Experiment - Hyrule, Time (LinkedUniverse Febuwhump day 7)
My second attempt at this prompt - #1 has the same characters and basic premise but threatens to become a multi-chapter monster at this point and there was no way I could finish it in time. So for now...
TW – (being used as an experiment? clue in the prompt?), blood, major injury, implied torture (it’s not physically graphic but it’s there)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/36809317/chapters/92238538
“No!” Hyrule yelled. “No, stop, stop!”
He flung himself against the thick glass with all his strength but although he’d been fighting till his stupidly frail, stupidly small body was bruised and aching, the bottle still wouldn’t break. Wide-eyed with horror he could only stare, helpless, at the knife pressing into Time’s throat on the other side of the dungeon – pressing so hard that a thin trickle of blood was already seeping down his skin.
“Now, now, why all this commotion?” the sorcerer’s silky, dangerous voice floated back to him. He crouched down and leaned in closer to Hyrule, so close that his breath fogged up the glass of the bottle. Hyrule couldn’t stop himself from shrinking back instinctively into the farthest wall, pointless though his rational mind knew it was. “If you would just cooperate we wouldn’t have to go through this charade. I don’t particularly want to hurt your friend just yet, you know.”
The bottle Hyrule had been stupid enough to get himself trapped in had been placed on a stone slab in the middle of the dungeon. Time, his face still bloody from their capture, was chained to the wall across from him, chained so tightly he couldn’t even flinch away from the masked lackey holding the knife to his throat.
“We both know you can break the glass if you really try,” the sorcerer said, calmly, coldly. “If you want to save your friend, all you have to do is transform back into your other form.”
“I can’t,” Hyrule pleaded. He hated how high and fragile his voice sounded. In his fairy form everything happened at a higher frequency anyway, breathing, speaking, moving, thinking, even the beating of his heart, but now his words shook slightly with fear, with powerlessness. “I can’t, there isn’t space!”
The Chain had been in Warriors’ Hyrule, tracking a rogue sorcerer who was capturing fairies and allegedly performing horrible experiments on them. They had split up into groups of three to cover more ground but they hadn’t realised that the sorcerer was also tracking them. Hyrule had transformed into his fairy form to fly up high and try to figure out where they were, but by the time he’d returned to the ground Time and Legend were fighting back to back, struggling against a horde of moblins.
Hyrule had thrown himself forwards, already beginning to summon his magic and shift back into his Hylian form. He hadn’t seen the sorcerer until it was too late - until he was inside a bottle and thrashing desperately against the glass.
They’d found the fairies, anyway. Hyrule could see rows upon rows of bottles, identical to his own, lining the stone shelves all around the dungeon. Each bottle contained a fairy. Some of them were flailing at the glass, others lay motionless, their light dim and muted.
Time had taken a hit to the head and been dragged along unconscious. He was still blinking blood out of his eyes. Hyrule had no idea what had happened to Legend and just thinking about that sent spasms of fear shuddering through his whole body. The sorcerer scooped up the bottle, rolling it lightly between his hands, so that Hyrule had to brace his arms against the glass to keep from being thrown around inside.
“You are an interesting little specimen, aren’t you,” the sorcerer said thoughtfully, lifting the bottle up to his eye level. “I saw you transform in the woods. I’ve never seen a Hylian do that before. Just what are you?”
“Leave him alone,” Time snapped from behind. The sorcerer laughed softly without taking his eyes off Hyrule. “Oh, I don’t think so. We have so much to learn from each other.” He set the bottle down again sharply on the slab, making Hyrule stagger at the impact. “Transform, little fairy. I know you can do it, and I want to see how. Otherwise, believe me, I will cheerfully have your friend’s throat slit in front of you.”
“Let him out of the bottle, for Hylia’s sake,” Time pleaded. The sorcerer made a gesture and his lackey pushed the knife just slightly deeper into Time’s throat. “No!” Hyrule yelped in panic. Time didn’t flinch, but he went very, very still.
“Please,” Hyrule begged, and now his voice was really shaking and he hated it but he couldn’t do anything about it. “I’ll do what you want, just don’t hurt him!”
“What I want,” the sorcerer said calmly, “is for you to show me how you shift between forms.”
“If you let me out, I will,” Hyrule cried desperately.
“You misunderstand me,” the sorcerer said, and now he was smiling. It was a cold smile that twisted Hyrule’s insides. “If you cast your little spell while still inside the bottle, I foresee three plausible outcomes. Perhaps it is genuinely impossible, but I don’t think so. For your friend’s sake, I hope not. Alternatively, the bottle will break, setting you free. The third possibility is that the bottle will not break. That… would be unfortunate. But I won’t deny that I’m curious to see what will happen. Aren’t you?”
Hyrule’s breath was hard and ragged in his throat. He knew he was beginning to hyperventilate and fought to control himself. He couldn’t afford to panic. Not now. Time’s life depended on him.
“You monster,” Time hissed. “Do you want to kill him?”
Hyrule was almost certain that the spell simply wouldn’t work, if there wasn’t physically space around him to transform. If the bottle did break then yes, he’d be free, but the pressure would drive the fragments of glass deep into his skin. At least my blood doesn’t seem to be valuable to anyone in this timeline. He gulped back the hysteria. If the glass didn’t break… well, he didn’t want to envision the implications of that.
He couldn’t help it, though.
“If you don’t want to cooperate, of course…” the sorcerer said delicately, turning back towards Time.
“Okay!” Hyrule yelled in terror. “Okay!” Outcome one: it doesn’t work, and he’ll kill Time. Outcome two: it works, and maybe kills me. Outcome three: it works, and definitely kills me.
I guess I’ve got to hope for outcome two.
“Hyrule, no,” Time said in a warning voice.
“Hyrule?” the sorcerer repeated. “Is that what you call yourself? An interesting choice of name…”
Time was wrenching at his chains, his usually-stoic face twisted with fear and anger. “What exactly are you expecting to happen?” he snarled. “If it works at all it’ll kill him, and then you’ll have nothing.”
The sorcerer slid a knife out of his own sleeve, turning his back on Hyrule, and stepped closer to Time. “An immediate death would be regrettable,” he breathed into Time’s face. “But my own powers should prevent anything short of that.” He touched the knife gently to Time’s cheek just under his good eye, letting it balance for a moment on the skin, and then drew it slowly, slowly down the skin of his face, leaving a long, thin cut. “Not that I would extend them to you.” Time didn’t flinch or make a sound and the sorcerer’s smile widened before he turned back to Hyrule.
“Come, come,” he whispered. “Aren’t you even a little bit curious?” He seemed to be speaking to Time, but his eyes were fixed on Hyrule. “Go on then, Hyrule. Or you know what happens to your concerned friend over here.”
“Don’t do it,” Time said desperately. “Hyrule, don’t.”
Hyrule’s eyes flashed between Time and the sorcerer, smiling over his knife, which still dripped red. Stripped of his armour, Time was pale and covered in blood, both old and fresh, the chains digging viciously into his arms and chest. Hyrule’s heart was pounding. He fought the mental images of spurting blood, mangled flesh with all his strength.
Couldn’t protect his wings. Nothing he could do about that. This was going to hurt.
He just had to trust to his Hylian body to be strong enough.
The sorcerer wouldn’t make him do this if he’d enchanted the glass to be unbreakable, would he?
“I’m waiting, little fairy.”
“Hyrule, no, it’s too dangerous. Hyrule.”
Hyrule crouched down inside the bottle, hunching himself into as compact a knot as possible, tucking his chin down to his chest and crossing his arms behind his head over the exposed back of his neck. Protect your head, your throat, your vitals. That’s the most you can hope for right now.
I’m sorry, Time, Hyrule thought grimly, bracing himself, and he cast his spell.
The first thing he was aware of was excruciating, stabbing pain all over his body, so intense that a wordless yell was jerked from him against his will. Then a sensation of pressure giving way and he was still lucid enough to realise with a wave of insane relief that the glass had broken.
Then he was lying on the floor. He couldn’t see any broken glass around him. He realised dizzily that it was all still embedded in his body. Every inch of skin stung. He struggled to decode the waves of pain shooting through him to locate his actual injuries – there were thick shards of glass driven deep into his back and torso, especially on the right side. Maybe his left arm, too. It was difficult to tell.
It was cold. He was vaguely aware that he was shivering, but the cold was inside him, inside his very bones. At least it was numbing out the pain.
There was a pool of red spreading out around him.
Oh, Hyrule thought dazedly. Oh, no, that’s a lot of blood.
The sounds around him were muted, echoey. He could just make out Time’s voice and it seemed to be calling his name, over and over again. He wanted to say something, to reassure Time, let him know he was okay, but somehow he couldn’t make his brain and his mouth connect.
He was lying on the floor. Why was he lying on the floor?
And there was so much blood. Where… where was it coming from?
His vision was blurring. Shapes, colours kept sliding into each other. It made him dizzy, so he closed his eyes. Hands latched suddenly onto his shoulders and rolled him over onto his back and he felt his body jerk as the glass shards shifted and the pain suddenly crashed back in, but he couldn’t seem to summon the strength to fight.
He cracked his eyes open again. Red light. A voice, unfamiliar, frightening, closer, too close, scarily close: “Amazing. Amazing. That was amazing.” A ragged, blurry sob – “Hyrule!” Time? Time was okay? Good.
