A/N: This chapter was revised as of 6/2/13 – Polished, added narrative, minor errors and typos fixed.

What Makes a Hero

By: Selphie Kinneas 175

Chapter 25: Bad Luck or Bad Design

.:.

The fifth day of travelling had proved to be most eventful.

Five whole days Link had been walking through the desert. The sun beat down on him harshly, causing beads of sweat to cascade down his face in pools. The hot rays of the distant star were beyond draining to the hero's already weakened body, making it an incredible feat simply to stay standing for longer than a few minutes.

This heat reminded him bitterly of his weeks spent in the Goron Mines. He shuddered at the memory – at least he could take solace in knowing that it was cooler here than in that volcanic prison.

He had practically grown used to the dry, scratchy feeling in his throat; he constantly felt parched. He had a small flask filled with water, and the first couple of days here he had drank until he quenched his thirst, not realizing truly how long this task would take and that he would need to conserve the liquid for the duration of the trip. So, realizing he still had quite the distance to travel, he was doing his best to drink as little as possible, and it had definitely started to take its toll on him.

The pain in his sides had not left him one bit. In fact, he had probably worsened it by all the moving around he had been doing. Midna had been right, he knew that all along, but that didn't change his opinion on the matter, either. He did his best trying to keep his mind on happier thoughts, reminding himself of the children and Ilia waiting for him back in Kakariko. He wished more than anything that he could just speak with her one more time; he had decided long ago that he would do everything in his power to bring back her memory, no matter what that entailed, and he ran his mind ragged trying to think of exactly how he would do that.

Cheerful thoughts couldn't stop the pain and dehydration from taking a front seat for long, though. He stumbled a bit, the toes of his boots kicking up sand as he shuffled his feet. He swallowed, his dry throat immediately protesting the action as he started coughing involuntarily.

His trachea was sandpaper – a scratching, annoying sensation ever present. His mouth was so dry it could rival the very desert he trekked across, not allowing him to muster up a single drop of saliva. The weapon and guard on his back were lead weights in his current state, only increasing his already heightened level of fatigue. His head pounded, and it felt as if someone had bashed it against concrete multiple times. Sweat covered him head to toe in a thick blanket; he wished he could tell his body to hold onto that water, because it wasn't helping him to cool down as it was intended to in the slightest.

When his legs buckled beneath his weight and he dropped to one knee, Midna began to worry all over again.

"What's wrong? You're hurting, aren't you? I told you we should have waited and let you rest! You never listen to m-"

He raised a hand to gesture her to stop, "I'm fine, Midna."

"Oh really?" she folded her arms over her chest, "That's why you're crumpled on the floor?"

He mustered a chuckle at her over exaggeration, "I'm not 'crumpled on the floor,' I just need to rest for a minute."

"Mm hmm," she mumbled knowingly.

There wasn't any time left for a response as the pesky and endless sand worms dove from the ground and soared at the hero. Despite his slight disorientation and exhausted body and senses, he was able to hear the creatures coming before they struck, brandishing his blade and striking one down in mid-leap. He whirled around, getting to his feet and spinning his sword all the while, swiftly exterminating the last of them. With a huff, he sheathed his weapon.

"Maybe we should find some hard ground and rest for a bit," the hero suggested, wiping his brow with his forearm.

Midna nodded, "I agree. I wanna look at your bandage, too – make sure it's not soaked."

Link scratched the back of his neck in thought, "I appreciate it, Midna, but what would we do if it was?"

"Uhh…"

"We have no bandaging cloth left."

"For Din's sake!" she cried, "I forgot. Link, I don't think you can get through the rest of the desert like this. Not to mention, we still have that old prison to explore… Din only knows what's in there."

"We don't have a choice," he stated matter-of-factly, firm on his stance as he continued walking and searching for a secure place to relax.

The imp noticed him wavering, but he hid it well. She followed behind him silently for quite some time, recognizing his difficulties in dealing with the lesser worms of the desert. He actually masked that quite well, also, but having been with him and watching him fight for so many months, she knew exactly what it looked like when he was off his game – this was one of those times.

After hovering behind him mutely for a good amount of time, she finally decided to break the silence.

"Why are you so set on staying here and not going back to see that old shaman?"

He sighed, not even turning to meet her stare, "I'm too tired to talk about this right now."

She immediately grew livid with his answer, but did her best to reign in her emotions, "Fine. I see a safe place we could rest right over there," she pointed.

His gaze followed where she was gesturing to, and he went there as quickly as he could, plopping down on the hot rock as soon as he reached it. He exhaled slowly as he let his tired muscles relax. He closed his eyes as he concentrated solely on easing the tension throughout his body. He was also trying his hardest to moisten his mouth with the tiniest bit of saliva, but his salivary glands simply could not produce any. He ran his dry tongue over his chapped lips, tasting the familiar metallic tang of blood as one of the cracks had split open.

He opened his eyes and saw Midna hovering beside him holding up his canteen.

"There's not enough to last," his voice cracked slightly from the extensive dryness of his throat.

She pushed it closer to him still, "You have to drink something or you're not gonna make it."

He sighed, giving in as he lifted himself up to rest on his elbows, "Can't argue with that."

He grabbed the flask and took only a single, quick gulp, realizing that it was already slightly below the halfway point. He handed the small bottle back to his companion hastily, trying his best to resist the urge to drink more with much difficulty. After wiping his mouth with his forearm, he slinked back down to lie flat on the rocky terrain.

It was silent for some time after the imp had placed the canteen back into the hero's pouch. She looked him over as he lay there, obviously in discomfort. He was flat on his back with his left knee picked up off the ground and his right arm bent with his forearm over his eyes, blocking out the bright sun.

Before she could open her mouth to break the silence, much to her surprise, he took the initiative.

"I can't stand it here," he said at last, not altering his current position in the slightest.

Even though his eyes were covered, he could tell that Midna was confused by his words without even looking at her – most likely because she was silent.

"The answer to your question earlier, asking why I'm so set on staying here? It's because I can't stand it here."

"That makes no sense."

Link sighed as he propped himself up on his elbow and looked at his partner, "Look around," they both did just that, "Can you even see the lake from here?"

She gazed hard in each direction before answering positively, "No."

"We've come so far. It's so hot, I have sand all over, there's no water-"

"Exactly why we should go back!"

"But then we would have to start at the very beginning again, don't you get that? We've been going through this Goddess-forsaken desert for, what, four days now?"

"Five."

"And you'd really want to have to start over just because there are a few inconveniences?"

Midna scoffed, "They aren't just 'inconveniences!' It's a matter of you living or you dying! But I guess that isn't that important to you."

He thought on it a moment, "It's not really the most important thing, no."

The imp's eyes grew wide, "Then what is?"

"Everyone else living."

She laughed a cold laugh, "Typical hero thing to say."

"It's just the truth," he stated as he lay back down.

Midna still wasn't pleased with his response, "You still haven't given me a proper answer."

Link sighed, taking a moment to condense his feelings into words, "I don't like to complain, but I just really hate it here, and I want to get done and get out as soon as possible. The desert is the polar opposite of what I'm used to; I feel so overwhelmed here. I'm used to huge trees and woods crowding me in and making me feel secure. Out here, there's nothing for miles," he exhaled again, "I don't want to drag it out any longer than we have to," he paused to think, "Honestly, I don't know if I would even be able to bring myself to come back here if we left."

"Pff," the imp laughed slightly, "I doubt that. You've always been focused and driven. I'm sure knowing that you have to get through this place would be enough to get you to come back out here and get it done."

He sighed, and after a moment, gave her a smirk, "I think everyone thinks too much of me."

Midna smiled, "No. You think too little of yourself. Everyone else knows what you can do."

"Hm," was all he said as he turned his gaze up to the bright, baby blue sky.

She could see him contemplating her words – it was written all over his face like a book. After a few moments of silence, he proved her right.

"Thanks, Midna. I needed that," he said with a smile.

She half-smiled in return, "You're welcome."

The duo took the better half of the next hour to simply lie on the ground, looking up at the clouds and doing their best to relax. The sky seemed so bright here; maybe because there was only the single contrasting color of the sand beneath it to make it seem even bluer than it was. There weren't many clouds in the atmosphere, but with the few that did come along, they argued over what shape it most reminded them of. One of the larger white puffs that rolled along Link had pointed out to look like Epona. Midna laughed at him hysterically, saying that it looked more like one of her tribe's shadow beasts. He became offended at her words - how dare she say his horse resembled a monster, he had said teasingly. Neither of them could hold back the smiles that ensued.

However, Link's grin quickly diminished when he realized he dreadfully needed to get back to crossing the desert. He hated it, he was in pain from the arrows, and he was dehydrated, but he knew he had to keep going.

"Link," his shadow spoke up as she showed herself and pointed straight ahead, "Do you see that?"

He picked his gaze up from his boots, instantly noticing what his partner was referring to, and a knot quickly formed in his stomach.

Way past the old prison, in the far distance, they spotted a humongous cloud of sand heading rapidly towards them.

"Farore…" the hero whispered under his breath in shock.

"What? What is it?" Midna began panicking.

"It's a sandstorm," he answered bluntly as he watched it closely, evaluating its speed.

"For Din's sake!" the imp shouted, "The Goddesses don't like to make things easy, do they?"

He turned to her, "Midna, you'll be fine as long as you stay in my shadow. Don't come out for even a second, okay? You might get blown away with the wind."

"Yeah, okay, but what about you?"

He turned to face forward again, taking a moment to make sure all of his things were tightly fastened to his body, "I'll be fine."

"But-"

"I'll be fine. Get in the shadow, okay?"

Midna sighed, not wanting to give in, but she realized they really didn't have a choice. She swooped down into the dark shadow on the ground and remained there.

Link watched the wall of sand quickly approaching after having double-checked that his effects were secure. He had to come up with a strategy to overcome this storm. He looked around frantically in every direction; his first thought being that he could hunker down and hide behind a rock formation or something similar that could shield him from the sand. But there was nothing anywhere – the desert was completely flat and there was nowhere to hide and wait out the storm.

He then simply stood and watched the sandstorm in its charge for a moment, counting how many seconds it took for it to go from one marker to another, giving him a rough estimate of how long he had until it would reach him. He calculated that it was mere minutes.

Then he suddenly got a spark of an idea. Maybe if he ran with as much haste as he possibly could, he could make it to the prison before the storm hit. He knew it was a crazy idea, but it was all he had, and he had to go with it.

After taking in a long inhale and releasing it in an attempt to calm his rapid heartbeat, he started onward. At first he walked, until he picked up the pace into a jog, a sprint, and before long he was full-on running with every ounce of speed and energy he had left in him.

His plan was foiled, however, in the single instance that it took for him to look down at his boots and back up again, his opponent had already passed by and engulfed his destination altogether.

He cursed under his breath but did not slow his pace one bit. Now, all he could hope for was making it far enough that he would only have to trek through the storm for a short time. As he ran, he began to notice the great amount of speed that the wall of sand had picked up. He looked left and right, seeing no end to the barrage in either direction. It had also gained such heights that he could no longer see the tips of the doomed prison beyond the cloud of sand.

There was nowhere to go and no way to avoid this – he would have to confront it head on. It was only feet in front of him now. He stopped dead in his tracks, digging his boots into the ground and covering his face with both of his arms as he prepared himself to be swallowed by the tempest.

The sand suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks; he didn't even notice that he had let out an involuntary yelp of pain upon impact. After the initial shock, he started walking again, desperate to get to the prison. He had to summon all of his strength just to push against the powerful gusts of wind – if he had taken even a second to relax his muscles he would have easily been knocked to the ground and buried in a flash.

Each individual grain of sand was like a boulder as they pelted his body ceaselessly. His leg muscles grew jelly-like with exhaustion as pushing against the storm was like swimming against an oncoming current of water. The wind beat against him senselessly, whipping him back and forth like a rag doll. Despite his attempts at protecting his face, his eyes stung with the presence of dust, he could feel the small grains of sand crunching between his teeth, every time he took in a much needed breath through his nose, his nostrils and airways burned as the foreign particles were taken in, and each time he swallowed he could feel the sand slicing at the inside of his throat.

As he slowly pushed himself forward, Midna's words about the Goddesses not making things easy popped into his head – it did seem as if they were trying to make things as difficult as possible for him. He sometimes found himself wondering if everything that happened to him was because of him doing something foolish, or if it was the Goddesses' design that he should mess up.

Both options actually made sense for once.

The former was plausible simply because he knew that he had messed up on a number of occasions. Either he would make a mistake, he would simply not be paying attention, or he would be focused on something else entirely, and he would get himself hurt.

On the other hand, however, he wondered if this was the Goddesses' way of fashioning themselves a war-hardened and evil-destroying hero. After all, the ancient deities were certainly smart enough to know they couldn't pick up a farm boy and pit him against any malevolent force without him surely losing poorly.

No, they knew they had to fashion him into a stronger weapon in order for him to carry out their will. That brought up another topic the hero held such disdain for – was he honestly nothing more than a tool by which the Goddesses used for banishing evil from their beloved Hyrule? Did they not consider him a living, breathing human, but simply a pawn?

He tried not to think on it; it only made him angry at the Goddesses and he knew that that was not the best solution. He pushed the questioning thoughts aside and focused on what he had to deal with right now, first-hand.

The sandstorm didn't seem to let up in the slightest as he continued on for what felt like hours, although he was sure it was probably no more than mere minutes that ticked away sluggishly. He coughed and hacked as more and more sand found its way into his esophagus.

In a moment of either stupidity or bravery, he opened his eyes just barely a slit to ensure that he was still heading in the right direction. He could barely see two feet in front of him as millions of grains blew all around him in a flurry. His eyes immediately protested their use as they stung something awful, but he had just scarcely been able to make out a dark structure not too far from him now. It had to be his destination.

It seemed as if they consistently had one stroke of bad luck after another; he could only hope everything would go as planned in the doomed prison. The Mirror of Twilight should be there and then they could finally face off with Zant and be done with this. All he could do was pray that at least that much of their plan wouldn't be ruined.

Could the Goddesses have planned this, or does the chosen hero always suffer from bad luck?