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It had been a slow week in Warriors’ Hyrule. They had dealt with the immediate threat of the black-blooded monsters, and now they were just waiting for the next portal. During their rare bit of down time, several members of the Chain had taken to the extensive palace library. Others were exploring the town, and others - like Time - were exploring the castle itself.
Time was in the middle of checking whether that old secret passageway was still where he remembered it being when he heard some unexpected sounds: the rustling of paper, and the sound of a familiar voice.
He followed the sound down the hallway, stopping in front of a door that was slightly ajar.
“And as we can see on this diagram,” he heard, and that was definitely Legend speaking, and then there was the emphatic smack of a hand against paper. “There’s a fifty-three percent increase in the likelihood of success with this matrix. So if we refer back here -”
“Fascinating,” he heard Warriors say, in the tone of someone watching a spectacular disaster.
Time knew he should walk away right now, lest he end up roped into whatever was happening in that room. But, well… he was a Link, and every last one of them were nosy busybodies. He pushed the door open.
He wasn’t entirely certain what he had been expecting to see, but the utter mess before him certainly was not it. Papers were strewn everywhere, and several were plastered to the walls, tied together with red thread. Time saw a vast array of increasingly complicated magic rune combinations, along with extensive notes in a few languages he knew and several he didn’t. Mugs that smelled strongly of coffee were piled onto a small table in a rather impressive tower. Legend was standing at the front of the room, a wild look in his eyes, a stray thread in his hair, and a stack of papers in his hand.
“Ah, Time,” Warriors said with a bright smile from his spot on the floor in front of Legend. “Welcome!”
“... Is everything alright in here?” Time felt compelled to ask.
Legend smacked one of the papers on the wall without breaking eye contact. “I’m gonna solve this fucking thing if it’s the last thing I ever fucking do. Sit down.”
Time liked to think he had decent survival instincts. He sat.
Warriors patted his knee, gave him a wink, then gestured to Legend. “Our veteran here was just about to explain his latest breakthrough!”
“In doing what?” Time asked, looking in vague bewilderment at the pages and pages of magical notation. He had a fairly good sense for magic, but he had never been one much for the technical and item-focused side of things.
“Sky told me there’s such a thing as a time gate, and then that really annoying blue lady with the book -”
“Lana,” Warriors supplied.
“- Yeah, her, she also said something about time gates, and wouldn’t let me look in her book about them, so I’m gonna do it my fucking self!” Legend declared with a stamp of his foot.
Time wisely did not comment on how cute it looked.
“And the breakthrough?” Warriors prompted.
Legend nodded, shuffling through the papers in his hands and either not noticing or not caring when several of them fell to the floor. “Right, right. So this matrix is a marked improvement on the last one, like I said. But if we refer to this diagram here -” he waved a piece of paper at them that Time could not read - “we can see that it will actually interfere with the stability of the locational array. Maybe not substantially, not always, but we could end up being off by a factor of five, and that’s the last fucking thing we want when we’re talking about time travel. So then I started looking at some of the matrices I got from the Harp of Ages and I noticed that there’s a repeating pattern -”
He just kept going, most of the words and concepts going directly over Time’s head. He didn’t even seem to notice that his audience wasn’t truly listening, or that they couldn’t read most of the notes he waved at them or directed their attention to.
As Legend looped more thread around tacks holding papers up, still talking a mile a minute about matrices and feedback loops, Time leaned over to Warriors and whispered “How long has it been since he’s slept?”
“At least sixteen hours,” Warriors whispered back, not taking his eyes off of Legend, who had begun to vibrate slightly. “I hand him food now and then and he’ll eat it without really thinking, and he’s gone through three pots of coffee.”
“This is fascinating to watch,” Time noted, absently shifting a piece of paper away from Legend’s foot so he wouldn’t slip as he paced.
“Right? I’m having the time of my life!”
Legend smacking a hand against another sheet of paper drew their attention back. “- then we’ll have the ability to select a location as well as a time, though that of course makes everything ten times more fucking complicated -”
“Legend,” Time said innocently, raising his hand.
The veteran paused, giving Time a look which said louder than words that this had better be a useful interruption. “What?”
“Have you considered using a song as the focus?”
Legend’s eyes widened. For a moment, he stood perfectly still. Then he scrambled for a blank sheet of paper and started scribbling down notes. “Of course, with the Harp of Ages - Sky said he used a song, too - If it’s a little longer, there could be tonal variations to act like resonators for the matrices, or alterations on a single tune to actually direct the gates - but we’d still need an array to harmonize with it and direct all the power. No, no, we can’t have control through the music, unless we add a network through it that responds to intent, though those can be pretty fucking annoying to balance correctly.”
“Incredible,” Warriors whispered in a tone of awe. “You’re a genius.”
“I’m interested to see how long it will take him to pass out,” Time hummed, giving him a smug little smile. “And, well. I do want him to succeed.”
Warriors nodded, looking back at their brother, who had begun pacing, still scribbling away and muttering to himself. “Me too.”
Six hours later, all eight of them were piled into the little room, listening to Legend’s increasingly impassioned ranting.
“- so there’s obviously a way to do this,” Legend said for maybe the fifth time, running a hand through his hair. The piece of thread in it was still holding on, Time noted with amusement. “We’ve seen people do it. We’ve done it. The trick is making it stable for long periods of time, and able to shift between time periods on command.”
Wild quietly passed a bowl of popcorn down the line.
“These matrices working in conjunction should allow us to bypass the harmonics issue,” Legend told them all, gesturing at some of the newer pages tacked to the wall. “Assuming we can find the correct array for each of the time periods we want, it should be a simple matter of rerouting power. Blood is the best way to do that so far, as I said earlier, but it would be worth running some more numbers on that, because we’re still seeing a twenty-three percent energy loss during that process. There will be some loss, of course, that’s how this shit works, but I’d like to get it down below fifteen percent if I can. Resource conservation and all that.”
Hyrule raised his hand. “Does it matter what kind of blood?”
“Yes, it matters what kind of blood!” Legend smacked his hand against yet another sheet of paper. “Some of the most common types of blood have been plotted here in order of efficiency. Obviously, the more power in it the better the outcome, but even the best one is only just above a twenty percent power loss. Hylian blood - ours, probably, so including the touch of the Triforce’s power that most of us have - leaves us at that twenty-three percent. Twenty-two, if we’re being generous. Again, doable, but I’d like to improve it, just so we don’t have any stray bleed-through of magic. That’s not common, but with an array this complicated, it’s better safe than sorry.”
“What can happen if there’s a bleed-through?” Wind asked, all wide eyes and innocent expression as he dug a handful of popcorn out of Wild’s bowl.
Legend launched into an explanation on the disastrous consequences of magic where it wasn’t supposed to be, and what measures were usually taken to prevent it, gesturing widely with his coffee mug. Thankfully, it was mostly empty by now, so he wasn’t spilling any coffee as he did it.
Twilight leaned in and murmured to Time “Is he… okay, do you think?”
“As much as any of us are,” Time hummed, taking a sip of his own coffee.
“Maybe we should encourage him to take a nap,” Twilight pressed, his tone worried.
Unfortunately for him, he spoke just slightly too loud, and Legend’s head snapped over to glare at him so fast they all heard the click as his spine popped.
“I,” Legend hissed, oblivious to the way many of his brothers were still cringing at the noise, “am not going to sleep until I crack this goddess forsaken thing. It’s possible, I know it’s possible, and Hylia herself is not going to stop me from figuring out how to do it! She can come down here herself, I’ll fight her! And I’ll win! I’ll power this damn array with her blood if I have to, because there’s no way in any universe that I’m letting something as inconsequential as the laws of reality separate me from my brothers! We bend those on a daily basis, and I’m going to snap them in half with my bare hands. I welcome any deity to try and stop me. Fuck, the universe itself can try to stop me! See what good it does them! Because I am going to get this fucking array working, and I am going to get to see you all after this shit is over, and there’s nothing you or they or anybody else can do about it! So no, I’m not taking a fucking nap!”
For a long moment, no one dared to move.
“... Okay,” Twilight said very meekly. “That’s - that’s fine.”
“As I was saying!” Legend whirled back around and pointed at his most recent matrix like nothing had happened. “We want to prevent bleed-through! I’m considering tweaking these lines here, maybe adding a strengthening rune, which would help with the stabilization, but then we would need to adjust this array here, which might interfere with the intention framework. Though if we moved it here instead, we could increase resonance… yeah, yeah, that could work. That should allow us some more wiggle room in the matrix overall. Not much, maybe eight percent, but eight percent is a hell of a lot better than nothing.”
Time wordlessly patted Twilight’s shoulder. It had been a kind suggestion, but there was no stopping Legend now.
“And why aren’t you using the Ballad of the Goddess for this?” Sky, who had been interrogated about said song the instant he walked into the room, asked in mild confusion.
“Because it’s a good framework, but it’s unfocused,” Legend explained, gesturing with his mug at several pages of musical notation. “We’ve got to hone it, and while that lullaby Time mentioned is better, it’s still not perfect for what we need it to do. So I’ve made some adjustments. It should work as an activation key for the matrix, now, but that does come at a sixty-two percent diminishing of power in the music itself. The Ballad would have powered the whole thing, but again, we want specificity here. Give and take.”
Hyrule was frowning at the matrices all over the wall. “So you just need… a power source?”
“More or less,” Legend sighed. “There’s a couple more adjustments that need to be made, because it’s fine but it’s not perfect. We want as little room for error as possible, especially in the locational and stability arrays, and I think the lockstep runes are working but I want to test those a bit, because if we all think time is progressing at the same rate for all the gates but it’s actually off a bit, that could cause a fuckton of problems. But a power source should really be the next step, because then it can be integrated and woven back into the rest of the network to prevent any spill over of extra magic, and if there’s enough of it I can even use it to tighten up other areas -”
As Legend kept talking, meandering around to his different diagrams and matrices, Hyrule stood and wandered over to look at the main network of papers and thread. He was still frowning. “So… like this?”
He tapped a finger against the center matrix.
Instantly, the lines began to glow a brilliant gold, light flowing out from Hyrule’s finger like spilled ink over the pages and the thread until the entire network was glowing. A symbol of the Triforce etched itself into the paper around the main matrix, pulsing gently.
Legend stared, the mug slipping from his hands and landing with a muffled thud on the pile of papers on the floor. “What the fuck.”
“If we use the Triforce, we don’t have to worry about the potency changing from era to era,” Hyrule pointed out, taking a step back with a satisfied little nod.
“Hyrule what the fuck.”
Wild raised his hand. “What’s a Triforce?”
“It’s so fucking simple,” Legend breathed, ignoring Wild entirely, ghosting his fingers over the golden runes. They glowed brighter at his touch. “I’m a moron. Of course we should just use the fucking Triforce. And then if we reroute power here and here and remove this piece of the array… shit, that’s perfect! We can make it so much more efficient! And then we won’t have to worry about the harmonics at all, what with the sonancy and the Ballad as a base. That opens up the specificity issue again but I think I can tie it into itself tightly enough that that won’t matter.”
“... So… what exactly does that mean?” Four asked.
Legend spread his hands, gesturing at the entire golden array. “It means this will work.”
“You mean you’ve actually got it?” Warriors asked in awe.
“I’ve actually fucking got it,” Legend confirmed, sounding slightly dazed. He wobbled, just a bit, on his feet. “Holy shit.”
Twilight quickly got to his feet and went over to put an arm around Legend’s shoulders. “Good job, vet. Well done.”
“Thanks,” Legend mumbled, swaying into Twilight’s touch, his eyelids fluttering.
“It’s workin’,” Twilight told him with a warm, proud smile, rubbing his hand up and down Legend’s arm. “Think you can take a break now?”
Legend shook his head, blinking rapidly. “The - the tweaking -”
“Will be here later,” Twilight promised.
Legend resisted for a few more seconds, then practically collapsed into Twilight’s arms. Twilight, who had been expecting it, caught him easily, picking him up with an even bigger smile.
“That’s incredible,” Time murmured, standing himself and walking over to take a closer look at Legend’s work. The runes were precise, despite their veteran’s state of caffeinated exhaustion, and Time could make out the familiar arrays of magic runes he was used to seeing on magical items, even as the golden glow began to fade. “He really is something else, isn’t he?”
“He sure is,” Twilight confirmed. “Stubborn as a goat an’ smart as a whip.”
A quiet snore from Legend made everyone laugh a little.
“Alright, let’s get him to bed,” Warriors said, standing and stretching. “He’ll need to be at the top of his game to make this thing as good as it can be. And the rest of us could certainly do with some rest, too.”
Wild perked up. “Pile?”
“I think that sounds like an excellent idea,” Time agreed. “I vote that we use the Captain’s bed.”
Warriors frowned. “Hang on, now -”
“Dibs on the middle!” Wind cried, sprinting for the door.
Warriors hurried after him, protesting, and the others quickly followed.
Time paused just long enough to scribble a note on a spare piece of paper telling the castle staff not to clean up the room and stuck it to the door, then went to join the others.
The Captain’s quarters were very familiar to him. He and Tune had spent many nights in here, huddled together to ward off the war and the world and the memories. It was a place where he felt safe, and it brought a smile to his face as he stepped inside and saw all of his brothers piling onto the bed, bickering about where everyone would fit.
Twilight had claimed the middle, Legend resting on his chest, and Wild was tucking himself against his mentor’s side. Warriors claimed a spot against the headboard, with Sky right beside him. Hyrule, Wind, and Four were all curled near the base of the bed, complaining about bony knees with bright grins.
Time carefully maneuvered his way into the pile on Twilight’s other side, making sure to lay with his head in Warriors’ lap. “Now now, boys, we don’t want to wake Legend.”
Wind grumbled Time’s words in a high-pitched voice, sticking out his tongue, though he and the others did settle down quickly.
“With Legend’s help, we’ll have plenty more chances for this,” Warriors said softly, running a hand through Time’s hair.
Time closed his eye with a happy hum. “We’ll have to thank him for that in the morning.”
And they would, certainly. There would be a time for thanks, and joy, and amazement that their wonderful, passionate, caring brother had managed to find a way to allow them more time together. But not now. Now, Legend was snoring softly on Twilight’s chest, dead to the world, and the others were all beginning to doze as well.
Time was surrounded by his brothers and by the warm hum of success, the music and the Spirit in his own soul singing counterpoint to the Spirits around him and the golden glow of what Legend, with Hyrule’s help, had created. He fell into a soft and dreamless sleep, excited for the promise of the future.