Wild lifted his head, blinking.
"Rise and shine, sleepyhead."
Someone chuckled.
He looked around. Twilight was sitting across from him, and Sky was next to him. Sky was the one who laughed.
"Zelda called me that once."
This time, Twilight laughed. "I can see why."
Sky looked at the wooden horse in front of Wild.
"That looks nice. Where did you get it?"
"I made it."
"Wow. I could never made anything even close to that."
"It isn't really that good."
Twilight smiled, almost pitying Wild.
He never thought anything he did was good. He always insisted that it was terrible, that he was terrible.
There was a question on his mind. It had been plaguing him since Wild requested that he give him the knife.
"What's so special about that knife?"
Wild looked at him sadly before looking down at the blade.
"I... well, I had a memory of a knife just like this. I was carving a sculpture. I tried to recreate it here, but it didn't turn out too well."
"I think it turned out fine."
Wild shook his head. "It's nothing like the one in my memory. I've lost every skill I used to have." He sighed, resting his head on his chin. "I'll never be able to do anything the same way I used to."
He groaned, put his head on the table.
"I'm useless and terrible at everything."
●●●
Wild hummed a little tune, chipping away at a new block of wood.
Twilight noticed that he kept nicking his fingers, but he wasn't moving them. They were in a spot where they could easily get cut, too. And he was cutting towards himself. It was as if he was purposefully being unsafe.
"Wild? Is everything okay?"
"That's a stupid question," he said, not looking up. "Of course I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be? Why wouldn't I be fine if I did everything wrong?"
Wild gripped the knife tight. He cut away a piece of wood, pulling the knife rather hard. It sliced his arm, and his only reaction was a small flinch.
He continued carving the block, not taking any notice of the growing number of cuts on his arm.
It took Twilight a while to realize what Wild was doing.
"Stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Stop doing... that. With the knife."
"What's "that?""
"You know what I mean. Stop."
Wild sighed and put the knife down.
"Fine. Just don't take it again. It's important."
He walked away, still not doing anything about the blood dripping down his arm. In fact, he didn't even seem to notice it.
What was so important about that knife? It just happened to look similar to one he used to have. Anyway, it was all rusty and beat up.
Twilight looked up and saw that Wild was holding his neck oddly. The right side, to be specific.
He stood up.
"Wild? What happened?"
Wild turned to face him and slowly pulled his hand away from his neck, revealing a bloody wound.
"A-all I did was stretch, and my neck really hurt where I- where I stabbed it with the arrow..."
Twilight ran over and brushed Wild's hair away, examining the just opened injury. He touched it lightly, and Wild quickly pushed his hand away, flinching.
"Don't touch it."
"Well, I'm gonna have to to do anything about this."
Wild only inhaled sharply as Twilight touched his neck again.
Wild had definitely reopened the arrow wound, but how? All that was left of it now was a scar. How would you even do that?
Didn't he do the same thing with his chest injury once? Well, something similar. He forgot when exactly, but at some point, it started bleeding again.
It wasn't as bad as this, which was a bit ironic considering that the first injury was much more serious.
Twilight sighed.
He was called them injuries as if they had been caused by some outside force.
Wild started to slip away from his hands, stumbling in place. He groaned, grabbing onto Twilight for support.
Twilight looked around frantically. Sky was gone. He couldn't just leave Wild here, either.
Somebody tapped his shoulder. He looked behind him and sighed in relief. Sky was standing there, holding bandages. Instead of giving them to Twilight, however, he began to gently wrap them around Wild's neck.
"Thank you."
"No problem. I couldn't just watch without doing anything, after all."
As Sky applied the bandages, Wild suddenly collapsed into Twilight's arms.
They finished quickly and laid Wild down on his sleeping bag. What else would they do?
●●●
"So... I've been meaning to ask you about this for a while..."
Sky nodded. "What is it?"
"Well, my sword... the Master Sword."
"That's the first time I've heard you refer to something that important as your own."
"Oh. Well... it is mine. I'm the- one of the heroes. The Master Sword is specifically for the hero."
"Isn't that the same for the Sheikah slate?"
"Well... it used to be Zelda's. Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about. It's that-"
"The sword is running out of power."
"The sword is running out of- wait, what?"
Sky's smile turned into a serious frown.
"It told me."
"What? How did the sword tell you?"
"Fi."
"What's Fi?"
"Who. She's the sword spirit. She said that she's losing her power. She sounded... different. Different from what I remember. She's more relaxed- no, tired. She sounded exhausted. I didn't even know that could happen. And she sounded older, which would make sense."
Wild cocked his head.
"But... why would she be running out of power? Why now?"
"Well, thousands of years pass between any of us and you."
"Oh. Right."
"And she said that the Malice weakened her."
"That makes sense."
Sky sighed in frustration.
"But why would that Malice stuff do that to her? She was created by Hylia."
"Malice will do that."
"It must be extremely powerful to weaken a goddess's creation."
Wild shrugged.
"I don't really care. I don't use the Master sword much."
"What? Why not?"
"There are much better weapons. Honestly, it's not that good."
Sky seemed to take that as a personal offense.
"What are you talking about!? That sword is just as important as you are!"
"Must not be that important, then."
"I..." Sky sighed heavily. "Fine. I guess she isn't good enough for you. You don't deserve that blade if you think it's just another weapon."