Work Text:
The field the group was walking across was much like any field. Warriors, though, knew where they were; despite their doubts this was his field, his Hyrule Field. To his relief, it was regrowing well, wildflowers covering the once-burnt earth.
He led the group towards the city, only to see a familiar blue blur on the horizon. A very, very familiar blue blur; he reached up and waved towards her.
“Link!” The blue blur dive-bombed towards Warriors, whirling around him. “Link! Link! You're okay! Of course you're okay because you're the best but you're okay!”
“Hello to you too, Proxi,” Warriors reached up, letting her land on his hand. With a finger he brushed her cheek, seeing just how terrified she looked. “I'm sorry I scared you.”
“You didn't scare me!” She pouted a little, but anxiously grabbed his thumb. “You just... really, really worried us... why didn't you tell me you were leaving! I would have come!”
Behind him, the group was muttering - Warriors could not care, not when he was home, and his friend was here. “I'm sorry, Proxi - I didn't have time to. But I'm here now.”
“Good!” Proxi bounced a little, hugging his thumb, then bopping his nose, and then darting off to investigate the rest of the group. “And who are these? Hi I'm Proxi and I'm Link's best friend!”
"Something like that," Warriors turned to them, offering a smile as he watched her investigate. "As she said, this is Proxi - we met during the war. Proxi these are the heroes from across time."
"Oh?" Proxi swept forward, quickly identifying most of those whose images had been displayed in Cia's castle. At Time, however, she hesitated.
"... Hero of Time...?" she squinted at him. "You're too tall."
Time's smile was thin, "it's been many years since my quests."
The little blue fairy fluttered around him, seemingly without a care in the world. Warriors could read the tension on his face, but could not quite pin the cause.
"You still taste like fairies," she declared. "They must really like you!"
"I do feed them, they probably just appreciate that."
Time's smile was far, far too strained. With a short whistle, Warriors called Proxi back to his side. Curiosity stated she happily tucked herself into the folds of his scarf. Hyrule approached, offering her a berry. In return he earnt endless chattering, all the way back to castle town.
Later that evening, Time was missing. Warriors was not entirely surprised by it - he had been off ever since they had arrived. Or, no, he had been off ever since he had seen Proxi.
Still, it was late, and dark, and danger still walked these streets. Not everyone had forgiven the Hero for the way. Not everyone had forgiven the Hero for his deeds during the war, either.
With a sigh, Warriors heaved himself up. He let Wind and Hyrule, still awake and in the depths of some sort of elaborate card game, know he was going, and stepped out the back door. If he was right, Time would not have gone far.
When Castle Town had been rebuilt, Zelda had insisted on Warriors getting his own place. He had not seen the point of it then, happy with the barracks and enjoying the social feeling, but she had insisted. In exchange for letting her take control of it - a place far too large for one man, which made him wonder if she expected him to have a great many children or perhaps had even foreseen this adventure with eight brothers of a shared spirit, even if she said it were just for appearances sake - he had asked for a garden. One with a naturally occurring pond. Such things were rare enough before the war, but Zelda had taken the challenge to heart.
And, no sooner had she built him a home and garden that his fairy companions had moved in. Some - most - came and went. Even Proxi had her tendencies to explore. But, down at the bottom of the garden was a pond, and in that pond lived a fair number of fairies, and it was beside that pond that Warriors found Time.
Proxi was asleep indoors, but Time had charmed Neri and a couple of the other quieter fairies to his lap. He was talking softly with them, too quiet for Warriors to pick out the words. But, the garden was still safe; Warriors made to leave.
"Link?" one of the light fairies drifted over to him. "Is everything okay? It's late?"
The question drew Time's attention, the Old Man looking almost embarrassed even as he offered enough sugar water for Becka to swoop down and take a thimble's worth.
"I just came to check if Time was alright," he offered her a hand to rest on, smiling as she fluttered there a moment, before sitting on his palm.
His eyes drifted to Time.
"Everything's fine," Time reassured. "I just thought I'd come say hello."
Warriors knew there was more than that. Time's expression was far too complicated, too strange. He vaguely remembered Malon mentioning something about Time waiting for a friend; he sat down beside him, chuckling as more fairies darted from the bushes and immediately started braiding his hair.
"It's a night for old memories, is it?" he asked.
Time's smile grew tired. "Something like that."
Warriors did not expect any more from Time. Their eldest was always a little secretive, or maybe he was too open instead. What was a joke and what was exaggeration and what was the truth... it was often so very hard to tell. Instead, he just listened to the fairies as they chatted and giggled and updated him on everything that had happened since he left.
"I used to travel with a fairy."
Time's voice cut through the quiet. Warriors turned to him, but gave only that response. He would not push, not if Time did not want to say.
"Her name was Navi," he continued, voice soft and low in the dark. "The Deku Tree - my father - asked her to go with me. I was nine years old, and she was the only bit of home I managed to keep my whole adventure. At the end... Once I was done, I couldn't go back to the forest. But she could. And as soon as we were done, she flew away. I looked for her - my second adventure started while I looked for her - but no matter what I tried, she was just gone."
Warriors said nothing, though he did gesture for some of the fairies sat on him to go comfort Time.
"She looked just like your Proxi." The confession was quieter, stiller, somehow more a secret than the rest. "At first glance. If you look hard enough to see the girl they're nothing alike, but..."
"Same shade of blue?" Warriors guessed.
He received a nod, "same pitch, too. I just... miss her, I suppose. It's been over twenty years, and I still miss her."
"She was your friend."
Time did not cry as he looked up at the almost full moon. His smile was still sad, "she was. But sometimes I wonder if I was hers."
There were many reasons someone might leave and never return after a war - an adventure, more properly, but had not every Link fought a series of battles? But Warriors had never met Navi, and had met enough fairies to know that they came in all personalities and temperaments. It was unlikely that Time's Navi would have hated him, but maybe it was just business to her. Without having met her... there was no way to tell.
"She did."
Proxi's chime startled them both: Warriors knew he had left her asleep, and yet... maybe he had woken her leaving, and she had been eavesdropping. Unlike her, but maybe she sensed the mood.
"Little one-" Time began.
"She was your friend," Proxi replied, a little more determined. "I- I don't know why she left. I would /never/ leave Link! Nah-ah! But you were her friend!"
"Proxi-" Time was a little startled, if Warriors had to guess.
"It's true!" Proxi insisted. "If- if it's really been twenty years? If she didnt love you, her magic would have faded from you. And I can see me blue which is also her blue! So! She must have loved you!"
"But-" a sob caught in Time's throat. If Warriors had not been listening so carefully, he never would have heard it. "Why did she leave me if she loved me?!"
Underneath the crack in Time's voice Warriors could hear the pain of more than half a lifetime spent searching for someone it seemed increasingly likely could never return.
He looked at Proxi, and she looked back at him.
"I don't know," Warriors put a heavy hand on Time's shoulder as he spoke. "Maybe she had to, maybe she couldn't come back. But Proxi doesn't know how to lie; if she says Navi loved you, then she did."
There were no tears, but there was a heavy sigh. Proxi pat Time's cheek anyway, almost in anticipation of tears.
"You'd think, after so long, I'd be over it." Time's words came with a self-deprecating laugh.
Warriors though of the war, of the friends he made and of those he lost and of those who had to return to their own timelines in the end. "I don't think I would be." he confessed. "Not even if they had the chance to say goodbye."
"I just wish I knew what happened to her - if she's okay." Time whispered once again to the night.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not on you to fix. I'll just... keep waiting, I suppose. It's all I can do. Hope, and wait, and pray."
"Sometimes that is all there is."
Warriors turned back to look at the moon. Proxi sat herself between the two men, reaching a hand out to each of them. Each of them gave her a finger, even that a struggle for her to grasp, and together they watched as the occasional cloud passed over the almost-full moon.