Walking was tough. Not as tough as it had been right before his illness got the better of him, but his stamina was still diminished from the last dregs of said illness. The bog flippers were easy enough to walk with by now, but the tiredness persisted and he definitely shouldn't be on his feet yet, much less trekking long distances.
Link walked with his own two, heavy feet anyway, because Sidon was potentially worse off than he was now and he didn't think he could return the favour and carry Sidon, should he collapse. Mind, normally he most likely could – he was plenty strong – but not in his current, weakened state.
He honestly wasn't sure anymore if he wanted to get out of the Lost Woods the right way or if he'd prefer to give up at this point. Giving up would mean the end of walking until they regrouped and set off again, while finding the way out meant still having to walk more, hungry and ill, until they reached the Minish city in the Korok Forest. He hadn't bothered looking that far ahead in the map when they still had it, so he didn't know how long it would take to get to said city after they got out of the mist. He could only hope it was closer to hours than days.
Regardless, he walked. He carried the lit Fire Rod, he was shouldering his own backpack, and he was using his own feet to move forward, step by step, minute by minute, following the wind's direction. He kept an eye on Sidon, who was doing the same for him. They took a break where Link dug out his secret stash of acorns from the bottom of his bag and they shared them after he roasted them with the rod. They had very little food, so they only ate enough to stave off the worst of the hunger and to gain enough energy to move on again, rested for a while to do away the immediate physical tiredness, and then got up and walked some more.
And then they saw sunlight amidst the mist ahead.
"Link. Is that…?"
"It must be."
Even though he had considered the easier route once again just a moment earlier, Link found himself smiling widely.
They were almost out of the Lost Woods.
The thought of warm sunlight on his skin, the lack of mist obscuring his vision, and their destination being so close that he could almost imagine the sounds of city life gave him a huge morale boost and the strength to keep going forward and abandon their plan B.
In no time at all the mist parted and the swamp terrain gave way to sunny patches of wet grass, but also a very obvious Minish path through it. There were large lakes – puddles by big people standards – in the horizon, which meant that swimming would probably take them forward the quickest in some spots.
However, they were greeted by three pony-sized ants the moment they stepped out of the mist, so everything else had to wait.
They had seen small ant groups multiple times during their journey and had not paid any mind to the entire concept's inherent unnaturalness. However, after seeing the Vaatians riding ants before, Link found himself suddenly understanding how word of their whereabouts always seemed to precede them, despite no wanderer going past them to their knowledge.
Ants traveled in long lines, traversing their own well-worn paths routinely. They did not travel alone or in groups of one or two. Not unless someone controlled them.
Hiveri's domesticated bees. The mouse carts by the capital.
Vaatian ant riders.
"Don't let them escape!" Link shouted and drew his sword in one hand and the Sheikah Slate in the other – three against two was a bad match when the aim was to not let any of the enemies escape, and he was not about to let the Hero Museum incident repeat itself if he could help it. He had thought of a decent what-if strategy while wallowing in regret as he walked, and he was going to use it now.
The ants scattered and ran towards them, either to attack or to run past them. It didn't matter which as long as Link was directly in their path to block their attempt.
He pointed the Slate at the ant in the middle and fired a stasis beam. It froze the target on the spot and meant he had ten additional seconds before he had to deal with that one.
Next he hit the ant on his right in the mandibles with his sword, causing it to flinch back in shock.
He heard a similar noise on his left and assumed Sidon had the third ant under control.
Unlike his previous, brief fight with an ant, this time he knew what to do.
"Aim at the joints!" he yelled, and swung at his active ant's antennas when it made another move forward – he missed the target, but made it rear back again. That bought Link enough time to swiftly kick the stasised ant under the mandible with the hopes that it'd fly backwards when the stasis ended in a couple of seconds.
He lunged at his enemy again, now slicing through one leg and causing the ant to stumble, if minimally. It was enough of an opening for Link to aim a stab at its neck, which unfortunately got dodged again.
The stasis ended and the second ant did a back-flip against its will and landed upended in the dirt, legs flailing.
Link had no time to use the Slate again as his engaged enemy tried to run past him once more. He made a haphazard slash with his sword, but it just glanced off the ant's hard chitin exoskeleton and failed to make it stop its run.
Link was forced to ignore the second ant completely in his hurry to keep the first one from escaping. He whirled around, took a few running, awkward leaps – Hylia curse the bog flippers! – and then thrust the tip of his sword into the ant's bulbous behind, putting all of his weight into the stab attack.
The ant's natural armor couldn't take the Master Sword's sharpness combined with its wielder's weight, and the sword sunk through the exoskeleton into the soft insides, and all the way through its stomach and into the ground underneath as well. The ant was far from dead, but it was stuck for a moment.
Link risked a glance back and saw Sidon's ant dead, but Sidon was struggling to pull his spear out of the body, the chitin resisting any attempt to get it out by force rather than turning the head the same way it went in; Sidon had pierced straight through the neck joint, into the ant's body and through its chest, so it was quite the puzzle.
Link didn't have the time to think of a solution, however, because the second ant had gotten up and was running towards Link. Link aimed his Slate at it and put it in stasis again to buy himself more time to think, and then turned back to his original foe.
The ant was desperately trying to escape, but with one of its forelegs off and its behind stuck, it was going nowhere for now.
Link grabbed the now unlit Fire Rod from his belt and swished at the third, stasised ant.
Nothing happened.
Damn it, he should have taken the time to learn its use from Sidon!
He tossed the rod aside and readied his bow instead. Regular arrows likely wouldn't work. Frost arrows mostly bought time, which wasn't an issue anymore. He didn't have lightning arrows on him for Sidon's safety.
Fire arrow it was.
He nocked the burning arrow, aimed, waited for the stasis to end, and fired. It flew straight at the ant's forehead… and bounced off harmlessly, neither piercing the chitin or lighting the ant on fire.
Double damn it.
The arrow rolled on the ground and burnt to dust, not to be picked back up later.
Triple damn it!
He nocked an ice arrow and shot it immediately, and it too bounced off without any effect.
Quadruple-
The ant was about to charge past him, so he did the only thing he could think of on the fly: he whacked it in the mandibles with his bow. In a surprising turn of events the bow got stuck in the mandibles, so when the ant reared back Link was yanked from his feet and collided with it, and both of them landed in a heap on the ground. The ant was on its back, flailing its legs. The bow was straining, close to snapping in half while stuck in the mandibles. Link was halfway on top of the ant, holding onto the bow with both hands to keep the dangerous mandibles away from himself, while getting whacked on his back with a couple of ant legs.
He was not making progress with killing his enemy, but at least it wasn't going anywhere.
"Link, the last ant is-!"
Link swore profusely, using every Hylian swear word in his arsenal and borrowing a few he had learned from the other languages too.
"Actually no, I'll get it!"
…
Link turned his entire body as much in Sidon's direction as he could while still holding down the flailing ant, and then turned his head to the point that his neck protested, but it was worth it to see what was happening.
Sidon had abandoned his stuck spear in the body of the ant he slew, and instead he was holding the Fire Rod Link had tossed aside earlier. The ant with Link's sword in it had managed to get the sword to loosen its hold on the ground and was staggering towards the thick mist with the weapon still lodged in it's behind.
Oh great, the ant was trying to walk away with the Master Sword. Zelda would murder Link in cold blood with a rusty hair pin.
Thankfully his prince in red fish scale armor was there to save the day. Sidon pointed the rod at the ant and with zero visible effort launched a fireball, burning the enemy to a crisp immediately. The Master Sword had a soot icing afterwards, but Link wasn't worried about the weapon getting damaged – if worse came to worst, he'd let the Deku Tree repair it again and use a Savage Lynel Sword in the meanwhile.
Only one ant left to go, and Link had it under control. ...Sort of.
"Sidon, get ready!" he shouted, and wrestled the ant until he had a foothold on the ground. He wasn't sure how to get his bow-
The bow snapped in half as if on cue, so Link let go of the pieces and hurtled his body back as far as his feet could launch him. The ant scrambled to get up, but then a ball of fire flew over Link, singeing his hair, and roasted the critter on the spot.
They had done it. All three ants were dead and unable to presumably inform their master that the two of them had made it out of the Lost Woods.
Link had had a far easier time leveling entire Bokoblin camps alone than dealing with three damn ants, even with Sidon's help. Hylia help them if Vaati decided to show up with an entire nest of ants at some point.
"Are you alright, Wildberry?"
Link accepted the help to stand up, and then embraced his boyfriend with a sigh. "Even more tired than before, but unhurt. You?"
Sidon's hand patted the top of his head, flattening his hat. "I'm glad to hear that. Same for me."
They stayed like that for a good long moment, just catching their breaths and gathering the strength to move on again. Link retrieved and cleaned up his sword, which was thankfully undamaged by the fire – the same couldn't be said about his broken bow, which he would have to replace as soon as possible. Sidon pushed his spear's shaft through the dead ant instead of trying to pull the head out, which was a much more efficient way to get it out than rotating the spear and hoping for the best. Link packed up the bog flippers, able to walk with just his normal boots again now that they were out of the swamp area.
Then they were ready to embark on the last stretch of their journey. Or at least they hoped it to be the last stretch.