I listened to the clock tick the seconds away as I lay, restless, impatiently waiting for Impa to finally, finally let me leave the village.
I had been here for days now, as my wounds stubbornly refused to heal properly. I watched the hours slip through my fingers with helpless rage, the bitter tang of frustration sitting on my tongue despite what Impa could tell me about the dangers of braving my quest before I was well.
I felt well. Well enough to stop wasting time sitting around doing nothing.
I had already failed Hyrule once. I couldn't fail it again.
"Can I go out today?" I asked Impa the moment she stepped into my room, by way of greeting. It was custom by now.
She sighed. "Link, you had been badgering me nonstop for the past three days--"
"But can I?"
"No." She set down a platter with a steaming cup of tea on my lap, rolling her eyes.
"I have trespassed for long enough." I pressed. "I should be going. My time is running out."
She sighed and straightened. There was something in her sharp eyes that I couldn't quite read.
"We had lost too much." Her voice was suddenly quiet. "I cannot afford lose you as well."
I fell quiet, cursing myself over and over again.
So I stayed without another word of complain for a few more days, pushing down the ever-nagging frustration gnawing at the edges of my mind.
The routine at Kakariko Village was slowly becoming familiar. Wake up, throw open the curtains to breathe in deeply, brush myself up. Lock away the pain festering like an open wound in my soul. Help as much as I could with the Sheikah's daily business, watch time flow by like a waterfall, sweeping me along with it, tumbling down, down, down. Speak with Impa. Test the limits of my physical capabilities. Wait for yet another fruitless day to pass.
"Link?"
I looked up from a grim report I was reading.
"Yes, Lady Impa?"
"I believe you are ready." She stated plainly.
Instead of excitement torrenting through my veins, I felt a knot of apprehension form in the depths of my stomach.
I stood and bowed low.
"Thank you for your hospitality." I said, determination ringing hard in my tones. "I will not fail your confidence."
It took me a surprisingly short time to pack. I scraped together some spare clothes, rupees, and of course my sword, shield, and bow, my sturdy constants, all that I could rely on in this broken world. As I left, I turned back and gaze one last time upon the closest thing that I had to a home, the place that had taken me in at one of the darkest moments in my life.
Everything was tidied up, every trace of my stay here erased. It was as though the room had never known me.
Fighting down the lump that had risen in my throat despite myself, I turned my back and left behind the luxury of home, with a sprawling span of empty, ravaged wilderness stretched out before my path.
The new bearer of the Triforce would have to be a Hylian, of course. I was guiltily relieved not to have to visit the towns of the Champions. How could I face them and look into their eyes, the eyes had had once watched me with shining admiration, and tell them that their warrior had fallen and that I did nothing to save them?
I jerked my head, my boots sloshing in the mud.
Just don't think of them. Focus on your goal.
At the edge of my vision, I spotted a monster camp of bokoblins, standing silhouetted against the falling darkness of early dusk. The tingle of a prospective fight began to awaken in my soldier's blood and I gravitated towards it, my hand on my sword, ignoring the chivvy that I had only just healed, that I was throwing myself into unnecessary danger.
It was relatively easy. As always. At least I hadn't lost everything.
I was proving myself to the world, proving that I still had worth, not just another discarded, useless being.
I rubbed my blood-crusted hands on my Hylian trousers and coolly walked away from the pile of bodies slowly bleeding out into the earth.
Dueling Peaks Stable, standing in the shadows of the looming twin peaks. I would have to risk being discovered to stay the night here.
What could they possibly do to me that hadn't already been done, and worse? I stepped in boldly, drawing not a second glance from the stable hands working there.
I slid a red rupee mutely over to the stable master, the Hylian hood obscuring the top half of my face. My crystal blue eyes shone out of the darkness, gleaming.
"A normal bed?" He asked, his gaze raking over the blood on my clothing, the dirt streaked over my skin. I nodded.
He showed me over to an empty bed and I dipped my head in thanks. I sat down at the table standing quietly by the wall and pulled out a notebook. Over the flickering flame of the candle lamp sitting peacefully on the table, emitting a soft warmth against the chill of night, I scribbled down a rough map of Hyrule and pored over it, marking down the towns and sketching possible pathways around monster-infested forests.
The small flame danced. I watched it, my chin cupped in my hand. The soft breathing of the guests slumbering in their beds rose and fell as one, swamping over me like a gentle wave.
Wasn't it amazing, how this stable was still running as always, even when the world was falling apart? How it was still standing strong against the ruination that had befallen the rest of Hyrule?
Although the people were now living in constant fear, they looked only forwards, binding together and living their lives as normal.
That was nothing less than admirable, wasn't it?
Without even realizing it, my consciousness slowly faded and I was racing away, away, away from me...
"Do you remember me?"
His back was to me, his head down.
"Do you recognize me?"
How could I? I wanted to say, but I was frozen in place.
"I am your people."
Suddenly he turned around and I tried to stumble back, but my feet were glued to the floor. I wanted to scream but I was a statue.
"I am all that you had turned your back on." He advanced slowly, his form shifting. For a moment, he was a three-year-old child, a hole shot through his stomach, bleeding black smoke. And another, he was a soldier with half of his face burnt away, the same black smoke wafting through the air and rising into the heavens.
"I am the dead." He hissed, now an elder with a huge gash in his chest. "I am the embodiment of despair, of the spirits wrongfully slayed in the shadows."
"You were my savior." He was so close now that I could watch his unchanging eyes, eyes in such a painfully familiar shade of green that I couldn't breathe, I couldn't breathe. "You were my salvation."
"And now you are my enemy."
And then his skeletal fingers were wrapped around my neck and I flailed, my mouth wide open in a silent shout. He squeezed tighter, his eyes flaring up to a blood-red that lusted for my life and I was dying and slowly suffocating and my lungs were burning for oxygen and then--
"Sir."
A soft voice cut through the haze of a nightmare and I started, jerking awake.
My vision focused and a face floated through my swimming gaze, the face of a stable girl only slightly younger than I was.
I rolled my stiff shoulders and cocked my head at her. Something lit up dimly in the dustiest corners of my mind, something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
"Can I help you?" The dying light of the lamp glimmered in her wide, hazel eyes. I pinned her as but an innocent child, delicate as glass in hardship. I narrowed my eyes and shook my head, closing the notebook with a movement tight with forced calmness.
"Would you like to return to your bed?" She glanced at the clock hanging on the wall and I followed her gaze. One in the morning.
I shrugged, sweeping the notebook into my pouch. She understood the subtle dismissal and bowed her head, leaving the stable doors, her long skirt lightly brushing the floor by her feet.
I suddenly regretted that I had never bothered to learn her name.
What was I becoming?
I shook off the remnants of the unsettling nightmare like cobwebs clinging to my mind and slowly made my way over to my bed, collapsing in it and succumbing to the calls of dreamless sleep within moments.
A/N: WHY IS THIS SO LONG. ITS ONLY A BIT SHORT OF 1500 WORDS WHAT IN THE ACTUAL WORLD.