#oot*

[linkresfeber]

@cxrruptedhxpe - continued from here

These dang cucco’s! How many times would they escape?

Link panted as he ran after the third cucco he saw, his little legs only taking him so far. He was near the entrance to the Village, and was afraid the little guy would escape into the field if he didn’t catch him soon.

Finally!

Link grabbed onto the bird with ease, hiding his face from the sharp beak. Wouldn’t be the first time he had been pecked, and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last. With the bird sitting securely in his small hands, he ran back to the nice redheaded lady, setting the cucco safely in its pen.

She sneezed into the crook of her arm and Link gave her a sympathetic smile. “Just a few more to go!” He yelled over his shoulder. He ran past a suspicious looking crate and up some steps, stopping to stare at a tall being, ugly bruises littering his body.  

What happened to him?

Link watched as the tall person attempted to fly over the building, cursing when he could barely get his feet off the ground. He assumed the tall person in front of him was a fairy. A very tall, very bad fairy. He felt bad for the fairy, who was so clearly in pain.

Link walked up behind the fairy with a red potion in hand, unsure of how to get his attention. Thankfully, he seemed to have heard Link’s soft footfalls and he turned, staring at Link from above. Link smiled when he took the potion from his hands.

“You’re welcome!” He chirped. “Hey – aren’t fairies supposed to have healing magic? Why can’t you heal yourself? Are you broken?” Link couldn’t stop the string of questions that came from his mouth, as he nearly attached himself to the tall fairy’s leg. “And why are you so big? Most of the fairies I see are tiny. So tiny they’re just a speck of light.”

[linkresfeber]

“I need you to open your eyes for me. Can you do that?”

Link stirred, causing shooting pain to travel through his abdomen. The last thing he remembered was a small fight - nothing he couldn’t handle. But something had gone wrong, and then he was crumpled on the ground…

Sheik’s voice came to him through a tunnel, bringing him back to his senses. Open his eyes? He didn’t think it would be any problem. but simply opening his eyes winded Link, and immediately he wanted to close them again. Why couldn’t he just sleep? It sounded like such a better idea.

He briefly noticed Sheik’s ruby eyes staring down at him, before spotting what was his enemy - a Stalchild - reduced to nothing more than a pile of bones and cloth at his feet.

But then his eyes caught something red and Link forced himself to look at the three large gashes in his stomach. He could only assume that’s what had brought him down, and he knew he would have been dead if it weren’t for Sheik.

“Guess it’s a good thing you follow me in the shadows, huh?”

[linkresfeber]

@sheikahminstrel

Link fell onto Zelda’s couch, the soft material enveloping his body and pulling him in. He was so tired, and having just finished his last final – he was in desperate need of a nap. He could have sworn his eyelids had sandbags attached to them, and it felt so good to give into their desires and close them.

He heard Zelda yell something to her brother, warbled by the exhaustion that was coursing through his body. He had never seen much of her brother, half convinced they weren’t even real. They were always out, or practicing their harp, or something. They were nothing but a mysterious shadow in Link’s mind, and while he was ever so curious about the older half Hylian, half Sheikah, he couldn’t find a bone in his body willing to get up and go see them once and for all.

The couch cushion dipped at the added weight as Zelda sat next to Link, her body heat a nice substitute for a blanket. He thought he heard her saying something like “Good idea,” but he was gone before she finished her sentence – he was fast asleep. He settled into unconsciousness and welcomed the familiar black landscape that shrouded all his senses. Link had heard stories of other people dreaming; how vivid they could be, taking people to different worlds and allowing them to live out their darkest of fantasies. Or how terrifying they could be, conjuring the worst demons in your subconscious to visit you.

But Link rarely dreamed. When he was younger, he remembered dreaming of vast green fields and chestnut horses, large sentient rocks and fish people, and two girls: one with blond hair and the other with green. Link often found himself needing to be asleep, wanting nothing more than to be in this strange land, where he was regarded as a young Hero.

Then sometime around his 10th birthday, he saw nothing but black when he closed his eyes. Since then he’s grown to accept it, even though a part of him desperately wishes to be the Hero again.

He heard someone call his name, no doubt wanting to wake him from his peaceful slumber. He heard his name again, this time louder and closer to his ear. The ground beneath him was surprisingly hard, and not the couch he had fallen asleep on. His eyes finally opened at the third call of his name, more irritated than before.

Link expected to see the warm hues of Zelda’s living room, with its grand fireplace and large TV in the corner. He didn’t think he’d open his eyes to a large empty room, ceilings higher than anything he’d ever seen before. White marble floors extended as far as his eye could see, sunlight filtering in through stained glass windows.

A small blue fairy bobbed restlessly in front of him, and just beyond was a shadowy figure watching him.