Prompt No.24
Word count: ~680
Universe: Breath of the Wild
Pairings: None (But, actually, Zelink)
Rating: K
Themes: Bruises, broken bones
Secret Injury
After 100 years locked in incorporeal battle with malice incarnate, the Princess was not ashamed to say that all she really wanted was to rest. Her Knight, stalwart and attentive as ever, hardly needed to be told.
He took her away from the Castle's shadow, across the fields, into an alcove of trees and hills where she could sink into anonymity and tangibility and close quarters. He gave her something to drink and a small serving of food—she didn't crave either, but he asked her to try. And then he lit a fire, even though the sun hadn't quite set yet, and told her to get some sleep. She told him she might have forgotten how. Then she closed her eyes and didn't open them again until dawn.
He gave her a tiny breakfast so she could feel accomplished in finishing it. They walked all morning and laid in the grass and napped at midday, and in the heat of the afternoon he said he was going to go down to the river to wash up.
After about five minutes of being along she couldn't stand it anymore.
She started following him down to the bend, split between this horrible, breathless sensation of being isolated, and the prickling awareness that he was expecting her to give him some privacy. She decided she could satisfy both if she got just close enough to be sure where he was without being able to see much else.
She spotted him at the water's edge, his trousers rolled up his calves and his feet dipped in the rush, gingerly trying to peel off his tunic, and her resolve to keep a respectful distance was promptly forgotten. She drifted closer, watching how sluggishly he worked the fabric off his back, over his shoulders. He grimaced as he pulled it off his head, leaning back to examine the damage.
A bruise radiated from his shoulder down through his torso, all blues and purples and red blotches. No doubt a secret injury he had been harboring since his battle with Calamity Ganon. He traced tender places—three broken ribs at least, she mused, as the latent ability to assess his condition at a glance bubbled to the surface.
She frowned. He obviously hadn't wanted her to see. But she wasn't about to turn tail, run, and pretend she hadn't seen. So she settled in the grass on the bank instead, letting him carry on however he saw fit.
At least in this he hadn't changed: his mannerisms, his means of compartmentalizing his pain, were all still very familiar. The way he rolled his shoulder when it felt too tight; the way he hissed and panted when he prodded a wound too hard, even after she told him specifically not to do that; the way he tipped his head back and his lips would part when he would give in for a moment and just let himself feel it without that expressionless armor dragged over his face.
After a few minutes of tending to his battered front—if that could really be called tending; there was nothing to be done about broken ribs and bruising—he put his head back on the sand and closed his eyes, soaking in the sunshine. He was exhausted. And the princess found that there was something very restful about watching him sleep.
He turned, suddenly, as though he sensed her presence. There was conflict in his eyes as they met hers, a brief tumble of realization and steel and resignation as he laid, his injury completely exposed, on the riverbank. But she wasn't going to reinforce whatever awful reaction he had been trying to avoid. She tilted her head until it touched her shoulder and smiled lopsidedly at him, toying with the blades of grass under her fingers. When he didn't stop staring, she waved, and that dragged a reluctant smirk out of him before he put his head back down and put his face to the sun.
They were both damaged in that fight. And for now, it was easier not talking about it.