A/N: This is a rewrite of a story I began writing for a friend over ten years ago. The original version of this story still exists, however I recently went back to it, to improve upon it. Consider it my tribute to what Nintendo recently did with The Wind Waker. Therefore, I present to you An Act to Follow HD. Please enjoy!

All game characters are copyright to Nintendo.

An Act to Follow — Part 1: "Never shut a trapdoor unless you mean it"

Clock Town was having a festival.

Situated, as legend claimed, in the exact center of the land of Termina, the thickly-walled settlement was a central crossroads, where races and cultures from throughout the land met and mingled. All paths, it was said, led eventually to Clock Town. In a perfect world, it would have been a dream city, a seamless intertwining of philosophies and ideals, a paragon of diversity, tolerance and goodwill.

In reality, Clock Town was best described as a massive jumble of incredibly tenuous harmony, where near-clashes between different cultures and ideals were a daily, if not hourly, battle. The stone city's eternally fragile political situation had long been in the care of a lengthy line of elected mayors, all of whom eventually, for some mysterious reason, developed nervous disorders and heart conditions.

One enterprising mayor who'd served a hundred years ago had reasoned that one way to keep the teetering balance of the city in check was to make sure that each season of the year had some major goodwill festival, carnival, or celebration. The more the populace was distracted with preparations and revelry, the less time there was to focus on other, more politically deconstructive avenues.

The Guild of Merchants had quickly and readily seconded the mayor's proposal, though many muttered that this had been for other, less philanthropic reasons. After all, it was noted, festivals brought in lots of tourists and more significantly, their money. Economic motives notwithstanding, the idea was strongly supported, and quickly adopted into Clock Town's charter of ordinances.

The Carnival of Time was the largest and most well known of these seasonal celebrations, held on the days leading up to and during the spring equinox. Nonetheless, the current year's Carnival of Time had nearly marked the permanent end of all Terminian celebrations. The near apocalyptic events surrounding the most recent spring equinox would have given the enterprising mayor of the past a heart attack, had he not already perished of one ninety six years previously. Fortunately, the crisis had been averted (sources and rumors debated on exactly how, and the Mayor's Office had yet to offer an official explanation), several months had passed, and life in Clock Town had carried tenuously on, as always.

Now with the coming of the summer solstice, it was time for the Midsummer Festival. The cobblestoned streets of the bright walled city were bursting at the seams with various vendors and merchants crouched in small tents, standing behind tables, ensconced in kiosks, all shouting the virtues of their various wares to passers by. The hot morning sun shone down on colorful paper lanterns and flags that were hung on strings across streets and avenues, clashing merrily with the windowboxes bursting with summer blooms and fragrant herbs. Members of every Terminian race and background, gathered together by the festive atmosphere, greeted, pushed, laughed, cursed, tripped, argued, apologized, haggled, and generally jostled each other along every major thoroughfare. Busy tourists and local festival-goers alike mingled, all moving in a mostly amiable way, but in a myriad of different directions. The present mayor breathed a weary sigh of relief, and then ordered another mixed drink to calm his racing heart.

"Er, make that a double, Mr. Barten. Just to be safe."

-;O;-

Amid the crowd, one young girl would have otherwise been hopelessly lost had she not been previously familiar with the city. Even so, navigating the crowd was not simple, nor was it comfortable. She was pulling along a purple-haired boy by the wrist, garnering many a protest from passersby in danger of tripping over them both. At last, the girl paused for a moment to catch her breath, her back resting against a stone wall plastered thick with advertisements and colorful posters. Both children looked back the way they had come.

"We might be going the wrong way!" the brown-haired girl remarked loudly. The crowd was very noisy, and her voice didn't carry well.

"What?!" The purple-haired boy shouted back at her.

"I said, we might be going the wrong way!"

"I still can't hear you very well, but I think we're going the wrong way, Kat!" The boy squeaked a finger in his ear. The girl named Kat rolled her eyes.

"Come on, Kafei, quit playing around. Maybe they went to the mainstage…"

The stage in question was set up in Clock Town's South District, directly in front of the huge stone Clock Tower that gave the settlement its name. The pair's approach was slow, as they fought the bustle of the crowd.

"Kafei," Kat panted, still holding the boy by the wrist, "Next year you should tell your Dad to set traffic patterns!"

Kafei, who was the younger of the current mayor's two sons, shrugged. "He did, it just didn't do any good. You know how people are when they get-" here he paused wickedly for a moment, "-festive."

Kat pointedly ignored that, same as she was ignoring the nearby stand selling mugs of expensive Chateau Romani (a particularly famous local delicacy - alcoholic cream). It was with a good amount of activity later, paired with several wrong turns that found them finally at the stage.

They paused to catch their breath, resting their dampened backs against the stage. Pushing through crowds was a sweaty business in of itself, but it didn't help that it Clock Town was experiencing an exceptionally hot summer this year. "Yuck," said Kat for the both of them, climbing the stairs that led up to stage left. She sat on the edge of the stage, letting her legs dangle. Kafei climbed up after her, glad to be out of the stuffy crowd.

"At least we made it out of there alive," Kafei finally offered, shielding his eyes from the bright sun.

"Yeah, but I'm worried. We still haven't found anyone. We said we'd all meet up at ten, and it's nearly eleven now." Here Kat gestured idly behind them towards the giant Clock Tower.

"You don't think they're hiding out from the sun somewhere?"

"Hmm, maybe." Casually, Kat waggled her boots, kicking the side of the stage in the process.

A return thump from underneath the stage made them both jump. Scowling curiously, Kat rapped her knuckles in the same place, using the classic 'shave and a haircut' rhythm.

Without warning, a grinning red-haired head popped over their shoulders. "Shandara!"

"Gah!" Kafei tripped over himself and fell forwards, landing on hands and knees at the base of the structure. Kat turned an exasperated face towards the newcomer. "Hello there, Nick."

A wide grin spread wickedly across Nick's dark-skinned face. "Be' look'n fer us then, have yeh?" he asked innocently.

"Us?" Kafei croaked dubiously from down on the ground. "So you're all hiding on purpose then?"

With a creak, a trapdoor in the center of the stage suddenly opened. Propping the door open with one arm was a girl with long messy brown hair. In her free hand she held a ceramic mug, from which she slowly took a sip. "We found a big hiding spot under the stage," the girl explained earnestly.

Kafei blinked, his red eyes peering over the edge of the stage at the girl's drink. "Is that-?"

"Coffee," the girl clarified.

"Sond, it's what, stifling out…and you're drinking coffee?!" Hoisting himself back up onto the stage, Kafei huffed and dusted himself off. There were now some telltale dirty smudges on his knees.

"Well, it's not warm coffee, silly!" Sond said as she retreated back under the stage. "We've been waiting for you guys. It isn't so bad once you get out of the sun."

Nick looked at both of them eagerly. "Wanna com' dow' an' see? I t'ink dere's room f' all've us…"

Kat chewed her lip as she slowly digested Nick's thick accent. "Who else is down there?"

The redheaded boy ticked them off on his fingers as he thought of them. "Lessie, me, Sond, Ty, Link, 'n Chiron. B'sides lik' Son' says, 's cooler outta th' sun fer ye, right? Dun bug me any, bu'…eh, 'd rather be wi' m'friends."

Once under the stage, Kat blinked several times, trying to clear the glaring starbursts in her vision. After the brightness outside, the space under the trapdoor seemed pitch black to her. Her vision slowly started to compensate. "So, how'd you find this place anyway?"

"Well," a voice on her left started with an air, "I found it-"

"No you didn't! I found it!" A voice on her right interrupted.

"No, I did!"

"I did! You just tripped over the door!"

Kat sighed.

Sond heard the sigh, muttered something, and suddenly the entire space was illuminated. She held an arrow in both hands, the tip of which was glowing brightly. Everybody flinched from the sudden light. Even illuminated, there wasn't too much to see, as both the floor and ceiling was bare wood as it was the stage itself.

"Yikes! Warn us first before you do that!" A fair-skinned blond boy with the telltale pointed ears of a Hylian shielded his eyes with a long hat that matched his green tunic.

A second boy with dark skin and black hair — save the white streak down the middle — feverishly agreed. "What Fairy Boy said. You could blind somebody with that!"

Kafei smirked as he settled. "Anyone else find it funny that we're basically using holy light arrows like a common torch?"

"I'm just being practical," Sond replied simply, needing to concentrate to keep the arrow lit.

There was general sniggering at this statement. Nick snorted from his place in the corner, now clutching a bowl of what appeared to be chili. Chewing his spoon, he looked suddenly thoughtful. "'Ey Ty, wha' 'bout Tim?"" he said finally, leveling his gaze at the boy with the white streak in his hair. Both of them were Volcanians, members of a volcano-dwelling race that had prominently dark-colored skin, peculiarly colored hair and eyes, their own language, and a supernatural affinity for fire and heat.

The boy named Ty also had a monkeylike tail that currently curled about his ankles. He became thoughtful at Nick's question. "I dunno. Thought he was in the back."

"Yeah, he was," Chiron, a fifth boy with short dark brown hair remarked, idly stretching. "I saw him trailing behind us, but then we must've lost him out there." He shrugged as if unconcerned. "Maybe 'ee tripped and fell."

Link, Ty, Nick, and Chiron looked at each other at this, then began laughing uproariously. Kafei smiled nervously. Kat and Sond shared an exasperated sigh.

"Y'know," Sond started, "You boys sure act immature sometimes…I mean, I know we're like, ten, but still…"

"Shouldn't we at least let him know where we are?" Kat added gently. "Or try to find him? He could have gotten hurt…he's…well, y'know…"

"A shrimp?"

"A runt?"

"A half-pint?"

"A' anklebiter?"

"Uh, vertically challenged?" The answers came all at once.

Link tried hard not to smirk. "Eh, I'm sure good ol' Timbe will be just fine…he's probably napping somewhere, you know how he is."

Nick agreed quickly. "Righ' th' lobo prolly got sick n' tired of th' crowd, got 'ungry, wen' t' hunt 'imself something to eat, an' then too' some winks."

Link gestured gratefully at the redhead. "Right. He's probably found himself somewhere to plop down for a bit…well, if he wasn't trampled first, that is…"

This statement started the boys' sniggering anew. Sond sighed. "Guys, it really isn't that funny. We really should…"

Ty and Nick looked at each other. "Okay, say you're right," Ty said finally, his tailtip twitching. "Fine, we go look for Timbre, even though that means you guys going back out into that heat-"

"An' gettin' all sweaty," Nick added with a grin.

Kat frowned slightly. "Well, it isn't like we're going into an inferno or anything, it's just the summer heat-"

A loud creaking thump from above made all conversation cease for twenty seconds.

"Um," Chiron said finally. "What in Din's name was that?"

Sond shrugged, fumbling with the arrow as she took another sip from her mug. "Probably just someone putting stuff on the stage." A second thump, far louder than the first, caused her to add to her statement. "Or throwing stuff."

Ty made a face, shaking his head as dust fell into his hair. "They must be setting up for a show or something."

Link grunted. "Well then, I've had enough fun down here. Let's leave." Crawling over to the trapdoor, he pushed up with both hands. The door gave a creak, but refused to move. Link's blue eyes widened. "Guys…it's stuck!"

Sond and Kat groaned aloud.

-;O;-

Timbre woke up on the upper ledge of the Clock Tower with an abrupt grunt. Behind him, the colorfully painted mural that was the face of Termina's central clock steadily rotated with each second's passage. Each minute, it would make a slightly larger clunking sound and the clock face would turn slightly. Over the course of twelve hours, the entire mural would slowly invert itself.

According to the city's historical records, the Clock Tower was one of the oldest buildings in the city. Hundreds of years ago, it had originally housed a millworks, built over a small river that had run through Termina Field. As time passed and the settlement grew, the river had been slowly diverted by new structures and culverts, until over time the city simply swallowed it, the river going almost completely underground. The millworks had long since closed. Some innovative engineer, hired by the growing city, had adapted the old mill's waterwheel to the newly subterranean river, and now it provided an internal power source for the enormous clock, as well as some other buildings in the city. The tower itself was built from a heavy rounded riverstone base that had come from the millworks' original building. Local folklore had it that the clock had never stopped since it had been built those many years ago, and it was true that most people who owned their own timepieces would set theirs to the massive clock.

Perfectly on cue, the clock's face turned again, and the massive structure boomed the hour. Timbre rubbed sleepily at his forehead with the back of a gloved hand, his ears ringing. Must've dropped off in this heat, he thought, stifling a yawn.

It was too warm, especially to be wearing an overcoat. The boy shrugged out of his coat and rotated his shoulders, but the sun beat down on his back just as mercilessly as it had before. The threatening yawn finally erupted, and the boy ran a hand through spiky black hair. As his brain slowly rose out of its sleepy stupor, he groggily recalled how he'd gotten up there.

Not too long ago, he'd been following his friends through the massive crowds. At some point he'd tripped, stumbled against someone's knees, and hit the ground. When he'd picked himself up again, his friends had already vanished. He'd wandered aimlessly for a while, before climbing partway up the Clock Tower onto its maintenance ledge, mostly to get away from that infernal crowd, and also because it might be easier to spot his friends. Sometime between then and now he must have dozed off.

So where had his friends all got to? Staring at the crowds below him with idle green eyes, he didn't spot anyone he recognized. There was a sudden loud sound below, and he focused on a large muscular Hylian man with hair that was dyed and styled to resemble a blue flame. The man walked onto the mainstage directly below the tower, carrying a crate that from its size alone looked incredibly heavy. Despite this, the man was hefting it on one shoulder with an incredibly natural ease.

Pausing in the very middle of the stage, he turned his head. "Oy! Ana, this stage seems a bit…unsteady." To make his point, he stomped his foot heavily on the stage's surface. The stage shook with a resounding boom.

A female voice, out of sight, answered the man's complaint. "It's only a temporary stage, you know. Mayor Dotour said it comes down after the festival. And please, don't stomp all over like that. Remember what happened last time you did that. You do remember, right Kei?"

The muscular man, named Kei, laughed at the memory. "I don't think that landlord was too happy. He set down the crate, causing the stage to shake once more. "Well, there's th' equipment."

Timbre blinked, interested. Equipment? Were they an acting troupe, or something else? They weren't people he recognized as locals. Shifting position so that he was lying belly down, he peered down over the very edge of the ledge, chin in hands.

"By the by," Kei paused from his task of opening the crate. "Have you seen Tee anywhere around?" The man looked off to the side, supposedly at the lady he was talking to.

"Exploring. Y'know how she is." A slight woman with long hair that matched Kei's blue hair color perfectly stepped onto the stage with a smaller crate. "This'n is just the costumes. Just leave them both over there, we won't need to open them up until later. Hm, curtains aren't up yet, I hope they get to it before tonight. Either way, we still need to go see the Mayor's wife about our contract."

So much for that. Timbre slumped, threatening to yawn again. Normally he was always drowsy around this time of day, true, but the heat was really starting to get to him. He let his eyelids droop, the rhythmic clunking of the clock behind him threatening to put him back to sleep.

-;O;-

Underneath the stage, all seven trapped children braced themselves against the trapdoor, in an attempt to force it open.

"How does a door that opens upwards get stuck, anyways?" Link grunted.

Ty gritted his teeth. "They must've put something heavy on top of it!"

"…An' if we push har' enough, we mi' be able t' move it off!" Nick added.

"Either that or we're stuck down here…" Chiron squeezed his eyes shut.

"Please don't say things like that…just push!" Kat groaned.

Sond had been forced to extinguish her light arrow to use both hands on the door, which meant the entire area was in darkness. "You know what we could do…"

"What?!" All the boys grunted at once.

"If we all pushed, really hard, all at once, it might work better. I dunno."

Everyone exchanged glances, which didn't help at all in complete darkness.

"Count of three, then?" Kafei said finally.

"Alright then," Sond said finally. "I'll count, we all push on three..."

"One…" Everyone took a deep breath and braced their legs.

"Two…"

-;O;-

Timbre was just beginning to doze off again when an alarmingly loud crash made his head snap up.

Technically, it was several crashes. Many things had happened at once.

"THREE!"

The trapdoor Kei had been unknowingly standing upon flew open violently, sending him stumbling backwards. The stage shuddered ominously.

One moment later, a half-dozen-plus-one heads popped out of the open trapdoor, all of them blinking owlishly in the sudden midday sunlight.

Timbre laughed quietly to himself. Well, it was no wonder then that he hadn't seen his friends in a while! Leaning over the edge of the ledge, he listened for their reactions.

"Well," said Kat finally, "I think that worked."

Kei smirked, though he sounded mildly annoyed as he drew himself up. "Hmm, next time you're stuck down there, maybe you should just pound on the door first before forcing it open?"

Introductions were being made all around as Timbre racked his brain for something to say as a greeting. He finally gave up and just waved instead. "Hey!"

Two adults and seven children turned their heads up in his direction.

"Uh," Timbre found himself grinning nervously. "Long time no see…" he finished lamely.