Guys, I'm so sorry. I've just been so lame lately. And this chapter is so lame which is part of the reason why it took me so long to write because I just couldn't make it more exciting. It was one of those transition chapters, you know? Lots of crazy stuff happened in the chapter before, and more crazy stuff will happen in the chapter after, but this one was just BLEH. Hence the reason why I took so long to write it. Zero motivation. But that aside, here.
The yearning to be near you
I do what I have to do
And I had the sense to recognize
That I don't know how to let you go
She's sleeping, thankfully. Bandaged, bleeding, but breathing. The adrenaline is dying out finally, making my body sag into the chair as I watch her peacefully dream, my hand starting to throb again beneath the tightly wound dressings, my head is still pounding. "Link?"
I turn, finding Professor Owlan standing in the doorway of my room. I had called for him and her father as soon as I could through the panic. He fixed her first, then when she was falling asleep after he'd given her something for the pain that had made her tired, he tended to my injuries. I straighten up in the chair and try to stifle the groan of pain from the pressure I unintentionally put on my hand.
"You should try and get some sleep too," he murmurs, he looks stressed, worried for Zelda and me.
"No, I'll be okay." I try not to let my words slur.
I know he doesn't believe me. "Gaepora and I are returning to Skyloft to get more supplies, red potion and bandages. I need his help, but he said you'll be safe here. We'll be back just before noon," he tells me.
Noon. This day feels like it's been stretching on for forever, but the fact is, when I'd woken up without Zelda, it was extremely early in the day still. "Okay," I regard him with a nod.
"If she wakes up, try to keep her still," he says.
I nod again, though I try to keep the movement limited. For some reason, a nervous feeling stirs inside me by the fact that I'll be alone with her again. Zelda's father joins Owlan in the doorway, though his grief-filled eyes are trained on his fragile daughter that could have been dead.
"We'll hurry," Gaepora says, his voice on the cusp of cracking from emotion. I've never heard him like that, I've never seen him like this. Not even when she had disappeared from Skyloft. I think he always had faith that she could take care of herself.
And then they both turn, Owlan giving me one last sorry glance before they return to their loftwings. I take a deep breath against the sudden silence and lean the unbandaged side of my face against my fist.
I don't remember falling asleep, but I wake suddenly when I hear the bed shifting, Zelda's eyes squeezing shut then blinking a few times. Her face is contorted in what can only be anguish, and I crouch to her side immediately, taking one of her hands in both of mine. "Try not to move," I murmur.
"Link," she says softly, weakly.
"It's alright, your dad and Professor Owlan are just getting you more medicine, they're going to get you some red potion," I tell her.
She wrinkles her nose. For a moment I want to laugh at the fact that despite all her injuries, she's turning her nose up at the mention of red potion. "Yuck," she mumbles.
"It'll speed up the healing," I remind her.
"I'd rather do it the long, painful way," she manages to say. I'm surprised she's talking as easily as she is, though I can tell by the strain in her muscles, and the sheen of sweat on her brow, that she's holding back.
"You're pathetic," I joke in a whisper, too worried to put much effort into making it sound light.
The corner of her mouth lifts in a partial smile. "So are you. You look terrible. Have a run-in with a monster?"
My lips twitch, how can she already make comments like that? "Zelda..."
"You should rest, sleepyhead. What if it comes back? You'll be out cold and you won't be able to save me," she murmurs through a grimace.
"Stop," I whisper. The thought of that is too painful. A sharp pain pierces through my stomach, finding her on the ground like I had, but she doesn't move. She doesn't wake up.
"I'll be done for—" she begins to say again, but I cut her off with a cold gaze.
"Please stop," I say. I never want to contemplate that, I never want to consider that she could be taken from me. This was close enough for me, close enough for a lifetime. My voice is close to breaking, and I swallow back a dry lump in my throat at the momentary hurt in her eyes from my demand.
She touches my wrist lightly, trying to keep her eyes open as she watches me, "Lighten up, Sleepyhead, it's just a joke," she says, a small, weak laugh in her words trying to coax one out of me, trying to cover up her recent lapse in composure, how upset I'd made her. Though I take comfort in the fact that whatever Owlan gave her for the pain must still be working if she can talk as easily as she is.
I shake my head. "It's not funny," I barely say, my voice just above a whisper through gritted teeth, tears in my eyes. I know she's probably joking for her own sake as well, to make her not afraid, but I can't even stomach the thought. I can't imagine not being near her, I can't imagine letting her go like I almost had to.
She swallows, a sound audible in all the quiet, "I'm sorry." I lift her hand to my forehead and rest my elbows on the bed, closing my eyes and breathing in her scent as her fingers slowly close around my hand. "Can I ask you something?" she says a moment later.
"Of course," I say, still hidden behind her hand.
She clenches my hand tightly, "Did I open the door?"
My eyes fly open, my breathing stopped. She doesn't remember?
"I... these things keep happening and it's like I'm gone when they do. Like it's not me," she continues. I don't say anything, I wait for her theories. "Is she doing this to me?" she asks, her voice hurt, shaking with tears.
There it is. The thing I've been wondering, or rather, the thing I've somehow known for a while now but have been too afraid to bring up. "It's how it seems," I whisper. I don't know why, but I'm so tired, speaking above a whisper seems too hard.
"I don't get it... I thought we were the same. How is she doing things I can't control?"
I put her hand down, look into her eyes that are filled with confusion. "Maybe... maybe you're just the vessel. You're still Zelda, but she chose you to... to carry her memories, her power, to save this place. Maybe that's all reincarnation is, or whatever you want to call it. Using your body to do something she can't."
"You think that she can choose to make my body her own?" Zelda asks.
"I don't know..." I say.
"Do you think she could take over for good?"
"I don't know."
"Why now? Why does it keep happening?" she asks, hopelessness in her voice at my lack of reasons for her I assume.
I pause, looking at the bandages on her body. "Maybe it's the Arnacht. You... well, last night, when you, or she, took over, she said that it doesn't want you, and it doesn't want me. Maybe she feels responsible. I don't know. None of this makes sense."
"Why doesn't she just show me how to defeat it? Why doesn't she show me like she did with Demise?" she asks me, as if I'll know, and be able to comfort her.
I shake my head, "Maybe she doesn't know how."
"Maybe the only way is to give myself over to it. Then it won't hurt you," she chokes out, a tear rolling down her cheek.
I narrow my eyes, disgust maybe, rejection or something like it rolling through my chest. "Don't you dare say that," I breathe out fiercely. I touch my hand lightly to her face, holding her hand with my other one, "We're going to find a way to fix this. We always do."
"Link?" she asks.
"Yeah?"
"When I get better, can you take me to that place in the forest again? The one with all the forest spirits?" Her voice is quiet, it breaks my heart.
"Of course I can," I say firmly, "whenever you want, okay?"
She nods, "We could take a picnic, spend the afternoon there."
"That sounds good," I tell her as she lifts our joined hands to settle on her stomach, I can feel her heart beating there.
She lifts a finger to her eyes to wipe away a tear that lingers in the corner, looking down at her moist finger before saying, "Could you lay with me for a little while?"
My heart clenches for a moment before I nod. "Yeah," I say softly, standing up as she rolls to her side so that she's facing the wall. I try to ease myself onto the bed with as much caution as I can, careful not to jostle her wounds as I settle in behind her, resting an arm over her waist. "Are you feeling alright?"
She nods, rustling the bandages against her neck. My toes curl involuntarily in sympathy for the pain she must be feeling. My own hand and head are nothing in comparison. I lift my fingers and brush her hair back off her face and off her neck, hoping to alleviate some irritation to the swollen area.
And it's then that I see something I've never noticed before.
It's almost like a birthmark, partially covered by her hair on the back of her neck. There's an upside-down triangle, though on her skin the points aren't sharp, but that's definitely what it resembles. And on all three sides of the triangle are small dots.
It seems too precise to be a random birthmark. But at the same time, it's not clean enough to be a tattoo or something of the like. How had I never noticed it? I'd seen Zelda wear her hair up before, but I feel like I should have seen something like this, especially as prominent the darker color is against her fair skin.
Raising my thumb to meet her skin, I study the mark on her, wondering where it could have come from. It doesn't look like dirt, couldn't be. Zelda lets out a whimper almost as the hair on the back of her neck stands on end, a gentle shiver rolling through her body from my touch. "Zelda," I begin quietly, "what is this?"
"What's what?" she asks, her fingers closing over the spot I had just been tracing.
"Have you always had a birthmark there?" I ask her.
"A birthmark... I can't see it, what's it look like?"
I take a breath to answer, but hesitate when I hear the front door open and close, shuffling feet finding their way to my room soon after. Owlan and Gaepora stumble in, a satchel across the professor's body and a bottle of red liquid in her father's hand.
"Zelda!" he remarks with relief, though his eye glances warily to me once, to the fact that I'm laying in bed with his daughter I suppose, "You're awake!"
After rectifying my position next to her, I help her to sit, propping the pillow beneath her lower back. Gaepora sits on the edge of her bed, fiddling with the cork in the top of the bottle. Zelda's initial reaction is to cover her mouth with both of her hands like a child being forced to eat the vegetables on her plate.
"Sweetheart, it'll help you get better," her father says softly, touching her forearm carefully.
She doesn't seem convinced, uttering a quiet "No," before shaking her head, lips sealed into a straight line.
"It actually doesn't taste that bad," I murmur, I had become familiar with the bittersweet taste while trailing Zelda, after battles that left me bloodied and bruised. Particularly those with Ghirahim. He seemed to revel in my pain, find joy in the torture. I hadn't been afraid of fighting him, the need to find Zelda drove me, but his sadistic nature frightened me. Not only what he would do to me if I failed, but what he could and would do to Zelda if I did.
Zelda stares at me with wide eyes, strain in her neck as she reaches gingerly for the bottle. "You have to drink it all..." Gaepora reminds her gently.
Without a response, she tips the bottle past her lips, and begins to drink, a sour expression wrinkling her forehead. But she doesn't stop, not even when some of it spills and starts rolling down the corner of her mouth. Once the bottle is empty, she squeezes her eyes shut, swallowing past the bitter taste and setting the bottle down. I touch her arm gently, something that I regret when I see her father's eyes gravitate toward my hand. Retracting my hand, I turn to face him as she lies back down, "Can I talk to you for a second?" I ask.
"Of course," he says, standing and following me as I lead him into the other room. Owlan glances at us once but otherwise seems more interested with Zelda's well being.
"It's about last night," I begin nervously once I sit down, "I'm so, so sorry."
"Link—" he starts.
"You trusted me, and she almost died, and I just want to apologize. Though I know I can never ask you to forgive me," I continue rambling.
"Link, stop," he says abruptly, "what happened last night?"
I look down at the surface of the table, tracing the lines and whorls in the wood. "Everything was fine... We were safe inside, it was out there. It kept waking us up, whenever we could get to sleep... and then..." I swallowed, unsure of how he'll respond, "she woke up, and it was like she wasn't herself, she was saying weird things, and then she was walking towards the door, and before I could stop her..."
"She opened the door," he finishes for me, his eyes falling.
I nod once. "I tried to stop it, but it knocked me out."
He exhales slowly, a long contemplative breath. "The rising sun must have stopped it from finishing it's job."
The sun, if she had woken any sooner I might have lost her. "What do we do now?"
The question seems to stump him for a moment, an uncomfortable silence hanging in the air between us. "We continue on as we have... there's nothing more we can do except taking extra precautions. Make sure she doesn't go near the doors."
"You think she'll still be safe down here alone?" I ask incredulously.
Something softens in his eyes then, the rigid set to his brow settles, "I think if she was with anyone but you, she wouldn't be alive right now."
But she's just barely alive. That's something I can't ignore.
"Anyway," he stands up, pacing towards me before settling a hand on my shoulder, "I'll stay here until she's doing a bit better, until she stops bleeding." I wait where I sit as the warmth from his palm leaves, and a heavy pain sets into my chest. I'm afraid for her, afraid for how easily the Arnacht could have killed me before her.
"Link?" he asks then as he pauses at my bedroom door.
I turn around, too quickly and my head pounds as a result.
"Get some rest, son. You look worse than Zelda."