It's the fall that gets him, more than the Lynel.
Although the Lynel did have its part to play, make no mistake. He'd seen it while wandering about, and immediately panicked, because all his supplies are low and he didn't think he could take the thing right now, so he tried to flee. On foot, stupidly, because his brain locked up and for a moment he forgot about the Slate. Unfortunately, he was spotted before he could safely exit, and Lynels gallop faster than, Link suspects, he himself could ever run, even a hundred years ago at his peak. It caught up to him and swung its sword, slicing into his leg as he dashed away. That in itself wouldn't be so bad, would've been survivable. But—well. One thing tends to lead to another.
And in this case, the cut in his leg led to him tumbling over the edge, breaking bone after bone as his body rolled and hit the unforgiving cliff side as he went, until he somehow found himself where he is now. Which is: lying supine in the damp grass, pain lancing through him from every fracture and gash and scrape. It doesn't help that Lynels are relentless, either, and this one decided to launch some shock arrows to make sure its prey really couldn't go anywhere after that fall. Most missed him, but one landed in a puddle close enough to his position to have its charge conducted into him, while another pierced him just below the shoulder, his wet shirt making the effect of the electricity even worse. The Lynel peered over the cliff and then walked away, apparently having decided that it'd done enough.
So here Link lies, racked with agony, waiting for his wounds to bleed out or his fibrillating heart to stop. Whichever comes first. There's an itch under his skin that feels like impatience, plus an actual itch somewhere in the region of his hip. He'd scratch it if he had the ability to. Sadly, he suspects that yanking the arrow out depleted what little energy he had left. For now, all he can do is wait.
Just as his vision starts to darken around the edges she appears, and for a second Link forgets how to breathe. Translucent and glowing, wreathed in flames that look as though someone set luminous stones ablaze, she's a vision out of his dreams as she kneels behind his head and lays her spectral hands on his face. Before she can say anything, he speaks. "You're so beautiful..."
Mipha's eyes widen, and for a split second her magic flickers, as if thrown off by his words. She used to blush when he complimented her like that. Didn't she? Memory tugs at his mind, and his certainty grows. Yes, she did. He wishes he could see her do that now, see all her vivid colors the way he used to. Feel more than a faint whisper of her touch, that he's not even sure isn't just his imagination. His desperation.
Her voice is scarcely louder than a breeze stirring wildflowers in a field. "Do you flatter all the girls you see when you are badly injured?"
It takes Link a moment to realize that her power has already fixed his heart, for the sight of her face tends to quicken its pace, and now is no exception. "No. I only praise you." Another wisp of recollection drifts by: didn't he once tell her that flattery was for insincere people, flustering her with the implications? Yes; this one he's sure of too. "And I know we should stop meeting like this, but..." He tries shrugging, half-manages it. "At least I get to see you." His voice drops. "I miss you."
Mipha's expression changes, and he's not sure he can read all of it; the magic flickers again while his femur knits itself back together, the disturbance stronger this time. It's an odd, uncomfortable feeling to have a bone half-healed like this. "You barely remember me."
"I remember enough." The rest of the sentence gets stuck in his throat like a stubborn piece of food: enough to know what I've lost. "Can't you..." He swallows down the lump. "Can't you stay? Even just a little while?"
She always leaves whenever she's done mending him, and it never feels like enough time. Probably because it isn't. The memory of that moment on Vah Ruta haunts him, like a ghost in itself. Perhaps we could spend some time together? she'd asked him. Of course, he'd replied, without a trace of hesitation. Why would there be any? After all, he'd gone out of his way to go see her, taking full advantage of a rare opportunity to be with her without Zelda there. He'd done that whenever possible, he remembers that.
It was never enough, though. She never begrudged him that, understanding it wasn't his fault, and he knew it too. Yet still the guilt gnawed at him, and in unhappier moments so too did resentment aimed at Zelda, Rhoam, every person whose choices had trapped him in a situation he never asked for and, until near the end, had given him so much grief thanks to Zelda's resentment of him. Did Hylia count as a person? That depends on who you ask, probably, and in Link's eyes she does, since she made her choice an immeasurable length of time ago. And that's the one that started it all, the first removal of his own ability to choose so many things for himself.
I chose Mipha, though, he reminds himself, as he did a century ago. Whatever came of it, at least I got to choose her, and wasn't bound by fate to fall in love with Hylia's descendant. That Zelda's never drawn his interest in that way is such a relief, not because he hates her but because it means he's still his own person, separate from all the rest who came before him. His mind, his heart, are all his own, his love a gift to be bestowed freely upon whomever he wishes.
It might be easier if he were inclined toward Zelda. A fairy tale ending awaiting them at the close of all this, a princess and her knight riding off into the sunset once the beast is slain, a cozy country life in his Hateno home. The easy road is not one he's ever traveled, however, whether by his own choice or those of others, and the pieces of his heart still rest in the gentle grasp of a different princess. One who should've outlived him instead of the other way around.
"I will give you what I can," she says at last, regret rippling through her voice. The ethereal flames around her flicker and dance, and some submerged memory struggles towards the surface as her magic soothes his injuries. Did he once see her like this while she was alive? Surrounded by the eerily beautiful light? It doesn't seem like a mere recollection of their brief reunion inside Ruta. She must have been so lovely that night. As she always is. "I am sorry I cannot do more."
"Don't be." Link's breath—easier to draw without that cracked rib—becomes a sigh, his futile longing transformed into sound. "Thank you, Mipha."
He's offered prayers to Goddess statues in his journeys, to exchange those strange orbs for fragments of his former strength, but none of his supplications have ever felt so holy as simply speaking her name. Words glide across his tongue, dangerously close to taking form in the air between them: I love you. But by some power Link isn't sure how he possesses, he holds them back. Do they belong on his lips now? Would she welcome them? Or would they only bring her sorrow? He isn't sure, so he hesitates. Instead, he reaches up with a freshly mended arm, laying his fingers on her cheek. For a moment he thinks he feels something, but then it is gone, and it wasn't anything like touching her scales ever was, anyway. That itch under his skin comes back with a vengeance, crying out for her touch, the ability to touch and hold her, and his tears trickle down into the grass.
It's tempting, sometimes, to get himself mortally wounded just so he can see her; even a handful of moments with her shade is better than the soul-hollowing loneliness of most of his waking hours. The knowledge that it would hurt and upset her keeps him from tumbling over that edge, though, his heart shriveling with horror at the thought of causing her pain. Hasn't she suffered enough? No matter how much he wants to be selfish for once in his life, to put his own desires first, this is one place where he can't bring himself to do it. He's drawn his line and will not cross it.
Besides, tonight's incident is proof that there are enough unintentionally foolish things he can do that will summon her anyway.
Link's not sure how much time passes after she finishes repairing his body, only that it really isn't enough. Mipha flickers, and a pain in his heart that she can't heal throbs in his chest. He wants to beg her to stay longer, not to leave him, to never leave him, but his voice has been silenced again in his grief. She nods, as if knowing what he can't say, before bending low to press a ghost of a kiss to his forehead.
And then she is gone.
But she'll be back, and that has to be some kind of consolation.
