I wrote this at 11 last night after this very same thing happened to me in the Skyview Temple. Only, you know, not as dramatic. Because that's why we write fan-fiction...

THE ROPE SAVED MAH LIFE.

I don't own Zelda.

Link had progressed through the temple easily. He hadn't suffered any major injuries. A bruise on his shield arm from when he blocked a Staldra. Some cuts on his head from when a couple of Keese had slipped through his defenses. A bump on his temple from when a skeleton had slammed him into a wall (his chain-mail had saved him from more life-threatening injuries that time). The worst was a pair of twin puncture wounds on his thigh from when a massive spider had fallen from its fragile webbing right in front of him, pinned him to the ground, sprayed him with silk, and bitten his leg before he could even react. Fi didn't think it was poisoned, and Link didn't want to waste a potion on it.

He pushed all his aches and pains out of his mind as he made his way over to the yawning abyss before the golden door. He had seen a large ornate chest on the others side of the massive hole and he would bet the Beetle (or at least, that's what Fi had called it - Link thought it sounded stupid) he had just found that it had something he needed. Everything here was in chests, so a big chest had to have something important, right?

Link had quickly dispatched of the Bokoblins on either side of the narrow tight rope and gingerly walked across. He avoided looking down for fear that he would lose his nerve if he saw what he could fall into. He hopped off the taut rope, happy to feel solid ground beneath his feet. Link slowly approached the massive golden door. He traced over the designs at his eye level and ran his fingers over the thin seam in the middle of the door, marveling at the detail that had gone into constructing and creating this beautiful place. It was sad how it had gone to ruin.

Link frowned as he saw the key hole. It didn't look like anything he had seen before. Realization dawned on him as he realized that the odd-shaped key was probably in the chest. He turned around quickly and began to scan the empty room. His eyes locked on the vines and branches he saw dangling from the high ceiling. He also noticed that the small enclosure the chest was in was open on one side. He nodded to himself, mapping out his course of action in his head, then set to it.

It was when Link was in the branches high above the abyss that things started to go wrong. He was occupied with thoughts of what laid behind that golden door.

He thought it might have been Zelda, but he had noticed footsteps behind him all throughout the temple. He had turned around and tried to catch whoever or whatever it was in the act, but whenever he whirled around, his hand on the hilt of his sword, there had been no one there. It gave Link chills and after the third time it had happened, he had kept his sword out except for when it was necessary to put it away for speed's sake. His shoulders were sore from how tightly he was tensed up and the tiniest shriek from a Keese or Bokoblin grated on his nerves until he was a twitching wreck. However, he hadn't heard the footsteps in the whole time he had been in this final room. Link vaguely wondered if whatever or whoever was following him had somehow gotten into the room before him.

... What if they or it had Zelda?

Link froze as this horrific possibility occurred to him. Fear gripped his heart and squeezed with icy fingers. He clambered up the levels of the tree, his feet sliding on the damp bark, and started his way across the natural bridge of branches as fast as he could. In his haste, he didn't notice the curving, overlapping nature of the bridge, and to put it simply and literally, it was his downfall.

His booted foot caught on the upper tree branch, sending Link sprawling. His ankle twisted painfully as the lower half of his body slammed against the branch. His upper half fell into thin air. With gravity pulling the stunned knight down, he rolled limply into the chasm, his feet splayed out and his arms waving frantically.

Link couldn't even find the air to scream as he fell. He was on the surface. No Loftwing would come down here, let alone inside the massive, complex temple. The sailcloth Zelda gave him would only delay the inevitable. Everything seemed to have slowed down so that every second lasted an hour. Link forced his eyes open and saw the rope.

The rope.

He desperately flung his arm out as he passed, almost wrenching it painfully out of the socket as his fall came to a dead stop immediately. Panting, Link stared down into the abyss and felt his head spin with a sudden case of vertigo. His feet dangled freely over the darkness that seemed to stretch on forever. Link had never really been afraid of heights - you couldn't be if you lived on Skyloft - but he felt almost physically ill at the thought of falling and never hitting the bottom.

The metallic taste of blood in his mouth made Link realize he was biting the inside of his cheek. He reached a trembling hand up and grabbed the rope, hyper aware of the rough texture on his fingertips and through his gauntlets. Only now did he seem to realize how tired he was and how hard it was to keep his fingers tightly closed. Keeping his grip was going to be impossible in the next couple of minutes. Link shook his head to snap himself out of his stupor and started shuffling towards the closest wall. He let go of the rope with one hand, gripping the cold stone with one hand, then the next. He managed to haul himself up, still horrified at the near miss he had just experienced.

Link sat heavily on the stone outlook, shaking slightly. His feet and slightly swollen ankle dangled off the precipice, and he nervously dragged them in and pushed himself a good three feet away from the edge. He moaned and hugged his knees to his chest, his head bowed as he shivered uncontrollably.

It took him fifteen minutes to work up the nerve to start the trek back up to the high branches, and it would not be the Hero's last brush with death that day.

There will probably be a little sequel one-shot set after this in a couple of days.