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I III [Wind]
“Nobody goes off alone down there, understand?”
Link rolled his eyes and fell back a step, curious as a door swung lightly in a non-existent breeze. They were in an abandoned village Time seemed to know, the place derelict for a reason he found obvious: they had two wells, one dry and this one closed and recently destroyed. Of course the village was empty.
There was no reason for Time’s panic except he’d been jumpy ever since Twilight nearly died. Link, as the youngest, faced that kind of concerned fear all the time. He’d heard “too young” for so long, he ignored Time’s caution, like he had so many other warnings in the past, and went to push the door fully open one hand on his sword.
It swung easily, and strangely silently for this place. It should’ve creaked, but there was magic everywhere here. Time had made sure everyone had some way to see it, to find hidden walls and things. It was why Hyrule and Legend were split up among the other two groups, and Time hadn’t put away the strange looking-glass in his hands.
Whether he just hadn’t seen this room or had assumed it locked, Link didn’t know. There was a chest inside and Link glanced around. He pulled out the Hero’s charm and looked through it, for any sign of something there.
Nothing. He glanced back up the hallway, but Twilight and Time had gone on ahead without him. So much for Time’s panic earlier. He walked into the room and up to the chest, eager to see what was inside. His feet sank into the soft dirt floor – softer than the other paths. The chest was locked, and he sat back and dug into his bag for his picks.
Something moved in the dirt by his knee. Link frowned and stood, uneasy. The movement followed his steps back and he heard two sounds a once: there was a click of a lock, and slithering, moving soil. He whirled, horrified, but while he could see the dirt moving he couldn’t see what was causing it. This mound was much, much larger than the one behind him, and Link turned to look--
A gaunt, white hand lunged for his throat, and Link blacked out.
IIII [Time]
“Nobody goes off alone down there, understand?”
Link knew better; he knew he never should’ve taken his eyes off Wind. He knew he shouldn’t have let him fall behind, out of sight, and yet he knew (bitterly, better than anyone else perhaps) what this place was like as a child.
After all, he’d first been here as one.
He turned around and saw nothing.
“Twilight,” Link said, his heart in his throat. “Find him, now.”
The other man didn’t even hesitate. He changed and put his nose to the ground as their first resort, backtracking until he chuffed at a smell and walked straight into a door. The young man changed back without a word, and Link tried the door.
It didn’t budge: locked. He checked it with the Lens of Truth for any sign of magic but nothing seemed likely to get in his way. He waved Twilight back and brought out his hammer, giving Twilight only the briefest warning to pull a sword.
The door broke in one hit; Link vanished the hammer in favour of his sword as he rushed through.
Immediately ahead, he could see it: the same chalky white, bruised flesh he still saw in nightmares or waking dreams. The forest of skeletal hands, the limbs too long and nails too sharp. It was hunched in the center of the room, near a locked chest, body nearly level with the floor as its throat and jaw contorted to--
Wind’s lower body was all that was still visible outside its mouth. His legs hung in a bad way, limp as a doll.
Link snarled – something. He wasn’t sure it was words. He slammed a foot down on the handless-arm nearest him and, taking careful aim, mindful of Wind’s presence in its throat, he thrust his sword through Dead Hand’s black eye, cracking its skull (what should’ve been its skull) and pinning it to the floor.
“Twilight—” Link began, and the other man immediately knew what he meant.
“Can you move—” he asked
“No,” Link said. He didn’t dare. He didn’t think this had killed it; didn’t trust it. But if he could hold it down...
Twilight didn’t ask again. He found a seam where the monster’s lower jaw had split and managed to peel it open, cutting as he went, quick and efficient – Link could tell he’d skinned animals before, and this seemed little different. He got far enough to free Wind’s face.
“No,” Twilight whimpered. “Fuck, no. Wind—”
“Later,” Link hissed. His hands were shaking, braced on his sword as if he thought Dead Hand would push its way up to the hilt even now. He could see what Twilight had reacted to: see the twisted, bruised, bloody skin of the boy’s throat where it had seized him and squeezed.
Wind wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t moving either, and Link feared the worst.
They didn’t have time for this. “Take him, we need to—”
He had a second’s warning. Staring at the ground, he could see the bloody dirt churn and twist, and in that split second he twisted and kicked Twilight violently out of the way. Bone cracked; the other man shouted and hit the ground with violent force, seconds before the earth beneath Link erupted in white hands on every side. Those shatteringly-violent hands grabbed him, breaking wrists and twisting his legs. Joints popped, and Link screamed in pain until something grabbed his face. He felt the crack radiate across his skull; he wasn’t sure what had gone.
It was pain that made him collapse; torn skin and ligament, broken bones. The hands holding him dragged him down onto the ground, atop Wind’s body inside Dead Hand’s gaping mouth and he watched it reach up, as if to pull his sword from its skull, even as his vision swam, the movement finishing out of sight.
A ripple crossed the creature’s body. The split mouth that Twilight had found flexed and spread wider. It’s face split above his head at its cheeks and then it hit a point on the chest where it went from flesh with little hooks to...
He didn’t want to look. He couldn’t stop himself. He was shaking in pain; in horror and revulsion and he couldn’t move. His body was too damaged, too broken to rise even as it crawled towards them like... like...
Fuck he didn’t know what it was. All he could see was the flaps of skin studded with small, hook-like teeth coming closer with each rippling movement and then there was something wet, something burning on his skin, on his face, and—
Darkness. He couldn’t breathe.
Somehow, as the light went out, he could think just enough.
He couldn’t breathe.
Of everything that had just happened, all the pain and crushing pressure ( of Wind, he’d failed him; he failed the others , would Twilight even make it out—) he... couldn’t breathe...
Fuck.
IIII [Hyrule]
“Nobody goes off alone down there, understood?”
Someone was screaming.
Link led Sky and Wild through the maze until they found the shattered door. He threw himself through the portal and saw—
He’d seen similar before, in his broken kingdom where monsters hunted his blood: masses of flesh and violence that would take time to even start to unwind visually, nevermind physically. He didn’t need to make sense of that, not yet: just inside the door, Twilight was pinned on his back, a white skeletal hand clutched around his throat. He still lived: he’d gotten a hand up, between th e skeletal fingers and his skin, but one look told him that wrist was broken.
Sky was already on it, cutting through the thin bone and exposing sluggish, purple blood as he pried its frozen fingers from Twilight’s wrist and throat.
The other man took one breath and begged, “It’s got Time, it’s got Wind. They’re dead; shit, I’m sorry, I couldn’t—”
“Wild,” Link snapped. “Get him out of here. If you find the others, take Four with you and send them on. We’ll handle getting Wind and Time.”
Wild didn’t even have the energy to argue. He pulled Twilight up, the other man leaning heavily on his shoulders as other injuries became apparent, and Link turned back to face the monster before them.
They were almost certainly dead. He could see the creature’s mouth still bulging, its throat making the cycling movements of something about to swallow. He glanced back at Sky and tried to guess how far away the others were. What was his radius...?
“Sky get out of the room and keep the others at the far end of the hall,” Link said. “I need to take this out all at once.”
“Are you sure--?”
Link shoved his bag at him. “Give this to Wild. It’s insurance – for everyone, I hope. But let’s not use more than we have to, okay?”
Sky reluctantly agreed. His eyes were gliding off the creature in the center of the room every time he tried to look, and Link couldn’t blame him. It was making his skin crawl too, but he had to... He had to do something . He’d seen worse.
If he told himself that enough times, he might even believe it.
He counted down the seconds for clearance, praying nobody crossed the boundary. The thing was too satiated to even notice him, glutting itself on what it already had. He swallowed, and breathed an apology, if Twilight was wrong: but at this point, it was likely a mercy to—
His countdown hit zero, and Link fried the room with thunder. The half dozen still hands seized and curled up on the floor. The massive body shook and its skin split, bleeding thick purple blood. He heard someone curse in the hallway outside, then Sky reply:
“Legend! Are you alright?”
“Fine!” Legend called back. “Who’s screaming?”
“Four, come here – you’re going with Wild to the surface. Legend, Warriors, come with me.”
Thank all the Gods.
Link swallowed again and stepped forward to start the unpleasant process of finding.... finding their friends inside that thing... Which meant he had to pull it’s skin open, cut inside and see... See how badly injured they were, before and after death.
Fuck he’d never had to do this for someone he knew before, not... not like this.
Legend almost couldn’t help. He was sick twice; Sky looked almost like he might join him on the second, but he pulled through and Warriors didn’t speak at all. At first, Link tried to joke – “Where’d you learn to handle shit like this, Sky?” -- but after they got Wind out...
Nobody said anything more.
Time took longer: he was heavy, and his equipment snagged. Link could think of it like that: a logistics problem. A corpse. He’d done this before, recovering loved ones for burials but... Never his. Rarely someone he even had a name for. Sometimes, he didn’t know who they’d been at all.
He’d never appreciated how much easier that was.
“....what now?” Sky whispered, as Link fumbled making the small stack of armour that had come apart as the leather fasteners failed inside the body.
“There was a river nearby?” Link said, his voice hoarse from the violent fumes inside the monster. They’d gotten deep enough to cut into the stomach; half their shit had been in a pool of acid. “We need to rinse their bodies, then—”
“For what fucking point?” Legend snapped. “They’re dead, Hyrule! I don’t think you can get more dead than that! Can we even get back anywhere without Time?”
“Did I ask for a vote, Vet?” Link snapped right back. “I didn’t fucking think so! If I say we’re washing them off, you can either help or go hide with Wild and Four while the rest of us handle it!”
“He has a point,” Warriors cut in. “Why are we doing this if it’ll just make things worse? The others are going to see... See them like this.”
“We can wrap the bodies when we go up,” Link retorted, but he was right: he was getting ahead of himself. He reined in his panic, his anger. He was yelling at them because he couldn’t yell at the monster that ate them in the first place. He did have answers. “You remember the Dollmaker. She gave me dolls for you. All of you, okay? But they don’t work until the body’s destroyed or fucking safe to repair, and ‘covered in acid’ isn’t that. Happy?”
Nobody looked happy, but they stopped fighting about it. Legend had canvas they could wrap the bodies in. Warriors and Sky took Time; Link....
Link took Wind, the small body in his arms hurting more than any burns he’d suffered himself.
Forget his aching lungs or scalded hands and arms. This, this slight weight, the boy’s covered head on his shoulder was the worst part of it all.
Warriors was right too: there was no way to hide this. No sparing the others anything but the sight. They were dead silent as they came up – as they needed help to get out of the well – but Link just set off for the river without anything but one call back:
“When everyone’s out, Wild, bring me my bag!”
It was a long, silent walk, made longer and the silence deeper as Warriors and Sky caught up.Four was kneeling by Twilight, who couldn’t stop shaking. Legend and Wild must have spoken, out of earshot, because they stayed well back and waited, head to head until they were done in the water: until Link and the others had rinsed themselves off and laid out the bodies.
Link walked to Wild’s side then, surprised to see Twilight had – somewhere in the last little while – found strength to rise and join them.
“What are you doing?” Twilight begged.
“Hyrule, your arms...” Four began.
“Later,” he snapped; he didn’t even feel the burns, although his voice was rough on his throat. “Wild, my bag?”
The Champion produced it from his slate, and Link dropped to his knees to throw everything out until he reached the muslin bag inside. His hands started to shake then: if this didn’t work... If, somehow, she’d lied to him....
Dolls spilled everywhere as he dug until he found the ones he wanted. He seized Time’s first, gripping it so hard the tiny armour, painted leather, dug into his hands until – very suddenly – it sizzled, the skin and hair burning like fire. The whole doll collapsed into fragments of cloth and scorched sawdust, falling off his hand like rain.
Behind him, Time shot awake with a scream; Sky babbled a prayer, and Warriors swore.
“Time, Time it’s okay, we’re out of there. You’re safe. We’re all out and safe—”
Link dug again: Wind’s doll was so small , it had fallen to the bottom of the bag. Link sobbed as it felt like it was evading him on purpose for a terrifying few seconds – Seconds of Time babbling, “Wind? Where is he, is he okay?” -- and Sky and Warriors vainly tried to keep him calm.
He found Wind. It was a soft doll, the most like any real child’s toy so far, clean lines and little stitched embroidery on the crayfish on his tunic and it’s border. Link sobbed as he found it and pressed the little thing to his face, still frozen on the edge of terror.
What if it didn’t work? What if only one took? What if – what if—
He felt the fabric heat beneath his skin, then it popped into sawdust too that rained down his scalded wrist. Link collapsed sobbing over the little dolls spilled all around his lap.
Wind, too, woke with a sob of terror all his own, and Link heard Wars fail to keep Time down.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I never should have taken you down there—”
It worked. She hadn’t lied to him.
Wind was alive again.