Head throbbing, sick in the stomach, eyes sore… Link pushed himself up off of the mattress, muscles achy and slow, world bright and blurry and somewhere else completely. It was painful, tiring, the sheets were soiled, his skin was sweaty, and he could hear the blood rushing through his ears as his heart struggled to keep up.
Something tickled at his forehead. Curious, he reached up and plucked it from the skin. Shad had stuck a note there sometime this morning. The writing swirled in Link's vision, he strained to read the writing but it was just too blurry… after a few moments, Shad's untidy scrawl came into focus.
If you can read this, you survived yourself!
Oh. Oh. It took him a minute, and then last night's memories came rushing back. A raging party, bursting, colorful recollections of Midna that he'd thought were months behind him, and the most fantastically intense kiss he'd ever had with someone who scared him to death.
He crumpled up the note and flopped back on the pillow, regretting it immediately as pain swam up his spine and into his head, douching away the memories as his head throbbed from the impact. He knew for certain exactly three things:
1: Last night had been the most bizarre night since he'd moved in at Telma's.
2: He'd almost gotten laid. Key word: Almost.
3: He was going to regret it for the rest of his life.
The pain dissolved into the exhaustion, and Link shifted onto his side, dragging the quilt with him as sleep pulled him under again.
…He approached the rickety wooden stack of shelves warily. A black curtain, thrown atop the shelf, veiled the contents of each shelf, and Link rested a hand on it… it was dry and old, patched, threadbare, smelled of dust and of death… at first he wondered why, and when he pulled the curtain from the shelf it slid with grace, raising a trail of dust as it fell, the folds stacking like ripples beside Link's feet…
…Horror took hold of him as the shelves came into view… all bottles, wine bottles, beer bottles, whisky bottles, rum bottles... each corked and preserved and labeled… labeled with names. 'Darknut.' 'Bokoblin.' 'Bulblin.' 'Zant.' 'Ganondorf.'
…The earth rumbled under his feet and suddenly a bottle tipped, falling into the next one, and that into the next, each falling off of the shelves, at his feet, blood gushing and gurgling and sloshing out of the bottles, pooling at his feet, more bottles falling, blood surging out as it rose like a tide, tickling his ankles, and his thighs, and his hips as it rose, sticking to his exposed skin, drying there, cracking there, staining it red, and stinging the whole time like acid...
...He turned back in terror, and Telma was there, watching and shaking her head...
"You said they'd help me forget!" he cried, his voice muffled as the blood rose, splashing and bubbling around his chest, his shoulders his neck. "You said these bottles would help me forget!" And he thought desperately of the wine, the beer, the whisky, the rum she'd promised him...
Telma just sighed. "Don't yell at me," she said. "You're the one who put them there..."
...He tried to scream, he opened his mouth, but the blood rushed in and his screams turned to bubbles as the red took over...
His eyelids repelled each other and he woke up gasping for air, eyes wide, his vision clouded around the edges. The sheets were crumpled underneath each of his fists, and he assumed he had grabbed them in fear sometime during his nightmare. It was becoming steadily lighter outside and he cursed the brightness, white-hot and blinding against the hangover. He pulled his pillow over his head and closed his eyes again, and he fell asleep before his heart could stop pounding in his chest.
...He thought it was awfully funny that there were two suns in the sky for a change. He knew that some planets had two moons, but he'd never seen two suns, and it really was quite bizarre. They were level with one another, each perfectly round in shape, the warm, golden hue glowing against the pale sky...
...It all changed when they vanished. For just a split second, they compressed into thin lines, too thin to see... and then they widened again, perfect circles... And then they vanished again. And reappeared. And vanished. And then he realized they were blinking. Blinking like eyes. They were eyes...
"...You didn't really think you'd left me behind, did you?" asked the sky, and it split into a familiar smile... "You didn't really think you could forget me? Forget both of us?"
He stumbled back in shock. It was Zant's voice...
His eyes flung open, and he blinked furiously, trying to get those devilish yellow eyes out of his head. They wouldn't vanish, like dully glowing orbs that had been branded onto the backs of his eyelids every time he blinked...
Stupid, stupid, he thought, wiping the sweat from his hairline. "Zant's" words ran through his mind... You didn't really think you'd left me behind... did you?
Did I? Link asked himself. And he wasn't really sure. He'd been trying to forget... Telma had said he'd forget...
Frustrated with himself for believing a vision eight-months dead, he pulled the pillow closer to his head, sighing angrily, head still throbbing, skin still sweating, aching, tired to the bone... almost wondering if he might suffocate...
...Bulblins, everywhere he looked... waves of them, stretching out for miles, all shouting his name in a chorus of reverence... O Master Link, Hero of our people... we owe you our lives, now and forever... indebted for the rest of our days... it is our honor, our duty, to serve you... Master...
...Mildred was out there. She stood out among the rest, smiling in joy... but where were they standing? He stepped down for the pedestal, feeling terribly exposed, and slowly pushed the bulblins to the side... gradually, a space cleared where the bulblins had been worshipping him only moments before... and he saw the land for what it was, a graveyard, each little grave inscribed with the names of the bulblins he had killed... and still, they owed him their lives, simply because he had spared them in the game of war...
He tried to push away the quilts, tried to get up, no more dreaming he told himself, and yet he couldn't... sleep drugged him again, and pulled him under...
...He gazed out at Castle Town, colorful and prosperous, at Kakariko, bustling with trade, at Ordon, pristine and joyful... his eye turned on Hyrule Field, vast and majestic, on Lake Hylia, serene and proud, on Faron Woods, teeming with life, seen and unseen... And then he turned to the princess, who stood strong and beautiful beside him, watching the world spin below them...
And she said, "Look at this world we built together."
Then he heard a scream... it was Midna's cry, for that voice he would recognize anywhere... his blood boiled at the outcry, he had to save her, for he would do anything for her...
And so he drew and brandished his sword once more, assuming the role of the hero, desperate to find Midna and save her and then be with her, be with her simply because that was how things were meant to be... he sallied forth, braving Castle Town, and striking down the hoards of beasts the tried to block his path. He traveled across Hyrule Field, driving out the demons there with the bite of his blade... he traveled through forests, up mountains, through deserts, felling each and every creature that tried to keep him from saving her...
Finally, he found himself upon the highest mountain peak, for her screams had drawn him there... but instead of finding Midna, he found only Ganondorf, who smiled to him and beckoned for him to stand at his side... he did...
Ganondorf gestured out to Hyrule. He acknowledged Castle Town, stained with blood and reeking of death; he acknowledged Kakariko, slain, now, by the slice of Link's blade; he acknowledged Lake Hylia, whose waters had turned red; and then he acknowledged the Faron Woods, but it was devoid of life, now...
And Ganondorf said, "Look at this world we built together..."
"LINK! Wake up!" somebody cried, and his head throttled with pain as the earth shook aroudn him. Slowly, Link came to his senses, trying to recover from the dream and failing altogether. Ilia and Shad were standing beside him, each of them eyeing him with deep concern.
"Are you okay?" Ilia finally asked, her voice meek. "You were talking in your sleep-"
"Shouting, more like," Shad specified.
"Yelling your lungs out," Ilia continued.
"Like, screaming bloody murder... tears and everything," Shad finished.
For a second, Link didn't respond. He just watched his friends, and waited for his heart beat to slow down, clutching his pillow to his chest, and there was horror in his eyes... all he could see was a bloodstained Hyrule, Zant's yellow eyes, a graveyard full of those who revered him for killing their kin...
His stomach lurched and he threw himself forward, vomiting onto the sheets. He hacked everything out, head throbbing, swearing he was going blind... and when the sensation had passed, he felt surprisingly better.
He found himself in Ilia's arms, and Shad was helping him, too, and they stablilized him, leading him into the bathroom. He was shaky, but felt lighter, felt actually all right for the first time that day.
"Let's get you cleaned up," Ilia was saying, and Shad was murmering in agreement., saying that there was nothing to worry about, that Link was like this every time he was hungover, that this wasn't the first time, and not to panic... it was true. They dragged Link into the washroom, and stripped him bare, and Link admired that neither Ilia nor Shad blushed at the sight. And then they forced him into the shower, where he stood in half a daze, shoulders sloped, appreciating the hot water as it scorched his shoulders, running down his back, and his legs, and pooling at his feet before escaping down the drain. Ilia helped him wash, and Shad prepared a clean outfit, because Link had slept in his tunic and had soiled it overnight. Then they helped him out and dried him off, scrubbing his teeth and his tongue because his breath still smelled of alcohol. Shad gave him a cotton shirt and pants to borrow, and they helped him out of the washroom, and gave him something to eat, and then more to eat because he couldn't believe how starving he was...
He was only paying half-attention to what they were doing because the whole time he was so caught up with the voices in his head, the ones he'd thought had finally stopped, the voices that kept reminding him what he had done, and the look in the eyes of the dying, and the feeling of blood drying on his hands and his wrists and under his fingernails, and staying there, dying the skin red. And he cursed those voices because he'd been so sure that they'd finally left, and wondered where Ashei was, and remembered that he kissed her, and realized suddenly that he didn't care anymore.
Ilia and Shad stayed with him for a long time after that, caring for him with such gentleness and patience, not asking too many questions because they knew the value of privacy. And after awhile he just turned to them, because he had thought of something, and wanted to know what they thought in return.
"Have you ever fancied," he muttered, "that I may have been on the wrong end of the sword?"
"What?" the other two asked quietly, their voices coated with concern.
"I deserve to have died," he clarified. And his voice cracked. And he flopped over, and Ilia and Shad caught him, and he cried into their chests for a long time after that, and wondered how he'd ever live without them.
This one's a little darker. Hope that doesn't bother you. I want to thank you for your continued support. Yes, you. You're wonderful. :P
Review?