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Chapter Text

Wild wakes to a head full of fog and a distant, dull stiffness caught up in his body, and he knows right then and there that it’s going to be a bad day.

He breathes, shallow and light, and keeps his eyes closed, even though the light of day presses up against the thin skin of his eyelids. A heavy draping of warmth radiates across one shoulder blade, running heat up his neck, pooling in his hair- it’s too hot, dizzyingly hot, and there’s sweat tickling at his temples, an exhausted heaviness weighing down his head; as though the sun has turned its very touch into something thick and vicious, the weight of honey with all the heat of molten stone, letting it seep into his skull, pinning his body to the bed below him.

It’s nothing to do with how much he slept, and everything to do with why he doesn’t dare move a muscle; why he fights against himself to keep his limbs loose and relaxed and still.

If he can just- go back to sleep. It would be okay to- this isn’t the road, with monsters lurking in the shadows, with the risk of an ambush always in the air. This inn’s a rickety old thing, salt-beaten and weather-worn, and the elderly widow who runs it had been half-singing, half-humming a rising-falling tune in rhythm with the rolling of unseen waves. She’d laughed in delight when Wind, face unerringly turned towards the sea and eyes half-lidded, had quietly sung the next verse when she’d stopped in order to greet them, startling the little sailor from his state of walking dreams, and he’d been sheepish for all of two seconds before they’d both launched into excited chatter at one another, their accents sliding down thicker and heavier in mirror of one another the longer they spoke.

By the time they’d all been shooed into their rooms, they’d long gone past the point where Wild stopped being able to understand a word in three, Wind and old woman alike caught up in their rolling version of Hylian that smoothed out the edges so much it was as though they’d started speaking another language entirely. When Wild had closed his eyes, it was to the dual sounds of the old widow and the sailor’s voices, winding in through the cracks in the worn-out walls, singing a song that ultimately lulled him to sleep.

There’s no danger here. They’ve all been on the road long enough. If he manages to fall back asleep, no one will bother him- there’s enough of their number that does the same, taking the first day in a town to catch up on true, deep sleep, rather than the spotty, restless slumber of travel. 

The waves, in the distance, still roll. There’s the sound of people moving around beyond his door, but not many- a clatter of wood-on-wood. The gentle fragrance of plumeria, of salt water, of a slight hint of smoke, slipping into the room to tease at his nose. Beyond- crying gulls. Someone laughs.

His next breath is just a little too deep, and it shudders on the exhale. 

Inadvertently, his foot twitches.

And sets everything awake.

The gasping hiss, hitching in the middle, punches its way out of his chest without his control as his leg and hip break from stiff stillness to the unrelenting press of pain; it doesn’t help, it never does, to draw it up, to cradle his leg as close to his chest as possible, the movement setting off his side, his other leg, his shoulders and his bad arm, flaring all the way up his neck, breaking white sparks in his jaw as it clenches, the thick weight, the dizzying fog in his head growing thicker as he squeezes his eyes shut hard-

And breathes. 

Sharp. In. hissing through his teeth, shaking with the strain; cold, and isn’t that funny, considering how warm he is, how the world is melting around him.

And out. Breaking and jumping; forcing it out anyway, leaving his lungs limp, leaving sparks dancing in his head, filling up all those empty places where memories once dwelled; filling them with light, light, light, thoughtless and spinning.

Again.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In…

…Out.

One more time.

One more time.

…

…

…

… 

Okay.

He unfolds himself from the little ball he’s curled into- stretching out his legs flat once more, biting the inside of his cheek as another shudder catches on the edge of an exhale; forcing fisted hands to relax; uncurling the protective huddle of spine and ribs twisting up around his core to lie flat once more.

Wild licks his lips, and tastes salt and pain, sweat and sunlight; lets his fingers dig into the mattress below- all rustling dry sea grass, that dusty, sweet fragrance, stirred up from the force of his grip, mingling with the scent of the clean, sun-bleached linen under his face, with those last whispers of storage herbs clinging still to its weave. One more moment to indulge his pain; one more moment, with every old wound crying out to be noticed all at once.

Well.

So much for going back to sleep.

It will pass , Wild reminds himself, as another breath sets off another shudder, the strain against his ribs flaring alive the scars sprawling up his chest in wailing protest. It will pass. An endless mantra, one he’s told himself a hundred times over since the start of his world, the rebirth of this body, the first sunrise to his counting. There is comfort in the familiarity. There is exhaustion. It will pass.

It always does.

On the bedside table: the Sheikah slate, asleep and dull across its face. It’s in reach- or it was, when he fell asleep last night, perfectly in reach of his arm. But at some point in the night, he moved, and now, to set his hand on it, to wake it up, he’s going to have to move closer- his arm, as it is, inescapably falling too short.

Inside the slate lies a carved wooden box, and inside the carved wooden box lies a neat line of corked glass bottles, filled with thin, bitter medicine, a potion brewed just for him, a swallow per glass. In a little bag, nestled in with the glass bottles, is a jar of salve- sharp, potent, and spicy, a lick of shiver-cold cream against skin before it melts into numbing warmth. 

He needs the both of them. The medicine, to settle the ghosts screaming through his bones back down to something manageable. Salve, to numb the pain down until the medicine does its work, to let him try to sleep through the worst of it.

But to do that, he’s going to have to move.

Wild breathes. Deliberately, intentionally, relaxes his jaw, and opens his eyes to the pale, weathered-wood ceiling; to the strands of shells, strung across the open shutters in the windows; to the little shelf right below, with its cheerful bundle of bright flowers and greenery, tucked in a crooked little vase, drinking in the sunshine.

Salve. Medicine. Sleep.

That’s all he needs. All he has to do. A few moments of sharper pain, spent to send the rest of it on its way all the swifter.

It’s only a few moments.

From somewhere outside, there’s a clatter of wood; still, the rolling of the waves, the sound of the sea. The old widow’s voice, indistinct, picks up in a distant melody.

Just a few moments of movement, and then it’ll be over.

Best not to dwell on it.

He pushes himself up onto his elbows, and grits his teeth against the ache, the pressure, dull and agonizing and unrelenting, flaring up like a bed of coals in his marrow; a starburst of pain, sharp and bright and white, breaking in his jaw from the strain. 

It will pass, Wild reminds himself, as his arm, shaking, fighting to stay in the air against the pull of stiff, heavy scar tissue, strains up against the weight weakening it as he reaches, the smooth, cool surface of the slate, just barely, kissing against his fingertips.

It will pass.

It will pass.

Chapter Text

“How is he?”

“Fading back out again,” Warriors murmurs, not moving from his chair at the bedside- nor lifting his fingers from the careful press against the inner curve of a limp wrist, that light pulse hidden under the skin.

“N’mm not,” comes the slurred protest from the bed as Sky steps carefully over the tangle of bags and gear on the floor.

“Sure you aren’t,” Warriors soothes lightly, but as Sky reaches his side, he can see the lines of tension, stark and clear under his eyes; all the stress and exhaustion painted all over his face, and not one bit showing in his voice. 

Hyrule, eyes almost completely closed, starkly pale under his freckles, probably would have something to say about that, if he wasn’t so transparently clinging to the barest concept of consciousness by the edges of his fingernails. For all that there’s a stack of old rags submerged in a tub of water out back, staining that same water rusty-red with what was scrubbed off his skin, the sharp-metal scent of blood still seemed to cling to his skin like a haze.

It’s a distinct improvement over his state only a six scant hours earlier.

That doesn’t, however, make him well.

Sky nudges up against Warrior’s shoulder. “I’ll take over,” he says, voice low, dropping softer as Hyrule’s eyelashes make one last valiant flicker, his breath evening out. A few more seconds, and he’ll slip back under. “You should go rest.”

Warriors seems like he ignores Sky for all of three heartbeats. Then, finally, he drags his eyes from Hyrule’s slack, pale face, meeting Sky’s eyes.

“... The others.”

It’s not a question. Sky knows how to answer, regardless.

“Wild and Time are both resting. Legend and Four went out to search for any fairies, and Twilight and Wind are working to source some food.”

“Injuries.”

“Wild’s not going to lose his arm. It was touch-and-go, but the potion managed to work enough that he’s just going to have a lot of stitches and probably a month or so of recovery time. Time’s leg is going to be healed enough to walk on by tomorrow, though the stab wound’s likely going to keep him down for another day. Wind got hit in the head, but he doesn’t have any concussion symptoms- I personally checked- and Twilight’s watching him just in case.”

Warriors nods, slowly, and still doesn’t move.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know.”

That, at least, gets a scoff. “I’m aware.”

And yet, you’re still sitting here with a finger to his pulse. Sky leaves that unspoken, and forges on; “It was bad luck, getting caught between the cave and the wolfos like that. At least with you there, none of them managed to get him-” he doesn’t actually want to say it, a little squirm of discomfort in his stomach- instead, he gestures at his own throat.

Warriors, even though he’s sitting there with the proof of how dire that need was- bandages wrapped all around his arms, deep, stitched tears from hungry teeth and claws all up both forearms, one arm fully broken from the wrenching assault it endured, savage enough that his bracers were utterly ruined from what they were made to endure- still manages to seem unconvinced of this. 

It’s not audible- that perfect control over his voice, again. 

Still, when he says, shortly- “Sure.”- it’s the set of his shoulders, the angle of his jaw, that give away his true feelings.

Not the right time, it seems. Not until Hyrule’s back on his feet, probably, and able to nail his own continued survival into Warrior’s head.

Sky sighs quietly, and this time, nudges Warriors with more force, still taking care for the state of his arms. 

“Go. Get some air, some water, check on the others. Maybe try and convince Wind to take a nap when he gets back.”

At least Warriors gets up. The problem is, afterwards, he doesn’t go to walk away, hovering instead. 

“He still needs to have someone watch him-”

Nope. None of that. Go on, shoo, shoo. Sky’s had perpetual bags under his eyes since he was seventeen and falling through the cloud barrier for the first time; he knows the warning signs.

Warriors needs a nap, badly, and he needed it an hour ago. All Sky needs to do is get him in sight of Twilight, Time, or Wind, and any one of them are more than capable of either tricking him into taking a rest or forcing the issue.

Sky doesn’t have that sort of leverage, unfortunately. Hasn’t managed to work out the secret, not quite yet.

“I’ll watch him. Promise,” and Sky really does mean it, even though Hyrule’s long since passed the point where it was evident that he’d make it through the night, and same for the day yet to come. Not that he doesn’t need someone sitting with him at all- it’s just that instead of it being borne of a concern that he’d stop breathing, it’s more to have someone to remind him not to move when he wakes, so as not to break the precious, fragile skim of healing slowly trickling its steady way through his veins.

There’s a second timer they’re all waiting on- another invisible clock, that none of them can see or sense, and that’s for Hyrule’s magic to recover. It’s not just because of that healing spell of his. That he was almost completely emptied out of magic on top of it all-

-Well. There’s more than one reason he keeps fading in and out like this, according to those in their group that have the ability to wield magic of their own. Blood loss, magic bottoming out, and the shock of severe injury all mixed together makes for a dangerous combination, and Hyrule was teetering on a deadly edge there for far longer than anyone was comfortable with.

He’s just going to have to endure the coddling he’ll be met with, when he wakes. Call it a bit of repayment for the worry- it’s still there, even knowing that he’s going to recover, that he’s going to be okay, after Sky manages to chase Warriors out of the room, takes up his bedside vigil, sets eyes on Hyrule’s face.

Still pale; still caught up in the grips of unconsciousness; still haunted by the ghost of his close call, the specter of spilled blood stubbornly lingering; hand and fingers just a little too cold when Sky picks it up, cradles it gently in his own grip.

But under blankets and bandages; through stitches and his own shredded skin, slowly being pieced back together bit by bit under the gentle direction of the potion’s magic-

He’s healing.

He’s going to make it through this. 

He is.

(And while that’s not enough to ease the anxiety tangled up in his guts- well.

It’s still a comfort, all the same.)

Chapter Text

It’s the riverbank that gets him; swollen by the storm, churning and raging with the burden of more water than its banks were expecting to hold. 

Of course, it’s hardly the only active force at work here.

A Lizalfos screams in Wild’s face as his back hits the ground, all globs of wet saliva tinted with blood, all cold scales and razor claws slicing through cloth and skin as he scrabbles for a better grip on his blade, the blood roaring in his ears almost drowning out Twi’s yell, Legend cursing, Wind’s shriek-

It’s not the best way to use a sword, using it as a bludgeon. The last time he did that in Four’s sight, he almost got his ear twisted off with the smithy’s ire.

But the claws slam down dangerously close to his neck, and there’s a set of razor teeth in his face, and instinct takes over-

The Lizalfos shrieks as it goes sprawling, and Wild doesn’t even bother to get fully to his feet as he flings himself upwards and drives the blade down.

That’s mistake number one.

Mistake number two: he’s lost track of where the river’s edge is. In his mind; it’s several yards back, safe enough to dismiss.

There’s a quiet gurgling sound from behind. He pivots- footing still unsteady- takes his eyes off the fallen Lizalfos.

Mistake number three.

A force slams into his back- his head spins- the world spins- a distant shout- impact-

His head goes under.

The Shrine of Resurrection glows soft, soothing blue, cradling his fallen body, wrapping around him like a shroud, and-

-he forgets.

(He always forgets.)

It holds him gentle, that lovely blue; painless and quiet and still. It is a dreamless silence. It is a peaceful silence. He is weightless. The Shrine sings a lullaby, sweet and voiceless, and he is asleep.

It is so, so blue.

(And there’s mistake number four.)

This is water, not the Shrine. This is a river, a fight writhing and screaming beside it, and he’s spilling blood into its depths, offering a feast for what lurks in the dark.

And his body, treacherously, once again forgets that this shade of blue is not the one that cradled him for a century’s patient healing.

The Shrine was cool and soothing; balm on a wound. When he had opened his eyes, when cool air broke over his face, when he sat up in a sealed tomb and breathed, still dripping, still dazed with slumber- on that first exhale, blue had bled out from his lungs, dripped down his chin, fell down to glow faintly on the dustless floor. 

You can breathe, inside the Shrine of Resurrection. There’s no reason to think you can’t- when you’ve spent a hundred years breathing only its gentle blue waters, in fact, it matters not that you don’t remember a moment of it: it’s air, that seems odd inside your chest.

This only applies, of course, to the Shrine itself. He's learned this lesson a hundred times over, a hundred different ways, ever since he left it.

And yet; through dazed instinct alone, he inhales.

The river rushes in.

It burns, pressure violent and ripping apart his lungs- he tries to- he needs- air- he can’t find- he tries lashing out with blind arms- but the side of the Shrine are in the way- but they aren’t- he has to climb out- something solid slams into his arm but it's gone in a flash- he has to sit up-

-but which way is up? Where is- at his back there is- nothing- Shrine- blue- dark- static, breaking- consuming, fingertips to arms to shoulders and-

-there is-

-there’s only-

Blue.

Blue.

Blue.

All is quiet.

All is still.

That is simply how it is- how the world is. How it always has been. How it always will be.

Only blue.

Only silence.

Then; it breaks.

From nothingness to existence, sensations exploding all into being all at once- such a hopeless tangle of senses, all blurring together into something agonizingly violent, melting together into an incomprehensible mass that all he can do is reel in the face of them-

A blow strikes his back, shatters his soul back into his body- and he’s coughing, choking, the river rising in his throat, fighting with the air for living space. Another blow- more of the river gives way.

Sharp snatches of sound filters in, jumping in fragments between the jarring thumps rocking through his body, and the last of the blue drains away, dripping from his lungs and eyes and hair until it’s all gone and he’s left lying panting on wet, bumpy stones, rasping in painful gulps of air that halt and jump and skitter on the lingering droplets clinging to his breath.

“-got you, I’ve got you, come on,” the voice winds into his ears so distantly at first he almost dismisses it in favor of the white roar in his ears, the deafening cadence of his heartbeat. But the both of them start to quiet down, and the voice gets closer in return, and  when his breath catches and snags and he starts coughing again there’s a few more thumps rocking through his spine, jolting his lungs, impact rattling loose another wave of the river still pooled in his chest.

And that, really, is what manages to shake Wild’s mind the rest of the way free from the ghost of the Shrine’s gentle lullaby, and he digs in his heels, claws through the fog, and opens his eyes.

The riverbank sprawls out before him, smooth gray stones forming a shore in a vast stretch. Before him: wavering, blurry forms. Light glints off of metal. Movement, sharp and frantic- too much so, too far away for his eyes to track with the burning of water still caught under his eyelids, all blurring together into something soft and smooth and distant.

Something presses against his shoulder, and Wild rolls onto his back.

Legend, dripping wet and sharp-eyed, is what meets him- at the eye contact, when Wild’s eyes catch on that dark gray-blue above him, Legend hisses out a half-formed curse and there’s the feeling of hands shoving at his side, for some reason, but why-

“Back on your side, Wild,” Legend isn’t the coaxing type, can’t be called calm in a crisis, not by a long shot, but he’s sharp - that’s the thing, the little thing that hides underneath the snarky teasing and endless drama and prickly-cactus exterior. No matter what chaos there is, Legend somehow always manages to cut right through it, make his voice heard. “-Come on, work with me here, no don’t choke again-”

Wild tries to inhale to respond, but coughs on the air. And then can’t stop coughing, one hand shooting up to his chest, twisting into the fabric as he tries to claw at it, tries to tear off whatever it is that’s tied tight around his ribs, compressing them, too sharply to truly inhale-

Legend curses again, and this time the shove up against Wild’s back has force to it, sending him almost too far over, the side of his face pressing into the stones.

Soft grit presses into too-sensitive skin, some catching up into his mouth when Wild licks his lips, a droplet of water traveling down the edge of a scar, catching up along the side of his nose. Legend’s hand, the cold metal of the rings pressing into his skin, doesn’t leave his shoulder; Legend himself, head up, eyes flickering back and forth between Wild and off in the distance, still in a crouch beside him. The tips of his hair is still dripping.

That has got to be killing his knees, Wild thinks, a bit hazily, and has to blink away another drop of water as it falls from above.

A moment of almost-quiet- the sounds of combat further away, almost inaudible, and not near as fever-pitch, as Wild pants in short breaths of air, even that beginning to even out as the frantic reach for air releases its vice-grip on his mind, shifting down to slower, deeper breaths, filling back up his starved, aching lungs, mind slowly, gradually, starting to become clearer.

For a moment, it’s like there’s a bubble. A quiet little spot of peace, where the only sound, now, is their breathing.

They sit in the silence for a moment.

“... Ow,” Wild rasps, finally.

“Fascinating,” Legend says, as dry as they’re currently not. There’s still a little easing of something tight around his eyes. “Tell me more.”

“Ow,” Wild elaborates, and half-heartedly whacks at Legend’s hand as he tries to roll back onto his back, and Legend tries to stop him. 

“No, do not do that, the others will actually kill me if you manage to drown yourself on dry land-”

“The fight,” Wild manages to push out, and it scrapes horribly against his throat, and he’s coughing again, rattling up through his chest-

“I said no!” Fighting against someone’s attempts at rolling you like a ball is a lot harder when you’re actively suffocating. “Oh, for- Oh thank the Three, Twilight! Twi, get your ass over here, Wild won’t stop trying to become a damned Zora-”

Ass? Zora?

“On’y the older ones are,” Wild says, hazily, and then forgets what he was saying in between the next cough, and managing to grab a little breath. What was he talking about…? Zora? What about the Zora? 

“Huh?” comes from above. Then there’s a second face.

Oh, hi Twilight.

“Hi yourself,” Twilight says. Then, “How long was he under?”

“Not long enough to stop breathing, but he already coughed up half the river-”

Their voices blur together on the edges of his ears; the world starts to blur, go distant and hazy. Above him, the sky goes soft- clouds gently shading into the blue, blue sky.

Blue…

The world blurs further. Gets softer; the blue starts to drip down from above, heavy and soothing. So heavy- heavy limbs. Heavy eyes. Eyelids falling- dimming down the blue…

… Maybe. 

Just maybe. 

It’d be okay if he just… lets himself rest… just for a minute…

Just… a short… nap… 

…

Chapter Text

Wind knows they’re there.

He can’t see them, eyes too blurry, almost burning with how itchy they are- sight’s useless, has been useless, and he wants to bury his face in the snow and scrub, try and cool them down, soothe them with the cold, but-

He can’t see. There’s a wheeze in his chest he can’t shake, panting through the breathlessness of fighting with something more on top. His face is itching so badly that he can’t help but pay attention to it- the result of just slipping for a second. Tripping over a gnawed-on bone, falling face-first into the fur of a fallen Wolfos, and while he’d manage to get to his feet before the teeth found him, now he has no choice but to-

The wind parts.

Wind throws himself to the side, following the currents of the air, and cuts down, hard and sharp, and gets a yelp and the sound of retreating paws in return. 

Not too far, though. Melding back into the rest; back to the circling pack it goes.

And it leaves behind a gift of the scent rancid fur, reeking in the cold air, thick and greasy and bristling with dark, coarse hairs come free, floating on the air until-

Wind sneezes so hard his head drops from the sheer force of it, helpless to stop his body from doing what it wants. Again, and again, and he has to swing his blade in the middle of a sneeze to ward off the opportunistic wolves-

His eyes are streaming. He can’t see anything but vague movement-

-But that’s fine. That’s fine! 

This isn’t the first time Wind’s been effectively blind in a fight. It’s not even the worst off he’s been, in those times. 

(No concussion, no burns, no curse twisting his mind and making it so he can’t tell left from right or up from down. No grabbing hands, waiting to throw him into the dark. No screaming, malevolent dead, reaching for the life they could sense still beating in his chest.

Compared to the Earth Temple- 

Is there any challenge that could match the Earth Temple?)

They're just Wolfos. They’re only Wolfos.

Wind fought a great, malevolent spirit deep under the ocean that would have sucked his soul from his body and burned it up for power and further life while feeling worse than this.

He can’t see. Breathing’s a struggle, yes.

But out here, he has the wind. He can feel, can hear; he can hear the circling pack, the crunching of their claws through the snow. The wind; it sings to him, winds around his skin, the melody giving away positions, breath, attacks in the making.

Underground, there was no wind. Underground, there were no steps to give away his foe’s position; no breath. No mass. Only burning.

And even then, he still won. All of that, and he still won.

Of course he can do this. Of course he’s got this, vision or no. He’s alone now, yes, but he was alone for a long, long time, before this quest began. 

He’s got this.

The dead failed to claim him.

The wolves will have no better luck in their hunt for his bones.

Chapter Text

“Oh fuck,” is all Hyrule has time to breathe, and then the impact of his knees hitting the ground jar him all the way up his spine as he skids to a halt beside Wild.

Wild shudders, sheet-white and shocky, blinking too-blue eyes up at Hyrule as his hands hover, uncertain where it’s safe to touch- blood on his face, side, all down his arm, his legs-

“Good- good thing i- it’s not-” Wild stutters out, slurring a bit, unable to fully wrangle his mouth into movement, the ragged, bleeding wound across his cheek- across half his face- mangling the sounds-

“Don’t talk,” Hyrule says.

Wild forges on anyway. “The Old- Old Man h-here-”

Hyrule tries to ease away Wild’s tunic from his side- the belts keep getting in the way, but the way the fabric’s being dyed in slow-creeping red-

“‘d give that-give that l- look,” Wild’s voice catches as Hyrule manages to peel away enough of the fabric to see-

It’s like a punch in the sternum, when he realizes what he’s looking at; a sickening moment of being winded, without ever having been struck a blow.

“Your scars-” Hyrule wastes two seconds of staring, motionless-

-and almost lunges over himself to reach out with hands limned in blue, magic humming bright and fierce in the creases of his fingers as he presses the healing spell into Wild’s torn-open skin.

“Who did this to you? How?” He can’t stop himself from biting out, almost as sharp as Legend at his finest- he can’t help the tone, even though he tries to gentle it down, he’s just- “What- it had to be a spell, of some kind, to split open all your scars like that-”

Wild shudders again as, bit by bit, Hyrule manages to coax his skin to mend over- and it’s a fight, for some reason, the very memory of the scars themselves fighting him, it almost feels like- “Wiz- Wizrobe,” he manages to pant, and then closes his eyes tight, hisses in a sharp breath, and jerks his chin to the side.

Hyrule follows the movement from habit more than anything else. Then his eyes catch on a tattered strip of cloth, a tumbling of something glittering in the glass, and he’s paying much more attention to that particular spot.

“Got it,” Wild’s jaw worked for a second. It took Hyrule a moment to realize that it was an attempt at one of those wry little smiles that so often grace Wild’s face. “But not, um.” a breathy catch of the voice, for all that he’s getting steadier, more color with every second. “Not before it also- it also got me.”

The last bit of weeping scar closes up underneath the pressure of Hyrule’s magic; he rocks back on his heels for a moment, closing his eyes as his head lightly spins for just a scant heartbeat.

Then he opens his eyes, and says, “Next time I say ‘it’ll be fine if we split up for just a minute’, give me a thump upside the head, would you?”

Wild stretches his jaw out, palm cautiously pressed against the joint, with a distinct pop and a wince, before daring to open his mouth and reply, “Only if you’ll do the same to me.”

“Deal.”

Chapter Text

“Nowhere to run, little heroes,” comes the breathy croon, echoing around the great hall; too many echoes, it seems, for such a place, bouncing and building and disorienting in direction and scale.

Or maybe that’s just the blow to the head Legend took earlier.

Curled up against his side, crammed between the wall and Legend’s arm, Wind curls up into an even smaller ball as he digs through the pouch at his hip, hands busy and searching even as his ears twitch and he glances up every now and then, clearly nervous. 

The cut across his cheek, dangerously close to the eye, slicing through a cluster of freckles- well, the best that can be said for it is that a swallow of their last potion stopped it from leaving a blood trail behind them for the hunter tracking them through the palace to follow.

It’s going to scar, and it’s going to be a nasty one. Something to boast about, assuming they survive.

Legend, for his part, does his best to cover the Sailor’s frantic movements with his body, and keep his ice rod at the ready, brandishing it out at the room as a whole- give him just one sign they’ve been made, and he’ll freeze the whole damn room over, if he has to. And even if he won’t.

Precise aiming’s a bit beyond him, at the moment. And not just because of that little bonk to his skull, earlier.

No, that credit goes to the combined efforts of not just the lightning spell he got caught in- and hell, what a damn time not to be wearing that one specific ring he has that would have countered that spell, why the actual fuck did he get cocky enough to take it off, that’s how they get you- but also, the wind spell that more or less shredded up his left arm to something that sure looks a lot like somebody went at it with a lot of knives.

Now that was a bitch to keep from leaving a blood trail, even with the help of the rest of that last potion of theirs the Sailor had all but forced down his throat.

So, you could say, between not only the blood loss, but also those last bits of electricity dancing around in his blood, the mostly-healed head injury, and the fact that his actual dominant hand’s out of play- 

Well. His aim’s been shakier, but not by much. Unfortunate, if you care about things like property damage, or the like.

Luckily- the one damn thing they do have going for them- Legend does not currently care about property damage.

“Got it!” Wind almost gives a triumphant cry, but manages to mute himself down to a whisper as he pulls out his bow, arrow already nocked; as Legend watches, the tip lights up in gold; radiant, shining, and bright enough that Wind hastily tips the head down to hide it in the fold of his tunic.

“Alright,” Legend breathes, licking his lips. Wind is warm, pressed up against his side like this- and being notably careful not to bump into Legend’s arm, all wrapped up in layers of cloth and bandaging, slid in between outer and under-tunic, bound to his chest in a vain hope that the enchantments of his outer-tunic will shield it from further mangling.

That hope’s pretty flimsy. Legend’s not exactly banking on it.

“Heroes,” comes the croon again; heels on marble, echoing, echoing-

A flicker of rich, embroidered silks, floating between two statues like a ghost.

Tension snaps into Wind’s body like a bowstring.

“Not yet,” Legend hisses, barely voicing the words, leaning back to press Wind against the wall. “Wait…”

“This is my castle, little heroes,” the witch almost sings. Another shadow of silk, gliding between pillars. Closer. She’s closer. “There’s nowhere you can hide from me. No way out. Why not just surrender?”

Wait…

“You must be tired. Don’t you hurt? Don’t you want it to be over?”

Wait…

“I can end it for you, little heroes.”

And- 

“I can make it feel wonderful.”

There.

“Now!” Legend snaps, and throws himself from cover, Ice Rod brought up, cold spilling, blooming from it’s tip-

The ice makes her laugh.

The Light Arrow, slamming right into her chest, makes her scream.

And then they’re running again, Legend throwing layer after layer of ice behind them, stumbling, slipping on magic and shattered statuary and their own exhaustion alike-

And behind them, the sounds of an enraged witch still echo, chasing after their desperate retreat.

This is the pattern. This is all they can do- stall and run. Trap and retreat. Flee and search- keep searching. They have to keep searching.

Until they find the others- until they find something that can hurt this witch, embedded deep in the stronghold of her own power- until they find a way out- or until they die.

Four options. Four possibilities. 

Legend has no idea which one it’s going to be. But he refuses the possibility of the very last.

They’re getting out of here. They’re going to find the others. They’re going to take down this black-blooded witch, and they’re going to get the fuck out of here.

Legend’s survived this long by looking death in the face and telling to go fuck itself. No matter how many times it shows up, reaches out its rotting hands, tries to drag him into the deep- he spits in its face, kicks it away, sets it on fire and warms himself back to life with the coals. 

You can live through more than you think, just by being too obstinate to stop fighting.

He’s not planning on letting today be the day he gives in. Not for him. Not for the kid. Not for any of them.

They’re getting out of here.

He just has to figure out how.

Chapter Text

“Aa-hhah-”

“I know, I know. Just one more arm-”

The words were futile, truly. Between Twilight’s pallor, the way he was shaking in Time’s arms, the way his breath kept hitching even as Time tried his best to be gentle as he eased Twilight’s arm through the sleeve of the shirt- 

It wouldn’t surprise Time if Twilight hadn’t heard a word of what he was saying. That wound- that vile wound, sapping at his strength, leaving Twilight a pain-wracked shell of himself, stripped of sword, armor, tunic and all- it’s as though it’s consuming him, more and more, with every pained breath.

“There,” Time says, drawing out the hand from the sleeve- gently laying it down on the mattress, twitching the blanket up to cover the exposed skin. His hands were cold- Twilight had been cold, already shivering before Time had brought more pain into the equation. Warmth being stolen just as much as his strength.

Whatever dark curse it was that lurked deep in that wound, more foul than any poison, it was a hungry one. It devoured, greedy and voracious, every bit of life it could wrestle from Twilight’s grip.

And that grip grew ever weaker by the second.

Twilight shudders in his arms- Time… hasn’t brought himself to put him through the ordeal of laying back down yet, still holding him. It’s almost thoughtlessly that he brings up his hand- the light of the lantern glints on his ring- and carefully, gingerly, cards it through Twilight’s hair, as his descendant pants out uneven breaths against Time’s chest.

Sweat, dirt, and blood have made mats in his locks- just long enough to tangle, to grip on to the physical evidence of his pain. It must be unpleasant- it was for Time, back when he got the scar over his eye, and he woke up those hours later laying on the field with the blood and dirt mingling together in his hair…

… He should… get a rag, and try to clean that up for him. That’s something he can do, however small, to help, maybe- a little comfort, but-

Twilight’s hand shoots out as Time goes to ease him back down to the mattress.

“Time,” Twilight croaks, eyes barely open, bare flashes of blue; all the brighter, it seems, for the bruising under his eyes.

“Right here,” Time says. Folds a hand over Twilight’s- keeps easing him back down, pain flashing through his chest at the way Twilight screws his eyes tight and swallows, fresh sweat breaking out on his face, two shades paler, however impossible it seemed for that to be. “I’m just going to get a wet rag, alright?”

The no is almost too breathy to hear- thin, barely voiced, or, rather, voiced as though the one speaking can’t take enough air in their lungs to do so. The following “Please,” however, and quickly on the heels of it, “Don’t go,” is not, and together, they make a dagger and stab him in the heart with it.

“I-”

“Please,” Twilight begs, voice cracking, and Time-

“I’m right here, Twilight,” Time collects both of his descendant’s hands and holds them in his own, tries to gently squeeze his presence into them- “I’m not going to leave. I’m right here.”

“Don’t-” Twilight’s voice breaks off into wordless mumbling- a tangle of meaningless sounds, as he shuts his eyes tight again, hands clenching- so much weaker than they should have been- on Time’s own, and damn it all he’s in so much pain-

Twilight shivers, a big, wracking shudder, and that’s it. 

Time’s not a small man, but there’s enough space for him to sit on the side of the bed itself, the rustling of the straw tick beneath him sending up a gentle drifting of its clean aroma; a breath of fresh air, in this atmosphere of pain.

He gets back to carding through Twilight’s hair again, gently teasing out the tangles and mats as much as he can with his fingers alone.

And as he works, he keeps murmuring;

“I’m here. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here.”

All the way until Twilight fades back into restless slumber once more.

Chapter Text

He’s so-

-light-headed. Dizzy, almost, but not in- the spiral way, more, the feeling of the sea rocking under his feet, before he got his sea legs.

“Wind?”

And it’s not as though he hasn’t fought through worse- he has! Being light-headed, dizzy, kind of nauseous; those are little things, things he’s had to pick up his sword and defend himself through before. He killed his first Darknut with a cut in his side so deep he blacked out after it fell and came back to a fairy fretting over him. He drove a sword in Gohma’s eye wrestling with an arm that had been all but crushed, bone scraping against bone, and after, it took two weeks under the fretful care of the Rito, a dozen potions, and a visit to a fairy fountain to put to rights. It still hurts when the weather changes.

“Wind, can you hear me?”

Jalhalla had burned his leg so bad he’d almost been unable to finish the fight. But he had. He had. He’d been sick and shaky and had collapsed the moment he got out the Earth Temple and hadn’t been able to stop himself from screaming when the saltwater splashed up against the raw burn, but he finished the fight.

If he could do that, he could keep walking now. He could.

He just has to keep walking.

“Wind.”

Green. Why has his vision gone green.

Then it shifts, and- skips, flipping his stomach, and Wind closes his eyes, and swallows hard, and opens his eyes back up to Twilight’s face in his.

It… takes a second for that to register. Wind’s eyes wander from the fuzzy pelt, to the dark markings slashing across his cheekbones, to the swirl on the forehead, and then to the eyes.

Twilight’s eyebrows are drawn down and furrowed. He’s at a weird angle. Why does he look like that? He’s- it’s wrong, somehow-

Oh. He’s… kneeling? 

That’s not right. Kneeling wouldn’t put him level with Wind’s eyes. And he’s angled. That’s not right either. And why is he moving his mouth like that? He’s not even talking.

Something brushes his face- his forehead. Wind flinches back from it on reflex, and falls over.

And keeps falling, vision tunneling, collapsing down into darkness, Twilight’s face, now painted in panic, getting smaller and smaller-

Going faster now, Wind thinks, fuzzily, right before the dark closes over his head.

And then he doesn’t think at all.

Chapter Text

“Shii-it,” Legend gasps out as another group of howls breaks the air, voice catching despite his best efforts, a horrible lurch in his stomach as in his ankle, something moves- “Twilight- Just go, get out of here-”

“Nope,” Twilight snarls right back, and it’s close enough to the beasts lurking in the woods to set the rabbit in his heart to flinching, despite himself. 

The trap slips in Twilight’s fingers again, and the teeth immediately clamp back from where they’d barely been drawn apart.

Legend bites down a noise on the side of his cheek, the skin breaking under his teeth, flooding his mouth with a bitter metal tang, and wants to, somewhat hysterically, laugh. 

The irony. The fucking irony. Chased by a monstrous mob of black-blooded wolfos through the woods, and who is it that ends up with their foot caught in a trap?

Whatever higher power it was that thought it’d be funny if his truest self took the form of a fucking rabbit is probably laughing their damn ass off right now.

Twilight curses again, and pulls back to wipe his hands off on his tunic, heedless of the stains he’s doubtlessly grinding in as he does. “I can’t find any kind of release mechanism. I’m going to try to pull the sides apart again.”

“For f-” Legend’s voice wavers when the jaws shift again, and he hates it. He twists the hilt of his sword beneath his hand so tightly it flares up a second star of pain in a dim mockery of a counterpoint.  “-ff ffuck’s sake, if you just- go find the others and bring them back-”

“Back to find you dead,” Twilight says sharply, still steadily pulling at the sides of the trap- Legend’s stomach’s twisting itself in knots with the movement, he’s panting, bright sparks dancing in the corner of his vision, and there’s another howl.

It sounds closer. 

“I can-” it would. It would be so much easier to deal with this if it was quick, if Twilight just wrenched the thing apart, instead of this slow, careful extraction- “-c-can- hold off. Hold them off.”

“You can’t move.”

“Fire rod,” Legend says, and then a gasp punches out of him as the jaws slip back out of Twilight’s fingers, this time, nauseatingly, somehow seeming to settle deeper-

By the time the white haze clears from his vision, Twilight’s face has settled into mulish resolve, flavored with a significant helping of frustration. 

Another howl. 

Legend licks his lips, mouth dry, and tells himself those aren’t eyes glinting in the bushes.

The howls aren’t loud enough for that yet.

“Okay,” Twilight mutters, more to himself to Legend, voice gone tight and low like a tripwire, and some odd note in it gives Legend pause. 

“Okay-?”

“Okay,” Twilight repeats, and reaches for the trap again. Legend braces himself-

-And with a grunt, and a solid, wrenching yank, Twilight pulls the stakes of the trap right out the ground.

Legend stares, mind momentarily blank. “Those come out-”

And that’s what gives Twilight the opening he needs to duck down and fling Legend over his shoulders.

Legend yelps as the world spins, squeezing his eyes shut tight. Then he yells as the dangling stakes wrench on his trapped ankle, the solid iron surely tearing right through his skin, tearing off his foot, all of it melting to an agonizing, molten mass of pain-

The howling breaks the air again, and this time, it’s undeniably close.

“Hold on tight,” Twilight says, and breaks into a cautious, steady lope.

“They’re too close now, running’s not going to-” Legend manages to bite out around the bitter taste of pain in his mouth. The jostling- gods one and all, the jostling. It burns in his throat like fresh coals, bringing heat up to pool in his head, breaking out in sweat across his face. He has to stop talking to swallow it down.

Twilight remains unmoved, even as he picks up the pace. “Guess you’d better be ready to pull out that fire rod, then.”

Chapter Text

“Welcome to the bad brain box,” is what Wild greets him with when Warriors sits down, back against the trunk of one of the four fallen trees. “It sucks here.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my brain,” Warriors grumbles, for what feels like the hundredth time, and resolutely ignores the way that the light flashes off of someone’s shield across camp manages to spike the pain in his temples to almost unbearable levels.

Wild gives him a distinctly unimpressed look. Wild’s not the greatest at managing to convey judgment through expressions alone even on a good day- Warriors quietly suspects the relative inflexibility of the scars dominating one side of his face as the culprit- but he manages a valiant effort, despite being all but collapsed in a little huddle, hood pulled up over his head, effectively hiding in his cloak like a turtle in its shell. “Pretty sure I said that earlier, too.”

“You were unresponsive for almost thirty minutes.”

“It was just a memory,” Wild grumbles. To be fair, he does sound a lot more present than he did earlier, back when Twilight had taken one look at his face and all but herded him to this little corner, ignoring every single faint, dazed protest Wild had tried to put up.

Of course, he’d been protesting much louder just a while back over ‘being put in a box’, but he’d also still been sitting down and had yet to regain but the slightest bit of color in his face, so Twilight had managed to ignore that pretty handily as well.

If only Warriors had been able to, as well. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been caught trying to alleviate the pressure in his temples in a moment of weakness, and gotten himself pointed towards “the box” as well.

Warriors isn’t sure which joker thought it’d be funny to push over two more recently felled trees to actually form a square of fallen logs, but he suspects it was a team effort between a certain Rancher and someone who has more power bracelets and gloves than anyone should ever need in their life, and, despite a specifically prickly exterior, continues to be surprisingly easy to rope into schemes and mischief when he’s in the mood for it, which is… often, actually, strangely enough. Not that you’d know just from taking him at surface level.

Legend.

“Anyway,” Wild forges on doggedly, “I’m fine now. Worry about Four, not me.”

Ah. The horse in the ballroom.

Now invited, Warriors dares a singular glance in Four’s direction. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Wild, doing the same.

Four, face-down in his bedroll and potentially at risk of suffocation at any moment, cannot see them. Regardless, something clearly tips him off, because- moving with the deliberate care of one teetering on a very delicate balance of pain- he slowly lifts up one hand, and makes a cautious, yet heartfelt, and very rude gesture.

Well. 

It is a sign of life. Little victories?

The sun is very bright on Four’s hair- pale enough that it looks like a golden blaze in the sunbeam he’s laying in. Warriors makes the mistake of letting his eyes rest on it for more than half a second, and the pain in his temples goes so sharp his vision wavers.

… Slightly tainted victories, perhaps.

Then his vision clears to Wild, watching him with those sharp, sharp eyes, honed down like an arrow’s point, and Warriors knows it’s no victory at all.

“Huh. Migraine?”

“I’m perfectly capable of continuing my usual duties without hindrance,” Warriors clips out in rote routine, and immediately realizes he fucked up the second Wild squints at him even harder.

“... Migraine,” Wild concludes, and stretches out an arm to pluck up a pebble from a little pile of them- presumably raked together by Wild himself. “At least you and Four can keep each other company in brain-pain misery.”

Warriors is fully intending on denying everything when Wild winds up, visibly preparing for a throw.

“What are you doing?”

Wild makes a face. “If I try to leave the box, someone’s just going to dump me back in again like last time. So,” he gestures with the pebble, miming throwing it, then at the clustered group of their companions, fussing over something that was on the roadside- oh, wait, that was Wind, trying to reach- in a hole? What? “Gets attention without getting herded back to the box like a stray sheep.”

And Warriors should really be more focused on, perhaps, why pebbles, or why is Wind on the ground, or even why can’t you just shout for someone, but, instead-

“Last time?” Warriors asks, baffled, rubbing at his temples. Did he- did he miss-? Wouldn’t that be loud-

Wild stares at him. “... Yeah, okay. If you managed to miss that, you definitely need to be here. How bad is that migraine of yours?”

“Hey,” comes a rasping, tortured croak, barely audible at all. 

They turn in tandem, staring down at Four’s prone figure; where the smithy in question has, just barely, lifted his head just enough to stare the two of them down with the most malevolent stare Warriors has ever seen on anybeing short of a dragon.

“Shut. up,” Four grits out through clenched teeth, eyes squinting to the point they were almost closed.

The or else went unspoken. So did the consequences.

Regardless, Warriors still heard them, loud and clear.

“Sorry, Four,” they both chorus meekly.

Four squints at them for a moment longer. Wild, gingerly, drops the pebble back on the stack.

That dire glare lingers on Wild. Then it moves to Warriors. Then the pebble tower.

Then he flops back, face-first into his pillow, and doesn’t move any more.

Warriors finds himself exchanging a glance with Wild. One of those silent glances, full of unspoken understanding. Wild grimaces, unenthused.

Even still, he obediently flops down on his side, wiggling a bit into the grass, before bringing his arm up to cradle his head, hood blocking the light, knees curling in a bit as he settles.

For Warriors’ part, he brings up a fold of his scarf to drape over his eyes, rolls his shoulders to settle up against one of the fallen trees, and crosses his arms over his chest.

He closes his eyes, trying to ignore the drums beating in his temples, and hopes, for the sake of his sanity, that he’ll at least manage to drop off long enough to be released from this ridiculous box when he awakens.

Chapter Text

It was a misstep. 

Sky should have known better. It’s his time, his foes, his Faron Woods; there aren’t any black-blooded foes here, true, Faron guarding her domain with a vicious enthusiasm- last time they were here she’d flooded it again- but she didn’t care to bother with the usual monsters, and so they were as plentiful as ever before- in fact, they were rather more numerous than they had been in the past.

It doesn’t matter that even an entire pack of bokoblins are an easy fight. He should have remembered to watch his feet.

But he didn’t.

And so he brings up his shield to block, steps back with the force-

And jaws snap shut onto his leg, teeth puncturing straight through boot leather and skin alike, pain lighting up his leg as bright as the sun.

Sky couldn’t stop himself from yelling even if he wanted to.

“Sky?!”

“Oh shit, someone go help him-”

Sky grits his teeth, fights through the nausea as the teeth in his leg clamp down harder, and tightens his grip around Fi’s handle.

The deku baba attached to his leg tries to wrench at it, and the bokoblin he’d been fighting advances with a malevolent gurgle of a chuckle.

His stomach churns. Sparks go off at the edge of his eyes; he’s overwhelmingly aware of the icy sweat breaking over his skin. Distractions, a thousand of them, all vying for attention all at once.

Unfortunately for the bokoblin, that’s not enough to save it.

He can’t move with the Deku Baba chaining him to the ground, feet immobile but he has Fi and the bokoblin steps closer, confident, too confident, and then she sings-

The bokoblin falls. Four skids to a stop at Sky’s side, and grimaces at the corpse.

Oh, gross, Sky doesn’t think he’s supposed to have heard Four mutter, before the smithy switches tracks and focuses on the deku baba.

Sky realizes, belatedly, what his intentions are, after he’s already raised his sword.

“Wait, that won’t-!”

Too late. Four severs the vine.

Now free to really move, the deku baba digs in and starts to flail.

There’s no fighting through the pain to reach clarity. There’s just the pain, and Sky doubles over from the force of it.

What the-! Distant, barely heard over the white screaming in his ears, a small figure nearby that reels back from a broken vine lashing across its legs- 

Sky keeps his feet only, only because he knows if he gets in the ground those jaws will be around his head before he can blink but he can’t tell Four that with his tongue stolen by the burning force of the molten lead pouring through his veins, sourcing from the mass of pure agony that once was his leg but-

-he can-

-lift his sword and-

-drive it down, the angle awkward, but enough force behind the blow to impale the deku baba right through its core.

It detaches from his leg as it goes limp, great jaws lolling open, pink-tinted sap lining its teeth. A slow pool of drool starts puddling underneath the thing, the color of Sky’s blood and the off-green-yellow shade of the sap-drool mixing together to create a truly nauseating shade, hissing quietly as it slowly dissolves the grass around it.

Sky swallows, and looks away.

And then the world spins, and he has to sit down very quickly, except he’s intercepted on his way down by Four.

“Oh, that’s not good,” he hears Four say, as if from a great distance.

He almost asks what isn’t good, why Four’s voice has gone tight like that. But gets distracted by his heartbeat pounding in his leg- throbbing, almost unbearably warm, but with a strange sort of draining sensation…

“You need a potion, I don’t have any left- Sky? Do you have a potion on you?”

Oh. 

That’s a lot of blood, actually.

Like. 

A lot.

“Sky. Sky?”

Maybe…

Maybe too much blood…

“Sky!”

Chapter Text

There’s this little thing about breaking a bone.

It doesn’t matter how often or how used to it you are; there’s a tell, see, a way you know the bone didn’t just bruise, but break.

If it’s a bruise, one of those great deep ones that go all purple-black, leaving the skin all stiff and painful to move for days afterwards, well, you might not notice that, in the heat of battle. Understandable, even, if you don’t notice it at all, at least until you wake up the next day and your body’s painted the evidence on your skin. Warriors has done that exact thing too often to count- it’s helpful, in a way, that battle-rush can mask pain. It might not be a good thing, to keep pushing through, but it’s possible, and sometimes, you need that.

But a break is a different beast altogether.

You’re in battle. There is a great Moblin, towering over you; it has a club. You’d think: that monster has a club. It can’t cut me, so that means it’s less dangerous. I don’t have to pay as much attention to that one.

This is a mistake, and, caught between a Lizalfos with a bow and a sharp aim, and another Moblin with a wickedly sharp spear, Warriors forgets the consequences of it.

The club whistles through the air. Unthinking, on automatic, reacting from training alone and nothing more: Warriors lifts his shield up to catch it.

His shield crunches with the tortured sound of yielding metal as it warps under the blow.

In the space of a heartbeat, the force goes through the shield, armor, cloth; below that, it transfers deeper, down through skin, fat, muscle, until it reaches the center of the limb; and there, it catches-

The bones of his arm snap like twigs.

Nausea rises in a great, overwhelming flood; crashes over him like a river breaking free of a dam, and, for a sickening, whirling moment, heat and cold rising up and flashing through his body in seconds, colors crackling in front of his eyes, sensation- too much sensation in his arm, stomach, body, all at once-

-he's overwhelmed. 

An arrow flies through the air, dripping frost before slamming home precisely in the eye of that Moblin, still in the follow-up from that great strike: Warriors barely sees it through the sparks only just starting to clear from his vision, and it’s instinct alone that has him twisting to catch an opportunistic stab from the spear-wielder on the hilt of his blade, the movement spinning in his head, stomach twisting with illness, and he’s going to vomit if this-

A movement out the corner of his eye has him flinging up his shield in response, and an arrow slams into it.

In the resulting agony, he loses the fight with his stomach.

There’s a gurgle from above him, where he’s fallen to his hands and knees- he forces himself upright in a mad scramble, thoughtlessly, the weight of his shield dragging on his arm driving a dagger of rolling, agonizing nausea into his stomach but it’ll hurt worse if he dies here-

The Moblin falls with a slow groan, and Sky yanks the Master Sword out its back right as another arrow whistles through the air, felling the Lizalfos.

Warriors turns his head, panting, just in time to see Wild leap from his perch on a high rock, bow in hand, and somehow shoot three more foes in the time it takes him to hit the ground.

“Alright?” Sky asks, a bit breathlessly- not the best at these long fights, Sky. His knack for ending battles swiftly may be sourced just much from his known lack of stamina as it does pure skill.

Warriors grimaces in response, and gets a sympathetic hiss in return as Sky visibly takes notice of his arm for the first time, and nearby, the direct consequences of its breaking.

From somewhere behind him, there’s a shout of oh no you don’t! Swiftly following that, a shrill shriek.

Sky catches the shoulder of his good arm as he starts to turn. “Oh no, you’re out of the fight. I think there’s just Wind’s Miniblins left, anyway.”

“Little bastards,” Warriors mutters reflexively, and Sky snorts a breathy little half-laugh of agreement. Awful little creatures. “You’re sure?”

Sky waves him off. “We’ve got it. Unless you need help…?”

It’s Warrior’s turn to wave off the concern. “I’ve got it, I’ve got it. Go help the others. Stab a Miniblin for me, will you? One of them stole a purple rupee right out my wallet last time.”

He keeps up the smile until Sky, an unconvinced eyebrow still at a disbelieving angle, turns his back to him and strides back into the fight..

Then Warriors takes the moment to fall back against a convenient rock, close his eyes, and swallow back another wave of nausea. Without his input, his body shivers- the sweat on his forehead, neck, tickling between his shoulder blades, all strange and icy-chill against skin that feels too hot and too cold at the same time.

He’ll get a fairy. He’ll heal this arm right up, get someone- Twilight, probably- to pry off the warped piece of metal stuck to his arm, get his hands on a new shield- probably from Wild’s seemingly-endless supply- and in the end, give him just three days and you’ll never be able to tell his arm was broken. He’s been through this song-and-dance before: he knows the steps well enough to do them half-dead, at this point.

He just… needs his stomach to settle for a second, first, before he gets started.

Just a for a second.

Chapter Text

“-ake up?”

He can’t move. 

Sky knows he’s laying down. Can feel the awkward angles of his arms, the ground pressing against his back. There’s a pebble digging into his thigh. Another, his elbow. Grass is tickling the back of his neck, the points of his ears.

He’s awake. He is. He spends too much time chasing after the world of dreams not to know the difference, at this point.

But it’s so dark.

“-can yo-”

Sound filters into his ears as though he’s underwater; so muffled and distorted, he can only pray the fragments that filter into his ears are truly that of his companions, and not some strangers that mean to cause him harm as he lies defenseless. 

There is no pain. He has that, at least. He’s not in pain.

“-ot waking up. Don’t know i-”

At this point, all he can bring to compare it to is that horrible, horrible nightmare that haunted him, back before Fi came to him, before Zelda was torn from the sky for him to be left chasing after. In those, he could see, he could move; but the movement was futile, stuck in place and helpless as he was, and the things he saw offered no clarity.

He can see nothing at all, right now.

“-cursed? The-”

Stuck in the dark. Alone. Almost silent; only the barest, tantalizing drips of sound winding through his ears from the outside world, to tell him that he’s not completely, utterly alone.

He holds on to that. Grabs onto those barely-present voices with both figurative hands, desperately clutching each and every one. Anything- anything he can hold onto, just to remind himself. He’s not alone. He’s not alone.

“-source, maybe-”

Is this what Fi feels, inside the Master Sword? Holding Demise at bay, for all eternity, sealed within the blade?

He hopes not.

O’ Hylia, merciful Goddess, please, may this endless nightmare not be what his friend is being made to endure; please. Please, let this be a horror she is spared. May she not be closed away in the dark, immobile, sightless, speechless.

“-one or a-”

He hopes she dreams. 

He hopes she has lovely, lovely dreams. He hopes that there’s a dream world, just for her, given in reward for her sacrifice, her devotion, her love for her Goddess.

He hopes that somewhere- in some world or another, in some dream or another- Fi is dancing to the melody of her beloved Goddess’s song, even as she slumbers still in his hands.

“-searched. Let’s try-”

Fi, Fi- where is she? Why can’t he feel her? 

She should be pressed up against his back, softly humming with sleeping power. She should be achingly silent, but present, a beloved companion, carried with him on this long, new hunt.

There is no sheath against his back. There is only the sailcloth, bunched and bundled-

Where is Fi?!

“-can’t leave-”

She’s gone. She’s gone.

She’s gone, and Sky, no matter how hard he strains at his senses, tries to search-

He can’t find her.

She’s gone, and he’s alone.

“-back in a-”

Even the voices are fading.

“-sure?”

Further and further away.

“-st-”

Don’t leave me like this, Sky wants to beg.

His mouth doesn’t move.

“-...-”

Nothing.

There’s nothing.

No sound. No voices.

No Fi.

He’s alone.

Completely. Truly. 

Left in the silent, endless dark, without even a single voice to hold onto.

“-...-”

It’s impossible to tell how much time passes. 

A heartbeat. A thousand years. An eternity.

Sky remains trapped; immobile, voiceless, and blind, no matter how hard he tries to fight.

He wants to weep. He wants to scream. He wants to sleep- to be thrown at least into unconsciousness, or a dream, anything that’s not this endless stillness, the tension of such a sensationless existence building and building to a truly unbearable peak-

-and right before it breaks, from the void, distantly, hardly there at all-

-a quiet, melodic chime-

-and someone squeezes his hand.

Chapter Text

It’s a rare day that Time regrets the plate armor.

True, with it, he sacrificed speed and mobility, but he had already been losing that steadily without the help of the armor; a childhood of leaping into danger with little regard for the state of his body afterwards tallying up all the damage he’s done to himself over the years and neatly serving him the bill a few years after he entered adulthood. 

The armor means the slower drag of his sword, the slightly lessened mobility of his sword hand- those don’t matter. As a child, he had relied on speed and the soft weak spots of foes to fell anything that was in his way. As a teenager, he’d refined those skills to a razor’s edge, defense going neglected in the name of lethal speed and sharpness.

He’s gained bulk with the armor, yes. He’s also gained strength, the ability to hit harder than ever before. The need for a weak point is rare, these days: more often than not, he can simply cleave directly through his opponent, and let the plate take their last-ditch, frantic blows.

Sometimes, he thinks on half-faded memories of Iron Knuckles, deep in a desert temple, and tries to remember anything other than a child’s fear at their advancing form, the high, ringing tones of Navi’s panic. 

Sometimes, he wonders if he’s made himself into something that resembles them.

Those days- these days- he has his regrets. He thinks he’ll always have them, what-ifs and if-I-just-could-haves and I-wonders haunting him like a swarm of poes. 

The armor, normally, is not one of them.

Normally.

Today, Time realizes, the world seeming almost to slow as he turns to see a Wizrobe, razor teeth bared in an ecstatic, malevolent grin, fire glowing at the end of its fully-charged magic rod, is about to become an exception.

He tries to dodge. It may be futile, but he tries.

It likely saves his life.

The fire roars, concentrated heat, evaporating and bringing out sweat on his face in one go. Narrowly avoiding a spontaneous pyre, the brilliant flames flaring scant inches away from his nose, the tips of his hair, missing his chest entirely, his legs, his right arm, reaching out for balance-

His left arm, stretched in front of him still from the weight of his sword, is caught in the blast. The magical power cuts right through the metal, lashing through, greedy and burning-

Time thinks he shouts. He’s not sure. His ears are full of a great roaring, entire body trying to recoil, a blank white emptiness taking over his thoughts-

When he looks up, throat raw, arms shaking so hard his armor judders and clicks against itself, the Wizrobe is gone.

Actually, no. That’s not quite right.

Wolfie comes up with a snarl, monster blood thick around his muzzle, dripping down onto the frozen grin of the savaged corpse beneath him. The snarl stays until he sets eyes on Time- Then his ears go up and alert, legs stiffening.

The shadows come together, then fly apart, and Twilight’s at Time’s side even as he shakes off the last lingering shades clinging to his skin in the wake of his transformation.

Time doesn’t need Twilight’s sharp inhale, the hovering hands over his half-melted gauntlet, to tell him that it’s bad. The way he’s effectively… taken a step back from his own body, as though analyzing the events through a pane of glass, is enough just on its own.

He’s always reacted to injury this way. It scares Malon, he knows, when he goes distant after these kinds of events, these injuries- the severe ones, the ones that won’t just be fixed by a dose of potion or a kindly fairy, but it’s something he’s done his entire life. 

Comes in handy, if you’re bleeding out in some dark hole in the ground where no one will ever find you.

Not so great, when you want to convince your loved ones that there’s nothing to worry about.

“This is…” Twilight breathes, hands still hovering. Then he swallows, and pushes himself up to his feet, standing above Time- when did he sit down? “I’m getting Warriors. Maybe Four? I don’t think you should take a potion, not until-”

Time very intentionally does not look at his body’s arm. “Alright.” It comes out perfectly even. 

Twilight pauses. Stares at him.

“... Maybe I shouldn’t leave.”

How silly. “No, it’s fine. You should get Warriors. He’ll be needed.” Warriors is very skilled in burn care. He will be needed in order to prevent losing capability in the affected limb.

This doesn’t seem to reassure Twilight at all. If anything, he begins to look unsettled; even as he starts slowly backing away, unease and concern battle for control over his face. His eyes, though. They’re sharp, flicking to various points on Time’s face, occasionally flickering down to where the burned arm is lying, angled across a knee.

“I’ll… go fast,” Twilight says finally, breaking away. “Just- can you do something for me, while you’re waiting?”

“Of course.” He can’t fight right now, After all. If Twilight needs something, he may as well do his best to help with whatever it is.

“Can you count how long I’m gone? Got to know if I’m faster than those pegasus boots Legend’s always bragging about, after all.” Odd. For however light his voice is, there’s a distinct edge of care to the words. For such a small thing, too.

“Of course I can,” Time reassures him. Twilight’s eyes search his face one more time, before he reaches for his pendant once again.

The shadows collapse, and out spills Wolfie.

Wolfie barks at him once, and turns tail to sprint through the forest almost as though he were running from a pack of bellowing moblins nipping at his tail- it takes a few seconds for Time to remember he was supposed to be counting, long enough that the last traces of gray fur vanish between two trees before he, belatedly, starts the count.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.

Hopefully Twilight won’t mind the few second’s delay.

Seven. Eight. Nine…

Chapter Text

The rough rope against Four’s wrists has long since gone from irritating to outright maddening, and the itching of his own sweat against his skin does nothing but elevate the torment to another level.

He’s tried kicking. Tried wiggling around. Tried to hoist himself up, contort and flail and twist- it’s no good. In the past, the one time he’d been tied up and taken captive, he’d been able to take advantage of the small size of his hands, more slender-than-average wrists, and slip out.

These Gerudo of Time’s knew better, it seemed, than to give him the chance. Both hands were tied individually, tethered to opposite bars, and then the looped rope itself was wrapped tautly about, the knots tied firmly and securely out of his reach.

And that’s without even counting the two guards, standing at either door in and out, completely ignoring him no matter how he’d tried to pull them into conversation. One still watches him, unwavering. Unblinking. The other appears to be playing some sort of game with herself, cross-legged, spear propped against her shoulder, tossing dice on the floor. 

It’d take a miracle just to free himself, let alone get past the guards. Let alone get out the fortress. Let alone reach the desert; and at that, getting out of the desert without dying for it would take several miracles, all neatly stacked together and tied with a bow.

Sweat tickles against his neck. The urge to itch at a thousand spots all over his body is absolutely overwhelming.

He’s stuck.

Captive in a time and land not his own, held by a people who- from the tone of their speech to each other as they were dragging him into the cell- have no love lost for stray Hylians found wandering outside their fortress.

Four shifts again. His shoulders flare up again with a fresh ache; a reminder of the strain they’ve been under. When he swallows, his throat is so dry it clicks.

All he can do is wait. For chance; for a rescue; or maybe, perhaps, if he’s lucky-

The rope around his left wrist, slick with his own sweat, scrapes up against the sensitive, thin skin there as it slips. Just slightly. Not enough for him to pull free. 

But it’s a slip.

A start.

-for a miracle.