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After the battle, they make camp near a creek.
It’s hardly midday—twelve minutes past one o’clock, Link’s mind oh so helpfully provides—but they need the rest. Even with potions to help the healing process along, too many of them got injured. Nobody left that fight unscathed, Link included.
The captain emerges from the battle better off than anyone else, with just a few shallow cuts and bruises. But that means there’s nothing to hold him back or distract him once he begins the lecture, and everyone is there at camp to witness it when he starts yelling at Link about “breaking formation” and “going rogue,” like this was a planned battle and not them getting ambushed and cornered against a cliff face. Link can’t help but wish the captain got his ass kicked by the monsters a little bit, if only so he’d run out of steam quicker.
The stupid bastard doesn’t know. He doesn’t remember how the fight went the first time, and Link won’t ever tell him, and it still takes everything in him to not argue back or maybe just punch him square in the jaw. But if Link takes the bait, he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop himself from shouting out all the infinite ways that the battle could’ve gone worse, how it did go terribly, irreparably worse.
So he makes himself stand tall and clenches his fists and bites his tongue all throughout the captain’s verbal barrage. For maybe the first time ever, he doesn’t fight back while the captain spews his bullshit.
The others just watch them, apparently used to their shit and not seeing a reason to step in yet. Link can’t decide if he hates them or the captain more. That is, until the captain decides to bring the engineer into things, going on about how maybe the kid wouldn’t be down with a broken femur for the rest of the day if Link could listen for once in his goddamn life, and Link feels the anger rush over him with all the frenzy and furor as a blast of Din’s fire.
It leaves him shaking, trembling with the effort to contain his fury. From the corner of his eye, he sees the pirate finally move to intervene, waving down the captain like he’s a horse that needs calming. Some of the others are commenting from the sidelines, but Link can’t focus on them enough to make out the words. There’s only the captain and his look of haughty contempt, the same exact look from all those years ago.
“Well?” the captain sneers. “Are you going to explain yourself or not?”
Some part of Link wants to tell him. He wants to, but the other part of him would rather dig his own grave than explain what really happened, and it’s all twisting round with the anger until it’s filling him up, choking him, and if he opens his mouth, he’s not sure if what comes out will be vomit or something about how breaking a leg is a way better deal than losing it entirely.
Instead, he runs. He’s only a little bit ashamed of it.
Link follows the creek far enough upstream that he can yell all he wants without anyone hearing it back at camp. There’s nothing for him to stab or break, and the water’s too close to the tree line for him to risk fire, so he makes do with searching around the creek bed for the biggest rocks he can lift and hurling them into the middle of the stream until he’s shaking from all the heavy lifting and not from how mad he is.
It takes a while, but eventually, he starts feeling a little less like a walking bomb flower and a little more like himself. Still, he doesn’t head back to camp. The captain is bound to piss him off all over again, and, horribly, he doesn’t want to see the engineer.
So he climbs around the rocky area in the shallows some more, collecting skipping rocks and keeping a lookout for one last good-sized stone to throw. He finds one that looks like it will make a really satisfying sound when it hits the water, but when he bends down to pick it up, his battle injury decides to make itself known again. His lower back spasms, and Link lets out an involuntary hiss of pain, dropping all his skipping stones at the shock. He grits his teeth and presses his hands to his back, reminds himself he can’t do anything but ride it out as the muscles clench and twist in agonizing little pulses, over and over again, his eyes watering even though he’s survived far worse than some measly cramps—and just as suddenly as the spasms began, they stop, and the pain ends.
Not completely—the deep ache left behind isn’t exactly pleasant, but it’s bearable. Link lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding as he massages the sore spot, careful to avoid the most sensitive areas around the welt searing across his back. Stupid weird lizalfos and their stupid extra long, whip-like tails. He’s going to be sleeping on his stomach for days.
The first time through the battle, he didn’t get hurt at all. If the engineer could learn to guard his own stupid back for once, then Link wouldn’t have needed to turn back time, and he wouldn’t have gotten injured or fought with the captain, and maybe this day wouldn’t have turned out to be such a gods-awful mess.
As soon as he finishes the thought, Link staggers forward, grabbing onto the nearest boulder for support so he won’t fall flat on his ass into the water. He didn’t mean it. He didn’t, he knows it, and the shame eats him anyway.
The engineer always made it seem so damn easy, looking out for Link during the war. He saved Link more times than he can count, and now, even when Link knows exactly how a battle will play out, he can’t keep the engineer from getting hurt.
Link groans and buries his face in his hands. This whole thing sucks. It’s bad enough he has to second-guess how to act around this younger, calmer version of the engineer all the time, that Link and the captain have to dance around the fact the engineer was with them whenever something about the war comes up. Now, Link is supposed to look the engineer in the eyes and pretend he can think about anything other than the sound of crunching bone and those awful, agonized wails—
Link shudders at the memory. Not for the first time, he wishes the Song of Time would bless him with forgetfulness like it does for everybody else. It’s stupid and childish—he could never fix anything if he didn’t remember what went wrong in the first place—but the thought always comes back to gnaw away at him, like a starving wolfos he’ll never outrun.
It’s just too much sometimes. He doesn’t want to hold onto these memories. Not all on his own.
If Tatl had stuck around, or if he had ever found Navi, maybe—
The sound of approaching footsteps interrupts his mental tumble down that rabbit hole, and Link is almost grateful for it.
He’s expecting the pirate. That’s who usually talks him down after spats like these. But when he turns around, he’s shocked to find the rancher standing at the riverbank instead, carrying two fishing poles in one hand and a tackle box in the other.
Link just can’t figure the guy out. He’s made passing comments about younger siblings back at home, which explains the way he fusses over all the younger members of their group, plus some of the older ones too. With Link, though, he gets beyond overbearing. Even the captain has had to tell the rancher to cool it and give Link some space.
And sometimes, Link will catch the rancher staring at him out of nowhere, and not that he has the most cheery neutral expression in the first place, but…
Sometimes, he watches Link, and he looks so damn sad. The kind of sadness that cuts deep and festers into sorrow. Link thinks he might recognize it. He’s not sure if he wants to know the story behind it.
Right now, the rancher just looks uncomfortable. He shifts and fidgets, like he’s waiting for Link to speak first, like he came upon Link totally by accident.
“So…” the rancher says eventually. “You busy?”
Just screaming at the air, Link thinks. Throwing rocks at the river so I won’t bash someone’s head in. It makes him feel like the immature, ill-tempered child everybody sees him as, and the realization steals his voice. He can only shake his head in reply.
The rancher shrugs the shoulder he’s balancing the rods on. “Wanna help me catch dinner then? I’ve got an extra pole.”
“We have leftovers,” Link says. They went to a market two days ago and cleared out half the food stock from the whole place. They won’t need to hunt and forage for another week at least.
The rancher stares at him for a long time, long enough that Link is the one fidgeting, before he speaks again. “Look, I didn’t come here to… I won’t push or nothin, I just—” he lets out a frustrated sigh. “You said you like fishing, right?”
Link mentioned that two weeks ago, in a conversation he wasn’t aware the rancher was listening in on. He wants to ask why he cares so much, why he can’t learn to leave well enough alone, why he won’t cut the bullshit and just tell Link—
He could snap at the rancher until he bit back, he’s pretty sure. But just the thought of it leaves him exhausted, and suddenly, Link is so, so tired of being so damn angry all the time.
“I might’ve scared off all the fish around here,” Link says. He waits for the rancher to comment, but he only nods. “There’s a bend a little downstream that should be a good spot.”
The rancher beams at him. It’s not an expression Link has seen before. “Sounds good to me. Lead the way.”
Neither of them speak as they walk. Even when they get to the bend, the rancher doesn’t talk about anything other than the selection of bait and lures he’s managed to cobble together on this quest, and he goes on for a while about how if he knew he was going to be gone so long, he would’ve brought his good rod from home.
They sit together by the bank in silence, watching the bobbers go up and down in the current and waiting for something to bite. Link is expecting the rancher to bring up the argument once they get settled, but after thirty minutes pass without him saying anything except how nice this weather is, Link realizes the rancher really meant what he said. For once, he’s not going to push.
The swell of regret that floods through him is so strong that Link can’t help but blurt out, “I’m sorry.”
He can’t make himself look at the rancher after, even though he sat on Link’s good side without needing to be asked. Link’s still having to remind everyone other than him and the pirate to not come up on his blind side unless they want to risk getting stabbed.
The rancher doesn’t respond for long enough that Link figures they’re ending the conversation there. But then, he says, “Nothing to apologize for.”
Which is untrue, and they both know it. Even if the rancher wasn’t involved in today’s argument, Link’s been nothing but rude and standoffish to him, and the only crime the he's guilty of is being kind of annoying.
But Link knows an olive branch when he’s handed one, and he thinks maybe it’s not just him who could use a fresh start here.
“Sorry,” he repeats, “you got ripped off big time. These lures are shit.”
The rancher bursts out laughing. “Well, maybe you could help me pick out some new ones next time we find a shop. I could use a better fishing knife too.”
Link hums. “Yeah, alright.”
They don’t catch a single fish the whole afternoon.
Somehow, it’s a good day.