Hello hello. What are days even anymore? I don't know. What's today? Sunday? Whatever.

And now, a bit of escapism, for Katia0203: a memory from Skyloft, before the Goddess' first incarnation and her hero had their grand adventure.

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Drabble XVI: Healer

Just as every day was above the clouds, it was a beautiful, sunny day in Skyloft. The weather was perfect, just as it was every day: Pleasantly cool without being cold, breezy without being too windy, bright without being punishingly so.

It was, in short, the perfect day to be a child.

"Let's pretend! Let's pretend!" Zelda ran in excited circles around Link, who was sitting on a bench, yawning. His hair was still mussed and his clothes were a little rumpled, evidence that his best friend had (as usual) dragged him out of bed before he was ready to wake.

"Okay," Link said tiredly. "Whaddaya wanna pretend? Knights and dragons again?"

"Ugh, no," Zelda said. She put her hands on her hips, looking as imperious as any eight-year-old could look. "You make a terrible dragon. You don't even roar very good."

"Sorry." Link yawned again, and Zelda made a noise of disgust.

"You're so lazy," she said. She leaned forward, getting right in his face. "You're never going to accomplish anything without me poking you along. How are you going to be a wing knight if all you want to do is sleep all the time?"

"It'll work out," he assured her, reaching up to pat her shiny, bright hair. Link rather liked Zelda's shiny, bright hair. It was very soft. When she made him brush it or braid it or pin it full of bows, he always complained, but really, he enjoyed it. He just didn't want anyone else to know he enjoyed it. "You'll see."

"I'll see, I'll see," she echoed, rolling her eyes. "Sure I'll see. Okay, lazybones. Since you're so tired, let's play healer. You can be the wounded, noble knight." She plucked a nearby stamina fruit from the ground, tossed it into the air, caught it in her hand, and raised a little blonde brow at him. "Well?"

Link slumped forward and cradled his arm against his chest, and moaned piteously.

"Healer, healer, help me," he said. "I'm injured. It's my arm!"

"Tell me what happened," Zelda said in a halfway-passable imitation of a healer, rushing over. She began to touch his arm, bending it this way and that. Link moaned again.

"Healer, it hurts! I fell from my bird when I was, um, fighting, um— a monster that flew up from below the surface! It had huuuuuge teeth and instead of wings it flapped its scales! It had a great big roar, and it—" Zelda was raising her brow at him, and Link realized he was veering off script. He cleared his throat and lapsed back into his assigned role. "I defeated the creature and saved Skyloft, but was wounded in the process."

"Is it just the arm?" Zelda asked, prodding his arm a bit more. She gasped. "Oh, no! You've been cut! It cut you with its poison scales!" She shoved the stamina fruit into Link's mouth. "Eat this antidote! It's the only thing that can save you!"

Link went cross-eyed, chewing the awkwardly huge fruit.

"How do you feel now, brave knight?" Zelda asked.

"Morp."

"Oh, no! It's not working! The poison is spreading! We're going to die if we can't get you the right antidote." She looked really and truly agitated now, and even though Link knew it was a game of pretend, he'd gotten into it enough that he wanted to make that upset go away.

"What do we do?" Link asked.

"Assistant!" Zelda gestured at Link, and he perked up. Role change! He slid off the bench and hurried to her side.

"Yes, Healer?" He asked, serious and fretting. "What miracle will you perform to save this brave patient?"

"We need a honeybunch leaf," Zelda said. She pointed at the low boughs of a nearby tree where a few fading, golden leaves clustered. "Quick, assistant! Climb that tree and get the honeybunch leaves or the patient will die!"

"Yes, Healer, right away!" Link was glad for the excuse to climb. He loved climbing. Quick as a flash, he scampered over to the tree and shimmied up the stout trunk. The leaves weren't very far off the ground, and in no time, he'd reached them—

— and overbalanced, falling to the ground with an ungraceful whump. Link thought he might have heard some sort of snapping sound, too, but he really wasn't sure. He was too busy being in pain.

"Link!" Zelda sprinted over, her little face pale with worry. "Are you alright?"

"Owwww," he groaned. "My arm." When she went to touch it, he jerked away. "For real. Not playing. My arm hurts."

"Can I see?" Zelda asked. Her sky-blue eyes were all that Link could see, and in a daze, he shifted, showing the arm that he was cradling against his body.

"That looks bad," she said. "Do you think you can walk?"

"I think so." Link blinked tears of pain out of his eyes. She stood and pulled him up by his good arm. As they walked, she wrapped her arm carefully around his shoulder in a worried hug. Maybe it was the pain, or a flight of fancy, or the comfort of having his very best friend in the world exerting so much care to be comforting, but Link's arm felt better, slowly but surely: He imagined that she was magic, and that her magic was flowing into him, bathing his arm in a golden glow and mending the wound he'd sustained.

They'd been playing near the bazaar, so fortunately it was not a very terribly long walk back to the Wing Academy. They went straight to the infirmary, Link cradling his arm against his stomach, half worried what the real healer would prescribe him. The healer's tonics always tasted awful.

When they arrived in the infirmary, the healer looked up from reading a sappy novel. Her brows rose and her mouth dropped into an O, and then she stood and hurried over.

"What happened?"

While Zelda explained— they'd been playing, and Link had climbed a tree, and he'd slipped and fallen— the healer tended expertly to Link's arm. Her touch was gentle, far more careful than Zelda's had been during pretend, and yet it was far less comforting. As Zelda finished the story, the healer leaned back, nodding to herself.

"Nothing to worry about, young man," she said to Link. "It's a sprain, not a break, and it'll heal in time. Until then…" And she prescribed him a routine of immobilization, ice, and— of course— foul tonics.

"I expect you to make sure he takes care of his arm, Young Miss," the healer said, fixing Zelda with a firm glare. Zelda nodded, not just obedient, but anxious and eager to help.

"I will, oh, I will," she said. "I'll take care of him and make sure he takes his medicine and I'll make sure he rests his arm, don't you worry. You can count on me. I'll even bring him his meals, if he needs me to!"

The healer swallowed a chortle.

"I don't think that'll be necessary," she said. "But for now, gentle play. No more trees. Yes?"

"Yes," Zelda agreed. "Thank you, Healer."

"Thank you, Healer," Link repeated obediently. Duly dismissed, he allowed himself to be ushered out of the infirmary, then escorted (by Zelda) to the private apartment she shared with her father.

"We're playing indoors now," Zelda told him. "You're going to lie down on a bunch of pillows and I'll take care of you. We'll play house. You'll be the injured, heroic husband and I'll be your loving wife."

"Ok," Link said, feeling a little cheered. Yeah, his arm hurt, and yeah, he just knew Zelda was going to pour those nasty tonics down his throat, but really, all in all, getting fussed over by his best friend for a few weeks wouldn't be all that bad.

No, he thought as Zelda pushed him down into a hastily-constructed pillow nest, calling him 'honey' and telling him to lie still, this wouldn't be bad at all.


The end! Just a sweet little childhood moment for y'all.

Coming up next time, for Typh: We're throwing it back to Ocarina of Time with a little scene of just how, exactly, Sheik felt while watching Link in his travels. Until then, stay safe, stay inside, and WASH YOUR HANDS! Air smoochies to all, and to all a good night.