Chapter Two: Insanity
Link's body, or perhaps his mind, would not let him yield to unconsciousness.
With a smack his agonized shoulder hit the stone floor of the throne room, bereft of any Hylian evidence. He would have fought but his sword, shield, dagger and arrows were taken, and both his fists broken. He had tried to kick Ganondorf, and had lost sense in his left shin. He prayed there were Gerudo healers who would pity the boy with the blue eyes ringed with red tears and blonde hair shot crimson with blood.
A booming laugh filled the corridors, crazed and maddened. Link knew Ganondorf was not through with his victory. "Hero of Time? More like a dog caught rolling in blood on the front lawn." With a kick Link was forced to his broken side and his breathing became short. His airway was snagged with blood, coated raw.
"Hyrule is mine! AHAHAHAH! After years of toil and defeat, this forest whelp will be brought to justice!"
Link began to hack up blood. Pain seized him around his middle and the world flashed to and fro. Red splattered the alabaster stones, warming their chill.
"SHUT UP! YOU DEFILE MY HALL!"
Link was kicked again. His weak arms that supported him slid out and his face landed in the pool of blood from his throat, sticky and warm.
"This land of light shall become what it was always meant to be! THE LAND OF MY PEOPLE! Gerudo are thieves no more! We take boldly to the paths you would not have us trod!"
Link weakly forced himself unto his elbows. The pain had dwindled into a faint hum. He knew what was happening. His brain had blocked off his pain centers to allow him to take any needed measures for escape. He forced himself unto his knees, and crawling to the wall, helped himself up.
"THE KING IS DEAD! A new king has arisen from the dessert sands that shall truly live forever! LONG LIVE GANONDORF!"
Link wheezed, and choked his last hope. "Ganon," he whispered weakly, buckled with injury. "Ganon, I beg not for my life or the freedom of Hyrule."
The crazed man turned and shot down the Hylian with a glare that would chill any man's blood. But Link did not let it faze him. He stared straight back.
"Ganon, I ask you, please listen. Do what you will with me, but please, realize what you are doing."
"Does the mongrel dare to know better than me?" Ganon uttered, his eyes insane, yellow and widened, blood shot and bulging in his maniac face, which he turned creepily on his neck.
"Ganon, I beg of you, realize what you are saying. You act like a mad man. You are scaring your own people." Link turned to the Gerudo women and children peeking around corners, terrified at the madness of their King. "Is it not for them that you did this? Please, I do not care what you do to me but—" Link wheezed as the pain flooded into him again, "Please, see your people. Grant them a King who will rule them well in the peacetime you have given them. Do not give them this murdering madness as a ruler."
Ganondorf blinked, and for a moment he was frozen, teetering between thrashing Link and hearing him out. Then reason ignited in his mind, and the monster that had awoken in his stare vanished as his face shifted. Silence chilled the stones and the blood on the floor cooled. The Gerudos waited with baited breath.
"The Hylian is right," he announced. "Acting as a generous king who values peace for my people—" Ganondorf stared Link in the eye. Link's face was wrinkled with blood and he clutched his side with his good arm. His keen blue eyes revealed a pain that Ganondorf could not comprehend. "—I…I grant this Hylian life."
There was a silence in the hall as the full entourage of pain engulfed Link. He gritted his jaw and willed himself to not vomit, fully doubled over now, gasping for air that brought torture with every breath. The world spun into a crazed kaleidoscope of his own blood and something warm trickled out of his chin. With a cough he inhaled blood and spattered scarlet vomit over the floor as he tried to free his lungs. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't draw life from the air around him. One of his broken ribs has punctured a lung.
"Karu!" called Ganondorf, and a terrified Gerudo scrambled out of hiding.
"Take this Hylian up to a room, and see that he is healed."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
The woman went to Link's side and took his good shoulder. "Easy, easy," she whispered, as Link limped along on his broken leg, grimacing and struggling to move, barely breathing through gritted teeth. Another Gerudo soundlessly left the shadows and took his other side. He winced but through his pain murmured, "Thank you."
They helped him to the nearest room and wrangled off his armor as gently as they could. The room was flocked with women, who burned something sweet and heavy that wiped Link's mind to a blank slate. He felt them pop his arm back in and wash his body of blood with cold cloths, tie up his ribs and set his shin, stitch his gashes with a white-hot needle. With a gentle hand somebody cleaned his face and Link breathed a thank you to the yellow gaze above him, a young Gerudo, a teenager. "Can I…can I go to sleep now?" he croaked, feeling the sewing of his arm and the tying of his mangled ribs.
"Yes, Hero," she whispered, placing a hand on his warm forehead, "you can sleep."
Link sighed and let his body go slack, the strange incense in the air making his mind groggy. He yielded to a blissful unconsciousness at last.
Link awoke and an insomniac-looking Gerudo was waiting beside his bed. She immediately broke from her trance and poured him some thick tea. "Here," she said, "This has medicine in it. We burned incense to give you pain free dreams but it will wear off soon. This is stronger."
"Thank you," whispered Link. "The Gerudo are very kind."
The woman offered a weak smile. "Ganondorf has been corrupted by power. He became a terrible monster in his rage. Without you to talk him down, many innocent Gerudo could have died. He does not know where his hand flies in his anger. We are forever indebted to you. You are as much our Hero as you are Zelda's."
Link drank the hot tea pressed to his lips. Its fumes curled and cracked at the dried blood still nested in his nose.
"I would be dead if you weren't such great healers," he said, sighing back against the pillows. "What is your name?"
"I'm Tyra." She bowed her head and set the cup back on the table.
"It is a pleasure to meet you. Do you know where Navi is?" Link asked, noticing her absence for the first time.
"You must certainly be feeling better," Tyra's mouth cracked into a strained smile, "If you are missing that annoying orb."
Link offered a fake smile. While he did admit that Navi's voice could get very annoying at times, amidst the chaos of battle he worried what had happened to her.
