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Wind’s stance is solid. He holds his sword with both hands out in front of him, comfortable with the worn grip in his fingers. Air whips through his hair and blows salt against his scales, which might be comforting in another situation, but right now just serves to remind him how precarious his position is, despite how firmly he's placed his feet.
In front of him, an unusual sort of mechanized weapon makes ominous noises, attached to the floating platform with gripping claws at the end of tentacle-like appendages. The blade atop it spins, keeping them above the still water at a dangerous height. Worst of all, the thing’s electric blue eye has fixed on him, and Wind doesn't think he can dodge this time.
This laser has already blown up every other platform and machine on top of them, though the Epona and other crew members certainly helped. This was meant to be a fleet. On one hand, that's comforting—if they can hack one of these things, it'll mean their chances against them go up significantly. On the other hand…
Wind glares at the blue eye. It narrows, lighting up. It'll shoot in a second, and he's going to try to dodge again. In fact, he'll use the dodge maneuver to strike at the vulnerable eye. He isn't sure he can, but he isn't going down without a fight.
The eye brightens, and its weapon charges.
Wind bares his teeth. “Come and get me!”
At the very last second, the world tips, and Wind loses his footing. His sword shrinks at the sudden movement and the wrist strap prevents it from flying off alone into the water, but Wind himself tumbles, his boots slipping on the rough pavement as the platform tilts dramatically. He shouts, heart in his throat. The weapon’s blades halt their spinning.
The gray sky barrel rolls, and it's all he can see for several seconds. The weapon whines. Air assaults Wind’s eyes.
They're falling.
Wind screams, digging his claws into the surface of the platform, though they aren't sharp enough to get into the pavement. His stomach disappears, and tears rip from his eyes as he watches the surface of the water fly up to meet him.
He can't breathe. He can't breathe!
The opposite end of the platform hits the water. The impact shoots massive cracks up the concrete, splintering it into a dozen pieces. The machine in the center finally disconnects. The rotor blades start back up, but it's too late.
The machine’s blue eye flicks around as if in panic as the whole thing begins to sink. Its gaze fixes on Wind and starts to glow again, a last-ditch effort. Water rises to consume it before its laser can go off.
Wind doesn't have time to feel relieved. He's sitting on a piece of concrete, which is nowhere near buoyant enough to float, even on this salty water. He tucks his sword away and barely manages to seal his datapad in a waterproof pocket in his jacket before he's forced to jump into the ocean, one hand over his ear to keep his earpiece from coming off.
He doesn't bother treading, just sinks a few feet and watches the platform and sparking machine disappear into the gloom.
Wait, sparking?
Wind sucks in a breath of water, coughs, and panics. He claws his way to the surface and keeps coughing until he's expelled all the water in his lungs. He gags. The machine’s sparks start to come faster, visible even deep under the water. Even as Wind struggles for breath, he swims away as hard as he can.
The explosion bursts out of the water like a geyser, throwing white drops in every direction. The waves push Wind away and throw him back under the surface.
It's all Wind can do to not breathe in. Water is his element, he can't live without it, but this water… he can't breathe it. It's too salty, and there's another taste in there that seems to be keeping him from being able to absorb the oxygen like usual. He could very well drown in this ocean. His heart wants to stop at the thought.
When the waves settle, Wind’s lungs burn. He pushes his way up to the surface again and gasps for air, panting at the effort. Water drips into his eyes, and he pushes his bangs back, looking up.
The gray sky is clear, of both enemies and friends.
What… is going on? Wind’s sure that someone else shot the machine, causing it to stop working and fall. It sure wasn't him. Whatever it was, though, he should still be able to see it, or at least see a trail of some kind pointing to where it went
And for that matter, he should still be able to see the Epona! Sky said he'd keep her hovering. Wind turns in a circle, panic rising in his chest. Where—where are they? Did they fall, too?
Usually, Wind would not be afraid of the water. He'd just sink down a bit and swim until he found something. It's hard work, sure, but he's literally made for it, and can cross long distances without too much effort. The others probably aren't worried about him either, because they know him as the one that regularly complains of dry air. Stars, he has a tank in his room on the ship that he fills up with water once a week or more and sleeps in it. Half his hometown is underwater!
It's that fact that makes this situation so terrifying. Wind doesn't know why, exactly, he can't breathe this water, but he does know that he's going to get tired much faster than he would otherwise. He doesn't even know what direction an island is in, or what direction he needs to swim to find the Epona.
Luckily, it's at that moment that Wind’s earpiece crackles to life, slightly staticky due to the salt content in the air and the water.
“Wind?” It's Twilight.
Wind sighs in relief. “Here! I’m okay! You?”
“Oh, thank the stars. Yeah, I'm fine. I saw the thing go down, but I don't see you. Where are you?”
“Uh…” Wind spins around, treading water, and sees nothing but open ocean. “I don't know.”
“Can you surface, at least, so we can find you?”
Wind scowls, though he beats his panic back with a stick. “I am on the surface.”
“You… No you aren't.”
“I am!” Wind insists. “I'm breathing air and everything!”
Twilight is quiet for a long moment. “Wind, I can't see you.”
“I can't see you, either! Are you in the Epona?”
“No, the Red Lion.”
Wind makes an annoyed sound. “Good idea, it can land in the water. Huh. I guess I got farther away from you than I thought…”
There's another break, and then Twilight hums. “Wars says he's pulling out the Blue Lion. Legend’s putting together a search pattern. We'll find you, just stay on the surface or near it, okay?”
“Uh,” Wind says, then coughs. How did more unbreathable water get into his lungs? He's being careful! Even worse, his scales are starting to itch, and the webbing between his fingers is tightening. “Problem.”
“Report,” Twilight responds immediately, his voice flat.
“I can't breathe this water. It's drying me out.”
“What? How is water drying you out? Aren't you saltwater Zora?” Twilight doesn't sound accusatory, just baffled.
Wind struggles to remain above water, breathing hard. “I don't know, it's too salty or something, but if it was just too salty, I'd float better. There's something weird about it. All I know is that I'm not gonna last hours out here. One at most.”
“Okay,” Twilight says. “Okay. Let me relay that to everyone else. Hold on.” He goes quiet.
In the intervening minutes, Wind strains his eyes to try and see something other than bright gray sky and dark gray water. He's just lucky there isn't a storm out right now. He sucks in a big breath and pushes himself underwater for a few seconds, but there aren't any landmarks down there, either.
No fish, even. It makes the back of Wind’s neck prickle. Is something out here that scared them off?
“Wind?” Twilight says, and Wind fights back up to air.
After coughing up a bit more of this gross water, Wind answers. “Ugh, disgusting. Yeah, I'm here.”
“Stop breathing the water if you can't,” Twilight says with a scoff.
“You try ignoring your instincts!” Wind protests. He swipes at his face to get water out of his eyes. “Ugh, I'm gonna be so crusty after this. I can feel the salt latching on.”
“You can take a hot bath when we find you, okay? Is there anything around you that you can use as a landmark? Your locator’s all fritzy.”
“No, I can't see anything. It's all just clouds and ocean. I checked, but there's nothing under the water either. Is there even any land on this planet?”
“Yeah, but not a lot. Try not to swim out too far, and keep talking. Wild says that he's going to try to isolate your signal on radio waves instead, since the usual locator isn't working.”
“Keep talking?” Wind repeats. He tilts back, looking up at the bright sky and floating on his back as best he can. “I can do that. Uh… ninety-nine bottles of cide on the boat, ninety-nine bottles of cide. Take one down, pass it around, ninety-nine bottles of cide on the wall—”
Twilight interrupts, a smile in his voice. “I'm going to let you continue, because as annoying as this is going to get, it's a good way to keep your line open, but what's cide?”
“Short for seaweed cider,” Wind answers. “Usually non-alcoholic. My grandma sang us this version at night instead of the other one.”
“Understood,” Twilight snorts. “I'm turning your volume down, so scream if you need me.”
“Sounds good. Ninety-eight bottles of cide on the boat…”
Wind keeps singing, his throat drying out bit by bit. Around fifty-two bottles, he notices himself slipping. More silence passes between bottles, and his eyes are trying to close, even as he fights it. Without really thinking about it, he lets out a long breath and lets his head sink below the surface like he does when he naps in water.
Two false breaths later, and Wind startles back to wakefulness, choking and violently coughing. He can't figure out which way is up for a terrifying moment, but then his head breaks the surface. The water in his lungs refuses to come out for a long moment, and then Wind is not only coughing up water but gasping for air. His throat burns with bile as more than just the seawater comes up. Eww.
“—eathe,” Twilight shouts into Wind's ear. “Breathe, Wind!”
“Tr—trying,” Wind chokes out. Hot tears fall from his eyes, which is water he really can't afford to lose right now. His stomach cramps again, and his last meal comes up in several bursts. Disgusting. Wind turns away and tries very hard to keep his head above water. It's a fruitless endeavor, but at least when he sinks this time, he doesn't try to breathe in again. He relaxes, breath held, for a few seconds, then rises.
“Wind, please tell me you're okay!” Twilight says over the comms.
“F-fine,” Wind responds. He takes a few deep breaths and swims a few feet away from the gross part of the water. He sniffs and wipes water out of his eyes again. “Just forgot. And choked. Twi, I'm tired.”
“I know, Wind. Just keep floating, okay? Wild has you pinned down to a small section, and you're really close to us.”
Wind leans back to float again, closing his eyes. “How small is the section?”
“Couple miles square. We'll find you in no time.”
“Okay.” Wind is almost afraid to take a deep breath, but he forces himself to do it. It's plain air, salty but entirely breathable.
He's just… floating on top of an immense ocean. He can't see the bottom, which is fine, but for some reason, it makes him nervous. What if there's something down there, something gargantuan? Something that's scared everything else away?
Against his will, Wind starts to remember stories his grandmother told him once when he heard other kids talking about a spirit of the ocean big enough to swallow entire towns. It has a mouth full of teeth, a powerful tail that swings side-to-side, mucus-covered skin, and long feelers that funnel food into its mouth. It appears out of nowhere, but only if people are foolish enough to fish the restricted waters. He knows now that the stories are meant to keep children away from dangerous locations, but that monster frightened him. And it still does.
Wind tells himself there's nothing out there, nothing beneath him, but the more he tells himself that, the more he tenses, sure that there is something lurking just by his legs. He thinks he feels the brush of a slimy antenna against his leg.
“There's nothing there,” Wind says to himself, but sinks below the water just to confirm it. He spins in a circle and sees nothing but bottomless, indigo-blue water.
Being underwater doesn't help his anxiety. In fact, it makes it worse. He can't breathe, he can't see very far, and what if the monster is just right there and the moment he goes up, it'll strike?
His lungs burn, and he has to surface to gasp for air. In his tired panic, Wind starts to cry again. He whines.
“Hey, what's wrong?” Twilight asks, using his big brother voice. That usually grates on Wind’s nerves, but right now it's what he needs. It helps that he knows nobody else can hear them.
Wind sobs, arms and legs churning the water around him. “I’m tired. And—there’s nothing there but I feel like there is, and—oh, Twi, where are you?!” He cries out wordlessly again, the only real outlet he has right now. His tears blur his vision.
“We're coming, Wind, hold on, okay? Just breathe.”
“I can't! I can't breathe this! It's so hard to swim when I can't! I'm going to get too tired and sink and drown, I don't want to drown! I want to go home—”
“My home,” Twilight begins, interrupting, “is on the edge of Faron Woods. It's rather dim, even at noon, and the trees are almost blue. Everything is made out of wood there. It smells like pine trees. Have you ever smelled pine trees?”
Wind sucks in a shaking breath, trying to let Twilight distract him from the panic that throbs through his chest and arms and rings in his ears. “Yeah, duh,” he says, stuffy.
“It's a beautiful place.” Twilight’s voice is low and steady. “Really insular, honestly. We traded with a few other villages, and we're part of Ordon as a whole, but I grew up knowing a total of twenty families. And I knew them really well, they're all like my cousins. Except that would be weird, because people definitely marry others in the village. We aren't cousins.”
Wind gives a wet laugh. “Oh, I get it, Outset is kinda the same, we aren't even that big.”
“Small-town kids gotta stick together,” Twilight says, a smile evident in his voice. “Anyway, we have these goats with round horns, you might've seen those pictures on my wall. You might not believe it, but I'm pretty good at tossing them around.”
“Tossing? Like throwing?”
“Exactly. They're kinda dumb. Okay, sorry, those goats are really dumb, so dumb they don't even follow the leader. So you gotta tie them to each other or throw them. I'm usually recruited to help throw them.”
Wind tries to picture it. “Aren't they bigger than you?”
“You think that matters?” Wind can picture Twilight’s fanged smile. “Oh! I think I see you! Wind!”
“Huh?” Wind looks up, but the sky is still clear. He frowns. “Uh…”
“Hold on, hold on. I'm coming down.”
Wind keeps looking around, his heart rising even as his arms and legs start to feel even heavier, as if filling with sand. He doesn't see anything—
Until suddenly he does.
The Epona's small auxiliary ship, Red Lion, appears as if it just spawned from the clouds, becoming visible seconds before it comes down in the water just a few yards away.
Stunned, it takes Wind a few seconds to register that yes, Twilight is here, and he's saved. He blinks, swallows against the awful taste in his mouth, and starts to swim. The waves that the Lion makes as it lands try to push him away, but Wind knows how to work with the water, even when he's exhausted and trying not to register it.
The large door on the side of the Lion hisses open when Wind arrives, tears on his face again. He lunges forward and manages to grab the lip with his hands. Twilight is right there, leaning over, taking Wind’s wrists and pulling him up without hardly any help on Wind’s part.
“I gotcha,” Twilight says, dragging Wind’s limp, wet self into the ship.
Wind shivers, his heart backflipping, and starts to sob again. Now that he's not swimming, it's very clear exactly how tired he is, and how much he'd been panicking. “I didn't see you,” he says, grabbing at Twilight's suit. “Until you were right there.”
“Yeah, apparently the atmosphere here is really weird, the minerals bend light and all kinds of stuff.” Twilight wraps one arm around Wind’s shoulders and uses the other to shut the ship door with the touch of a button, sealing them in dim light.
“I hate it.” Now that he's begun, Wind can't stop crying. His hands shake, and his head hurts, and his throat is raw from singing and then throwing up. Twilight’s arm around him feels better than he wants to admit, so he hides his face and leans into it. He hiccups.
Twilight’s hand passes through Wind’s hair. His claws on Wind’s scalp feel nice. “Yeah, it's stupid. The Epona is almost right above us, but they couldn't see you, and obviously you couldn't see it.”
That makes it worse. It was right there. Wind sobs again. “Sorry.” He doesn't know what he's apologizing for—not seeing the ship? Crying? Getting everything wet?
“Nah, don't be. That was terrifying for all of us. Hey, can I get you to drink some water? The clean kind.”
“I hate water,” Wind mutters, though they both know that isn't true. He detaches himself from Twilight and does his best to stop crying while he drains the offered bottle of compressed water. It has a familiar taste that combats the salt still in Wind’s throat, and he gradually calms down. His breathing levels out.
Twilight remains sitting close to him while he drinks, and the Red Lion floats on the water in a way that reminds Wind of his own ship, and it comforts him. “Yeah, you weren't kidding about the salt, huh?”
“No,” Wind sighs. He takes off his sopping wet jacket and pokes at his bare arms, colored a calm blue fading to white, and covered in tiny scales. Usually, he can't see the individual scales without looking very closely, but right now he can see all the seams thanks to the white salt buildup between them. He scratches, getting some of it off and relieving some of the itch. “Gonna need some vinegar later to get it all off. And my webs are super tight too, look.”
Wind holds up his hand and spreads his fingers, but they can’t get very far apart thanks to the translucent blue webbing between each one. Usually, the fins there are flexible enough and loose enough to stretch as far as he needs them, but right now, they’re locked tight and nearly opaque. “That usually only happens when I'm all dried out.”
“Weird,” Twilight says, wrinkling his nose. “Well, we’ll be back to the Epona before you know it. Strap on in.” He stands, and Wind takes his offer of a hand to help him stand, too, then snags another bottle of water. They sit in the two seats in the Lion and strap in for the ascent.
Twilight starts up the Lion’s engines with a low rumble. Wind feels the trembling as the wings extend on both sides, and slowly, the Lion rises into the air. One of the lights on the dashboard blinks, and Twilight presses a button, connecting them to the Epona via sound.
“Twilight!” Wild says immediately, his voice filling the Lion's cockpit. “Did you find him?”
“Yep! Safe and sound,” Twilight responds, speaking a little louder than usual so the omni can pick up his voice.
“In desperate need of a nap and some vinegar,” Wind adds. He keeps his voice from trembling, which is a win in his book. He sticks the water bottle’s straw in his mouth and turns the dial to let water flow out. He likes the compressed water. It tastes normal. And it's usually a very neutral pH thanks to the added minerals, which is just perfect.
“Don't worry!” That's Four’s voice. “I found a recipe for a gentle salt cleaner for skin and scales, and made a bottle of it!”
“Used all my vinegar,” Wild mutters, though he's smiling, Wind can tell.
Four continues. “And your tank is full. With that one ion thing in it?”
Wind grins. “Oh, that sounds so good right now. Thanks.”
“Of course. We all take care of each other.”
“Wars back with the Blue Lion yet?” Twilight asks.
“Docking now,” Wild responds. “You two are about three minutes out?”
“Yep, that's what it says.” Twilight flips a few switches, and out the window, Wind can see the Epona come into view. It really is just a weird atmosphere. He does, genuinely, kind of hate it. “Talk to you soon.”
The radio shuts off, and Wind glances at Twilight.
“Uh… are you gonna tell anyone I panicked?”
“Not unless you want me to.”
Wind shakes his head, then stops. He still has a headache. “Uh, no. No, I don't. Sorry.”
“Okay, then.” Twilight laughs. “Drink your water, and don't apologize.”
“Yes, mom.”