An hour after the birth of the new princess, the beginning of a much-anticipated twenty-four hour celebration had been announced in Hyrule Castle Town.
By eight hours after the birth of the princess, seven of those reserved twenty-four festival hours had been wasted.
A little time always is wasted in anything; there is bound to have been at least a few minutes of useable daylight before a Cuccoo crows for the beginning of a village's workday. Seven hours of a princess's birthday festival without music, however, went beyond that. Music was expected to stoke a festival to life, at the ready from before the beginning, with all of town gathered in the marketplace and brought to a height of bright excitement within five minutes of song – the essence of the festival refined into sound with sheer, proverbial "Sheikahn" quality reserved by and served at the discretion of the Hylian royalty in almost all areas—that would provide enough energy to ride and burn down to a satisfied warm by the closing, and security, sanction, the official. Reminder that this was all for the future of the kingdom.
It boded badly.
Castle Town citizens did some celebrating, of course, in action in not so much of the feeling behind it. They gave formal good wishes and prayers for a baby's health and rule in experience and ability; went through the motions and recited the words of common dances and songs they recognized here and there automatically; ate when offered something meant to be eaten with minimal attention; and then, sometime after it got dark, ran out of any substantial distraction, with the cheap enjoyment fizzled out of the air, leaving vacuum space and drifting anxiety asking if (and very quietly hoping) it would be filled with something to provide even traces of the fresh color they needed to give a proper hello to a new queen, open her life with a day of its celebration.
The first little breath of relief came when the guards filed through the streets with their spears pointing up them, calling them all to the marketplace, where the royal orchestra had settled together tuning and retuning their instruments, stopping in between attempts at breath-held finer-tuning to look up and around for developments, a couple straightening their uniforms and flashing the red eye emblems under their collars now and then with snapping shoulder-shrugs and chins thrusting out, stating and reminding with a gesture just how gracious it was of everybody to wait on the performance. The drawbridge was lowered to invite in late arrivals from outside towns and villages—very late, through the dark, and across fields of Stalfos and Stalchildren who took advantage of it all, shambling after anything that moves much slower than a horse—and the gap where the bridge was was a hole in the city to more uneasy nothing, night sky and a dark field, for the crowd to wait for something to come from.
There were hoofbeats, as a matter of fact. When two little horse silhouettes started to define themselves coming closer to the city gatehouse's torches, some of the tension warmed out, because something new was happening. New arrivals, after all. The horses came closer; identically-shaped hats could be made out topping the riders and identically-made capes fanned out behind them, and most of the orchestra held their breaths.
The capes flowed up and around, one red and one green, as the Royal Composer Brothers dismounted.
They were late to their own concert for little Princess Zelda in the middle of the night but with energy practically visible and luminous in their deep red Sheikah eyes and their faces—almost smug-looking, in Flat's case, and all but definitely in narrow-eyed and thin-smiling Sharp's.
Knowing. They knew something that even the orchestra didn't, quite, and that those in attendance didn't at all.
Just about everyone gathered felt a jolt. A mix of well-finally excitement and where-have-you-been that some breathed out to vocalize but reconsidered.
And the Composer Brothers didn't throw a single beat into apologizing. Once they were both focused on the orchestra, who instinctively cut themselves off of whatever motions they were engaged in to get into position and start playing, they drew their batons, and anything in the audience to complain was erased as pointless.
The batons started to move, and drew up a few soft notes, teased into a light, lullaby-like flute melody that tranced the rest of the orchestra into producing just what was needed to fortify it, slip under it and lift it up, stoke it to a glow, a little song to feed sweet dreams for a little girl up in the castle on the first night of her life, drawn out after the dream into a hum for calm sleep on its own.
Sharp and Flat locked eyes, their smiles deepened with some kind of shared surge, they inhaled simultaneously, and the few undistracted might have even detected a mutual nod, tiny. Knowing. They pulled the hum down, and over it repeated three bright fast notes, followed by the sound of something shining taking off in a curve into the air.
Their timing was perfect. As strings stirred out of the hum and the winds chirped, the sky started to brighten pink.
The sun came out over Hyrule Field both outside and inside the song, which went on to play out the expanse and the colors and terrains of the stretches of grass, sky of blowing clouds, and trails to the valley, mountains, lake, the entire kingdom, holding it up on two batons and in two pairs of raised hands, concentrated, the thrill of being surrounded by it all in one place. They went on all morning to pull each of the trails along like threads into a tapestry, with songs for Castle Town, Kakariko Village, Death Mountain, the edge of the woods, weaving up and out and brightening the colors of the princess's future kingdom, toured.
It carried to high morning, and at the last note, the audience cheered with energy pure and refreshed without having slept since before they arrived at the festival. There'd been a gap in time, and then the sun had risen. The Composer Brothers bowed, as more of a you're-welcome than a thank-you for applause that seemed to be on a second level that they were accustomed to that brought approval to gratitude. They watched the crowd disperse again for properly merry merrymaking while the orchestra, still in a playing mode, backed with an encore of the vivacious, chiming piece for the marketplace.
The Composer Brothers had last been in the city exactly a week ago, to discuss their work with the king. The king had been in the throne room, no guards or advisors or anyone but Kafei the page. On seeing them, he'd asked them to follow him out with Kafei at his side, into the library. This had gotten to be logical standard procedure for these sorts of meetings, and everything was, by then, understood.
"I've sat in on the Royal Orchestra's rehearsals. You would have better ears for the quality of their performance than I would, but I believe they have a hold of the symphony by now," said King Hyrule.
Nobody was seated. The king stood beside the chair at the head of a table; Kafei glanced up from the Mask of Truth whose eye he polished over with his fingers, back to a bookcase; and Sharp and Flat stood on either side of a door, looking across it with dubious relief.
"I cannot guarantee the number of days you'll have before my first child's birthday, but you needn't take any more time away from your research," said the King.
A couple of specifying questions more—on the research by Sharp, and on the state of the orchestra by Flat—and the Composer Brothers bowed and said their thanks, and were seen off and accompanied back into the village by Kafei. They were grateful, indeed, but not happy. The symphony wasn't complete; it began in Castle Town, fell asleep in one place, and woke up in another. It had been composed in the princess's honor, a first birthday present, packaging and presenting her kingdom for everyone who'd attend. It lacked much sense of time or expanse; it sounded like a series of lit, controlled dioramas next to a mansion.
Sharp had already planned it, and he was already seethingly disappointed.
They'd written songs that served as locks before and controlled the weather. They were behind. Sharp wanted the sun to come out over the field in the symphony—disguised, maybe. If time had allowed, they'd have arranged a closing reprise of the symphony for Flat to bring up the moon over. Times to come, times to pass.
"No one other than the composers would think anything was missing from the symphony," Kafei said as they came to the gate at Kakariko. A sentry recognized all three approaching and opened that gate without stopping. "I'd know. The orchestra seem impressed. So do both the King and Queen."
"And the composers would know their own good work from their own great work, Kafei," said Sharp. "It could certainly be more royal."
"No need to sell us short, dear brother," said Flat. "That symphony is great work; all it's lacking is magic. In the literal sense, and just the literal sense."
They both agreed with each other, and fact was fact. The symphony was great work. It lacked something special, served to the Royal Family by the Sheikah, and that made it not royally great work. They shook their heads impassively and rode on. Kafei, who didn't live halfway in either of their heads, assumed that they'd dropped it for now.
Which they had, but out of resolution, not out of temporary satisfaction or putting it off.
They'd been officially encouraged to focus on only their research, forcibly separating their work on a sunrise song and a moonrise song from their work on the Hyrulian heir's birthday concert. Sharp took it that they'd lost on one count while Flat refocused his mind, out of grand and evocative concert music for performance to precise magical music.
They said their thanks and goodbyes with Kafei, too, and he left to check in with other key servants of the Royal Family. Wide session of rounds, as they were housed at every corner of town; they needn't have kept him. They entered their house and took their hats off—sun emblem for Sharp, moon emblem for Flat—and set them down in the corner of the study.
They took their separate books.
"Check in, before either of us falls asleep?"
"Most likely," Sharp said, as that was both easy and difficult to track. Their heads were in daytime and nighttime respectively; occasionally they nodded off without realizing and, if the level of light was appropriate, wondered if the other had turned the time, which had meant checking in anyway if it wasn't for the fact that by now, they both knew better.
There'd be checking in at some point, naturally. It wasn't an enormous house and there were only two of them. They'd see each other moving things and putting them back,
They shut their door to lock themselves into a private night and day, and for the next two days, each one would think about the sun or think about the moon and try to translate the movement of each one into notes, then put them to the test, bending tiny currents of air into those notes around the tips of Wind Wakers to play them back, shutting their eyes and not seeing anything light up caught in their inner eyelids, let alone a change in the day outside. They'd scratch it out, adjust, write new notes, play them. They'd run out of parchment and go to stack them in the study, which Sharp had claimed. "Any progress?" "No. Not yet." "Any spark, Brother?" "Not a one."
And then they'd move on with fresh ink and new stacks of parchment.
The sun and moon stayed still. Two days with time not passing in the still studio air, as it had been for the past so-long; but they were focused now. They'd been given permission, and explicit permission read like a request, which read like an order. They focused on bottled sun-and-moon until it made their eyes sore and heads hot even without the hats on, and the occasional "hello, any progress, not yet" refreshed them.
Flat fell dead asleep at some point out of necessity. He woke up for a split second when Sharp popped in—little gust pushed through the room by the door—and popped back out. That was the third day of work; things worked in sets of threes. He'd tries sets of threes, they'd both tried sets of threes. Sets of threes stacked on the tables like snow or pillows, and that was what they were. They didn't move anything; they softly sat.
He fell right back in, and then it felt like one day had ended and that he was sleeping through one night.
On the morning of the fourth day of work, Flat woke up late to the sound of paper flapping.
His immediate thought was that a gust of wind had blown into their study and scattered their progress. He didn't wait—he'd hurried over and leaned a hand on the doorframe as he stuck his head through to look over the damages, to assess what might have been missing, what might have been upset.
Only Sharp was upset. That was the first thing he'd noticed. The second was that the window was closed. Sharp had blown papers off of the table with a flourish of his cape, still spread and rumpled on the table and around his elbows like a tablecloth pulled up around a centerpiece. His face was in his hands, and he was pressing his temples.
Flat watched a few moments. Just as he opened his mouth to offer a Brother to get Sharp's attention, Sharp acknowledged that there was no need for it. His hands pulled down and his eyes slid open, upper lids staying heavy as his brow lifted. "Ohhh-ho, mind me not, my good Flat," he said, and pushed back up and off the table.
"I'll lend you a hand in putting those back."
"Isn't as if collecting them is a matter of life and death, but yes, it's appreciated."
They'd already gotten on the ground, picking up sheets and sheets of parchment, equal numbers of failed would-be sunrise songs and sunset songs gathering under each of their arms. Flat reviewed each one as he picked it off the ground, turning it.
Sharp's sunrise songs had bright, high last notes. Something up and bright enough to burst. Flat's moon songs were reserved and rising, all the way through. Each of their drafts had different numbers of notes. The sunrise and sunset and moonrise were all processes. That may have been the last rub.
And he knew what Sharp had meant, that collecting the attempts wasn't a matter of life and death. If the wind had scattered their notes, it'd be fine.
If the wind scattered their notes, it'd be fine.
"Perhaps you should, er, get a bit of fresh air."
Sharp had a look on—a would that possibly do any good? look. Kakariko Village was full of air. Full of it! They'd gotten plenty of air up till now. He was tired, and he was not tired because of Flat, so it wasn't a look aimed at him, even when his eyes were.
He knew better than that. It would do some good, easily. It wouldn't write a song itself but it would help. "I might," he said. "Oh, I might." And he shook his head. "I'll tuck these away and open a window, perhaps."
The Kakariko windmill moaned.
"And what would it hurt us if we did lose a few songs that don't do anything?" Flat grinned.
"Thank all that is good that we haven't labeled our scratch parchment," said Sharp. "Lest it blow into the wrong hands."
"By pure chance."
Sharp weighted the pages under a book concerning the movement and phases of the moon that Flat later picked up to leaf through. The pages would be scattered again later.
The windows of the house were opened two-by-two as the brothers moved through it, making two research territories, night and day.
When Flat came back into the study, Sharp was leaned out through the open window while a few threads of Kakariko Village's breeze slipped in, slicing through the air that had been shut and sucked dry and gasping in increasingly joyless meditation in with them. Both brothers breathed easier, too obviously to double-think, and in drifting movements of his upper arms like a fish dunked lightheaded back into water near-death, Sharp worked his baton. Little streams of air caught and wound around the Wind Waker, and he flicked them off, twirling and ringing against the music box notes of the Song of Storms.
Flat crossed the floor while Sharp played on without moving, as expected, probably with his eyes narrowed beyond their at-rest point so he could feel himself focus—yes they were, Flat noted, edging next to Sharp until Sharp gave him a sideways glance to precede a sidestep the other way.
Take your position, Brother.
Flat drew his Wind Waker from his robe and lighted down on his half of the bottom of the window frame. Sharp kept the music box notes chiming—rain drops. And Flat bobbed the tip of his baton in one-two-three-one-two-three timing until brass bellows churned gray and silver clouds, and released them into the sky like mouthfuls of fog or the steam from a pot.
Sharp's baton moved sharper. Flat's baton bobbed in a wind picking up. The chimes were cleaner and they sparkled in the darkening and richening cloud, patterns of threes before a quick-flicker and a dance. Sharp and Flat started to smile, the sky started to move, and the stuffy air started to cool and clear away.
The windmill spun. The brothers' batons all but did.
They whirled and wove the wind and pulled the clouds to pop like peaches and the notes climbed higher till they pierced the clouds to crack!
They froze.
And the first drops of rain came down from the purple sky.
Sound changed. Temperature changed.
And the brothers rested on their elbows, sweeping their baton hands underneath their free hands, smirking and bowing to themselves.
"Unity, isn't that it?" said Flat, under his moustache.
"What?"
"Playing a single song—the melody is what calls the storm, even without the mood. Which was, there, played by myself."
"The magic is in those three notes, really," Sharp agreed, putting a finger idly to the tip of his Wind Waker.
They each watched a spot between the other and the rain.
And then Sharp snapped his fingers. "Of course."
"Hm?"
"Three notes. All we need are three notes." Sharp pushed back from the window. "The sun moving and the moon moving are all part of the same process. We agreed to control the passage of time, not the sun and also the moon."
"Then you say—"
Sharp slammed the window. Flat picked back up.
"We've been overcomplicating it that badly. All along, we've been overcomplicating it."
"We won't know until we do or don't find the three notes that cause one shiny heavenly body to rise. Let's begin."
Continue, Flat thought, but Sharp knew it.
They picked their scattered scraps of paper up again and looked through the vicious scribble-outs. They cross-compared sunrise songs with moonrise songs for common notes. This has the feeling of a set. This has a feeling of light. This feels like changing. We need three notes. There's magic in a simple three notes, played twice.
Move, old light down, new light up. Once again for a first repeating verse. Move, old light down, new light up.
Somewhere in their stormclouds, they'd ironically lost track of the time, but they knew they had this. It sounded like the prelude to a bright morning or a yellow moon, those notes and a scintillating trill, depending on who and how, how much air, the lighting, the energy, how tired the ear was and in what way and when attached to who with what habits. Three notes, like many Sheikah songs were. The first line of the Song of Time—time—and weather songs repeated three notes. It was an excellent bet.
"The moment of truth," Flat said on the opposite side of the study's center table from Sharp, baton up and face turned toward a sky he couldn't see through the ceiling.
Sharp nodded once and flicked his baton three times fast.
Then they both moved their hands in synch. Pullaside—lower—raise; pullaside—lower—raise. Bring it up to the sky…
And the air rang, and rushed.
The room went darker. They jerked their heads back to the window at once.
The ground outside was darker. The sky was darker and the rain had stopped. They ran over and grabbed the bottom of the window, leaning out.
A couple of villagers were running out onto the grass, slowing to a stop and looking up at the sky. They didn't see anything—or they didn't say anything, or focus. They searched.
"I think we brought the night," said Sharp.
Flat laughed. It was an automatic, nervous noise. "Should we bring the day back, too?"
"We might just as well. There are worse ways to check whether it calls both times of day or not. Perhaps our neighbors will take the night here to have been, ah, trickery on the part of the weather."
Sharp didn't believe they'd think that at all, and good, because neither did Flat, but they were in agreement that it seemed right. They brought their batons up and played it again.
Moon down, sun up.
Sunrise broke like a bubble breaking the surface of a pond. They watched it this time. There was no mistaking it—not by them and not by the villagers looking skyward outside.
Blue sky. Both the Composer Brothers shuddered in thrill under their cloaks. Sun down, moon up. Moon down, sun up. They villagers started to talk; the brothers heard whatever they listened for, glancing back in at each other to ask if they both heard it.
The moon was out. Was dark just now. Eclipse?
Then where's the moon now?
Magic. Who's doing magic?
Flat blinked against a whoosh of air in his face; Sharp spun around with his cape whirling and made for a cabinet. He squinted, counted rapidly through the contents of a shelf, and pulled a sheet of music.
"The symphony prelude!" he said.
Sharp didn't need to confirm that. They both leaned over the table, trading a stylus and nodding as they wrote in the notes. First those three key notes, very slightly-changed so that anyone who tried it wouldn't find the song by mistake, and then they worked and tuned, a nudge here, a cross-out there. It settled down, outside, and got louder again. No chaos. Nobody knocked on their door or called them out. They focused, making happy use of a new tool, and they worked through the night—tuned it, exactly picking and pacing the spread of sun and chirping animals, and an open-out onto the ground of Hyrule Field.
They rode out at first light, hearing the prelude in their heads with Flat carrying a new few pages of music in a flat pocket in his cloak, playing it out, hearing hills in grass and
They'd made it!
The drawbridge to Castle Town was down. They sat up straight and tall, and rode in.
Guards milled. People chattered in big groups and brightly-colored dress. Sharp and Flat exchanged a look.
One guard turned around with his spear in the marketplace. "Composer Brothers," he said.
They both nodded. The guard asked them what was wrong—Kakariko Village had been dead silent for an entire day, nobody coming out, nobody opening the gate to let anyone else in, and Sharp lifted a brow at Flat. They both knew.
"I'm afraid we don't know," said Flat. "We were both quite busy with work on a piece! I hope nothing was wrong; if nothing else, I don't remember there being any commotion yesterday. Brother?"
Sharp just shook his head, and told the guard that they were headed to meet with the king.
The guard shook his head. "The Queen is giving birth. We're setting up for the festival—I, er, understandably can't promise when His Majesty'll be free, sirs, even to talk to the two of you."
Sharp laughed, sharply. Flat felt absurd bemused amusement dancing in his head.
Just in time, they were both thinking. Just in time.
Next duty. They looked at each other and nodded, then nodded at the guard. "We do also have some work to do in preparing for the festival, in fact." He pulled his cape aside and patted the pocket. "A few adjustments to make to the festival concert. We think everyone'll be very pleased by them."
The magic was in the three notes proper. They'd both agreed they'd need to wait through the night, and prepare the orchestra to take cues to make quick changes. They'd play the real song at exactly the break of dawn. They'd need to keep the crowd waiting, and however long they would depended on when the princess or prince was born. Sharp suggested they go on a nighttime ride to pass the time, if they needed to; Sheikah weren't afraid of the undead, and if they needed the drawbridge opened for them, all the better for maximum drama. But the first day would break in real magic, highlighted by music.
The Composer Brothers were, certainly, already pleased.
They rode home and rode high after the concert. It was the second time they'd made the day move, and it was realer and musical. They'd see the king tomorrow when he wasn't with the baby, or with his court. Night'd be realer and musical, too. They'd spend it celebrating privately, in the little space they'd tried to catch day and night. The kingdom was their music; the weather was their music; time was their music; the heavens were their music.
That's what they'd be celebrating tonight—relaxing in the afterglow of success.
They went home grinning and shut the door. They kept the windows open and heard notes in the wind. They'd composed the wind before, too—sense to everything, time, space, weather. The great Composer Brothers! They read in the same room—unity!—and when the sky started to get darker, they found a bottle of wine and poured it and drank half of it. They'd fall asleep normally tonight, finally. Time moved again, and they got it.
Kakariko Village was quiet except for the windmill even for Kakariko Village. The villagers were tired or still gone. Many might've been sleeping in Castle Town for ease's sake, as far as they were aware. And Sharp and Flat would sleep well and glow freshly like the sun and moon to head back to town to see the king, properly reporting in.
They started to close the windows as nighttime wind came in, and Sharp lit candles as he went.
Flat was closest to the door when there was a knock. Sharp "hrrm"ed on the other side of a doorway. Flat went to go get it.
He looked through the window first.
There was a little flash in the low light outside. Yellow eyes looked toward him from the tall figure at the door. Silhouette. Nose said Gerudo. Man.
A flare of nerves blasted back from Flat's brain.
Had he snuck in? A Gerudo wouldn't have been let in after night without something to show, something official or important. He wouldn't be waiting at their door like that if he had—but he wouldn't be doing that if he had snuck in, either; someone would have seen him, too, if he had snuck in. It wasn't only the Gerudo who knew sneaking.
Flat stepped back before he changed the look on his face, out of line of sight through the window. He watched to see if the man would look through after him. He'd see it if he did even against the low light outside—he didn't…
Visitor.
Something bumped and a cape rustled against wood. Sharp was right there.
Strange…
"Brother." Flat turned from the evening's dim to the indoors'. Their heads turned over opposite shoulders, Sharp paused before he could start to lower the just-lit candle he was holding—smoking match in the other hand—onto the table, again with the soft Well? leer.
"The Gerudo King seems to have come for a visit."
"What?" Sharp's cape flapped and the candleholder bumped the wall, and he'd pulled the curtain blowing closed at Flat's side.
"There really wasn't a point to that, was there? He would've seen you just then."
"You're certain it was him?"
"Well, it was a Gerudo man."
"Who let him into the village at this hour?" Sharp muttered.
Flat felt a chill rustle down his spine and shook his head. The brothers locked red on red through the corners of their eyes. "Shall we see what he wants, anyway?"
"I suppose we shall."
Sharp visibly shuddered, blowing it off with another cape flourish—the draft sent a second spidery chill in sympathy scuttling free down Flat's neck.
Flat kept close behind Sharp on the way to the door, horizontally, and over him vertically. The older brother in front, the tall brother over. They were guarding—each other and themselves, who guarding who? Guarding, either way, and they were brothers.
"If you'd hold this," said Sharp, handing the match back.
"I can answer the door, you know."
"I'm already in the front, dear brother. Would you please hold the match."
It wasn't an error; Flat might have only thought it was worded like a question. It was a flat request. He took it, and Sharp glared at the door handle like it was an enemy as he pushed it open.
It was only a crack, at first, to alter the pressure in their house and make them slightly dizzy and let the wind in. Sharp's candle flickered. He pushed the door open fully with the back of his hand, into the wind.
Both Sharp and Flat's eyes drifted up.
Ganondorf was there, indeed. Orange hair, golden eyes, hawklike nose, clad in black. His arms were crossed.
"Ah," Sharp said. A token effort to feign surprise. Then he lifted his candleless hand and bowed. Flat bowed just a beat short of unison with him. "Your Majesty Ganondorf."
"Your Majesty Ganondorf," said Flat. Both brothers straightened.
Sharp tilted his head as if trying to wedge something into a vulnerable space. "Can we help you tonight?"
It sounded more like a question than his earlier would you please to Flat, but it looked less like one. Sharp looked at Ganondorf like Ganondorf was the door handle, held in the lantern of a Poe mixing chemicals on a rafter.
Ganondorf nodded. "Royal Composer Brothers," he said. "I regret it if I'm causing disturbance. I am aware that you were awake before dawn this morning, for Princess Zelda's symphony."
The brothers nodded.
"I'll need to come inside your study."
It might have been improper to do it, but Flat and Sharp looked at each other through the corners of their eyes again. Asking each other if either of them should ask.
Should I? Should I? Should you? Yes.
They looked back forward, one leaning in the doorframe over the other. "Might we ask what for?" asked Sharp.
"No," said Ganondorf. "Not outside the house. I'd rather you didn't."
"I'm most anxious to know. As are we both—aren't we, Brother Flat?"
"Oh, yes. You and I both, Brother Sharp."
"If it was important enough that they opened the gate at this hour for it, this must be a matter on level of lives at stake."
"And you'd hardly need to worry about telling it outdoors in Kakariko Village, my lord, I'm sure."
"Indeed." Both nodded automatically. "The Sheikah serve the Hylian Royal Family, my lord, and our interests are the village's. If we can know—"
"This, Composer Brothers, is about your research, I am afraid. I do need to come inside to begin to discuss the subject of my visit with you."
"We know our research," Sharp said. "I'm rather certain we'll be able to keep up, your majesty.
"I'll be clearer: this relates directly to your research into the control of time." Ganondorf leaned forward, putting his hand on the doorframe over the brothers', and he loomed like a vulture. The brothers didn't move. "And while I don't prefer it, as lord of a kingdom of bandits and rogues, I am not above blackmail when it's necessary. You will let me in, or I'll divulge that you've learned to control the rise and fall of the sun to the village as a whole and the Gerudo."
The brothers didn't need to look at each other for that.
"Whatever makes you think we've learned anything of the kind?" Sharp asked, eyes and voice hard.
"Something, Composer, and whether you can prove me wrong or not, gossip is powerful, as you Sheikah know, and more than me will come to inquire about your newest song. Directly. Through the village, perhaps, or through the Royal Family."
He's right, thought Flat, looking down with it just as Sharp looked up to check. Eyes locked. Sharp received it—and his brow lowered. He agreed.
It's bad, they both thought.
But they let Ganondorf in. They nodded. "Come inside," Sharp said, and they went into the study flanking him. They checked him over for weapons. Ganondorf knew that they were doing it. His mouth pulled at an angle complimentary to his nose's. He touched his left sleeve, where there was a strap. Dagger.
It wasn't well-concealed. It wasn't masterfully-hidden, and even if it had been, a Sheikahn guard would have found it. A conspiracy.
Flat heard his heart through the vibrations in his ribs. It was cold.
Sharp looked near him, but not at him.
They filed into the study, Sharp, Ganondorf, Flat. Sharp blew out his candle, and Flat closed the door behind them.
And Ganondorf drew the dagger. He shoved Flat aside. Flat pushed back. Ganondorf drove the dagger—Flat didn't bother to note where; it wasn't meant to be a killing blow. Sharp grabbed Flat and pulled him back and they moved until their backs hit opposite sides of a window.
Ganondorf rested the flat side of the dagger in his left hand. "You have completed it," he said.
"And what, precisely, is 'it'?" asked Sharp.
"You cannot bluff me into thinking I don't know, composers. You've accelerated time at least once with a song. I want that song."
But he didn't already know it. It wasn't the symphony that had done it. It wouldn't have been. They had disguised it perfectly, by playing something that they would play, when they would play it. Kakariko Village knew that they had lost a day.
Conspiracy.
An insider, they both thought, whispering it one way and back to each other with a sideways look. Sharp's eyes burned; Flat's lungs clenched.
"We haven't," Sharp said regardless, pulling his eyes back forward, to Ganondorf. "But, unfortunately, you'll not find one of our more powerful songs written here."
He was trying to mislead with the truth. Understood, Flat thought, and pointed to the side of his head, said "Indeed, that you won't. We're afraid that any song of note we've completed recently remains in our heads."
Ganondorf didn't understand. Good. Flat could tell that he didn't when he lifted the dagger again.
There wasn't another word. Ganondorf moved like a blast of sand and he was at the window with them. He caught Flat by the throat. Flat didn't even feel it; Sharp yelled "don't!" and spun over between them with the candleholder pulled in to bash at Ganondorf in a swing away. Ganondorf had already passed the dagger to his left hand.
There was a tearing sound. Flat closed his eyes.
A thump. The blood started to drain from Flat's head, and his heart hung heavy and dripping dark, far-spaced drops.
The hole that ripped into his chest just missed it. When Ganondorf let go of his neck, it was easy to lie still. He kept his eyes closed and thought inside. Inside. Inside.
Papers shuffled.
Here or there, Ganondorf made a sound. Flat tried not to hear it. Inside, on a slow, white tone.
The door opened, and then slammed. Flat opened his eyes in a snow of dust let fly off of the rafters.
Ganondorf was still in the house. There were boots, moving quickly. There was one of Flat's own breaths.
Then he let himself see.
His vision swam in, from pure fog to a room as seen through a window. Gray. Not from the dark, he thought.
He pulled it in further. Now he felt the wound in his chest. All whiteness and cold. And to his right, Sharp was already dead.
Sound cut out entirely. There was only the seeing. Flat mouthed "Brother", and couldn't tell if he had said it, too, or not. He would've thought his next words if he could find any, but the sensation stayed sensation. The knife wound was hot and loud. This hurt. This hurt like killing. Done, killed.
The end of the great Composer Brothers. The end...
Flat managed to reach out. His hand slipped under the shoulder of Sharp's cape. It wasn't any warmer. He let go and gripped Sharp's arm lower. Still nothing. Lower again. Still nothing.
There was his Wind Waker. His fingers snapped onto its end, and he pulled it out, slipped it under his own cloak. He reached out to Sharp again and gripped his cape itself, and pulled it down like it was a shroud.
Flat closed his eyes again. Oh, my brother. He made himself let go and tuck his hand in, where the Wind Wakers were.
He wouldn't use two. He definitely did not need two. He might need one…
He fell onto his side to free his arm, and waved his Wind Waker in the notes of the Sun's Song.
Two things moved. One sink, one rise. One ball of light rising…
The paper stopped rustling and the dust stopped snowing. A fly buzzed. There was a thickness all around. It was sweltering. Feet moved, but they fell heavy, fast. Was Sharp still there? He wouldn't bother to look, as he knew he couldn't stay, either, but he tried to push himself onto one hand and call out for attention. He couldn't feel outside to know if he'd done either, successfully, but he knew that he'd tried, or was trying.
He'd made it to daytime, alone, into discovery. Someone!
"Flat," said a voice. "Good gracious, he's still breathing!"
Flat's eyes were open. He could still see only white, but there was more of it, no seeing through it, caught in a screen over his eyes. It didn't hurt, any more than the
"Please," he said. "Get Kafei. Oh, Kafei had better be in town."
"I'll send for him, Sharp. I mean Flat—Flat's alive, you all! Did you hear me? Who did this? Was it last night? It couldn't have been, goodness—who was it?"
"Can only… tell Kafei—please… please, don't make me talk."
"Kafei is on his way. Hold on…"
"Flat. It's me! It's me… Tell me who…"
"We—finished." It was Kafei's voice. Good. Good. "My brother and I. The song… These—these are the notes… The Sun's Song."
Cross-posted to AO3.