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“The wound is festering, he might not make it through the night.”
The whispers outside the tent may as well have been shouts. Link tried to rise, needing to tell them that he was fine, that he could lead the men into battle tomorrow but his arms shook, refusing to take his weight, and his legs just kicked uselessly out, getting tangled in the blankets that had been laid atop him.
He bit back a groan, his whole body on fire, knowing that the Land of Hyrule was depending on him. He couldn’t just lie here, useless, while Cia was out there hurting people. He needed to get up, needed to go out there and prove to the commander and medical officer that he was fit for duty.
Link’s pain skyrocketed as he tried to sit up, the infected wound on his side flaring, but he forced back the blurs in his vision. Steeling himself, Link tried to push himself up off the ground but his arms just buckled again and he slammed back down onto the bed.
“Perhaps not…” The General replied.
His heart ached, knowing that his own mentor thought that this minor injury might be fatal. Link would prove to all of them that he was still of use, just as soon as the world stopped spinning around him.
Link was shaking, no matter how much he focused on steadying himself, but he thought that it might just be post battle jitters, never mind that the battle had been days ago and he has been stuck in this sick tent ever since. Battle jitters were normal, everyone got them, even if they didn’t usually hit Link so hard.
“Sir,” A third voice. One of the Scouts. “The enemy has reached the designated spot. What are your orders?”
“Pull back all units.” The General said. “We stay here.”
“But Sir,”
“Pull back all units.” He repeated more firmly. “Link may be on deaths door but he is not dead yet. I will not abandon him.”
No one would have to abandon Link because he was going to be right at the front of the line, leading his comrades, his friends, the closest thing he had to a family, to victory. If Cia’s army was already approaching, the battle tomorrow was now going to have to be today.
Link forced himself to sit, ignoring the pain that thrummed through his entire body, then to stand. He keened, knees nearly buckling as heat pulsed from his wound. He grabbed his sword, ignoring how it seemed much heavier than usual, as if the Master Sword itself did not want him to leave this tent.
The first step was agony but Link took it silently, and by the third he was at the door of the tent and every single neurone in his body was screaming out in pain.
He stood up at attention, pulling at his wound and Link damn near passed out just from the pain of it but he was fine and so he threw open the fabric and addressed the growing crowd outside the tent.
The scout saluted crisply while the General and the medical officer both crossed their arms and glared at him, most likely because Link had already delayed them for too long. They had been waiting for him to lead their men and he had wasted time lying in bed instead.
“What are you doing up, Captain?” The General asked lowly.
Link held out his sword.
“For Hylia’s sake, Kid” The doctor snapped. “Get back to your damn bed.”
Link frowned. He held out his sword again. They couldn’t be wasting time like this, if Cia was in position then they had to attack now, they might very well not get the chance again.
The ground shifted beneath Link and when he tried to move his feet to compensate, he was suddenly in the General’s arms instead.
Then, when Link blinked, trying to work out why he was leaned up against the older man, he was suddenly on his bed again instead. The pain was worse, a wet cloth on his forehead. Link threw it off, reaching once more for his sword, but there was nothing there. His breath caught, forcing himself to sit up, looking all around for the legendary weapon but he was alone in here.
Forcing himself to breathe, Link tried to rise but found that he couldn’t. He whined instead, hand hovering just above his infected wound as heat radiated from it.
Link curled up, squeezing his eyes shut, the pain all encompassing. Everything felt both distant and too close, the voices that had been outside his tent now simply a cacophony of crickets. Nighttime? Had Link wasted another whole day?
There was a lantern to the side of him, casting weird shadows on the tent walls, the flickering light making his head hurt.
He was shaking harder now, everything aching from his muscles being too tense for too long. He needed to check on his men, ensure that all preparations had been made and if the General had engaged with Cia after all, Link needed to know of any causalities. He was a Captain, he had responsibilities to not only his men and to Zelda, but to all of Hyrule.
More than a Captain, he was meant to be a Hero, most recent in a line of legendary swordsman dating back to time immemorial. Link couldn’t just waste away on this bed when he was meant to be a warrior.
Link needed to stand, find the Master Sword, and prove to the General that he was still worthy of his position.
When Link blinked, it was already day time again and the cloth on his forehead had been replaced, his bandages too. He groaned, hating that he kept losing time that Hyrule didn’t have, but the moment Link pushed himself up off the bed his vision went black all over again.
Shouts, distant, yet so close. Metal against metal, screams of pain. A battle.
Link scrambled up, biting back a sob as pain ripped through him. His legs shook beneath him and within the first step Link was on the ground again. Knowing that he needed to protect the Princess no matter what, even if it killed him, Link crawled towards the door, shoving down every spark of pain that threatened to make him pass out all over again.
The shouts had stopped. The battle was over and there was silence, silence all except for Link’s own ragged breaths. He forced himself onwards, whimpering as his wound pulled as he dragged himself across the ground.
At last, Link got outside, the sun blazing high above him. He steeled himself, trying to get up on his shaking legs, and in a haze of pain and fever Link realised that he was alone. Despite the shouts and screams of battle just moments ago, the field was empty.
No soldiers, dead or alive. No enemies. No tents.
Link twisted around, wondering how they could have packed down so quickly without him having even noticed, but the tent he himself had been in for days wasn’t there either. In fact, there was nothing but an empty field of grass around him, leaving Link all alone with the pain and the fire.
They had left him. His own men had left him. But that was impossible, he was a Captain. Did they truely believe him so close to death that the abandoned him here, to die alone?
But why then would his own sick tent be gone? And how? He was certain that he had just been laying within it and while there was no denying that he had been going in and out of consciousness for days, he didn’t think there was a lapse in the time since he forced himself out of the sick tent until all of a sudden that very same tent was no where to be seen.
His head spun and when Link sank to the ground, he made no attempt to rise again. What use would fighting do if there was no one to fight for.
There were voices echoing again. Hope bloomed in Link’s chest but as they came closer, he realised that he did not recognise them. Enemies, then.
Link may be alone but he was a warrior through and through and he was going to defend this land to his dying breath. He readied himself but as the figures emerged from the tree line, they stopped dead in their tracks.
Link stopped too, dully realising that he was falling fully to the side yet again.
The figures surged forward and each time Link managed to open his eyes, they were closer than they had been. Then, all at once there were hands touching him, lifting him up.
Someone was screaming, who and why Link didn’t know because everything was fading again. He fought to stay conscious but he simply couldn’t, not with the pain and the heat being so absolute, not with how the exhaustion from the last several days tugged at his very soul.
“Easy there, Soldier,” A voice said softly later. “You’re safe. Just relax, everything’s okay.”
One of shadows had eased him up against their chest like he was nothing but a child and they coaxed him into drinking something. There was a cool cloth that wiped the sweat from his brow, and in his unconsciousness his bandages must have been once again changed.
“I’m fine,” Link tried, his own voice shaking and weak.
“You will be.” The stranger promised. “Just rest.”
But the battle. Link needed to find his men. They may have left him for dead but he refused to abandon them. The General was depending on him, Zelda was depending on him. All of Hyrule was depending on him. He could not fail, not now, not ever.
“Zel…” Link mumbled.
“Zelda?” The voice echoed. “How do you know the Pri- Oh. Hey, uh, Time? I think our little friend here might be more than just a friend.”
“Need to…” Link tried. “Need to keep her… Safe. Need to… Need to…”
“Rest,” The voice said. “Your fever is still incredibly high.”
Link tried to prove that he was fine by standing but he had a distinct feeling that all he succeeded in was closing his heavy eyes.
When Link was made to drink again, he nearly spat it out. It was rancid, whatever they hell they were giving him.
“Sorry,” A new voice echoed.
Link forced back the blurs, realising that the man getting him to drink whatever disgusting concoction that was was little more than a boy, tufts of brown hair barely hiding Hylian ears.
The person he was laying against was a man though, a young man at the very least, with a pelt of fur resting on his shoulders and a warm smile that was strangely familiar. Link’s head rolled, focusing once more on the boy.
“I know it doesn’t taste very good,” The Boy said. “But it’ll help with the infection. You’re already doing much better, but please try to get some more rest.”
Link didn’t want to rest, he wanted to defeat Cia once and for all. His body betrayed him instead as darkness claimed him once more.
He didn’t know how many of them they were, every time he awoke there was a different one close by.
Most times it would be the boy with his potions, some nastier than others while a few of them were actually quite nice, but there were other strangers too. There was the stranger with the wolf pelt, a slightly older man with a distinctive scar running down where his eye had once been, a grumpier seeming lad with tinges of pink hair who helped him onto his side without comment as Link threw up what little he had managed to eat.
There were smaller boys too, though they often hovered instead of approaching Link outright. The smallest of them all wore a blue tunic and his voice was always booming, even when the older ones reminded him to quieten down a little.
The whirlwind of pain and heat and unfamiliar faces was slowly easing and with every passing day, because it must have been days now in the care of these strangers, Link felt a little stronger.
He didn’t know how long it had really been but eventually Link could sit up unaided, his head clearer than it had been since he had first been struck down during that battle, and he could actually start to process everything around him.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” The boy with the potions said. “But please don’t push yourself.”
“Who…”
Link’s voice was still weak, still tired even if he was leaps and bounds ahead of how he had been.
“You can call me Hyrule.” The boy said.
“Hyrule?”
But they were in Hyrule. What person would name their own child after the land on which they live?
“My name is actually Link,” Hyrule said. “But, well, there are a lot of Link’s here. We had to come up with some new names to make things less confusing.”
Understanding at last dawned on Link, though he wondered if his fever had driven him insane. Cia must have achieved her plan for opening portals to other dimensions and times because these unfamiliar faces weren’t so unfamiliar after all. He had seen paintings of some of them, though others still alluded him completely.
“You’re heroes.” Link breathed.
“Yes.” The oldest man, the one with the distinctive scar, said. “And, if I am not mistaken, you are a hero too. They call me Time. You’ve already met Hyrule, it’s thanks to his spells and potions that we were able to manage your injury. This is Twilight, Champion, Legend, Four and the one who really needs to back off and give you some space is-“
“I’m Wind!”
The boy in the blue tunic grinned, inches away from Link, though when he had gotten there Link had no idea.
Link’s head spun and he must have started leaning because Time suddenly had a hand on Link’s shoulder.
“Whoah, easy there Soldier,” Time said. “It’s a lot to take in all at once, maybe you should get some more rest.”
“I’m fine.” Link said. “I need to find my sword, someone took it from my tent and-“
The boy that Time referred to as Four held out Link’s sheathed sword.
“This?” Four asked. “It’s the real deal all right, which means you are one of us. Your name is Link too, I’m guessing.”
Link reached out for the sword but Four put it behind himself instead.
“Swords with fevers are never a good idea.” Four said. “I’m still trying to fix the one Champion stuffed up from when he got sick.”
“I don’t have a fever.” Link ground out. “Give me my sword.”
“Link,” Time said. “It will be returned to you when you are well. Four will keep it safe for now, I promise. We found it by the field that we found you in. How long had you been there alone?”
Link hadn’t been alone. He had been surrounded by comrades. By friends. By one of the closest things he had to a family. And they had left him for dead, no doubt to confront Cia.
No matter. He would spend another day or two here, make certain that this damn pain and heat fully went away for once and for all, then he would track down the rest of his army and return to his position as Captain and prove to them that he was worthy of the honour.
Link let himself sink back down onto a bed roll that wasn’t his own, closing his eyes and listening to the not so strangers talk amongst themselves as he dreamed of returning to his own people.
Far far away, in time more so than in location, a General was pacing, desperately waiting for any news at all on a young Captain who had been severely injured and then had disappeared into thin air because that Captain was more than just a soldier.
He was a comrade. A friend. A son. And he was gone, to Goddess knows where, no doubt having been fuelled by his fever into running away from the camp that they had tried to keep him safe in during the battle against Cia and the General couldn't help but fear that Link may have thought that he had been left for dead.