Chapter Text
Link, codename Legend – don’t ask him, it was a long story – had woken up confused a half dozen times on missions from HYLIA, so blinking his eyes open to find an unfamiliar ceiling did little to faze him. His head pounded, making him nauseous, and the lights overhead glared with a medical-grade intensity. Just where was he, and what goons had managed to capture him this time? He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut.
“I’m so happy to see you awake!”
Legend’s eyes snapped open. How had he missed that he wasn’t alone in the room? Lifting his head, he ignored the dizzying sway of the world and searched out the source of the chipper voice.
“Are you feeling woozy at all?” There! A woman, probably around his age, maybe even a little older, stood a few feet away from the bed with a pen in one hand and a clipboard in the other. She smiled, the skin around her eyes wrinkling slightly. Vibrant red hair framed her face, and her skin was deeply tanned.
“Who’re you?” Legend slurred, pushing himself up onto his elbows. Normally in these types of situations, he woke up tied to a chair and face-to-face with burly thugs wearing twisted scowls. Never had there been a beautiful woman with a flowery headband in her hair and the comfort of fuzzy sheets around him. It was enough to send Legend’s head spinning even more.
“Whoa! Steady there.” The woman rushed to support him as he tipped to the side. He would have fallen out of the bed had she not swooped in to catch him. She smelled like sea spray and sand. It was nice. “My name is Marin,” the kind woman said as she helped Legend lay back down. “And this is Koholint!”
The name itched something in Legend’s mind. Was this part of the mission? He focused on gathering what information he could from the room. Glancing around, he noted it wasn’t much bigger than the bunk room he shared with Hyrule on the base. Warm wood tones complimented the inviting reds and golds of the decor. It looked like any other normal bedroom, with two narrow beds, a dresser topped with an artificial plant, and a low table in the corner. His traveling bag rested on top, seemingly undisturbed, and his boots sat on the floor right beside the table. Two large mirrors flanked either side of the bedroom door. He dropped his head back onto the soft pillow and swallowed down a wave of nausea.
“How did I get here?” he whispered.
“There was an accident,” Marin said gently. She set her clipboard down beside the artificial plant on the dresser and dragged a stool over to sit by Legend’s bed. “You were brought here so you could recover peacefully.”
“Accident?” Legend breathed. Screeching metal reverberated through his mind, and something lightning hot seared through his veins. His nerves felt fried and his body trembled; a pain pulsed in his gut, sending his stomach rolling. He curled into a ball on the bed, one hand clutching his stomach and the other tugging at his hair.
Did HYLIA send them? he wondered. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing the agency would do – look out for a single operative so closely – but if the mission were as critical as the briefing had made it seem, then maybe the organization would step in and do something. Or, the paranoid part of his mind whispered, maybe HYLIA finally left you for dead after all these years.
Tears burned at the corners of his eyes. Humiliated, he brought his hands up to cover his face. What was wrong with him? He was normally more composed than this, but something about this room, about his ever-pounding headache and the dizzy tilt to the world, left him feeling like he was no more than six years old, crying to his uncle about the imaginary monsters under his bed.
A warm hand settled on his shoulder. Another smoothed the hair on his head. Peering through his hands, he saw Marin smiling at him. Her blue eyes looked so sad. “It’s alright to feel a little confused,” she soothed. “It will get better with time. Just let yourself rest.”
Don’t rest, that paranoid part of him whispered again. His heart rate picked up, his pulse rabbit-quick.
“You’ll feel better soon.” Marin’s hands left a cold ache as she pulled away, but they returned a moment later, squeezing lightly around his upper arm. She watched him carefully as she whispered soothing words. Legend shivered as something cold brushed against his arm. Feeling a pinch, he tried to jerk his arm away.
The rolling of his stomach settled into a mildly unpleasant ache. Stay vigilant, a voice that sounded a lot like Time whispered, but Legend could hardly keep his eyes open now. Watch your enemy!
Wait, enemy? Legend’s hazy mind struggled to understand. How was this girl the enemy? Wasn’t she taking care of him?
“It’s okay, Link,” Marin said, taking his hand in hers. “Deep breaths, now. That’s it.”
As the last of his conscious thought left him, Legend struggled to remember when he had told her his name.