A/N: YEAH LET'S GET IT!
Part 1: Space
Link's POV
We were running.
Haven't we been running non-stop for the past two weeks?
"Hang on, Link." I could hear the tears in Zelda's voice, forcibly held back by sheer willpower. "We're almost at Dueling Peaks. And then we can rest. Just hold on for a little bit more."
"Zelda..." A tiny smile lit up my exhausted, too-pale face. She turned her head to gaze at me, and yet again, I was struck by the brilliant green of her eyes, like emerald leaves in the height of summer.
"Link, it's okay." She mustered up a smile. "I can keep going. Save your strength."
I was leaning heavily on her shoulder, blood slowly draining out of my battered body, my torn skin aflame with agony. Her back was bent from my weight, her legs shaking with the strain, and yet, she kept walking, kept putting one foot in front of another.
Even when everything around us was crumbling, even when everything was falling apart.
Everyone was dead. The Champions, the King, the Kingdom itself.
Perhaps the mist of shock still pervaded my numb mind, but I couldn't bring myself to feel, feel anything at all.
That was a gift that wouldn't last, as I knew all too well.
"I'm slowing you down." I rasped, unable to produce any sound louder than a harsh whisper. "Zelda, all I'm doing is slowing you down."
"It doesn't matter." She replied fiercely, holding on tight to my limp, ice-cold hand. "I am never. Ever. Leaving you behind."
"It's not safe." I couldn't help but smile, a reluctant joy blossoming in my tightening chest.
"When have I ever cared about what's safe or not?" Zelda leaned her head closer to me, breathing in deeply. I closed my eyes, willing my legs not to give out.
We walked in silence, drawing strength from each other. I wished I had something else to give her, her, with those hardened, determined eyes, with that set, snow-pale face.
I wished I wasn't such a liability. I wished I could find a way to stop leaching her strength.
Step by agonizing step, we somehow made it to the towering Dueling Peaks, and under its pitch-dark shadow, we set camp. I slid off Zelda's shoulders and collapsed on the soil, fighting for breath.
The moon was slowly rising over the ravaged land, and I cursed her lofty indifference as she set her cold glow on Hyrule, painting the bloodstained earth a serene silver. Stars were winking into existence, dotting the infinitely deep sky like jewels draping over a silky curtain. It was beautiful, peaceful, as though everything wasn't broken beyond repair.
I leaned back into the cold rock of the mountain. It stole my little warmth like a parasite.
Zelda was attempting to bandage my cuts, her tongue held between her teeth. It seemed as though there were more gashes than skin on my body.
Everything that she had ever loved was gone. Her father, dead. Her friends, dead. Her people, either dead or in hiding. Her technology, turned against her and after her blood.
How could she go on?
"Don't even bother," I said, rougher than I intended. I sighed, feeling a slow burning agony flare up again. Every part of me was in pain, my skin smoldering with fever, my eyes unfocused, clouded. "Save it. It's okay. Bandages are not going to help at this state."
A blinding mist was wrapped around my mind, I couldn't think straight, look straight.
"I'm so helpless." She growled, blinking back tears.
Using a massive effort, I raised my hand to cup her cheek. My lips curved up slightly.
"Shh... it's okay," I whispered. "Rest yourself. It'll all be okay."
"How?" Her voice finally broke. Tears streamed down her dirt-streaked face. "If I lose you..."
"You won't lose me." Our foreheads touched. "No matter what tries to pull us apart, I'll find my way back to you. I promise."
"Don't talk like that." She murmured. "It sounds too much like goodbye. Don't you dare say goodbye."
I was falling, reality flitting across my eyes, strangely detached from the world. Falling down an endless void of darkness.
I faded in and out of consciousness, my body absolutely spent. I couldn't fight against it, although I desperately wanted to, the fever and infection invading and taking control of my tattered body.
No matter what Zelda tried, I couldn't keep food down. I couldn't move, couldn't think.
Dying.
"Link," Zelda's gentle voice reached through the fog and somehow touched my wrecked mind. "Wake up. We have to keep moving."
I groaned softly, lava running through my veins.
Zelda was paler than ever, but her shadowed eyes still flashed with resolve, as hard as emeralds.
"Come on, we have to get to Fort Hateno today." She took my hand, cold on unnaturally hot. "Link."
She draped my limp arm over her shoulders, gritting her teeth as she stood as tall as she could, my head lolling back.
Zelda kept up a steady stream of words as we trekked across the mud, dodging rampant Guardians, each step slipping in the soil, fighting with every last fibre in our bodies. Strength deserted me when I needed it the most, and each step chipped away at my soul, each step made me lose a tiny fragment of myself.
I kept walking. Zelda still needed me. I was living for her at this point.
"Look, Link, remember that tree? I caught a frog there. You're gonna have to stay alive to cook me that potion you promised. I'm not letting you die without making you cook that potion first."
"See that boulder? We had an arm-wrestling match there. Remember how badly I lost? My wrist hurt for days after that. And you said you were going easy on me! I won't rest until I beat you. Mark my words."
I stayed silent. I wanted to offer her the same comfort she was giving me, share the little bit of strength I had left, but I couldn't.
I was the helpless one.
"Link, Link! Look! It's Fort Hateno!" Her voice was alight with rekindled hope, like a bright beam of sunlight shining through the thunderstorm. "Just hang on a little bit longer. We're almost there!"
Her joy reached me, through the haze of pain, through the infection entwining itself across my fevered mind. Her hope reached across our clasped hands and blossomed in my chest, and my steps lightened ever so slightly, even as my precious bit of strength was slowly leeched out of my shell of a body.
"We're almost there." I echoed, my voice almost inaudible.
She held me tighter, laughing through her tears. "You see. It'll all work out!"
Relief was glowing in her tired features, bringing life back to her eyes.
(sadness)
Suddenly I felt something leap at my gut, a knot of apprehension pulling tighter. I impatiently put it to the back of my mind. We were almost safe.
Raising a trembling hand, Zelda pushed at the closed gate, and it creaked as it swung open, admitting us in.
The natural shadows cast by the trees standing by a lonely, winding road seemed to hold such an intensity that it almost dragged me in with it, its gravity pulling at my frayed strings. They seemed to call to me, the darkness of the sky reflecting the shadows tenfold, longer, darker, sharper than before.
The world was crawling with darkness.
We walked on, ignoring the strangely twisted shadows, ignoring the bitter dread sitting on our tongues.
It was eerily quiet. No Guardians. No monsters. No human voices, no clash of iron on iron. Not even a lone bird chirping through the silence.
I had thought of this possibility. Even expected it. Yet, after all that I've been through the past few weeks, it was a punch in the face nonetheless.
Fort Hateno had fallen.
And now... it was just waiting for us to arrive, the breath of the world held in anticipation as our footsteps rippled the thick silence.
Zelda's face was grim. She wasn't stupid. She knew as well as I did.
Nowhere in Hyrule was safe anymore, it seemed.
Yet we couldn't afford to stop. Couldn't afford to turn back. There was nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to hide. Maybe-- Maybe we can still find refuge. Somehow.
So we kept going, even though I knew, in the part of my soul that I wanted to push away the most, that each step was a second ticking away in our fatal timer.
I gritted my teeth, my hand twitching, longing for my sword in my hands.
No matter what we found in Fort Hateno, I would protect Zelda. I knew this much.
Suddenly the trees cleared and the flimsy curtains masking the devastation were suddenly torn apart.
Zelda stumbled, shock and horror written all over her face.
Blood was splattered everywhere, bodies draped across the dirt, which were scuffed and battle-marked. The smell of decay and death was starting to rise already, and I gagged, even as a man used to battle.
Abruptly my ears pricked up, the distant beeps of a guardian reaching my military trained senses.
"Guardia--" Before I could finish, an entire troop of Guardians burst through the trees, their legs jerky, heads spinning erratically. Purple and sickly pink light lit up Zelda's terrified face.
She only allowed herself a moment of shock.
"Link, come on!" She hitched my arm higher on her shoulder and ran, tripping over my body. She dodged a Guardian beam and sucked in a desperate breath, trying to run faster, tears cascading down her face.
My hand found my blade and I unsheathed it, falling limply at my side.
I no longer had the strength to hold my sword up.
Unwittingly we trapped ourselves in the falling Fort the more we tried to dodge the onslaught of Guardians, with nowhere to run, nowhere to escape. Guardians spanned out, blocking every exit, moving as a single, fatally efficient unit.
"Link." Zelda gasped, cracking.
I held the sword tighter, my eyes glimmering with determination. My skin was paler than frost, and I knew in my heart that there was no way I could fight even the weakest shadow, much less a fleet of Guardians, but I wasn't scared of dying. If I died for Zelda, then I would have no regrets.
At least... At least I got this precious time with her. At least I had a chance to heal the broken wounds in her heart, and she healed mine.
I was on my knees, my sword sinking into the mud, fighting for breath. My vision swam.
"Link, save yourself, go!" Her hands were on my shoulders. Flecks of flames drifted in the air, despite the pouring rain. "Leave me, I'll be okay. Just go!"
No.
Scraping together the last of my courage, I pushed myself up to my feet, stumbling backwards from the weight of my sword. Had it been this heavy before?
No matter.
If I still have breath in my body, I could fight.
A guardian scuttled up to us, its head whirring. It turned, and its deadly eye fixed on us, defenseless, alone.
It approached slowly, as if it knew that we had no escape. Cornered. Defeated.
I spat out a mouthful of blood and stood straighter, looking death straight in the eye.
The laser fixed at the point between my brows.
I closed my eyes. Acceptance and peace loosened my wound-torn muscles.
"NO!"
My eyes snapped open, and Zelda shoved me roughly behind her and threw out a desperate arm in front of her, her face twisted in pain and fury and despair.
Then everything exploded.
I could see the Guardian's laser blaze white-hot as though in slow motion. All I could hear was my heart beating, the roaring in my ears. I dimly registered it tearing through bone and flesh and blood.
She fell slowly, a thin streak of blood arcing in the air gracefully.
I couldn't look away. Couldn't move. I could only stare.
She crumpled, crimson blood spurting out of the gaping hole in her chest.
A soft gasp escaped my trembling lips.
Her eyes met mine, and she was already fading, falling somewhere I could never pull her back from. Her mouth moved, although no sound split the muffled buzzing in my ears.
Run.
So I ran. Heaving this tattered body, numb with shock, I pushed myself forwards, using the tiny opening that Zelda had given me.
Zelda.
I choked back a sob and collapsed on the earth, the smell of rain filling my burning lungs.
I waited for death to find me, to take me in its arms, to wipe away my existence. I didn't want to feel. Hyliadamnt, I didn't want to feel anything. It was enough to have her eyes branded behind my eyes forever. It was enough to know.
I had failed.
A/N:
im not sorry
and if you think its going to get worse from here, you are sorely mistaken :)