Prompt No.13
Word count: ~470
Universe: Breath of the Wild
Pairings: Zelink
Rating: K
Themes: Panic attacks, fear
Adrenaline
His blood pounded through his jugular. His pupils were blown. Every muscle across his back and shoulders was coiled to strike. He knew that near-painful spike of fear better than most. It had been his constant companion for longer than he cared to admit.
It struck when he needed it most, sending his pulse into a blind fury and setting his nerves alight. It surged through his veins when he faced an enemy. It ricocheted in his skull when, scaling a cliff face or a mountainside, his energy began to wane. It thrilled up his spine when he took the first steps into unknown territory, keeping him alert. It kept him alive.
What he didn't understand was why it was striking him now, when everything was quiet and he had his arm wrapped around the woman he loved and he finally had a moment's peace.
He tremored as the fear rushed its course all through him, making his fingers tingle and his lips go numb, grasping at the ground for an anchor. There was nothing he could hold on to that would ground him in the solitude and the quiet, nothing that would make his head stop spinning or the world less crushing.
He released a shaky breath and tried not to make a sound, tipping his head back and swallowing down bile rising in his throat. When he closed his eyes the sky was red, and the malice was burning, and she was gone.
His throat swelled. His chest tightened until he thought it would burst and his stomach roiled. Hyrule was sprawling and infected again, and he was alone, and empty, and anonymous. He bit down on his teeth and tried not to scream.
She laid cool fingertips gently on his hollow of his throat, reading his galloping pulse—how could she not be awake, when he was trembling so violently around her?—and didn't lift her head from his shoulder. She wrapped an arm around his middle and waited. And when he was still for too long, trying to stifle the tremors, she reminded him, "Breathe."
The breath he sucked and loosed, longer and deeper, made him melt a little into her grip. He focused on it, on the warmth, the softness, the security, and tried so hard not to imagine it being ripped away. Because everything had been ripped away once. It meant everything could be ripped away again.
His eyes unfocused as the adrenaline swallowed him whole, pitching him into darkness and reducing his breathing to shallow gasps.
But there were no enemies to outrun, no dangers to shield her from.
Fear was the monster the Sword that Seals the Darkness could never slay, and there was little to be done but let it feed on him until it was satisfied.