Link frantically tore off his tunic and tossed it back in the lake. He was about to do the same with his undershirt, but doubled over hacking out water and bile instead.
I'm dying. I'm going to die here.
Link tried to shake the thought from his mind, and halfway succeeded. It is hard to forget when you're dying of hypothermia.
Rather than taking off his drenched undershirt as well, he leaped back in the water before his better judgment could tell him otherwise. There wasn't any time to waste.
This water should be frozen. It's cold enough, God knows.
He swam all across the icy lake frenetically, but had to return to the lip of land he had found to begin with for the sake of not drowning. How long had it been since the King of Red Lions said there would only be two minutes before everything in the Ice Ring Isle froze over? It must have been at least one torturous minute.
When Link reached the frosty islet at first, he explored the outside for far longer than he would have liked now. As he entered the grotto where apparently a wind-defying tool he would find, it was quite normal, albeit frigid beyond belief. He hopped a few icy platforms, and then he made a mistake.
The King of Red Lions, or rather Sir Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, called him through the pendant to alert him that only two minutes remained until Link would freeze to death along with every Keese in the cave. He began to panic and searched hastily for a way to get the treasure and get out. He happened to notice a path he didn't see before, which led straight from the entrance to the coveted treasure chest.
Now, if you are at all familiar with Ice Ring Isle, you may remember that this path was impossible to traverse without Iron Boots. However, in his rapid search, Link failed to notice the wind coming from that direction.
The rest was just a hop, skip, fall, and cling to a cliff for dear life before he dropped to the water below.
Link caught his breath for a minute. He wasn't used to this kind of torture. He had faced extreme heat, bloody transactions from the Helmaroc King, and accidental blasts from his own bombs, but he had never been faced with such immediate death with absolutely no remedy for it.
And it's so cold… He glanced up at the treasure. Forget the treasure! You just need to survive!
Then, knowing the urgency of his situation, he flung himself into the pool again, ready to search for the ladder that must have been waiting for him. Once again, he nearly drowned himself, but there was no escape to be found. He pulled himself up to the small island of safety. His skin was turning all sorts of wrong colors.
It took a minute for him to convince himself, but there was no ladder up the surface. His only choice was to climb up the steep cliff.
I'm going to die here.
He examined the cliff as closely as one can in a millisecond when they're dying of hypothermia and frostbite. Something caught his eye as he found a loose rock for a foothold. There was a wooden post hanging from the rock face, maybe a dozen feet from his head. If he could hit it with his grappling hook, he could have a head start climbing.
Link pulled out the rope of his grappler and aimed for only a second. It flew a few feet, swung over the bar, and slipped off, landing beside Link. He picked it up again.
Gods help me.
The rope wrapped three times around the post, slipped a bit, but then the hook caught a splinter in the wood. Link wiped some frozen mucus from his face and climbed, happy for the friction of his hands against the rope.
Only a few seconds must have been remaining, but Link saw a way out, so he was taking it. The plank on which he stood was not the sturdiest, but there was another one a few feet away. It would require every bit of concentration he had to grasp it with his grappling hook without falling.
Link bent slightly, crouching on the balls of his feet, and he grabbed the wall firmly with his right hand. The left swung violently as he shot it up to the wooden board above.
It slipped out of Link's hand.
The hook grabbed firmly onto the life-saving branch, but the other end dangled a few yards away from Link's nearly frozen body.
I'm going to die here.
He could climb the rock wall up to safety, or risk falling back to the deadly cold pond to get his grappling hook.
I'll die either way.
Without another instant of hesitation, Link leaped forward, as far as he could muster, and reached for the end of the rope.
He wasn't very cold anymore. His body felt a little warm, really.
The rope found its way between Link's thumb and index finger.
Now I'm really about to die.
Link swung his open palm up to reach the rope. He repeated this motion in a blur of activity and death until he was up to the surface. He nearly made it to the exit of the Godsforsaken cavern, but a sudden tremor opened up a gap between them. There was no way Link could jump over it. The only option left was to circle around and get the treasure that would let him resist wind. He jumped up, his actions barely his own, on the platform on which he stood originally. He jumped to another platform, falling as soon as he reached it. He slid uncontrollably, almost right to the chest of treasure. When he lifted the lid, inside lay two boots with metal soles. The thought that wearing them would help make him heavy enough entered his mind, but he couldn't put them on before he died anyway.
Instead, he tossed them across the wind tunnel to the entrance. He pulled out his grappling hook once again, and hooked onto the boots.
Years later, he wouldn't understand how he had the strength to pull himself to the boots and then leave the cave alive. Indeed, it was days before he woke up on Dragon Roost Island, laying flat on the beach with a few Rito attendants. Nothing made sense at all, but he could still think of one thing.
Am I dead yet?
Hey! Turns out I'm alive after all, right? I've been playing Wind Waker HD, so I went ahead and wrote a fic about it. I'm sure you're all happy about that. I'll be back to Legacy of The Light soon, hopefully. Maybe I'll see you then. Read and Review and such! Over and out, BV.