Link had been burned before.
It had been a prank gone wrong. In the confusion that followed, his friend Finn had accidently knocked into him, sending him down into the roaring flames of the fire. It was nothing serious; his arm had been quite singed, and he hated to tell everyone what had happened to him, but it had healed eventually, and the incident was forgotten. But not the pain.
No, the pain had been literally burned into Link's memory.
If he closed his eyes and truly thought about it, he would still be able to feel the flames lapping his neck, the heat roasting him like some piece of meat, the wood digging into his skin, melting the flesh like it were wax on a candle. He could feel the edge of his shirt catch fire, and even the edges of his hair. But amidst all that, he could feel Finn pulling him out, patting the flames to nothing, saving his singed hair and dragging him to the physician.
And all of it had been a breeze compared to that fairy.
When the lid had been turned and pressed against his chest, he thought he might be prepared. But the second it disappeared into his chest, he thought he'd been tricked by Shad, and this fairy was killing him from the inside.
He'd heard the stories. There weren't many, but he'd heard that fairies were sometimes worse than the death they were saving someone from. Then again, what would you expect when a magical creature is bouncing around inside one's body?
He could feel it against his heart first, like it was assessing any damage to that most vital organ. But the touch had him arching forward with an silent scream on his lips as he lost all concept of breath or thought. And he thought that would be the worst of it.
His body twitched like it were being struck repeatedly by bolts of lightening, in too much pain to make a sound any higher than squeak that came from the back of his clenched throat. The fairy burst around, pressing against each organ, each blood vessel, each nerve in his body.
Link was vaguely aware that he was pressed against something, that there was something in his way. His brain wasn't able to reason out if it was Zelda, Shad, or the ground, but it did nothing to comfort him.
There was a momentary reprieve where he was able to gasp out a breath and open his eyes before it began again, leaving him choking for air as heat filled his lungs.
It's impossible to bend the thick trunk of a tree with your bare hands, to create a perfect arch in the bark so that the trunk looked like it was touching its toes, or roots, as it were. But Link imagined that image, and then tried to imagine the impossible strength that would be required to hold the tree in that position, to fight the very fabric of existence itself just to achieve an end that could never truly be. Muscles would tear apart and fly across the room from the attempt. But that imaginary feeling of holding the tree in a bent position was the only thing he could equate the feeling in his back to as the fairy prodded the wounds and brought the flesh together on both sides.
If Hyrule Castle itself were sitting on top of him, he figured it would weigh less than the inhuman pressure he felt on his wounds as they moved back together.
He could even feel it in the wounds he'd sustained in the cells that had been taken care of by potions. While they weren't fully healed, he could feel the fairy fixing any remnants of injury to those as well.
There was one action he actually noticed himself doing, and it was that he'd grabbed his wrist. It was the small wound that Zelda had taken care of just hours earlier, but he could feel the fairy's determined need to fix that as well.
It took time, but he started to feel pieces of himself once again. The feeling in his fingertips came back first, and he was surprised to feel hair. He couldn't tell if it was the hair on his head, Zelda's, or even the hair along his arms. He just knew the sensation. His vision was still black, so he couldn't rely on that.
The next thing that returned to him was the feeling in his face. The fairy had overstimulated every fiber of his being, and he could feel every ridge in Zelda's soft hand pressed lightly against his jaw, her thumb rubbing back and forth along the small hairs on his cheek. It sent him into overdrive, and his the world came back to his eyes, sending her hand shooting back in shock at his sudden alertness.
He realized that he was laying down, though how he'd ended up that way escaped him. His eyes took in everything from her teary expression, and even Shad's from the corner where he covered his mouth with his hand, breathing heavily and wiping away his own tear. And as if he were part of a secret club, Link could feel the stiff parts of his cheek, dried tears that had already fallen.
His hand was on Zelda's arm, fingers clenching her until both him and her skin had gone ghostly white. Her hair had fallen over her shoulder and rubbed against his fingers, he'd realized.
Thankfully, breathing and thought were the next two things he regained. He could actually return to breathing subconsciously, and his mind was working as it took in Zelda and Shad. Pieces of him started to function. His legs twitched. His shoulder blades moved. Soon, he was able to sit up.
The last thing that returned to him was hearing.
"Link?"
His eyes darted to Zelda.
"Oh gods, I'm sorry! I thought you were dying!"
Link blinked a few times before scooting himself closer to Zelda, stunned by how easy the movement was. His fingers seemed to move of their own accord, brushing against her neck and tracing a line just to the side of her mouth, reveling in the sensations the light caress sent through his fingertips and through his arm before pinging through his body, replacing the pain with something much more tolerable.
"That's twice today," he said with an easy smirk that surprised even himself. "You have a morbid fascination with my death, Zelda."
Forgetting Shad was there entirely, Zelda threw her arms around Link at his words. Not only was it a sentence rather than the brutally silent howling movements he'd been making, but it had been an echo of her last words to him before they'd escaped the castle.
She buried her head into his neck.
He tapped her side quickly, resting his hand perhaps too intimately and familiarly against her. "Zelda," he whispered, turning so his mouth brushed her ear, sending a shiver through him, his voice so low that only she could hear him this close. "I can feel every nerve in my body right now, and you… you breathing on my neck feels… just… you might want to give me a minute and some space."
Though her face heated up, she didn't notice as she scampered away from him and towards Shad.
Link moved onto his knees and bent over forward, as if he were about to throw up. He cursed and clutched at his bare chest, seeing that he'd lost his sliced shirt in his writhing. Something hit him hard, and his hands shot out to catch him before his face could slam into the floor, and the fairy burst out of his back and disappeared through the tent wall into freedom.
Link felt a strange sensation of loss and cold in his body, but it was fleeting, and replaced by excitement and nervous laughter.
"Link?" Zelda asked, concerned.
But it was Shad who answered, stopping her from moving with a hand on her arm. "Don't worry. The fairy releases many, many chemicals—sensations, if you will—into a person to almost erase the feeling and memory of the pain they've just inflicted through their healing. He will likely need the remainder of the night just to sleep off the immense high that fairies leave in their wake."
"He'll be okay?"
"I am okay!" Link laughed, falling forward until his head was against the ground in an incredibly uncomfortable looking position.
"Yes. He'll be fine. He's just… on overload right now."
Hearing that was a relief, and Link didn't move from his odd position. Zelda circled him with an amused grin on her face, welcoming his joy after what she'd just witnessed.
His back was perfectly exposed to her, and she couldn't help but take a step closer, marveling at the near invisible lines where there had just been three deep gashes into Link's back. But as she looked, her eyes wandered of their own accord.
"What are you looking at?" Link mused, peeking out at her.
She bit her lip, stopping her eyes in their track as they followed down the line of his exposed, muscled back. He'd already filled out a little bit since their time in the cells, and it made him look healthier. But when she'd been caught, her eyes hadn't necessarily been on his back, per se.
Her gaze darted to Shad, who had the expression of an accidental eavesdropper.
"It'll be a long night. He'll come to his normal senses in a few hours, and hopefully, he'll sleep through most of them."
Zelda knelt beside Link with a smirk. "Looks like I'm going to be guarding you tonight. Maybe from yourself though."
Link looked up at her with a smile, though she was surprised by his blown pupils. He reached out and grabbed her hand again, immediately tracing patterns across it, letting his palm graze hers, moving his fingers between hers, all with a focused gaze.
She turned to Shad guiltily, but he shook his head dismissively "It will fade. He's experiencing the world on a level that you and I never have, and hopefully, will never need to. Fairy magic is strong. And he's experiencing addicting sensations."
Link chuckled. "I can see why." He let his hands run as far up Zelda's arm as he could reach.
She sat there with a patient expression, watching him. "I can't wait for you to really realize everything you're doing."
"I know what I'm doing," he said, trying to pull her closer as he collapsed and rolled onto his side.
Zelda turned to Shad questioningly, and he shook his head with a grin, mouthing the words, "He doesn't."
Zelda rolled her eyes and turned back to Link, trying to keep as many emotions off her face while she was around Shad. Seeing Link alive the first time had been relief. She'd lost many people, and she didn't want to lose Link.
But watching him with the fairy, the actual torture his body had just experienced, the cleanest glimpse of what she might have to witness if they were caught by Ganondorf… she realized it was a physical pain in her chest that she felt for him. Seeing him alive now, smiling—though in a magic-induced state—had her feeling far more than relief.
It was in this state that she realized she didn't just care for Link. He wasn't some soldier she had a fondness for. He was someone she wanted to stay behind for, someone she'd risk lives for. Someone she was falling for.
With a sharp gasp, remembering his silent cries, the veins on his neck popping against his skin, she could see him in the hands of Ganondorf.
She realized that Link was the only thing that she would give up a kingdom for. He was a weakness Ganondorf could exploit far more now than he could have in the cells.
And she wondered if she'd already fallen too far down that slope to ever climb back up again.