Prompt No.23
Word count: ~630
Universe: Breath of the Wild
Pairings: None
Rating: K
Themes: Blood, hemorrhaging, near-death experiences
Bleeding Out
He knew a Zora girl once, a long time ago, with eyes like seaglass and skin like corals. He couldn't remember her as well as he would have liked, but he could feel her. Where his memories failed him and the stories of others didn't do her justice, the blessing she had poured into him after he had freed her from Vah Ruta told him everything he needed to know.
She was kind. She was fierce in battle. She was gentle and wise. She was proud to serve, and ready to sacrifice. And though he had been told as much a dozen times, he could feel stirring behind his ribs now the reassuring warmth of the love she had harbored for him once. And he knew she would always, always protect him.
Sometimes it was quick—a twist of the neck, or a mortal blow to a vital organ, and then his heart was restarting and his body mending before he could even register exactly what was happening. He would see her out of the corner of his eye, hear her whispering from memory or some immortal plane, and seafoam flame would ebb off his body and he was hauling himself to his feet to fight another day.
This was not one of those times.
He stumbled again, looking down where he was clutching his tunic to his side, so sodden now that it was doing absolutely nothing to stave off the bleeding. The strike missed all the important bits that might have made this less grueling—the heart, or the lungs, or the spine—tearing through flesh and muscle and leaving the most vital parts of him intact, prolonging this strange ritual he's become so accustomed to.
He took another leaden step forward and his vision swam, and when his legs gave out he was struck by the odd disconnect between his mind and his body, the juxtaposition of the confidence that he will be healed with the visceral terror of feeling his life slipping away. Again.
Mipha's Grace was a curse, in a way, as much as it was a blessing. He took risks. He was overconfident. Sometimes, when he was desperate, he launched himself straight into mortal danger, subjecting himself to torture of death because he knew he had the safety net of her protection.
But when the power was spent he felt weak. Once the glow faded he second guessed himself, feared things he hadn't feared, and until he could feel its hot pulse between his lungs again sometimes he was afraid to press on.
But reliance on borrowed power would never make him the warrior he had to be.
He collapsed in the grass, gasping short, searing breaths as his body soldiered on. His blood spilled over Hyrule as it had so many times, painting the fields red. Then the world blackened in that sickening way it did, and his heart stammered sharp and terrifying in his chest, and he took that familiar breath to scream where there was no breath left, and despair slipped icy claws around his throat.
And then he felt the ghost of her touch, heard her whisper the promise in his ear that sounded more and more like a threat every time she reminded him.
"I will always protect you."
Life shunted back into him, as electrifying and blinding as a lightning strike, and he fisted his hands in the grass, gasping.
His tunic was still a wet mess, but he knew the wound had healed. He could feel his blood coursing through his veins, pounding that steady, accelerated rhythm as his fear and his newfound strength pulsed together.
He laid there for a long time. It wasn't his first time bleeding out. He could only pray it was his last.