Chapter Text
Warriors washed the blood from his hands. The water turned a murky pink as he cleaned the drying blood from under his nails.
He sighed. Leaning over the wash bin, he stayed like that. Quietly. Considering.
“What are we going to do?” He whispered softly. Tiredness laid over him like a blanket.
He could imagine how Twilight felt, but it would never be enough. His life would never be the same. Twilight would carry the weight of that scar and the empty ache that came with it. Though, considering the other countless scars, it was just another to the collection.
But had he acted. If he had realized–
“Pray?”
Warriors startled for the second time that morning, and by the same person.
Sky leaned from the door frame looking less confident about intruding than he had before.
“I’m not much of a spiritualist.” He’d leave the praying to those with less blood on their hands.
Sky hummed in agreement.
“Even those who don’t believe pray when at all odds.” Those words carried something heavier, but when the knight searched for the sense of greater power, all he could see was Sky's sparkling blue eyes. Kind and warm.
“Then pray for us both, I don’t have the time.”
He scrubbed harder at the flecks of blood that reminded him too intimately of the battles he fought across Hyrule.
It was too much watching boys his age dying. Feeling their blood drip down his forearms as he vainly fought to plug the wounds of his fallen men. Knowing he couldn’t stay, that he had to abandon his wounded behind to finish a battle because of a woman’s vain idea of owning him, left him at a bitter impasse.
How many would lose their lives under his command, he thought, blood soaked in the battlefield, dousing in the rains of the Great Fairy's attempt to wash away the stench of death that rotted the Hyrulian army.
How many would he lead into battle knowing he’d be forced to bury who he considered his brothers and sisters?
“You look particularly ill.” Sky said, but not in that knowing voice.
With a pinch in his breath, the knight replied. “Surely, it’s a given with who I’ve been treating?”
Twilight’s blood soaked into him. No matter how much soap he used or how hard he scrubbed, the taint that had infected the hero muddled with the hero's blood. Clotting and darkening whatever it touched.
Up to his forearms, remained a pinkish hue reminder.
“I meant the way you looked at yourself.”
“And what’s that mean?” He snorted.
Sky’s lips pressed together. His chin tilted down.
The knight scoffed when he didn’t answer.
His lips pursed as he looked at himself in the mirror. The reflection that stared at him was both himself and a stranger.
“Link..” Sky whispered.
“You want to talk about this now?” He shook his head. “You think it’ll ease my regrets?” He gritted his teeth from biting back harder.
Sky leaned forward. “Are you feeling regretful?”
The knight seized the counter. Biting his lip he grit out the words that plagued heavy on his mind.
“I think.. I was the last to speak to him. Before he went out and got hurt again.”
He leaned farther over the porcelain bowl.
“You think you deserve the blame for his wandering spirit?” Sky frowned.
“It’s— it’s not the fact I didn’t recognize who I was talking to,” god he’d been so tired. It was a miracle he even noticed the man behind him at all. “It’s who I mistook him for.”
It made Twilight almost dying worse. It made all of Time’s wishy-washy back and forths more painful to watch. It made Warriors want to crawl into a hole and die, because it was so painfully obvious.
Sky smiled hesitantly. “They do look alike, don’t they?”
And Sky only seemed to confirm Warriors’ thoughts and fears.
He squeezed his eyes shut, willing away that crushing weight that settled over his shoulders.
He flinched when Sky reached him. A firm hand to his back. The same Impa or Zelda would give him when words were too little to reassure.
“Guilt feels a void of inescapable responsibility. What comes next won’t be your fault.” Sky murmured softly, like a gentle reminder that Warriors couldn’t control everything in his life.
Not the war, not his destiny, and not the lives of those around him.
“Do you know what comes next?”
For Twilight and Time? For them altogether? For the knight who feared he’d never find peace? Did he even want the answer to that question?
Sky looked away, shuffling himself into a corner.
“That’ll be up to them.” His hands linked together in mock prayer, his head tilted skyward.
When nothing seemed to react, Sky lowered his hands sheepishly. Smiling as best he could despite the circumstances. “Sometimes you can’t pray away an issue.”
Warriors just barely held back a snort.
Sky seemed to look regretful over something. “You should sleep. You’ve been up for too long, I’m sure.”
“I will after I check on everyone.”
Sky gave him a look.
“I’ll get a nap after.” He sighed, raising his hands defensively. Promising.
He wasn’t sure anyways how much longer he could push himself.
“Good. And..” he paused at the doorway. “Sometimes, it’s not about praying. Sometimes, she just likes to hear our voices.”
His lips pressed into a fine line. “Even if I have nothing good to say?”
“Even so.” He smiled, leaving the knight to his bloody water pan and his crooked face in the mirror.
He sighed, wishing for just a moment the world’s problems could rest on someone else’s shoulders.