It was either the broken bones in his body or a sudden, mental reminder that someone was after him that opened Link's eyes to a world of black. He lifted his head, every injury in his neck crying out in pain, to see his whereabouts, but there was nothing, a void. Like a turtle lying supine, he tried to move about and stand up. Such a fruitless action tired him out quickly, and he began to feel the imaginary, sharp needles threatening to puncture his lungs if he inhaled too hard.

If Link couldn't even breathe, how was he supposed to live, let alone flee a vengeful Gerudo bounty hunter? Oh well, he laughed. The easy way out was as easy as turning over onto his back and letting the blood collect within his chest. That should take care of the rest quietly. I guess it's time to give up…

His black world suddenly felt something rough and solid form under his back, and then he felt the cold tickle of the blades of grass sprouting from the newly formed ground. Trees sprouted before him and formed an entire sea of forests before his very eyes. His backside bathed in the soft sunlight, the truest giver of life. Not long after, he could begin to see the small black heads of beetles poking out from the grass and the red shells of the ladybugs crawling within the green fields.

The spring breeze brought together a blend of flowery fragrances that could only be described as, home. Was this the… Kokiri Forest… that's right… somewhere in between his shallow breaths, Link's mouth curled into a smile. The great many birds began to sweetly fill the sunny atmosphere with love poems.

The ground trembled softly, as if something were about to erupt. What was going on behind him? He decided with great hesitation to move his body and mentally fortified himself for the incoming torture before flipping over his bloody and broken body.

Whoa! was his first thought as he first saw the leaves hanging high above him. Countless small birds, bugs, and mammals had made their homes amongst the branches and paid attention to their own business as they weaved randomly in and out of visibility within the greenery. The sounds of songbirds singing and insect activity aesthetically filled Link's ears with comforting sentiments. But all the birds living off the branches and all the insects living off the leaves depended on the great, big tree trunk in the middle.

As wide as the main gate into the city, the trunk of the tree alone occupied half of his field of vision. Then, his eyes fixated on something Link never thought he would see again. Two large, circular divots carved into the wood, a protrusion that looked like an undeveloped bough, and horizontal trough running against the vertical pattern of the bark formed the first face Link had ever remembered seeing in his entire life… Father?

The Great Deku Tree's young, infant smile greeted the dying boy, "Hi there! I'm the Great Deku Tree! I'm your father!"

Link could only nod as a warm liquid that tasted slightly salty with a hint of metal pooled in the side of his mouth and spilled out.

The sudden voice belonging to the one and only Protector startled him, "Hey!" The sound of disappointment. Link looked up to see the beautiful silhouette of his best friend's head. Even though her face was covered in the shade from the sun, Link could still recognize the features of her face that made his heart flutter. "You aren't breaking your promise to me, are you?" asked the Protector.

"Protector…" he uttered from his mouth. He coughed out the blood collecting in his throat and then spat the remaining blood in his mouth before he could speak again, "I can't. I'm dying."

The hands on her hips showed no sympathy for his excuse, "You promised me!"

"Please… No..." he felt a warm tear flow down his cheek, "Please… Just this once…" He wanted to take one last breath, exhale, and be done with it. No more running around the streets aimlessly, no more starving, no more fear of dying, "I hate being alive…" Memories of recent years flashed into Link's mind. Running around the back alleys naked because he owned no clothing, chased out of orphanages for being a witch's son, stabbing a man just to eat, being shunned from the rest of the Links for his inability to grow to adulthood, Link knew one thing in his entire existence since he decided to take his fate into his own hands that fateful night, "It's so lonely… being alive..."

Despite her disappointment, her motherly blue eyes sparkled with forgiveness and understanding. Then, she melted with sympathy for Link, "It is, isn't it? Here, let me help you out."

Her body began to radiate a golden light, which briefly highlighted her ever congenial smile and grew until the light consumed her and shined as blindingly as the sun behind her. The golden energy then began condensing into a little ball, removing the light from Link's memories and returning him to a world of black, until the ball was as small as a sparrow. The intensity of the light had reduced to a non-blinding energy with a hint of pink on its surface. Suddenly, wings like a fairy sprouted from the body floated towards Link's body.

Miro… Miro?

As it flew closer to him, the worn out linen wrapped around his left hand began to contain a golden light in response to the fairy's proximity. A soothing warmth emanated from the scar on his left hand, his first one, and crept up his arm toward his chest. Soon, his entire chest was bathing in a comfortable warmth that Link wished would not end. From the darkness, one final message was imparted for Link.

"Find her," the voice of the Protector echoed in the darkness, "She is your salvation, salvation, salvation…" The last word bounced around inside his head. Salvation? Whatever it meant, it was the last word he heard from the Protector before…

A sudden snap and a pop in his chest suddenly brought Link back into another reality full of pain. With a forceful cough of blood straight onto the ground, he awoke to a splatter of liquid escaping his mouth. He grasped for a lungful of air and was relieved that there was no longer any restrictive pain on his chest anymore. Moving still hurt like he had just suffered a beatdown, but he could breathe finally. Somehow… How exactly? What had just happened? Link laid awake staring at the slit of blue sea mixed with gold and purple colors between the dark shadows of… oh wait, that was the sky.

Once one was deprived of air, one always needed a long minute to catch his breath. Link thought he had coughed out every drop of liquid from inside his chest, and then he began to dry heave. Nothing inside his body felt right. He looked around and traced back his steps. At that moment, he was on all fours in a pool of his own blood. As he agonizingly turned his head towards the way he came from, he could see a trail of red that was paved as if a body had rolled through and bits and pieces of wood that were scattered as if something had smashed into a neatly stacked pile of empty crates… oh wait, that was what happened.

As his vision sharpened and his hearing came to, an eruption of angry voices drew Link's head back the other direction. Enraged peasants, all dressed the same with shoddy tunics as dirty and drabby as their labored skin, had gathered by the hundreds. Huh, Link did not remember that many people gathered there last time he crossed the river of traffic.

Link closed his eyes hard and attempted to search through his memories until the part when he pulled the trigger of the ropeshot. He remembered painfully sliding along the paved ground and then consciousness faded into black. However, he failed to recall anything during those moments as he tried to bridge the gap in his memory, like many times before when he was on the verge of dying.

Kinja's vengeful face flashed into his memories and jolted him awake. Now was not the time to reminisce about his frequent courtship with death. Now was the time to get his broken rear out of there! Now that Link could finally breathe, he grasped for as much breath as he could and expelled it all out as fast as he could, just so he could draw in another great gasp of sweet air. One never knew the full extent of how precious air was until they endured suffocation. Though the pain did not once relent in announcing its presence whenever he moved a muscle, he felt like he had at least the strength to fight through it.

Slowly, but surely, he was able to rise onto one knee. Whatever had happened just now, fate decided that Link was not to die here, not today. More than ever, he needed to capitalize on this blessing. He tried to stand from his kneeling position, but to no avail. He simply was not strong enough to walk, but an idea formed as he looked at the angry crowd.

Link was so close to the furthest edge of the gathering that he was surprised no one close by saw him. They were too busy shouting indignant nonsense to pay attention to the dying Link right by their own feet. He would use their occupied attention to make his get away. But first, he unfastened his cape to unburden himself. Who knows if this would buy him a crucial heartbeat or two of time.

Grabbing onto one of the protester's worn out tunic, Link lifted himself up onto his two feet with the help of his small size. The rest of the footwork just practiced instinct. By the time the tall man realized someone was tugging on his shirt, Link had already slipped by, falling forward, squeezing through a forest of hairy legs and body odor, grasped onto the next tunic for support, and let his feet follow along. Eventually, he found a good rhythm to the movements.

An idea suddenly compelled him to stop mid flight. Feeling strong enough to support himself again on his two broken knees, he grabbed the bottom of his black tunic and peeled it off his torso. Tossing the tunic the ground would hopefully buy Link several heartbeats of time to escape. Who knew if it would come in handy. Link did not want to wait around to find out.

Continuing with his patterns, he efficiently utilized the small size of his body to swim past the Hylian bodies. With growing capabilities of his legs and blood rush to help numb the pain, Link's movements utilized less support from the protesters, which allowed him to clear his way through faster. He was doing great until…

"RAAHH!" the shriek he heard split the calm, sunny skies with terror.

Suddenly, a powerful wave of heat pushed the entire crowd of people off their feet. Link felt a rush of hot air force its way through the bodies, and it was their tumbling momentum that knocked Link to the ground. Thankfully, he landed on soft flesh instead of hard pavement.

He turned to see what had caused the intense energy and instantly regretted his decision as soon as he saw what was at the center of the unholy fire. Try as he might to focus on fleeing from her targeted hatred, Link could never unsee the blackened skin, her burning red eye and its burning blue twin, and her deathly white teeth.

Moreover, he could not unsee the piles of burning bodies strewn in her immediate vicinity. Protesters scrambled away from the fiery demon by any means possible. A scream pierced Link's ears, "Where is Cica!?" A breath of relief escaped from when he realized that she had no idea where he was yet and he still had a window of opportunity to escape the area.

The first thing Link tried to do was stand on top of probably a dead body, but suddenly realized that his legs were still unable to by themselves. He could lift himself onto his hands and knees, but that was about as much weight as his broken limbs could support. There was no way he could escape without some help. At the same time, if Kinja did not know where Cica was, then there was undoubtedly no need to draw attention towards his escape.

As he crawled as quickly as he could on his belly, he could hear the differences between the cries for help and the cries from burning, agonizing pain. Accompanying those noises was the sound of a steel blade entering flesh as if the bones were negligible. The closer the screams of pain approached Link, the warmer the air felt.

Link's blood immediately froze. "There you are," she said in her beautiful, native tongue. There was no need to look back to know that Kinja was standing right behind him. It was as if the language itself was crafted from the predator-prey relationship. Each step drew the flaming heat closer and closer. Even if his death was drawing near, he was not going to go down without making an honest effort to escape.

He was given a second chance. There was a feeling emanating from his left hand, a pulsing warmth and a slight sting, that told him so; somehow, he could feel the Protector's presence reaching out to him with each wave. His heart picked up the closer Kinja approached, but with each pump of blood in his system, and each pump of heat from his scar, he could feel his strength painstakingly returning to him while biding his time and energy.

Then, his scar began to glow through his worn out wrapping. With each beat of warmth, the scar would poke its triangular, golden head through the fabric.

The heat upon his skin built to painful heights in his legs as Link crawled away from imminent death. Nevertheless, he was not ready to give up, nor was he going to look behind to time Kinja's death strike. Even though his legs felt like they were on fire, he bided his energy as he struggled moving across the pavement, spilling blood all along the way.

When Kinja was but only a step away from Link's feet, his scar on burned brightly through the cloth."This… is for Minja…" One last beat of the heart, and suddenly his ears began to ring. It was then or never.

With every explosive energy mustered, Link pushed off from one side and flipped over onto his back like an injured dog, and within a split heartbeat before he rolled over onto his other side, he saw a figure running towards him, holding a weapon. And there Link saw it, or a half a split heartbeat, the golden triangle softly glowing on the back of the hand, the very same as Link's scar… or his curse…

When his chest was flat against the ground again, the impact brought him back to his painful reality, accompanied by a resounding clang of blades meeting for the first time.

Without wasting any precious heartbeats to see the fight, he lifted his hips so that he was supported by only the palms of his hands and the balls of his feet. Standing like an animal already put his weakened body in much pain already. But to Ganon with it! Gritting through all the torturous agony in his legs, arms, fingers, knees, hips, and neck, Link fired every last bit of strength into his legs and launched into a sprint. Though the stiffness in his legs effectively stifled his movements down to a hobble, he would hobble faster than any other Link could hobble out of that plaza.

When prey runs from its chasing predator, it has no destination in mind. No differently, Link ran as fast as he could, following the fleeing crowd. His promise to the Protector fueled his every step and made numb most of the pain. However, it was not long after that his drained constitution could no longer support him on his two feet. His labored breathing brought him out of his survival mentality, but at least his chest was filled with weight instead excruciating pain. As his run slowed to a limp, he desperately searched for a place to heal… and a place to hide…

"Link!" A foreign, baritone voice called out to him from somewhere unknown.

Me? Link asked himself, it could have been anyone.

"Yes you!" answered the voice back, "Do you see me?"

He was lost. Did someone just read his mind? Who was he talking to? Link looked up and saw people still running away from the carnage.

A flash of white zipped past him. "I'm here!" A brown tint surrounded the energy of a fairy the size of an eyeball. "Follow me! I'm gonna lead you somewhere safe!"

No… I don't… I don't have much longer… the limits to his endurance were nearing. His legs were about to give out any heartbeat.

"No no! We're gonna make it, okay? Oy oy yoy!" That sounded weird, was the fairy talking to someone else? "We're losing him!"

I need… to heal… his body was on the verge of dying a second time twice in one day, and if he did not pull out his hidden healing trick, he was not going to wake up again. A sunny forest flashed through his mind for a heartbeat. Dirt… grass… or… Even Link couldn't keep track of his thoughts. He coughed out a mouthful of bodily fluids and fell onto his knees. His breathing could no longer sustain movement anymore, let alone speak. Still, he could breathe.

"I don't know what he needs!" the voice was faint, as if calling to someone else, "he's mumbling about dirt or whatever! Oy, kiddo! Stay with me!"

He was glad he did not have to waste any breath to communicate with the fairy. I need… a bed of dirt… to sleep on, he thought to himself, or the fairy.

"Uh, he says, he needs a bed of dirt to sleep on. Oh? All right! Hey kid, this way!" the fairy zipped ahead and turned sharp right around the corner of the building next to Link.

After another huff and another puff of air, he crawled towards the building and used the stone wall to hoist himself back onto to his feet. Once he turned the corner, the fairy had led him to a straight, alleyway snuggled between two tall structures. Only an empty, paved street, wide enough to fit a single horse through, laid the foundations for the space in between the two housing blocks, with shoddy, two story hovels lining both the sides of the road.

Torches were hung in front of each entrance, burning perpetually and fiercely through the shadowed part of town, and three fairies, the brown one from earlier, a red one, and an orange one, illuminated the way to the small patch of dirt with some colorful flowers next to one of the entrances. A flowerbed would suffice.

Link's vision gave out. For a moment, he sensed nothing. Only the rhythm of his breathing and the periodic motion of his walk kept him awake. But then an annoying barrage of voices in his head urged him to hang in there, whatever that meant. And then his body felt an instant draw to mother nature. A healing aura radiated just beneath feet. He could paint the vivid picture in his blackened mind of where the patch of fresh dirt lay just by focusing on the warm sensation that the organic material was sending him.

With his first barefoot step onto the flowerbed, a soothing heat spread upward from the sole, slowly reversing the injuries of the flesh. Once his other foot stepped onto the soil, the exact same feeling seeped into the other leg. There was no name for Link's little healing trick, discovered by complete accident many years ago. When Link collapsed onto all fours, he could feel his knees and hands connect to the energy that sustained all life in a forest far, far away.

He fell asleep feeling the magical warmth of a comfortable bed at home.