloudless, the sun high in the sky and everything was the purest ocean blue as far as the eye could see, and Link smiled.
In the wind he heard Marin sing.
They are just inside the desert, and Wild is busily adding vegetables to the cooking pot. Sky already has his harp out, Hyrule and Four playing short pieces on their instruments and giving each other pointers. When Time then raises his own ocarina – and he plays eyes closed, giving himself over to the music – Legend supposes music night has officially begun.
Wind even has a triangle, now. From a junk shop in the town they stocked up in last.
Legend expects he’ll be left alone. But the sailor has a glint in his eyes as he comes up to him.
He hasn’t asked in a while. Now he grins at Legend as he says, “C’mon, collector. Everyone’s playing tonight!”
“Not the cook.”
“It’s either you join him, or I’ll have to start singing,” says Wild.
“Oh no,” says Twilight theatrically. “The horror.”
“What the hell do you even know? I’ve heard your howling!”
Wind says, “Please. Join us. Just once. Please…”
Legend scoffs… but reaches for the damn bag anyway. “Fine. Since you all insist…”
Hyrule and Four stop playing to watch him. Time’s song peters out, and Sky’s fingers still on the strings.
Legend looks away from them, to focus. He brings the ocarina to his mouth.
The notes sound flatter in real life. He hates that. He hates, hates, hates that he’ll never do the song justice but now, with all of their eyes on him and the hush of the desert night, the notes seem to swell. The song becomes almost itself again, how it sounds like in his dreams.
A little piece of Marin brought into the world.
He closes his eyes as he plays, doesn’t even realize it until they’re squeezed shut tight and the melody’s last notes linger on the air. The inevitable end.
Then opening his eyes to face the world Marin wanted to see, and he smiles.
Wind grins wide-eyed back, the rest of them quiet, like holding their breaths.
Time inclines his head. “A beautiful song.”
They better think so. “Of course,” says Legend. Not as good as Marin’s singing made it… not as good as with an orchestra of other instruments to back him up…
Sky plucks the first few notes on his harp.
Looking at Legend, asking? Seeking?
So Legend raises the ocarina to his mouth again. No other answer needed.
And this time the boys join in. In disorganized chaos: Hyrule starts to late, Wind hits the triangle far too often, Twilight and Warriors settle on a beat which has nothing to do with the one Legend remembers and it’s… it’s perfect.
It sounds terrible and if Marin were here, she wouldn’t say that. She’d say, how about this, and she’d sing… and it would sound just like this, like the wind at night which blows through their camp and lifts their notes of music high into the air.