Thanks so much to Alice Ann-Wonderland (Thank you, that means a lot!) and MexicAmerichick6 (No worries, I'm just glad you enjoyed!) for reviewing! Glad you guys are liking the story!
Also! As a quick note, I've returned to college this week, so I'm back in classes and may have less time to write. I'm gonna do my best to keep the weekly updates going, but if I do end up missing a week, you know why!
That being said, on with the chapter!
~ Chapter 18 ~
The first thing Link saw was a pair of owlish red eyes, slightly magnified by large glass lenses, hovering inches above his face. Normally, he wouldn't have let his surprise show, but given his significantly weakened and shaken state, he couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath and flinch back slightly.
"Hah! He's awake!" Purah exclaimed triumphantly, straightening up. "And his eyes are back to blue!" She paused to think. "For...some reason. What, did the Master Sword scare all of the Malice off? All we did was touch your face with it!"
Link stared at her, unsure if his fogged mind was processing her words correctly. "...you did what?" he rasped, wincing at the pain in his Malice-burned throat.
Purah at least had the grace to look slightly sheepish. "Ah, well...desperate times, desperate measures, you know. Doesn't matter! What's important is that you're awake, and you're you again, Linky!"
"Link's okay, goro!?" From his prone position on a table, Link couldn't see where Yunobo was, but he could still hear the young Goron's voice clearly, albeit from a distance. "That's great! Good job, you guys!"
"Indeed," Impa agreed, stepping up to Link's side. "Thank the Goddess you're alright, Master Link…" The old woman tilted her head curiously. "Though...how is it that the Malice is no longer controlling you?"
"Um…" Link hesitated, struggling to collect his thoughts. As clear as his mind had been while mentally speaking to Zelda, it was a bit harder to translate their conversation into actual spoken word. With consciousness had come unexpected weakness, and his head still spun and his throat still burned, bringing significant difficulty to his speech.
"Linky?" Purah prompted, eyebrows lifting. "Anyone home in that head of yours?"
"Lay off the kid, will you?" came Teba's voice from the other side of the table. The white-feathered Rito's wings were crossed as he eyed the Sheikah scientist sternly. "He just woke up. Hell, he's probably still trying to figure out what just happened."
"Fine, fine," the scientist muttered, rolling her eyes. She seemed flippant enough, but Link caught the way her hands just barely shook with nerves. "Pardon me for having a sense of urgency."
"Teba is right," Impa admitted. She turned back to Link, her expression unusually gentle. "Master Link...before we talk, is there anything you would like us to get for you? Some water, perhaps?"
The young knight nodded weakly. "Water would be...nice, thank you…" he whispered. His face burned with every twitch. Had the Malice wounded him externally as well?
As Impa ambled off to fetch him some water, Link carefully turned his head to look across the room, wincing as his right cheek rubbed against the rough wooden table. To his surprise, the lab was much fuller than he had expected - Sidon, Riju, Paya, and Symin were all collapsed on the floor against the wall, all in various states of exhaustion. Riju was fast asleep, nearly slumped against Sidon, whose head kept bobbing fact and forth as he dazedly fought off sleep of his own. Paya appeared to be in a sort of meditative state, while Symin looked mostly awake but couldn't stop yawning.
A lump formed in Link's throat as he caught a glimpse of the dark bruises that had already begun to form on Riju's neck. His fingers twitched nervously. They hadn't entirely recovered from being broken, but he had mostly regained use of them. And considering the fact that his Malice-possessed self likely hadn't been concerned with the gradually healing wounds he was littered with, it wasn't likely that the pain had caused him to hold back at all.
For a moment, he thought he might be sick.
Then, Impa was back with a cup of water, her small frame blocking his view of the girl he'd almost killed. The old Sheikah looked past him and nodded at Teba. "Help him sit up," she instructed.
Teba nodded. "Right." The Rito carefully slipped one white wing beneath Link's shoulder blades, the other poised to support his head. "Easy, Link...let's take this nice and slow."
Link couldn't hide his wincing as Teba gradually lifted him into a sitting position. His body felt heavy with exhaustion, his slow-to-heal wounds aching persistently. His head pounded, likely a lingering effect of his recent possession, and of course, his face still burned.
Despite it all, he could still faintly sense Zelda's tether of sacred power, connecting the two of them from afar. Gritting his teeth, he focused in on its calming aura, letting it wash over him and drown out the pain as he sat up straight.
Teba kept his wing on Link's back to hold him up while Impa reached up to bring the cup of water to his lips. For a moment, Link was tempted to insist that he hold the cup himself, but his hands shook with nerves, and he feared he wouldn't be able to keep it steady. Swallowing his pride, he allowed the old woman to tip the water into his mouth.
The cool liquid slid easily down his ragged throat, soothing the Malice burns that surely coated the inside, and removing some of the heat the vile substance had left behind. Link drained the entire cup before finally collapsing backwards into Teba's wings, his meager strength suddenly drained.
Inwardly, he cursed himself, feeling pathetic. How could he have allowed so much to go wrong in such a short amount of time? He should have stopped Zelda from leaving with the fake Paya. He should have recognized the Malice within him sooner. Or rather, he should have prevented those Yiga bastards from poisoning him with it in the first place.
He should have brought a weapon - any weapon - down to that damned beach that day. He should have protected her properly. Now, he couldn't even protect himself if he tried.
It was nothing short of pathetic.
"So, Linky…" Purah drawled once her sister had stepped back, eyeing his exhausted form carefully. "Ah…exactly how much do you remember about the past hour or so…?"
His eyes dropped to the floor, reluctant to meet her scrutinizing gaze. Nearly twenty seconds passed before he finally murmured, "…I know what I did."
"Link, it's not your fault," Teba cut in sternly, unknowingly echoing Zelda's earlier words. "We all know the hell that Malice can raise. Not even you can overpower that kind of poisoning, and you know it."
Logically, he did know it. Malice had corrupted powerful Guardians, monstrous Divine Beasts, and even the divine dragon Naydra, without a second of hesitation. It would be nothing short of arrogant to believe himself, a tiny Hylian (hero status notwithstanding), above them all. Why should he be able to resist the Malice's evil when some of the strongest entities he'd ever encountered could not?
Link lowered his head, letting his bangs fall over his eyes. Logic be damned - he couldn't shake the feeling that if he had done something, anything differently, none of this would have happened. If only he'd just -
"Alright Linky, knock it off. You can brood all you want later!" Purah suddenly snapped, interrupting his train of thought. "Now's the time for talking, not for pouting! I wanna know - how is it that the Malice lost control of you? Sure, the Master Sword's strong, but it shouldn't be able to purge the stuff completely. And I refuse to believe that Sidon clocking you on the head did the trick!"
Ah. Another explanation for his headache.
The young knight shook his head. His words came a bit easier now that water had somewhat soothed his throat, but his voice still rasped. "It wasn't that...it...it was Zelda…"
"The princess is alright!?" Impa exclaimed, nearly dropping the empty cup she had been about to put away as she rushed back over to Link. "Did she speak to you!? Where is she!?"
"And I'm the one who needs to lay off," Purah grumbled under her breath.
"She...she's on Mount Lanayru…" Link murmured. His fists clenched as he pictured a Yiga mask shattering in his grip. "The Yiga took her there...she...she hasn't been hurt, but...she can't get back down the mountain yet…"
"Any idea where on the mountain she is?" Teba asked, already lifting his wings. "I can fly up there and carry her back."
"N-No…" Link wished desperately that things could be that easy, but he would be a fool to believe as much. "She said there's a storm...and I think...I think the Yiga might still be there. You could be ambushed…"
"I can handle a few Yiga footsoldiers," Teba argued, though he begrudgingly folded his wings behind his back. "A snowstorm, though...any Rito knows that nothing good comes from flying in a blizzard."
"Sh-She's trying to get enough power to...to warp here…" Link coughed. "Though...she's still using some on me...s-something about a tether...so I don't know how long...how long it will take…"
Impa sighed, shaking her head. "Well...at least we know she is safe, for now. I shudder at the thought of leaving her to fend for herself on the mountain alone...but her power will keep her safe until either we can get to her, or she can get to us."
Link knew that the old woman was referring to Zelda's goddess magic, but when he nodded weakly in agreement, he personally had a different form of power in mind.
Zelda was the girl who had endured ten years of fruitless training, standing waist-deep in frigid springs and pleading to a goddess who wouldn't answer. She was the girl who, despite her father's wishes, immersed herself as deeply into the study of Sheikah technology as she could, absorbing more knowledge in those years than Link believed he could ever acquire across ten lifetimes. She was the girl who knowingly imprisoned herself within a castle teeming with Malice, enduring every attack and torment from the demon behind it all, just so that her broken kingdom would be granted the smallest chance to mend itself. She was the girl who suffered every hardship, faced every challenge, all with an iron will and a determination that refused to waver.
She was far stronger than he could ever be. She would be alright.
For the time being, there were more pressing matters on his mind. He glanced over to where Sidon, Paya, Riju, and Symin still lay, exhausted.
"...so...what happened to them…?" the young man questioned cautiously.
"Oh, them?" Purah chuckled sheepishly. "Well...alright, so I'm sure you've noticed that your face is a bit...um...let's say tender, right now. Turns out, during your little episode, some Malice oozed out onto your face. And that stuff can't be removed through normal methods, so we had to get a bit...creative."
Remembering Purah's earlier comment regarding the Master Sword, Link was suddenly extremely glad that he had been unconscious for whatever had just happened.