what time means
“Does it ever stop feeling weird? Do you ever stop feeling like - like a stranger wearing a mask?”
Link watches the older man intently - the tired lines of his face, the way his hair falls, the scar that the rest of them had whispered over until he laughingly told them a story that none of them believed. He’s the oldest of them, perhaps the most experienced; everyone looks up to him, clamours to hear his stories.
He hums in thought. The sound is warm, familiar. Not quite soothing. “Waking up in a world that’s left you behind… in some ways, it does get easier. You get used to the strange way the land unfolds, the people who know you but also don’t because you’re not what they think.”
Wild lifts his own hand to study it - the one with the too-long fingers, the strangely tinted skin, the heavy jewellery that never seems to come off - then meets Link’s gaze squarely. “But you’ll never get back what you lost. Even if you go back to the start, it’s not the same. Something’s been lost in translation.
“But then, you already know that, don’t you?”
Seventeen going on ten, Link shivers.
He never really thought the answer would be ‘yes’.
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For @whyareyoudo and @mystykiki.
