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He finds Twilight before he lets himself look up.

The ground under Wild’s knees is soft and wet, still settling from the collapse. He blinks grit from his lashes, so he can see Twilight in a half-curled position in the middle of it, dirt streaked across his face. His right leg thrown straight out — looking awkward at the knee — the other bent under him. His eyes are squeezed shut, breath hissing through his teeth.

Only when Wild is sure he’s breathing does he tip his head back.

The world narrows to a ring of sky maybe twelve meters above, framed in roots and torn earth. The walls around them are steep and slick. The edges are jagged, fringed in roots and the silhouettes of leaning trees visible. It turns the sinkhole into a deep, narrow pit. The sky beyond is nearly all-white, a thick layer of clouds slowly forming.

He moves his attention back down.

“Twilight.” Wild’s voice sounds raw in the confined space. “Twilight, c’mon.”

Not yet wanting to look at himself, he crawls the last bit to his brother. Twilight’s eyes slit open at the sound, unfocused at first, then sharpening on Wild’s face.

“Hey, rancher.” Wild offers a quick, lopsided smile. “Still with me?”

“…Hylia,” Twilight breathes, and then, because he’s him: “Are you ok?”

Only then does Wild check himself over. His ears ring sharp and hollow, but it's already fading out to a faint buzz. The fall's impact throbs in his hips and knees — dark bruises already purpling where he hit parts of the wall — but nothing buckles when he pushes to his feet. Dirt-caked scrapes sting across his palms and elbows, raw from his frantic grab at the collapsing wall on the way down. He flexes his fingers; sore but steady.

“I'm okay,” he says, “You, on the other hand, got really unlucky.”

Twilight shifts, tries to push up onto an elbow — and his breath catches hard as his right leg protests when it bends slightly.

Wild’s stomach drops; he catches the limb before it can bend further, his own fingers digging into mud as he stabilizes the knee by straightening it. Twilight goes rigid, teeth gritted, a strangled sound escaping despite his effort to choke it back. Sweat beads along his brow. Up close, the knee looks wrong: swollen already and the joint bulges oddly under the fabric. It lies straight only because the soft ground cradles it; any flex would grind bone against bone.

“Okay,” Wild says quickly. “Don’t. Just don’t move it.”

When Twilight finally gets breath enough to speak, his voice is thin with restraint. “That… is broken.”

“No shit,” he says, more to himself than anything. “So you’re not walking out of here — let alone climbing.”

Wild’s hand drops automatically to the Sheikah Slate at his hip. He opens it, but knows what he'll find. Potion bottles are there but no fairies. A potion won't help, it's just going to heal Twilight's knee wrong.

“Twilight,” he says, voice steady despite the hollow twist in his gut. “You got a fairy on you?”

Twilight shifts minutely, wincing. “I know I got nothing.” His eyes meet Wild’s, grim understanding passing between them. “We’re on our own.”

Wild snaps the Slate shut. All he can do now is splint it. He wipes his dirty palms on his tunic — mud smears instead of cleaning — and exhales hard.

Right. Splint. I’ve done this before… somewhere. The memory is barely there: hands guiding his own around a swollen ankle, a voice murmuring snug but not strangling. But the face and the why of it all blurs. It leaves him second-guessing even as his fingers itch to move.

“You sure about this?” Twilight asks, voice tight but steady, eyes tracking him. Sweat gleams at his temples.

Wild swallows the doubt. “Sure enough. Lie still.”

He scans the debris-strewn floor, searching for snapped roots and branches. Straight ones, mid thigh to ankle; the voice speaks again. He crawls over, digs out two likely candidates, tests the first against his own leg — snaps too easily under pressure. He finally finds two branches that match and he turns back to Twilight, heart thudding a little too fast.

“Will these do?” he asks nervously, holding them up like Twilight’s the expert here.

Twilight eyes them, nods once. “Yeah. Wider’s better, less wobble.”

Wild rips strips from his old, shorter cloak. Twist tight. Wet fabric holds knots better. He pauses, unsure.

“Start low,” Twilight says, breath hitching as he shifts his weight. “Ankle first. Keeps the whole thing aligned.”

Wild nods, grateful, and slides the branches alongside the injured leg — careful not to let the knee bend. Twilight hisses anyway, fingers digging into the mud. Wild’s stomach knots. Am I going too fast? Too rough?

“Breathe,” he says, half to Twilight, half to himself. “Like… in through nose, out slowly.”

Twilight follows it, jaw clenched. Wild ties the first strip around the ankle then glances up. “Too tight?”

“Feels right,” Twilight grits. “Next one below the knee. Don’t rush, take your time, alright?”

Wild obeys, his hands doing the work. They shake just a fraction on the mid-thigh knot, memory whispering what if it slips mid-climb?

Twilight notices. “You’re doing fine, cub."

Wild huffs a tight laugh. “If you say so.”

With the last knot done, Wild eases back and studies it. The leg is straight, the sticks hold firm, and the wrappings are even. He presses lightly above the ankle — color returns quick, which means it's not too tight.

He lays a cautious hand just above the highest bandage. “Try to flex your ankle — just your ankle. Tell me if it spikes.”

Twilight curls his toes, heel twitching. Winces, but smaller. “It hurts like blazes, but holds.”

Wild lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Okay. Okay. Doubt lingers, but the splint looks… right.

Twilight meets his eyes. “Stop fretting — you’ve done well. It feels heaps better already.”

Wild snorts, pushing to his feet, joints protesting. That's a lie and they both know it. Twilight’s confidence lingers despite it though — a small anchor against the fog in his head.

He lets his gaze travel the circle of the sinkhole again, cataloguing. The walls are steep — steeper than any sensible ladder, not quite vertical but close enough that you’d slide if you tried to run up them. The lower half is compacted clay and gritty soil. Higher up, the color darkens with roots and old humus. Some of those roots dangle down, thick as his wrist. Others are finer, threaded into seams and crevices.

There are holds. Not many, and not kind ones, but they exist: protruding stones and roots. His fingers map the route in the air without thinking: here, then there, weight on the left foot, right hand to that jutting root, shift, reach.

The back of his neck prickles.

He lifts his face up higher, squinting. The clouds that were a veil of white a minute ago have thickened more, the edges graying already. There’s a heaviness in the air. The kind of pressure that’s familiar in his bones — the signs of a storm not yet visible, but on its way.

He has stood in enough mountain passes watching rain turn trickles into torrents to recognize the warning.

If it pours…

He looks at the floor, at the way it dips slightly at the center, at the faint damp sheen already present in the low spots. Water will collect here. If the ground above is saturated, if there are any hidden channels feeding into this void, it will not take long for it to start filling.

Twilight is watching him. Even through the pain, he tracks Wild’s eyes, then the sky, then the walls. He understands the shape of the danger almost as quickly.

“How long?” he asks quietly.

Wild chews the inside of his cheek. Clouds rolling in mid-morning usually mean afternoon rain. He can already feel the subtle shift of the breeze overhead. “By dusk,” he says. “Maybe sooner, if it comes on heavy.”

Twilight’s expression tightens. “The others?”

“Portal dropped us alone.” Wild gestures vaguely, as if that could encompass all the strangeness. “They’re probably scattered. Even if they noticed this from up top…” He glances at the ring of sky again. From above, the entrance would be nothing but a gap, hidden by leaning branches. “They’d have to be right on top of it to see us.”

“So we assume no help,” Twilight sighs. His voice has steadied; pain has been layered over with that calm, practical tone he uses when something truly awful is happening. “Can you climb it?”

Can he? Alone, with no extra weight, with roots and roughness and twelve meters of bad decisions between him and the sky?

Yes, he could.

“With time to rest,” he says. “Yeah.”

Twilight nods once, slow. “Then you go and find the others. Bring a rope.”

Wild stares at him. “No,” he says.

Twilight blinks. “What?”

“I’m not leaving you at the bottom of something that’s going to flood.” The words come out flat. “By the time I get up, find them, get back… If the rain comes fast, you’ll be under it, because you can't keep yourself afloat with a broken knee.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” Wild says.

He pushes to his feet, feeling the pull in his thighs, the faint tremor in muscles that are still protesting the fall. He checks his belt, his pouches. Nothing that could be used as a long-enough rope.

What he does have are belts, straps, a bedroll, some of his old cloak, fabric, leather…

He moves on instinct, hands already working. He shrugs off his own belt, Twilight’s, threads them together. The leather is thick, well-worn. It will hold. He tears strips from the bedroll bindings, from the hem of worn tunics, braids them through. He works fast, not tidy, knotting everything into a rough harness that will wrap around Twilight’s chest and shoulders and cross his own.

Twilight watches him for a long time without speaking. When he does, his voice is low.

“Wild.”

“Hmm?” Wild doesn’t look up. He’s checking a knot, hauling on it until the leather creaks.

“You can’t.” Twilight’s tone sharpens as the words settle between them. “You can’t carry me up that wall. Look at it.” He jerks his chin toward the slope, jaw tight. “It’s too steep. It’s fresh. It’ll crumble. You’re—” He stops, rakes his eyes over Wild’s slight frame, the narrow shoulders, the lean lines of muscle that don’t match the task at hand. “You’re not built for this.”

Wild ties off the last knot and only then meets his gaze. “You got a better idea?”

“Yes,” Twilight says. “You go alone.”

“Not an option.”

“It is the only option.” Frustration cracks through, his hands turning into fists. “If you fall with me on your back, we both die. If you go alone and fall, I’m still here to curse you for being reckless when you land.”

“Inspirational,” Wild says dryly. He stoops, slides the makeshift harness under Twilight’s back as gently as he can. Twilight's fingers latch onto Wild’s sleeve.

“Wild,” he says again. There’s more in it this time: fear, anger, pleading. “You’re wiry, you’re quick, but I’m heavier than two of you. You'll slip. I’m not worth you breaking yourself over.”

“Won’t slip.” Wild cinches a strap, shoulders it to test.

“You will slip!” Twilight’s hand clamps Wild’s wrist, grip iron despite the pain. His eyes burn, fierce and frayed. “There’s no way you can carry me all the way to the top. It’s impossible!”

Wild pauses. Twilight’s words hang — they're raw and desperate.

He thinks, briefly, of other things that were supposed to be impossible. Walking into a divine machine and walking back out. Staring down monsters twice his height. Running across a battlefield with the sky on fire and making it out the other side.

His mouth twists.

“Good thing I don’t listen to ‘impossible,’ then,” he says, and starts tightening the straps.

Twilight grits his teeth as the harness closes around his chest and shoulders, as Wild threads bands under his arms, across his ribs, over his good thigh, avoiding the ruined knee as much as he can. The leather bites in. It will bruise, but if it’s any looser, it’ll slip and drop him.

“You’re not thinking straight,” Twilight says, more desperate now. “You’re shaken from the fall. That wall is going to get slick as soon as the rain hits it. You’ll tear something, you’ll—”

“Twilight.” Wild’s voice cuts through the spill of words. He cinches one last strap and leans in close enough that Twilight can’t look anywhere else. “You're wrong. There is no help coming in time. The water won’t wait. So either we both try, or I stand here and watch you drown when it fills. And I’m not doing that.”

Twilight’s throat works. The pulse there is fluttering too fast. “I can’t walk,” he says, almost helpless. “I can’t even stand. I’ll slow you down.”

“You’re not slowing me down,” Wild says, softer. “I'm going to get us both out of here, whether you like it or not.”

He shifts then, turning, presenting his back. The harness lines fall into place as if they were always meant to: one broad strap across his chest, another over each shoulder, crossing between his shoulder blades. He crouches low.

“Arms,” he says. “Around my neck. Carefully.”

Twilight hesitates only a second before obeying, hooking his arms over Wild’s shoulders, forearms braced against his collarbones. The movement drags a ragged sound from him as his weight lifts off the ground and his broken leg aches with the shift of gravity. Wild bears it in silence, letting Twilight settle as much as he can, feeling the warm, solid heft of him lock into place along his spine.

He's heavy.

“Tell me if anything moves wrong,” Wild says, voice slightly strained. “If the leg feels like it’s going to twist, yell. I’ll stop.”

“You’ll hurt yourself,” Twilight mutters, but the fight has gone out of him. His grip around Wild’s shoulders tightens, careful not to choke him.

Wild steps toward the wall.

Up close, the slope looms. The clay is damp to the touch, cool and slick under his fingers. He tests a root with his left hand; it holds firm. He presses his boot into a small depression in the earth and shifts his weight. The soil crumbles a little, then packs, leaving a narrower but serviceable foothold.

Wild feels Twilight’s weight pull at the harness, at his shoulders, at his spine. His heart is beating too fast, but he doesn't allow himself to think about the top or the bottom. Just his hands, his feet, and his breathing.

The first step is easy.

Or it would be, if he weren’t already carrying more than he should.

Wild pushes up, his boots sliding a fraction before the clay finally grips. His thighs complain at once, the leftover tremor from the fall flaring under Twilight’s weight. His fingers find the first root and then the next, rough and ridged against his skin.

He moves slow at first, testing everything twice before trusting it: toe into a hollow, weight on it, heel down; fingers around a root, then shifting his center of gravity until he’s pressed into the wall instead of hanging away from it. Even that small shift makes his calves burn and his knees quiver under Twilight’s mass. The slope is steep but not sheer — just enough that he can lean, can steal a little relief by letting the wall take some of the burden that would otherwise tear at his arms.

Every motion sends a small jolt through Twilight, and every jolt sends a ripple of pain through Twilight’s breathing. Wild can hear it in the way his exhale stutters, in the low sound that slips out once before Twilight swallows it back down. His bad leg hangs straight, barely touching the wall as they move; on the other side, the harness band digs into his inner thigh, the only thing keeping him from slipping to one side.

“Sorry,” Wild murmurs.

“Just…” Twilight manages. “Don't worry about me.”

The soil is compacted, but fresh — raw edges where the ground has torn, streaks of lighter clay exposed to air for the first time. Pebbles skid loose under his toes. The roots woven through the upper layers are their salvation: thick-enough, rope-like tangles he can grip like rungs.

He falls into a rhythm. Left foot up, right hand to root, pull and push together. Right foot searching, finding a nub of broken stone, weight shifting. His legs are already starting to burn, the load doubling what they’re used to carrying. His arms complain in a sharper way, forearms swelling with effort.

Twilight is very quiet.

“Still with me?” he manages, after what might be a few body-lengths or only one. Time is already starting to smear.

“Yeah,” Twilight says, voice thin. “Keep going.”

The light changes as they climb. The ring of sky shifts from a harsh circle straight overhead to something slightly off-center, the shadows on the wall sliding. It’s subtle, but Wild can feel the day moving, can feel the air thickening with that strange certainty that has nothing to do with clouds and everything to do with the way his skin prickles.

Rain is coming.

He doesn’t know when. He doesn’t understand how he knows. But the knowledge is as solid in him as the wall is under his hands, as irrefutable as any memory.

Don't look down, don't look down! Once or twice, his eyes flicker sideways and catch glimpses of the floor. His heart gives an uncomfortable lurch each time, so he stops doing that, too.

The first few meters feel endless.

By the time they reach a shallow bulge in the wall — a place just wide enough that he can almost stand rather than cling — his breath is ragged. Sweat slicks his back under Twilight’s weight, makes the leather straps bite deeper. His hands burn where the skin has split, each new grip pulling at the raw edges.

He forces himself to look up. The sky is still a distant circle, barely wider than when they started, but closer. The clouds are a storm‑gray now, promising rain before he can reach the rim.

“Rest,” Twilight says abruptly, close to his ear.

Wild doesn’t argue. He wedges his boots into a sideways crack, leans his hip against a jut of earth, and lets his knees lock for just long enough that his muscles stop shaking. His arms hang, fingers curled around two reliable roots, carrying as little as possible.

He counts his breaths. One, two, three-

“Wild.” Twilight’s voice has that captain’s edge to it again. “You need to listen to me.”

“Not really the best time for a lecture,” Wild mutters, but his chest is heaving. Words are easier than silence.

“You’re not just tired,” Twilight says. “I can feel you shaking.”

Wild swallows. “I’ll be fine.”

“You are already past fine.”

There’s something in his tone that makes Wild’s grip tighten. Twilight isn’t just annoyed. He’s afraid.

“You keep going like this, you’re going to -” Twilight stops, breath catches, as if he’s bitten off a word before it can turn into a curse. When he speaks again, it’s quieter. “You’re at your limit.”

Limit. Wild’s eyes flick to the next section of wall: steeper, with fewer obvious holds, a kind of slick, packed stretch where the sinkhole’s collapse sheared through older clay. Above that, thicker roots, more broken stone.

Wild’s jaw tightens. He’s heard worry from everyone else, but hearing it from Twilight — who usually keeps his fear tucked neatly away — feels like a slap to the face. For a moment, something hot wants to flare up in his chest: You think I don’t know that? You think stopping is an option?

Then he remembers the way Twilight’s voice hitched, the way his fingers dug a little harder into Wild’s collarbones, and the anger folds itself back down.

Twilight isn’t doubting him; he’s terrified for him. Wild feels a different kind of heat then — the dawning of his own fear, the sickening realization that Twilight is right, that his body is nearing its limit.

But he can’t let that show. Not when Twilight’s leg would pay for his shortcomings, not when every second he wastes might mean the rain closes the gap between them and the rim.

His heartbeat is loud enough in his ears that it almost drowns out everything else.

Almost.

Beneath it, there’s that now-familiar hum in his bones: The insistence that the sky is tightening, that somewhere beyond his sight the first drops are already thinking of falling.

“We don’t have time,” he says. The words come out a little rough. “If it starts before we’re out…”

Twilight exhales through his teeth. “Then we look for another option. A ledge, a tunnel, anything. You don’t have to get us out in one go and die trying.”

“It’s this,” he says softly, “or it’s nothing.”

Silence behind him. He can feel Twilight’s jaw working where it nearly brushes his shoulder, the way his grip tightens across Wild’s chest.

“Let me go,” Twilight says finally.

The words land like a punch.

Wild closes his eyes for a moment. He can see it too easily: He’s fresh out of the Shrine of Resurrection, the world still too big, his body not fully his own. He had thought climbing would be simple — something he could just do. Back then, he hadn’t learned his limits yet.

He remembers the way his breath burned in his chest, how quickly it had run out, how his arms had begun to shake far sooner than they should have. The wall had stretched on above him, unforgiving and endless, and his body had simply stopped.

His hand had slipped and there had been a moment where he’d hung there, caught between holding on and falling, knowing he didn’t have the strength to pull himself back.

Then the drop. The impact had driven the air from his lungs, left him sprawled at the base of a climb he couldn’t finish, staring up at something he hadn’t been strong enough to overcome.

Wild’s eyes snap open. The present crashes back in — mud, aches in his muscles, and Twilight’s weight solid against his back.

His grip tightens. Not this time.

“No,” he says, his voice not soft at all. “Hold on.”

He pushes off the bulge, legs screaming as they take his weight again. The brief rest helped, but it wasn’t enough. The wall steepens.

Here, the clay gives way in patches to something harder — pale, exposed stone where the earth has been torn off. It offers edges, but they’re cruel ones: sharp lips that bite into his fingers, slick planes that don’t care how badly he needs friction. The roots are sparser, too, diving deeper instead of spreading wide.

He reaches for one such root with his right hand, fingers sliding along its length. It’s wedged solidly into a crack, thick as a rope. He trusts it, hauls.

Something in his shoulder gives.

It isn’t a snap, exactly. More like a horrible, wet shift, a clunk deep inside the joint that his body recognizes before his mind does. Pain bursts along his collarbone and down his arm, white and immediate, stealing his breath. His hand spasms open.

He makes a sound — small, choked, cut off halfway.

The world tilts. For an instant, his weight starts to go backward, Twilight’s mass pulling him away from the wall.

“…Wild—!” Twilight’s voice spikes, sharp with alarm.

Instinct slams through him like an electric shock. He throws himself forward, ramming his left knee into the wall hard enough that the impact rattles his teeth. His left hand claws for purchase and finds a narrow ledge of rock. His right arm dangles, useless and molten with pain.

He hangs there for a heartbeat, maybe two, chest pressed to the wall, breath coming in harsh, shallow gasps.

“Stop,” Twilight says, the word knifed out of him. “Stop, you’ll tear it.”

“Can’t,” Wild manages. The joint feels wrong — off‑center, not quite where it belongs, and with only one arm still working, Twilight’s weight drags unevenly across his shoulder and ribs, a slow, relentless pull that threatens to unbalance them both. Every tiny movement sends a fresh jolt through his shoulder, down into his ribs. Cold sweat breaks out along his spine.

“Yes, you can,” Twilight snaps, but there’s a tremor under the anger. “Look at you, you’re shaking. You can’t continue with your arm like that!”

“That’s why I have another one,” Wild says. It’s meant to be wry. It comes out thin.

“You’re at your limit,” Twilight breathes.

Maybe. Probably. Every muscle from his calves to his neck is vibrating now, tiny twitches he can’t control. His forearms feel carved out, nothing left in them but fire. His hands — his left hand, the only one still doing its job — slips a fraction on the rock, skin squeaking against damp stone.

Wild’s gaze flicks upward, because he has to know. The sky is no longer a distant circle, but a widening ring. The rim is closer than it’s ever been — not close enough to be safe, but close enough that, if he can just keep moving, if he can ignore the shaking in his arms and the wrongness in his shoulder, he might reach it before the rain.

“Let me go,” Twilight whispers, close to his ear. “Wild, please. This is going to kill you.”

The rain, timing as great as ever, chooses that moment to arrive.

It’s not a gentle beginning. One second the air is just heavy; the next, water is falling in a sudden curtain somewhere above, pattering against leaves, then drumming. The first drops that reach them splatter the wall in dark polka dots, then streaks. The clay darkens, slickens. Tiny rivulets start to chase each other down past his boots.

For a moment the rain is louder than anything else, and Wild swallows, tasting grit and the metallic tang of his own bitten tongue, letting the water wash over his face. His throat hitches once, small and tight, and he swallows it down hard, the taste of tears and rain and blood all mixed together. He doesn’t cry properly — he can’t, not with Twilight pressed against his back, able to feel his every breath.

The tears are half‑pain, half‑frustration, half‑something he doesn’t want to name. The way his shoulder screams, the way his hands burn, the way Twilight’s weight drags unevenly across his ribs. It’s the way the rim is closer than it’s ever been, the torrent of rain. It’s the way Twilight keeps telling him to stop, like it doesn't mean failure, like stopping wouldn’t mean letting go of the one thing he’s sworn not to drop.

So he breathes in through his nose, out through his mouth, and pretends the shaking in his chest is just the cold. So he steadies himself instead, forcing his breathing smooth, hiding the tremor as best he can.

His world narrows to his left hand, his left foot, and to the next possible place either of them can go. He bares his teeth and shifts his weight, carefully, horribly, up and onto his good side. His right arm hangs, fingers curled uselessly. Every bump of Twilight’s weight against his back grinds the misaligned joint, but he clamps down on the sound clawing up his throat.

He drives his left knee higher, searching for a stronger purchase. It finds a notch. He forces his leg to take them, all of them, pushing as if he can leave the pain below.

Twilight’s breath stutters. His arms lock tighter across Wild’s chest, trying not to squeeze, trying not to shift.

“Easy,” Twilight says hoarsely. “Steady.”

There is no room for slow anymore. The rain is finding every channel the collapse left behind, tapping down onto them in an erratic pattern — cold drops on the back of Wild’s neck, on Twilight’s exposed hair, soaking it in seconds. The wall beneath his left palm is turning to slick mud, the sharp stone ledges going greasy.

He scrabbles higher anyway.

His left hand catches a root. His left boot edges onto a narrow protrusion. Up. Up. His shoulder is a constant, grinding agony now, each tiny twist sending lightning down his side. His ribs ache where the harness bites and his own weight pushes him into the wall. His lungs are starting to burn, not from lack of air but from the effort of forcing it in and out against all of that.

Time comes apart, stretches into an endless sequence of single moves. He stops thinking in distance. There is no 'halfway', no 'almost there'. There is only 'find the next thing' and 'don’t let go'.

At some point, his vision begins to blur at the edges. He blinks rain and sweat out of his eyes and keeps going.

“Wild,” Twilight’s voice coming out frayed. “You need to —”

“If I stop,” Wild cuts off, “I won’t start again.”

He doesn’t know if it’s true. It feels true.

He has no idea how far they’ve come. He doesn’t dare look up for fear of seeing how far is left. He doesn’t dare look down because the thought alone makes his stomach pitch.

Once, his boot slips outright. Clay shears away under it in a wet slide, sending a spray of mud and pebbles back the way they came. His whole body lurches, shoulder screaming as the harness yanks.

For a heartbeat the world tilts sideways.

“Wild—!” Twilight’s arm snaps out fast, hand clamping onto a root just above Wild’s shoulder. The sudden movement drags the harness tight across Twilight’s chest and inner thigh, and for a sickening instant Wild feels the jolt shoot through his ruined knee. Twilight’s breath catches in a choked sound, half‑curse, half‑cry.

Wild’s left hand tightens until his fingers feel like they’ll snap. He jams his own knee into the wall again, finds something, anything, to catch. The moment the wall holds, he shifts his weight, deliberately pulling them back into the safer line — and with it, pulling Twilight’s arm loose from the root.

Twilight doesn’t resist. He lets go, arm falling back, and the harness settles into its original, tighter pull around his torso.

“I’ve got it,” Wild gasps, not sure if he’s trying to convince Twilight or himself. "I won't let you fall."

Twilight doesn’t reach again. His arms stay crossed against Wild's collarbones, the way he’s kept them this whole climb. They both know why — the slightest shift in where Twilight’s weight pulls can tilt them both off balance.

Wild’s jaw tightens, the slip replaying in his head. It was his loss of balance. Guilt coils hot in his stomach as he replays the way Twilight’s throat had let out a sharp, broken sound when the harness had yanked. He’d felt the jolt run through the Twilight’s leg before he’d even steadied himself, and now that memory settles behind his ribs. Twilight’s knee had paid the price for his mistake, but he swallows it down for now and keeps moving.

Somewhere beneath the roar of rain, he thinks he hears a new sound: a distant, low rush. It might be wind through the trees or it could be water finding an underground channel, starting to pour into the sinkhole quickly from some unseen crack.

His bones tell him it’s the second.

“Almost there,” he lies.

Then finally, the wall changes.

The slope softens by degrees, the angle easing from brutal to merely bad. The roots are thicker here and there are patches where moss clings. Above, the ring of sky looks wider, closer, the silhouettes of trees more distinct.

His muscles don’t care. They’ve gone beyond burning into a numb, shaking emptiness. His left hand feels heavy with pain, stiff and clumsy. His legs are moving because they have to, not because they have anything left. A small, broken sound slips out of Wild before he can stop it.

“You're alright,” Twilight says at once, voice small now, almost a breath. “Keep going, you're almost there."

He can’t answer. All of his breath is going into not sobbing when his shoulder twinges, into not letting a single sound escape that might make his focus crack.

He hauls his knee up, then his left arm, traveling higher than before. His fingers catch not rock, but something different — thick, rain‑wet grass and the edge of the sinkhole’s rim. The ground squishes under his palm. For a second, the idea that there is solid earth above them is so shocking he almost doesn’t believe it.

Then he lunges.

It’s ugly. There’s no grace, only raw, clumsy momentum. He throws his weight forward, lets his chest slam onto the rim, elbows driving into sod. Twilight’s mass presses down, threatening to peel him backward, but he anchors his left arm around whatever he can grab —roots, grass, clumps of earth, anything — and pulls.

There is a tearing sensation in his shoulder that borders on surreal. His vision flashes white. He doesn’t feel his legs for a moment, doesn’t feel the rain, doesn’t feel anything but the scream of every fiber in him as he refuses to let them slide back.

Somewhere in the mess, Twilight realizes what’s happening and tries to help, shifting his weight, deliberately curling to one side instead of being a dead drag. The movement hurts them both, but it’s enough to give Wild the angle he needs.

As he pulls, he shifts his body slightly, using the change in pressure to angle Twilight’s leg so that it hangs down the splint, the knee skimming the edge instead of slamming into it. It’s a tiny thing, not perfect, but it’s all he can give, and it’s given with fierce intention.

Wild kicks once, twice, feeling his boots finally find the lip of the rim. His toes bite into the edge, adding the last, desperate push. He wriggles, claws, arches his back.

And then they’re over.

They tumble onto solid ground in a graceless heap, Twilight half on top of him, the world suddenly vast and open instead of a narrowing circle of dirt. Rain is coming down in earnest now, cold needles on his face. The sky is a solid sheet of gray.

For a second, Wild can’t comprehend the idea that they’re not falling anymore.

Twilight moves first. He gasps, then chokes, then forces himself to roll so that they're both on their sides, careful of his ruined leg, careful of Wild’s trapped arm, the straps still biting into his ribs and shoulders. He ends up on his side, one hand braced in the wet grass, the other fumbling for Wild’s shoulder.

“Wild?” he demands, voice shaking. “Wild, look at me. Hey —”

The shaking stops.

It doesn’t stop because Wild rests. It stops because something in him simply lets go. All the trembling, all the pain, all the desperate tension that’s been holding him upright snaps at once. The world tilts, then slides sideways, then narrows down to the sound of the rain and the feel of a hand on his cheek.

He tries to answer Twilight. Tries to say his name, to make some kind of joke, to prove he’s still there, but his mouth doesn’t quite cooperate. His tongue feels thick, his lips numb. The gray at the edges of his vision rushes inwards.

The last thing he’s aware of is Twilight’s fingers digging into his shoulder trying to anchor him to the here and now.

Then everything goes dark.

Wild dreams of water.

Not the clean rush of a river, not waves crashing against stone, but weight — water pressing in from every direction, cold and relentless. It starts as rain, hard drops striking his face, his shoulders, his hands. Then it gathers, slicks the wall, turns clay to mud under his feet. He reaches for a hold and his fingers slip. He reaches again, and the wall gives way beneath him, dragging him down.

The water is already there when he looks down. It rises from below the way a hand reaches up from deep water, fingers slow and certain, and when it touches his boots the weight of it punches through him. It drags at his legs, then his hips, then his ribs, as if the sinkhole itself has grown teeth and is trying to swallow him whole.

He fights anyway. He claws at the wall, at the roots, at the air, but every movement only makes the water surge higher, climbing his chest in a cold, crushing tide. It fills his mouth when he tries to shout for Twilight. It pours into his nose when he tries to breathe. He kicks and the darkness around him closes tighter, wet and endless and alive.

“Wild.”

The water has a voice.

“Wild. Hey.”

He jerks awake in a violent gasp, the pressure vanishing all at once into the smell of horse and hay and wet dog. He drags in a breath like he’s breaking the surface and wakes to the steady crackle of a campfire.

“Easy,” someone says, and there’s a hand on his shoulder, steadying him as he tries to shift. “Don’t try to sit up all at once.”

He knows that voice even before it resolves into a face.

Time kneels in his field of vision, hair damp and curling at the edges, eyes sharp in a pinched, tired face. There’s a smear of soot along one cheek, and his hands are inked with traces of something that might be a salve.

“Hi,” Wild croaks.

Time's mouth twitches. “Hi yourself.”

Wild comes back to himself in pieces.

First is the weight in his chest. A thick, dragging ache that makes each breath feel too big for his ribs. His next inhale is shallow on instinct, and even that hurts. His lungs catch against something bruised and tender along his side, and the softest shift of his shoulders makes a white flare of pain burn up into his neck.

He tries to move his right arm and finds it pinned. Wait, no, not pinned — bound in a sling. The joint itself feels hot and swollen under the skin. Any thought of lifting it dies before it reaches his muscles. His fingers curl reflexively instead, and that’s a mistake too; the skin along his palms and the pads of his fingers protests in a dozen sharp stings, tight under bandages. The more he notices them, the more the small pains multiply: cut edges tugging when he flexes, bruised knuckles, that deep, used-up throb running the length of his forearms.

Wild lifts his left arm, ignoring the way his arm burns, to take a look at his hand. It's swaddled in thick, off-white bandages, the linen already stained rust-brown where the scabs bled through. The shape of his fingers is wrong, swallowed by the dressing. He flexes them experimentally. Pain surges, but they move. The fact that they move feels like a small victory.

His legs are heavy. When he shifts his heels against the bedroll, his quads answer with a slow burn, as if they remember every single step of the climb and would really rather never do that again. His lower back answers with its own complaint, a dull, spreading ache right above his hips.

Then finally, the smell of petrichor and herbs. He realizes he’s on his back, slightly propped on blankets so he’s not flat enough to choke if he coughs. Someone’s wrapped his chest; the bandages restrict his breathing just enough to remind him, with every rise and fall, of the bruises hidden beneath.

He tries to push himself up out of instinct, out of habit, and stops mid-flinch when his shoulder growls at him. The arm in the sling jerks, a fraction, and fire lances through the joint. His breath hitches; he swallows the sound it wants to make and lets the tension bleed out of his muscles instead, teeth clenched, eyes screwed shut for a heartbeat.

He can move. Every limb feels stiff, leaden, and filled with cotton; but he can move. Nothing feels broken… Just pushed beyond sense.

“Easy,” Twilight says from nearby.

Wild turns his head slowly. Twilight sits propped against a bedroll, one leg splinted and propped awkwardly, but his eyes are alert. The lines around them speak of exhaustion.

“You blacked out after you pulled us over the edge,” Twilight says.

Wild swallows, the taste of grit lingering in his mouth. The memories of the rain, the wall, the pain… He shudders. “We made it,” he murmurs.

“We did,” Twilight says quietly. He doesn’t smile, just exhales through his nose, the sound brittle around the edges. He looks like he wants to say something else but decides not to in the end.

"You look awful,” he says hoarsely.

Twilight huffs out something that’s not quite a laugh. “So do you.”

The brief bit of humor hangs in the air for a moment before Time’s voice cuts back in. “That shoulder’s a subluxation,” he says, “not a full dislocation. You’re lucky.”

Wild closes his eyes, letting the words settle.

Time doesn’t rush. He lets the first part settle for a beat before continuing. “Neck’s fine. Hands are a disaster. Ribs are bruised, but nothing’s broken.

"No climbing,” he adds, “and no blades or bow for a while. Definitely nothing heavier than a backpack. Not for at least two weeks.”

Wild’s mouth twitches, the way it always does when he’s told “no” and his mind is already thinking around it. “Two weeks,” he repeats. The words taste like a challenge he’ll try to beat.

The others hover around them — what he can now see as Sky tending the fire, Warriors pacing, Legend fixing his tunic, trying and failing to disguise the worry in his eyes. The air feels fragile, stretched thin over their shared relief.

Twilight breaks it, voice low. “If it was up to me, you’re not carrying anything or anyone for a while.”

Wild opens one eye, the faintest hint of a grin tugging at his mouth. “Good,” he rasps. “You’re heavy.”

Someone snorts nearby and he hears Warriors chuckle. For a moment, the camp fills with an easy, light sound.

“Can I really not use them?” Wild asks quietly, tentatively, as if scared to break the peace. “At all?”

“Once was enough,” Legend snaps from the log. He hasn’t moved closer, but his eyes are fixed on Wild, dark and hard. “You scared the hell out of us, Champ.”

Wild opens his mouth, then closes it again. Hyrule, who's sitting next to Legend, elbows him.

“I… How long?” Wild asks quietly. “Since —” He gestures vaguely toward the sky with his left hand.

“Since you pulled a wolf out of a hole?” Warriors says. “Couple hours ago. It's morning now. You were out cold when we found you.”

Wind lifts a hand. “I heard Twilight yelling. Or panicking more like.”

“I don't panic,” Twilight says automatically.

“You did,” Hyrule says, a little ways away.

Twilight pointedly ignores him.

“The portal scattered us,” Sky adds, voice gentler. “We spread out, trying to look for you. Rain cleared a bit and Hyrule spotted you both by the edge of a sinkhole.”

“If you’d waited ten more minutes to be dramatic,” Legend says, “we’d have been fishing you out of a muddy soup instead of off the rim. So congratulations, your timing still sucks, but not as bad as it could have.”

Wild lets his head sink back into the blankets. The sky above is patchy and pale, stray clouds still drifting lazily across. His body feels like it belongs to someone else — a catalog of sore spots and dull aches, a single sharp, angry knot at his right shoulder that throbs in time with his heartbeat.

He shifts that arm a fraction without meaning to and immediately regrets it. Pain knifes through the joint, a deep, hot grind that steals his breath.

“Stop that,” Four scolds. “You subluxed it. It’s back where it belongs, but the soft tissue is a mess. You move it wrong, you’re going to see stars and I’m going to have to listen to you complain.”

“I don’t complain,” Wild says, teeth clenched.

“Your face does,” Four says. “Loudly.”

“You’ll need to rest it,” Sky says, more measured. “Weeks, not days. We’ll adjust. We’re not going far until Twilight can be moved safely anyway."

Wild’s stomach sours at the idea of being dead weight for two weeks. He swallows and looks back at Twilight, really looks this time.

Up close, the swelling around Twilight’s knee is more obvious, even under the bandages. The skin above the wrappings has that over-stretched look, a faint mottling of bruises creeping outward. His thigh muscles twitch occasionally, tension flickering under the skin when a pulse of pain hits. There’s sweat at his temples despite the cool air.

“How bad?” Wild asks.

Twilight shifts his gaze from the sky down to Wild. There’s something raw in his eyes that hadn’t been there in the hole — no room for it then, too much pain and too much immediate danger. Now that they’re out, it’s like everything he didn’t feel has come for him at once.

Twilight just stares without answering him. Wild looks away first.

“You kept it from moving much on the way up,” Four adds, trying to fill the awkward silence, “That helped, it could’ve been much worse.”

"I'm glad." Wild says, and means it.

Four and the others drift a little farther away, giving them space without saying so. Warriors resumes his slow pacing, this time at a distance. Sky goes back to grinding herbs. Hyrule pokes at the fire, sending up brief flurries of sparks. Time is the only one that stays close enough to be able to listen in.

Twilight watches Wild like he’s trying to solve something and it makes the latter uncomfortable.

“You terrified me,” he says at last.

Wild blinks, caught off guard by the plainness of it. “I—”

“I was strapped to you,” Twilight interrupted, voice low. “I felt every time you slipped. Every time you shook. I felt that —” He lifts a hand and makes a small, abortive gesture toward his own shoulder. “I heard you when it went. And you just kept going.”

“There wasn’t really an option,” Wild says. His voice wants to come out light. It doesn’t quite make it. It sounds emotional, pleading instead. “If we stopped…”

“I know,” Twilight says. “I know there wasn’t any better choice. I know you got us out. I know I owe you more than I can ever say.”

Ah, was that what he saw in Twilight's eyes earlier? The gratitude, bright and sincere and heavy?

“I am grateful,” Twilight says, as if answering his thoughts. “I am in awe of you, you understand that?”

Wild nods in response, however small.

“It’s not that,” Twilight continues. “Or not only that.”

He looks down at his own hands, flexes his fingers once, then closes them.

“I told you that you couldn’t do it,” he admits. “Down there. I told you it was impossible. I didn’t believe you could carry me. I didn’t believe in you.” He drags a breath in, steadying it against the pain in his leg. “And then you did it anyway. You took my weight, and my doubt, and you climbed until you passed out.”

Wild looks away. The words slide off him and stick somewhere he doesn’t know how to look at.

“You believed enough for both of us,” Twilight says. “That shouldn't have been necessary.”

“Someone had to,” Wild says softly.

Twilight’s jaw flexes. “It shouldn’t always be you.”

Wild doesn’t have an answer for that. His instinct is immediate denial, some quick quip about being stubborn or stupid or just lucky, but his body contradicts him. His shoulder throbs. His hands sting. Every shallow breath reminds him of how far he pushed.

He thinks of every time he has stepped forward without thinking because no one else moved fast enough. Of the way his feet just… go, as if they don’t know how to stop.

“The only thing that matters now is that we're out and that it's over,” he says, because that’s inarguable.

“It matters,” Twilight agrees. “But so does the cost.”

His gaze hardens, not with anger at Wild but at the situation, at the world, at whatever twisted it so Wild’s first instinct is always to break himself rather than let someone else fall.

“I hate that you did that,” Twilight says, and the words land with more weight than any thanks. “I hate that you decided for yourself that your pain didn’t matter as long as I was safe.”

Wild’s first instinct is to bristle. “What was I supposed to do? Leave you there?”

“No,” Twilight says. “You did what needed doing. I’m glad you did. I’m alive because of it, but I hate that you had to. I hate that the choice you saw was ‘either he drowns or I destroy myself getting us out.’ And I’ll never be happy about what it cost you.”

Wild opens his mouth, then shuts it. There, in the damp dark, with that feeling crawling along his bones that said rain, rain, rain — the choice had felt as simple as breathing. As obvious as stepping forward when someone cries out.

He doesn’t know how to untangle that into something less brutal.

“I can take it,” he says, finally, quietly.

“I know,” Twilight says. “That’s the problem.”

The fire pops, sending up a small burst of sparks. Wild flinches and Twilight’s gaze softens a fraction, some of the fire easing.

Wild huffs a breath. It hurts. He makes himself do it anyway. “You don’t have to be happy about it,” he says. “You just have to be alive.”

Twilight closes his eyes for a moment, like he’s fighting something back. When he opens them again, they’re clearer, though no less fierce.

“You are not a tool to be used up,” he says. “Not to me or to any of us. If you forget that, we will remind you. Vigorously.”

“Vigorously,” Time nods, still nearby.

“Yeah,” Legend sighs, almost bored. “With shouting.”

“Leash,” Wind adds from the other side of camp. “We’ll put you on one.”

“That’s not necessary,” Warriors says, but there’s a grim humor in his tone. “We can start with ‘no climbing sinkholes with passengers’ as a rule.”

Hyrule smiles, small and lopsided. “Seconded.”

The chorus of them folds around Wild — completely outing them that they were listening in — teasing and scolding and utterly serious underneath it all. The heat in his chest is not entirely from the bruises.

He lets out a slow breath, the best he can manage. “Guess I scared everyone,” he says.

“Yeah,” Sky says. His voice is small but steady. “Please don’t do it again.”

Wild thinks of how it felt, that moment when there was nothing left in him but climbing. Of the way the world narrowed to his hands, his feet, Twilight’s weight, and that certainty in his bones that the rain would drown them were he to fail.

He knows — deep down, in the same place — that if it came to it, he would do it again.

He doesn’t say that out loud.

“I’ll try,” he says instead.

Twilight chuckles, then winces as the movement jostles his leg. He settles again, breathing carefully. The delayed terror still flickers behind his eyes, but something like calm has begun to settle over it.

“You did it,” he says softly, more to himself than to Wild. “You really did.”

Wild looks at him, at the splinted leg, at the hand resting just above the bandages as if he can hold the bone steady by will alone.

“We both did,” Wild says.

Twilight’s gaze meets his. For a moment, the noises of the camp all fade into a soft blur.

“We’re not done talking about this,” Twilight says and Wild groans in response.