The path ahead of them was actually much easier to uncover than Tya expected it to be. It really only required hitting two timeshift stones, one of which was barely visible in an ancient, hollowed out tree in the middle of the gorge. Link used the beetle to get it. Other than that, the two made a safe trek across to the other side.

Not that Tya was actually any use in getting there. In her current state, the mage was pretty much dead weight, leaving Link to do everything. She had briefly thought about changing it and doing something, but it didn't get the chance to stick around long before guilt and self loathing set in. The only thing she made herself good for at that point was carrying the pack.

She wasn't able to focus on what they were doing, even if she had the energy to help the situation. They'd come across Gorko at what looked to be the entrance of the place they needed to go- At least it was. It was blocked off by rubble now. He'd said something about Zelda and The Guardian going through and blocking the path behind them, but when that happened, Tya wasn't sure.

She was out of it, but she was almost positive it wasn't to the point that she wouldn't hear an explosion.

The conversation between Link and Gorko just didn't stay with Tya at all. She couldn't remember a word he said, mainly because she just couldn't manage to pay attention as he was talking. Not that she really cared.

The only thing she did care about was how much she wanted to rest.

She heard Link say something about having to find another way around and that actually almost made her cry. She just wanted to rest, and now this? Now she had to go find a new path Goddess knows how far away to get into this place she didn't even want to be in, why couldn't she just go home? She just wanted to go be useless away from the view of people.

She was caught in her thoughts, but Link was continuing on, and she just instinctively followed. Link triggered another time shift stone after he examined the area. He assumed there would be enemies given the fact that there were remains of two of the red pests, and of one of the robots.

When they triggered it, the little robot immediately called out for help, which made it clear someone else was in the area. The red pests directed the attention back to Link and Tya.

The two of them went straight for Link at first, as he was in front, but when they noticed the mage one made a motion that the other obeyed. It started toward Tya.

Watching the other come after her seemed… Slow. She didn't know why, but she felt like she had too much time, all of which she did nothing with. It didn't seem like it was happening, or if it was, like it mattered. So it would killer her. What was the problem there? She wouldn't have to think anymore.

It just came at her, and she allowed it. Like she was just going to let it strike her without an ounce of fear.

It took a strange yet obviously pained sound from Link to pull her back to reality enough to react to what was happening. Eyes flickered from the hesitantly approaching enemy to the one that held it's weapon up over Link.

Her companion had tensed entirely, and his sword now lay on the ground. He seemed to have trouble moving, only releasing pained and labored breaths when he got to.

Panic set in almost immediately, knowing Link had most definitely been hurt.

The fire in her hands ignited out of fear, and all she could do was throw an unruly flame outward toward the enemies. It missed, but managed to grab both of their attentions. Again, she summoned her fire to cast another to no avail. This time the fire just spilled over onto the ground, catching up the grass and spreading in front of her. It created somewhat of a wall, drawing in the two enemies attentions even more as she now became the more obvious threat.

What was she supposed to do?

She couldn't think.

Link wasn't getting his sword- why? She'd distracted them, why wasn't he going for it?

The panic only worsened, and just instinctively, both hands flew out in front of her as if to signal for the two foes to stop.

And they did.

But not by will.

Her action was like a signal to her fire and it poured forward like a wave toward the two enemies and Link, which made that panic so much worse.

Immediately she shook her head and swung her hands out to either side of her. The flames separated just before hitting her companion but they still somehow engulfed the enemies.

The flames that took their foes up, fell again in seconds, and the charred bodies collapsed in their spots. For a second, Tya stood there, watching everything and holding her breath though she wasn't entirely sure why. It took her a second to be able to actually push any air out, and the moment she did her mind seemed to actually function again.

She hurried to Link, getting to her knees in front of him and going to touch him but freezing.

"What..." She looked him over, completely unsure of what to do or what even happened.

Link had briefly flinched away when he saw her reach out, but he soon realized it was safe and he stopped.

"Th-that thing shocked m-me." He borderline whined, breathlessly and hopelessly, like he didn't know what to do either. Which of course made Tya all the more nervous. "I-It hit Fi- I need to make sure she's okay."

She hesitated for a minute before nodding her head and scooting toward the sword a few feet away. She didn't know if she should touch it lest she get shocked too, but she sucked it up quickly and grabbed it. It felt hot, but that was all. Obviously, that didn't bother Tya at all… She set it down in the sand in front of Link and immediately went to take his injured side.

The sword spirit was summoned when Link used his uninjured hand to touch the blade.

What exactly happened between Fi and Link, Tya couldn't really tell. As the little bit of adrenaline wore off, her ability to focus went with it, but she was doing her best to focus on Link's arm. One was now scarred from being hit in Eldin, and the other.. Well she hadn't seen the damage yet. She was afraid that doing anything would hurt him.

He turned his hand over, wincing at the pain brought by moving it even slightly. The inside of it was badly burned, as was the cloth of his gloves. The seared cotton was tinted with blood now. She bit the inside of her lip and shook her head before looking up at him. He had his attention on her once again, Fi just hovering next to them and watching. She appeared to be okay, but Tya wasn't exactly sure how to tell otherwise. Fi's expression never really changed.

"Can I take off the gauntlet?" Tya lightly touched the leather, causing him to flinch once again. She drew back, brows furrowing lightly.

"M-My arm burns. Be c-careful?" He closed his eyes then, facing the ground as if not being able to see it happen would ease the pain.

Tya slowly began to tug off the leather, watching as Link tensed. She could see that he was holding his breath, likely because he was in pain… She hated this. And this had to be her fault, she could have helped if she wasn't just… doing nothing. She could have prevented this…

She pulled the gauntlet off carefully, lifting the leather off the part of his arm that seemed to be the most injured.

Once it was off, she had to gently roll up his sleeve so his skin was uncovered and much to her surprise, open wounds was not what she found.

Raised, white marks shot up his arm. It all originated from the inside of his hand and spread up most of his forearm in a fashion that resembled lightning.

Once again, the mage hesitated, this time because she needed a second to think. All of her thoughts were making it borderline impossible to figure out what really needed to happen here. That seemed to be the only active thing about her at that moment...

Go the fuck home Find the pack He's better off with me gone He needs the healing potion This wouldn't have happened if I wasn't lazy It should be bandaged up so his gauntlets don't irritate it This should have been me.

Over and over, she told herself how useless she was, how this was her fault, how she didn't belong there, how she was burdensome, and mixed in these thoughts, desperately trying to talk over it all, was what needed to be done.

She closed her eyes tightly for a second, quietly muttering stop under her breath before going to slip the pack off her shoulders. Reopening them, she forced herself to concentrate the best she could. Pushing the thoughts aside was barely effective because they were still there, still distorting what was actually important. They managed to make her forget multiple times what she needed as she pulled out the few supplies.

She handed over the jar in which the last half of a healing potion was kept, and Link anchored it between his legs to uncork it. A move which her mind immediately insulted her for as she realized she should have done that before handing it to him. How stupid can I be?

She flashed a small smile in hopes to offer comfort, though she didn't know if it worked at all. She didn't know if she even managed to smile, or if she just thought she might have.

Link took a sizable swig of the potion before dumping a couple drops directly onto the wound.

"Does that help?" She asked quietly, leaning to look at the wound as he'd brought it closer to himself. He shook his head before starting to shake his hand like he was trying to get it off.

"No, st-stings." He kind of whimpered before letting out a little bit of a laugh. "I th-thought it might help some, getting it th-there quicker and all." He finished his sentence off with a bit of a hiss.

Tya's brow furrowed a bit more and despite her concern she couldn't help but chuckle a little, mainly because Link seemed to be trying to laugh it off. She pursed her lips then, pausing before grabbing at the bandages she'd pulled out. She held them up, and Link responded by giving her his hand. She was careful with his arm, knowing that the streaks up it had to be painful to the touch. They looked like burns that had already begun to blister… She couldn't imagine how that must feel, but despite his flinching and obvious pain, he continued to try and laugh about it.

He got patched up, and very nearly made the mistake of grabbing his sword- which Fi had returned to- with his dominant hand. Luckily he stopped himself before such a mistake was made, and he had to rather awkwardly put it away with his uninjured hand.

Tya would have helped, but Link didn't ask and her mind wandered elsewhere…

Once again to all the intrusive thoughts that she couldn't get to be quiet.

Link took over once again, leading the exploration. He needed to hunt down the little robot that had taken cover at some point during the fight- they discovered it had hidden almost completely beneath the minecart and was just waiting.

Yet another conversation that was completely lost on Tya.

The one thing that stuck to her was the fact that apparently, somewhere, there was another entrance into the 'Temple of Time', as it seemed to be called.

She also watched as the robot took Link's map and began to scribble on it, because apparently it was incorrect.

More time shift stones and rides in mine carts only to come out into an area with more sand. Tya wasn't really sure what she expected out of that though. This was a desert after all.

And once again, another dreadful trek through the sands, though this time it was much much worse. This time, in the lakes of sinksand, they had to find specific little paths that had long ago been engulfed, and walk specifically across those. Meaning they had to trudge through the thick, nearly unmovable sands to get to a specific piece of ruined wall- one which they only stopped at because a worn device stood atop it as well as a time shift stone.

Luckily for them, it turned out to that was just where they needed to be.

"Luckily" being a relative term, given the fact that they were just told they needed to travel through the sand more to find three more devices to activate this thing that would then open, not the Temple of Time, but a separate temple which they'd need to go through in order to get to there.

All throughout this, Tya lagged behind Link. She knew he knew something was wrong. He asked a couple of times, but she ended up actually getting annoyed by it, so he begrudgingly stopped.

She'd assumed the rest of their journey was going to be quiet, and hopefully quick so she could finally stop, but not long after finding the second node they needed to activate, something went wrong.

It had been a few hours since Link had been struck and since he'd drank the healing potion. In fact Tya was so absorbed in her own self loathing and inability to function that she'd pretty much forgotten he'd been really hurt. Regardless, it had been a few hours, so it seemed they both assumed it to pretty much be over and done with.

But evidently that wasn't the case.

It started with a little hiss, and Link suddenly raising his injured arm so he could tightly grasp it. From there it only elevated.

A pained whimper escaped him next, and he started to try and remove the gauntlet he had on.

"What's wrong?" Though she didn't mean to, her tone seemed a bit exasperated. Not because of him particularly, but because of course there would be yet another thing to get in the way of her getting to hide.

"I-I..." Link looked up at her for a second, stepping back and tossing the inside-out gauntlet on the ground at their feet. The ground which luckily wasn't sand at that moment, but instead thick, solid land. "It's f-fine."

A very simple, obvious lie, but honestly what was he to do?

There was a brief spike of absolute annoyance until Tya realized why he said that. Realized that she made him say that because she was being… Well, a huge bitch.

"Link, lemme loo-" As she spoke she stepped forward to him only to have him step back and draw his arm away. Shortly after, he released another pained sound as he started on removing the bandages.

She stayed quiet then.

She just listened and watched as he pulled the bandages and looked at the white streaks along his arm. It appeared the open wound had almost completely healed up with thin, easily breakable scar tissue. Not a big problem as this desert seemed to be relatively devoid of enemies- not that much could really live there, unless it was the red pests that lived in the past. But the tissue would have time to keep recovering so long as they kept relatively calm with their activity. It was a lot of walking, but there was no battle yet.

But the streaks up his arm was what was bothering him. She couldn't quite tell why, not with him turned away and disallowing her to help. But it was obviously causing him a lot of pain, and continued to do so. All he was able to really do was hold it and conceal all pained cries.

And she couldn't handle it. It was torturous, really, watching him stand there in pain but not being allowed to help because she'd fucked up. Why was she doing this, hadn't she learned that asking for help was okay? That it was better for her than sitting around and being bitter? Why was she treating Link of all people like this? Just because she didn't feel alright didn't mean she had any right to mistreat him.

Tya didn't realize she'd gotten absorbed in her thoughts until she noticed he'd sat on the ground at some point, holding his arm to his chest and just… Crying. There she was, being selfish again. He was hurting again and she was just standing there thinking about herself.

She slid the pack off her shoulders, knelt on the ground and pulled his gauntlet over so it wouldn't get lost.

He didn't acknowledge her. In fact he looked ashamed and like he wished she'd go away.

A look which made her want to. So badly. But she didn't, she had to make it up to him some how. There was no excuse to treat him that way and there was no excuse to leave him there and in pain.

She very lightly took his uninjured hand, tugging it away from his injuries. He'd been holding so tight, the skin on both his arm and his knuckles paled greatly. When she got a look at his arm, she wasn't surprised by it either.

The streaks still remained, but now they were all dark pink lines that were soaked by the plasma meant to be inside blisters, and poorly covered by flaps of skin that hadn't dried out and died.

No, the white streaks were burn blisters that had all ruptured whilst the potion made it's way through to put new skin underneath, the thin skin that was over the blisters was still live and could not be painlessly pulled off, so his arm was just… Destroyed.

The healing potion had done this, how was she supposed to help now?

"I don't know what to do..." She admitted quietly, looking up only to see his pained expression. His only response was to shake his head and take hold of his arm again, making it clear he didn't either. All she could do was move a little closer and very gently set an arm around his waist. She knew her being there was no longer a comfort to him, but maybe they could both just pretend for a few minutes...