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They’ve been wandering for a week.
Normally, that’s expected, only normally they find at least something in their path while they do so. A village, a town, a couple of farmhouses- be they occupied or not, there’s always something . Here though there have only been monsters, and lots of them. He'd think, based off of the abundance of enemies, that it was his own time, or something very close to, except even his era has more in the ways of civilization than this! At least back home, the paths lead to somewhere, and even if homes and villages aren’t prosperous, they’re at least existent!
Legend sighs. Maybe it's the rain, maybe the stiff joints and the sore muscles caused by the heavy downpour of the last two days is the cause of his ire. He's not usually so fussy about where he’s walking, as long as it’s on a path, although this era of Hyrule doesn't seem to have much in the way of those either. He really had wondered if they were in his time though, but the lack of civilization and the sparsity in monster species had convinced him otherwise. Not that there’s a lack of monsters, just that there’s only been three or four main types they’ve run into in the last week, and they’d all been familiar, almost easy to take down, and frankly boring. He’s used to having changing targets, things that challenge him and make him actually try in order to stay alive, but so far most of the monsters they’ve met on this journey, here in this era or in the ones before, have been familiar. Although, the strange black blood does tend to make them more violent, resilient, and intelligent, so fighting them isn’t exactly easy either.
Wherever they are, no one else seems to enjoy it either. Time looks most miserable, his armor no doubt incredibly uncomfortable while wet, but saying he’s the most miserable isn’t saying much about the comfort of the rest of them. Twilight slogs through the field, leading Epona beside him and hunching in under his heavy fur hood. Likewise, Four has donned his hood, shivering as he walks along at the center of their group, grumbling softly under his breath about whether rain is or isn’t the worst sort of weather. The consensus so far seems to be that sandstorms are worse, but by a thin margin because they’re incredibly rare in comparison.
Personally, Legend finds hail to be the worst sort of weather, seeing as the chunks can get as large as some stones in his era, but he keeps that to himself. It’s not like Four’s asking for his opinion after all.
“Anything?” Sky calls ahead, his sailcloth pulled over his head and, surprisingly, not soaking up the water. Legend wonders what the thing is made of. Maybe he can ask later, or give it a look once they’re somewhere dry. He’d never expected it to be waterproof.
Beside their leader, Warriors shakes his head, water dripping off the ends of the hair that’s now well and truly plastered to his face. The captain had leant Hyrule his scarf, and while seeing him without it is strange enough, seeing his hair as flat and ruined as it is, is even stranger. “Nothing. Sorry, Chosen.”
The skyloftian sighs again. They all know, from previous conversation, that rain is very much a new sensation for Sky still, and while he’s apparently past the stage of thinking the sky is falling (something he’s apparently still in the process of teaching his fellow skyloftains back home) he still doesn’t like it at all. Like the vet himself, their chosen hero seems to be wary of storms, and lightning storms for the man, as with himself, are the worst.
Actually, you know, maybe hail isn’t so bad. Maybe lightning storms are worse, especially after Four said that your chances of being struck increase with each time it happens. Or something like that.
“We’ve been walking for days,” Wind whines, a true testament to his frustration, because their youngest hates whining. “How is there still nothing ?”
“Because life hates us.” Four drones, “life hates us, and the goddesses are pissed we are still alive.”
Even he stares at the smithy for that one.
“Four,” Warriors pauses in his walking, and most of them follow suit. “Would you like me to carry you?”
The genuine request is shut down very quickly with some foul language that no doubt would earn a very harsh stare if anyone could still see the captain’s face. Good grief, their captain looks like a drowned sheepdog with his bangs hanging that low! He desperately needs a trim (not that Legend’s offering).
“Sumthin’s sure t’come,” Twilight tries, and it’d be assuring if it wasn’t the thirteenth time he’s said that in the last few days. “jist hold in there, sailor.”
“How many times have you said that already?” Sky sighs.
“Thirteen.”
The rancher shoots him a glare and Sky chuckles, adjusting his baldric as he walks, head shaking under the white sailcloth. Strangely, he looks like the pictures of the old priestesses like that, and while Legend’s not in the best of moods, what with his hands and joints burning and aching from the rain, he still smirks a bit at the thought, although he doesn’t speak it. Catching eyes with Hyrule though, face half hidden by blue fabric, he sees a similar sort of smile playing over the traveler’s face, one that glints a bit as it turns on him, as though asking if he sees it too. He grins back, only to wince as his feet stumble some over the uneven ground.
He flounders for a moment, almost catching his balance only to have the muddy earth slip under his newly settled feet and make him trip further. It’s Wild hand, shot out to catch his own, that stops him, and he grips back tightly as he finds his feet again, panting maybe a bit harder than necessary once he has. When he glances up to thank the champion though, he’s met with flat eyes and a blank face, none of their young knight's typical cheer and playfulness present.
“Champ?”
“Watch your step,” it’s not harsh, but the other’s voice is distant as the other withdraws. Wild’s been quiet for a while; since the rain started actually. Usually, bad weather is met with some hair-brained anecdote or story that has Twilight shaking his head and Time cracking secret smiles, but these last couple of days are different for some reason. Legend can’t name why, but he supposes it’s not his place to ask either, seeing as how it’s not like they’re close or anything. Maybe more so than they were before, but not nearly as much as the champion is with Twilight and Time, or Wind is with Warriors.
Oh well, Wild being weird isn’t new either. As long as the young knight doesn’t do anything, it should be fine. Still, he makes a note to keep an eye on the kid, at least until he starts acting like himself again. For now, though, the champion walks- no, marches - along at their center, just in front of him and granting him direct view of set shoulders and a tense jaw. He’s making that same face he does when he’s in a memory, although he’s proven to be more responsive than when he fades out into one of those. Glancing around, the vet wonders if maybe this place reminds their champion of something, or maybe he’s just equally off put by the lack of people, places to stop, and opportunities to warm up by fires or cook. They haven’t been dry in over twenty-four hours after all, and that’s got to have an effect on anyone.
“What the heck is that?” The voice of the captain has all their attention drifting to the front, watching their medic dash hair and water out of his eyes for what’s got to be the thousandth time, peering out into the rain with a squint. The rest of them follow suit, staring out and trying to make out anything against the grey sky and thick curtain of water that pours down around them.
He hears it before he sees it. It’s a strange mechanical whirring noise, steady and unbroken, but very, very unfamiliar. He can’t even tell where it’s coming from for a moment, but then, out of the deluge around them, he sees a faintly pink glow.
Wild, directly in front of him, stiffens, hands flying for sword and shield.
“Cub?”
“Guardian,” the champion bites out, and while that word means nothing to any of them, they all follow his example, arming themselves and crouching low. If the thing, the guardian, is a threat, it isn’t doing anything yet, just wandering around on long, spider-like legs that almost remind him of a tektite, or maybe a gohma.
“Threat?” Time asks, glancing back, as though they aren’t already prepared for that very thing.
Wild nods, sharp, firm, jaw set.
That’s the last thing any of them are able to do either, as a moment later there’s a sharp, alarming beeping that makes some part of his soul scream in response, a red beam cutting through the rain around them, drifting over them briefly before settling on the champion, who’s closest. Harsh blue eyes blow wide at the sight, and the champion’s voice, a soft rasping whisper a moment ago, rises in a shout. “Run!”
They scatter. Like so many keese out of a cave, they dart off in all directions, Twilight swinging up into the saddle and catching Four by the belt as he does so, kicking his mare off and away even as the rest of them rely on their own two legs. Some of them slip, some of them fall, but they’re all well accustomed to moving and moving quickly when enemies appear. The important thing is not letting the red beam settle on them. He’s not sure why, but he knows , and he’s ever been one to ignore instinct.
An explosion, not unlike one caused by a beamos, lights up the grey world not far from where they’d all been standing, and Time’s form darts across his vision as the man circles around the creeping monster as it glides on far too many legs towards their quickly fleeing group.
“Cub, weaknesses!” Is shouted over the sound of their feet and the rain, the steady mechanical whirr of the so-called guardian sending his mind screaming in warnings that any normal person would take as a sign to book it out of there. They don’t though, because heroes never run when they should, unless it’s to run towards the thig trying to kill them. They’re a bit dumb like that.
The champion is somewhere on his left, no, right- blue tunic standing out against the grey world, even despite the sheets of rain making it muddled against the cloudy sky and churned up earth. “Eye!” Except the blasted thing is a mechanical monster, so there isn’t an eye. Legend supposes the blinking blue and pink circle on what seems to be the front of it is rather like an eye though, and it doesn’t take much to send an arrow flying towards that point, a whisper of a prayer on his lips that it’ll do some good.
The red beam tracing after Wind disappears, pink and blue lights blinking in and out for a brief moment as the whole creature shakes and shudders, the top part swiveling wildly for a second before turning, slowly, as the lights come on again.
The red beam focuses on him.
Shit .
“Vet, run! ”
He does. He didn’t even need the warning, he just breaks into a full sprint the moment he can, boots kicking into use to give him a little extra speed. Pegasus boots aren’t nearly as effective in the rain, or on muddy ground, but it’s better than his normal speed when it’s wet and cold and his joints are aching enough to make walking miserable. Unfortunately, that does require him staying upright, something that’s exceedingly more taxing on his body as a whole.
“Do not take it on!” The champion shouts, and Legend has no clue how the usually rasping voice of the young knight carries so clearly over the drenched field, but he can hear it as clearly as if the champion is right next to him. “Move away! Get as far as you can!”
They rarely warn each other to not take on monsters, usually only in the case of the worst ones, but the utter and complete terror he’d seen on the champion’s face the split second before they’d all darted off had been clue enough that that is the case now. Even if the others didn’t see the champion’s face though, the run. Twilight is already out of sight, Four with him. Time stops to grab ahold of Wind and then they both plunge off into the wetness, Hyrule and Sky taking off in the opposite direction, north and northwest.
Southwards of the strange thing, Legend’s got no chance at following any of them, and the blinking red beam fixed on him is making his steps more and more desperate as he weaves this way and that, desperately trying to throw off its aim as it trundles steadily closer, hardly hurried as the blink of its beam quickens its flash.
In a last-ditch attempt, he throws himself down into the mud the moment he hears the blast fire. The ground in front of him bursts into flames, unaffected by the rain pelting from the sky, but at least he’d escaped. This time.
The sound of another blast charging has him darting up, but the ground and his joints are no aid, making him slip and slide and falter for a moment before he finally gets his feet underneath him and takes off again.
The second shot strikes the ground just a few inches from him as he darts to the side, once more at the last moment.
“ Hang on! ”
He doesn’t know why Wild’s still around, the rest of the heroes now absent by both sight and sound, but he can hear the other flying through the mud and the muck towards him, arrows pinging harmlessly off of the sides of the giant, multi-legged hell-beast that’s chasing him. For some reason though, its sights remain locked on him, not faltering even for a moment towards the champion whose breathing is becoming more and more shallow by the second, terror painted clearly in its pulses.
The thing is getting closer, he’s losing ground. Instinct says that he’s not outrunning this thing, not even with all his magic poured into his boots to try and speed him along. The moment he runs out is the moment it catches up, and he’s not making great distance anyways. They need a new plan.
He turns around, shield raised.
The champion’s throaty scream rings out at nearly the same pitch as the firing laser.
The blow makes him stumble back, force like nothing he’s faced before, even a lynel , but the mirror shield does its job, sending the horrid blue light rocketing back to its source with a flick of his arm.
The spidery monster stalls, lights blinking and fizzing, top spinning about again, this time for longer than what the arrow had done as the things stops moving long enough for Wild to reach it. The champion’s sword, freshly forged for the second time, swings for the legs, hacking and cutting in a motion he darts to mirror, tackling the twisting limb that’s closest. Two legs hit the ground, still writhing, sending the not-a–beast teetering and then tipping, unbalanced with the loss of two of its eight awful legs. That isn’t enough to stop it though. No, the thing’s glow returns, top spinning again, seeking them, and Wild’s hand catches his wrist before it does, the champion pulling him away.
The red beam follows them as they dart off, and the monster does too, although it’s slowed by the loss of its legs, and a quick shot from the champion’s bow at the last moment has it spinning and fizzing again, stopped in its tracks a moment more and granting them both long enough to gain some ground.
Wild’s hand is a vice on his wrist.
He doesn’t dare pull away.
Their feet slip and slide, and more than once he nearly falls, only for the hand nearly bruising his wrist to pull him up again. An arm wraps round his shoulders to steady and pull him up, Wild’s blue eyes cast all the while towards the thing behind them. There’s fear in those eyes; desperate terror that makes him almost miss the empty coldness from on the road. Makes him miss the wild child streaked with dirt and all too eager with a stupid plan. The man beside him, soaked to the skin, dirt streaked and desperate, is like a whole different person, but even that doesn’t stop the fact that his brother is there, standing beside him and getting his ass out of danger as best he can rather than darting off as his own mind is likely demanding he do.
Didn’t Wild say his scars came from a guardian? Didn’t he die because of these things? Are they going to die?
The mechanical whir picks up again, the steadily increasing beep that he’s quickly learning signifies preparation of a shot is sounding in their ears and they only have so much distance between themselves and the monster that outpaces them without even trying.
“Keep running,” Wild orders, eyes finding his for a moment, startled at the contact, but the other pulls back all the same.
Legend finds his own feet skidding to a stop, already whirling around to ask what the champion’s plan even is, but a harsh “that’s an order!” has him obeying. He's not sure if it’s the firmness, the desperation, or maybe even fear of the champion himself, but his instinct takes the lead to send him stumbling away as quickly as possible.
This is Wild’s monster, he knows it’s weaknesses, he knows how to fight them. This is Wild’s world, he knows what he’s doing, he does . Wild knows what he’s doing, Wild knows what he’s doing, Wild knows-
The champion’s grunt of pain, a bit back scream and the sound of something falling stop him in his tracks.
The champion is wincing, ash floating around him, shield now notably missing as the enemy closes in on the hero who is running and darting with a speed Legend didn’t know he had in him. Running towards him, eyes locking on him, blowing wide and full of terror as they catch on the vet’s frozen form.
The red beam locks onto the running form of his brother.
They don’t have time. Wild doesn’t have a shield any longer and Legend’s not confident he can replicate the parry he’d done before on total accident. Their options are slim, but they have some.
His bow is easy to equip, arrow flying off the string in a second, aim easy to take as the mechanical monster crawls steadily towards them, target never shifting. The single shot does little, save restart their timer, but that at least is something. He fires again.
“What are you doing?”
“Distracting!” Depleting the health, if this thing even has health. He's doing damage though, he knows that much. He’s doing damage because they’re out of time for flight, it’s time to fight now.
The champions snarls, a foreign, harsh sound that rips across scarred vocal cords, but he’s not challenged. No, instead, the other darts in, sword ready and already hacking the moment Legend fires off another arrow. The new sword screams against the metal legs of the guardian, but after some heavy, terrible looking blows, yet another twisting, writhing limb falls to the soaked earth, and the spinning head of the not-creature turns to focus instead on the champion. The red beam pulses, already too quick, eye faced away and out of sight of Legend’s bow.
“ Wild! ”
Resignation is already clear in those eyes as the other hacks away, darting and jumping and flipping about, moving too fast but not fast enough, rough voice still so harsh against his ears. “ Run! I’ll hold it off!”
He’s not going to.
“I’ll be fine !” The champion’s voice breaks on the words; he won’t.
The pulsing light is blinking faster than his pounding heart, lights blurring his vision as his feet slide in the dirt, running as bidden. Rather than away, he’s headed towards, but even with sword and shield raised, with all his magic streaming into aiding his stride, he’s not fast enough.
The beam of blue light strikes Wild in the center of his chest, and it’s like time stops for a moment. The scream of his brother rings over the field, no doubt echoing in the ears of their fled brethren. He’s frozen, watching, as the champion falls, as though in slow motion, but then Wild’s body slumps against the earth and the guardian is turning on him this time and time catches up again, returned to normal, ticking on as though he hasn’t just witnessed the stuff of his brother’s nightmares.
And yet Wild still gets back up.
“Go!” Those eyes are so wide, so pained, so terrified. “Zelda! Run!”
Wild doesn’t know it’s him. Wild doesn’t know it’s him! Oh crud, Wild doesn’t know it’s him! Wild is running, stumbling, one hand to his sodden and bloodied chest and the other clutching tightly to his sword, gaze fixed on the vet with the same sort of desperation that screams and pounds fit to make Legend’s own heart burst.
If Wild takes another shot, there’s no promise he’ll get up again. But Wild isn’t seeing Legend, he’s seeing his princess ; his desperate, defenseless princess, and there’s no way in the Dark World that the dutiful knight he knows would let Zelda take the blow of an enemy, even if that means he has to make himself into a living shield.
What to do? The things bearing down on him, target set, lights already blinking in a too quick countdown. He can’t parry the beam back twice in a row, there’s too much distance to use his sword. He can shoot but for how long? How long till it’s on him? How long till he runs out of arrows?
Arrows! Zelda!
He’s not sure, hasn’t time to think, hasn't time to do more than send a prayer heavenward that Hylia did more than curse him with her blood, but then it’s there, shining and brigh,t and light arrows are at the tips of his fingers, bright and warm and pulsing as they fly to his string. He pulls back. The guardian’s light pulses once. He releases.
The thing flies back, rolling and crashing against the wet earth, sparking and fizzing out, twitching and spluttering as the ever-present whine of its core gives out. Legend doesn’t care, he has eyes only for his wavering friend, the brother whose eyes are flickering, and legs are faltering. He tries to quicken his pace, but even as he reaches out his arms, the strain and the mud have them both tumbling down into the muck, the champion's breath stuttering with a pained groan as they slide and roll.
He comes out on top, something he alters quickly, pulling himself to the side and upright, knelt over his brother’s sprawled out and bloody form. He gags.
The beams effects are immediately obvious; flesh burnt away, bubbling at the edges as blood seeps out from the wound, running thin under the rainwater but in no ways washed away by the downpour. There’s charring already, and where there isn’t , there is exposed muscle that trembles and spasms, veins pulsing as pained shudders shake the champion.
Shit shit shit, he's going to be sick, he’s going to be so sick!
“Zel-” the pained whimper has him tearing his eyes away, wide violet finding fluttering blue, holding as one hand lifts, the champion trying to catch hold of him in some way or another.
For a brief second, the image of his uncle, gaping wound leaking blood across the floor and into the sewage drain behind them, flashes in his head. Wild’s eyes are just as glazed over, words fumbling and slurring as a hand reaches clumsily for him. He catches it, pushing it down and out of his way, motions an echo of ten years ago when he did the same for the man who raised him. “H-hey-” his voice is shaking, trembling, foreign even to his own ears, “h-hang in there, y-you're- you're gonna be fine .”
He doesn't know how to treat a burn like this. Doesn’t know how to deal with the hole that’s been seared through his brother's chest. He’s no medic, no healer, and his magic may be enough to kill but it can do nothing to heal .
“Zel,” his brother wheezes, still fighting his hands, finger slipping easily across soaked skin to grip his own, tight but not tight enough, not as tight as the bruising grip before. “y’gotta keep-” his breath stutters “-keep running. Calam-”
“No,” Wild’s eyes aren’t focused enough to see him shake his head, but he’s not thinking about that right now. “No, no, Wild I am not leaving you like this. I got it, it’s dead, I got it.”
“Zelda-”
“No!” His voice is sharper than the sound of the blast, “Din dang it, Link, I’m not leaving you!”
Wild’s blue eyes flutter open, breath straining, hands fumbling even as he tries once more to push the away, to turn his attention to the smoking hole in the man’s chest, the blood oozing out to turn the mud beneath them faintly reddish, blue tunic unrecognizable beneath the crimson flow and spattered earth. ”You have-”
“I have to save you!” Not save the world, not save Zelda, not save his sister or chase his destiny or leave because he is not leaving again! Not again! He’s not wandering off and leaving the champion to bleed out, letting precious life-blood spill down the drains of Hyrule castle as though it’s worth as much as the sewage it flows alongside. He's not taking the sword and the shield, he’s tossing them down and pressing his hands over the gaping would, trying desperately to stop the bleeding even as his vision swims and weak hands fumble against his own.
“ Princess !”
He ignores the cry, the scream at the contact of his hands with exposed muscle, with blood that seeps between his fingers and stains them, flows past even despite his efforts to trail over skin and ruined clothes.
He needs to close the wound! He needs to stop the bleeding and close the wound, but the hands reaching for his have become violent, clawing at his wrists and tearing to pull them away, the champion’s scream of agony rattling his heart, his mind, making his vision swim and his own breath falter and catch in a cry he can’t hold back.
He needs the screaming to stop!
He tears his hands away, plunging them into his bag and grabbing the first thing that gives way under his touch. For a moment he stalls, mind flicking through his inventory, praying a potion or fairy hides beneath the mounds of supplies, but he’d used his last one in their last battle and they haven't seen fairies since Time’s world. He grabs the soft feeling thing, ripping it out of his bag and sparing it not a single glance before shoving it towards the champion’s mouth. “Bite down on this.”
Be it in relief or desperation, his order is obeyed, and sharp teeth close tightly on the old belt, sinking into it and granting blessed silence long enough for his brain to function again.
Blood, he needs to stop the blood.
The blow’s too close to the heart, there’s no cutting off blood flow, there’s no stopping the blood seeping through except by packing the wound and praying it’s enough. Pack and bind, like Fi taught him. Use any scrap of clean cloth he’s got and hope the blood will stop long enough for someone to find them- or him to find them- or any blessed miracle to grant itself to them and provide a way to mend the wound!
His hand fly to his bag again, sorting by touch alone, finding wool socks he’s mostly certain are clean and pressing them to the wound, one hand holding them there even as another stifled scream escapes his brother, the champion’s back bowing forwards, body surging up under his hands to writhe in pain, a motion he only barely responds to, pushing back down again as his other hand paws and grasps wildly for anything, anything at all to stuff into the gaping hole that pours blood, so much blood, red crimson ooze that stains his hands and is warm, far too warm, burning hot against trembling, frozen hands.
There’s so much blood. Gosh, why is there so much of it? Why isn’t it stopping? Why can’t he make it stop!
His own sobs ring in his ears beside the agonized cry of his brother. He can’t even feel the grip of the champion’s fingers clawing at his wrist anymore, mind a stuttering and stalling haze as he somehow manages to press another wadded up piece of clothing to the endless stream of red.
Bandages, he manages to process. He needs to bandage them in place, tie the packing in so that it won’t get out, so the wadded-up fabric and wool will catch the blood and stop more from coming out, make it finally stop. Stop staining his hands, stop burning, stop rolling in his stomach and pounding in his heart and clogging in his throat as his breath catches on it, lungs seizing on it, vision lost to red red red.
Somehow, he manages to bind the wound. He doesn't know how and he doesn’t know what with, but he knows that he does and then he’s pulling Wild in, holding close and clinging, rocking slowly as the champion whimpers.
His fingers are red, streaking red across white features as Wild’s screams fade to moans and whimpers, the champion's nails still clawing at his wrists, at his arm, painting them both in more red red red.
He whimpers, body shaking, breath stalling, chest stammering and seizing.
He did it. It’s bound. The blood is stopping. He did it. He didn’t run away, and he didn’t leave. He didn’t leave the blood to flow, flow, flow, dripping into the sewers, staining the stone, painting the dungeons in blood blood blood.
He did it. He did it this time.
He did good.
He stopped the blood.