Linked AU One-Shots

22. Sands of Time

Prompt: Hourglass

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Nothing but darkness shrouded Link's dream. Nothing, but a single hourglass. The sands were all collected at the bottom, still. Unmoving.

But then, it moved, flipped over by his own command although he wasn't there to move it. At once, the sand began drip dripping to the bottom, ticking on, running out. Growing older, time passing as all time should. To advance, to change and develop. To race against the brief moment that was life.

He watched it for some time before his two hands, callused from years of experience, appeared to grip the sides. In one swift motion, he once again tipped it, placing it on its head. The sands moved in reverse. Where there once had been wisdom, there was nativity. Where there once had been advancement, there was regression. What once was a march to the inevitable, life was being continually restored.

In the glass' reflection, he saw his face – the face of which was just a mere child. Blue eyes full of wonder, youthful features he hadn't just a few minutes ago. With his small hands, he flipped the sands of time once more.

Time itself sputtered forwards again. The child looked at his arms and his body. He watched as growth accelerated within him, his slender figure growing more muscular and larger with each passing second. He felt his face, feeling as his baby fat melted away and the bones in his cheeks and jaw became much more pronounced. He stared at his reflection in the glass, watching as his bubbly, wide open eyes narrowed with not only age, but knowledge as well. He watched as his one eye closed, the scar he knew far too well sealing it tight.

No, this doesn't feel quite right either. Gripping the hour glass again, he switched the tides yet again to embrace his youth. But something there was lacking as well.

So which was it? Was he meant to be a youth? An old man? He flipped the hourglass yet again. No, neither of them felt right and both of them didn't feel wrong at once. Link's head began to spin, spin more and more as he flipped it again and again. His mind spun and shook as much as the hourglass itself. As he got more frantic, flipping it more and more, his mind slurred, more and more confused.

He wasn't a kid. He was a kid. He wasn't an adult. He was an adult. All of those four seemed to be true statements, though of course that simply couldn't be. He moved the hourglass faster and faster, until he resorted to shaking it himself. He glared at it, demanding answers from it. But it was just a simple object, it could not answer questions about himself for him. And so, at last, it slipped out of his hands and shattered on the ground below.

And that's when Time woke up with a start in a cold sweat. He had to feel his face and stare at the back of his hands to get confirmation: adult. He was an adult.