Yeah, I couldn't wait a whole week to post this. This is my favorite chapter thus far, and I was so excited to update. Hold on to your butts, people. You're in for a crazy ride.
Owlan's room was a flurry of activity, but the professor was the image of composure as he quickly coordinated the chaos. "Lay him on the bed," the professor ordered as he rolled his sleeves up past his elbows and tied up his disheveled hair. A quiet, breathy moan slipped from Link's lips as the headmaster gently eased him onto the still-warm mattress. Karane, barefoot but otherwise dressed in her wrinkled uniform, strode past the overwhelmed Pipit and immediately went to work fetching clean bandages and other necessary supplies. Gaepora stripped the hero of his belt and baldric before he slipped the Blade of Evil's Bane out from underneath him. Owlan began a calm but insistent assessment of his patient's condition. All Pipit could do was stand and watch.
Professor Horwell strode in from the adjoining room. The frantic activity in the middle of the night startled the man, and he demanded, "What in Skyloft is…Oh Goddesses…"
He gaped in the doorway in shock at the sight of his bloodied student on the bed before the headmaster snapped him out of it. "Shut the door. We don't need anyone else seeing this and making a scene." The instructor hastily obliged.
More orders were barked off to the makeshift team. Karane wheeled a cart of medical tools and supplies up to the bed. Owlan took a pair of scissors and carefully cut through the soaked bedsheet-bandages across Link's middle and slowly peeled them away. Gaepora did his best to cleanse the boy's skin with a wet washcloth.
Everything was happening so quickly around Pipit that he was having trouble keeping track of it all.
Owlan shook his head, never once looking up from his patient. "It's deep, but it missed anything vital." He paused for a moment, brows furrowed in thought as he analyzed the form of the laceration. His eyes flicked to the shackles on Link's wrist and back down to the oddly-shaped wound across his abdomen. "In fact, it avoids anything that would have threatened his life. This is not a battle wound. No, this…this was deliberate..."
Pipit was very queasy. He had known that Link had been held captive and he had seen the evidence of such an occurrence, but he hadn't really pictured it happening. The image of someone torturing his brother left the acrid taste of bile in his mouth. It rose up in his throat, but he stuffed it down. He could wait. Link was the priority.
"Pipit," Horwell inquired in a quiet, horrified voice as he looked up from the battered hero, "What the hell happened to him?"
The room went silent as everyone turned to the exhausted young knight, awaiting a response. He opened his mouth, but the words lodged themselves in his throat. The terrible memories flashed before his eyes: the nightmare of finding his broken brother strung up by the wrists, the horrors of slashing their way through armies of pig-man-things, the terror of Link's murderous glare as he held his blade at Pipit's throat. How could he possibly begin to tell the tale when just the thought of those awful occurrences made his stomach want to invert itself?
Seeing Pipit's fear and hesitation, Owlan spoke up in a calm voice. "I don't need the whole story, but I do need to know what happened to him so I can treat him. Is there anything at all you can tell us?"
Pipit shakily let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. "I don't know much. Most of this happened before I found him down there."
"Down there?" Horwell echoed, growing irate as he continued. "Down there as in the Surface? You went to the Surface?"
"Horwell, come here and help me with this," Gaepora insisted as he held out a clean washcloth, trying to get the professor off of the subject.
"He went down to the Surface!" the angry flight instructor squawked, pointing at the senior knight.
"That isn't important right now!" the headmaster retorted. "We can deal with that later. Right now, you need to focus on helping us save this boy's life."
Horwell paused for a moment before he marched over, snatched the cloth from Gaepora's outstretched hand and set to work removing the grime covering Link's arms.
Karane had moved to Link's feet and was removing his thin, burnt boots. "Goodness, there's nothing left of these," she said as she slipped one off, followed by a filthy sock that was crusted to the hero's foot. The skin on his soles was red and blistered. "Why does he have so many burns?" she quietly wondered aloud.
It was Owlan who answered, his voice grim, "…He went back to the volcano…"
"Vull-cane-oh?" the headmaster articulated with his eyebrows furrowed as he rinsed his washcloth in the basin. "What in Hylia's name is a vull-cane-oh?
Pipit explained in a soft voice as their eyes met, "It's a mountain that is on fire…but from the inside."
A silence swept through the room. Owlan, unfazed by the otherwise startling revelation, dictated to his peers, "We need more space. Pull the bed away from the wall." The men did as he asked and slid the bed across to the center of the room before they resumed their ministrations. The white-maned professor grabbed a bottle of a clear, pungent liquid and set to work delicately cleaning the laceration across Link's abdomen. Drifting somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, the hero softly whimpered as the alcohol sterilized his exposed flesh.
The headmaster moved to clean the seeping injury just below Link's collar bone. The cloth snagged on something hard and jagged in the wound, and the hero reflexively arched his back away with a muffled cry. Gaepora immediately froze. A look of bewilderment crossed the men's faces as they glanced between each other and the shoulder wound. Compared to the gash across Link's middle, the injury looked significantly less dire. The instructors crowded around the large man as he gingerly peeled the cotton away.
"Is that…"
"…an arrow shaft?"
Owlan took in a shaking huff and cursed under his breath. He stepped away for a moment, pacing around the room as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Pipit was trying his hardest to not throw up.
"Can we extract it?" Karane asked as she swallowed her own fears.
Owlan sighed and ran his fingers back through his snowy hair. "I'll have to, but I'm flying blind here. If the shaft was intact, I could at least estimate how deep the arrow penetrated, but as it is, I have no clues to its depth. It might have punctured a lung or severed his axillary artery or it might be lodged into bone, and I won't know anything until I get in there."
Horwell grabbed a pair of pliers off the cart. "Then let's get this over with."
"No!" Owlan exclaimed and snatched the tool from the other professor's hand. "You don't just yank an arrow out."
"Well it needs to come out, so let's get it out."
"I plan to," Owlan insisted as hints of irritation broke through his fortress of calm, "but not like that. These arrowheads are not glued or lashed on. They are held on with wax, which softens at body temperature. So, if you try to rip the thing out, the head will be left behind."
Gaepora piped in, "Can we push it out the back?"
The botanist-turned-doctor's focused eyes roved over his patient, rapidly sorting through his options. He shook his head and started, "His scapula is in the way."
"Shoulder blade," Karane whispered over her shoulder to a very disgusted Pipit.
"It's going to have to come out the way it went in," Owlan finished as he stepped up to the cart once more. After he put the pliers away, he unrolled a long piece of leather, revealing a line of odd-looking metal tools used for purposes that Pipit didn't want to think about. The professor hastily doused his hands in alcohol, shook them dry for a few seconds, and slid a metal tool out of its slot. It resembled a spoon with a long, straight handle, except the edges of the spoon curved back in towards the center of the tool, creating a slight pocket with rounded edges.
"What the hell is that thing, and why—" Horwell demanded, but Owlan cut him off, not wanting to waste any more time as his patient lay on his bed.
"It's an arrow spoon, and this is not the first time I have done this," he snapped. "Gaepora, hold his shoulders down. Everyone else, back up."
He paused at the bedside, took a steadying breath, nodded to the headmaster, and began to insert the spoon along the shaft.
Link gasped and his unfocused eyes shot open. The hero weakly arched against the intruding tool and the hands restraining him. A strangled cry erupted from his lips as he tensed and threw his head back in agony. Everyone in the room save for Owlan visibly cringed as the hoarse cry echoed through the room.
Then a flicker of light caught Pipit's eye for a fleeting moment, but when he turned in that direction it was gone. His eyes roamed the room in search of it, but it was either a figment of his imagination, or he couldn't spot it from his perspective. Another flash of light, but this time his eyes flicked to the source.
Which was Link's right hand.
The three golden triangles upon it hummed, flashing faster and faster until it glared like the merciless sun.
Pipit's stomach dropped to the floor. "Oh no," he whispered.
And then it happened.
A pulse of hot energy blasted Gaepora away from the hero and into a wall. In a heartbeat, Link was on his feet with Professor Owlan's throat clamped his glowing hand. The air thrummed wild with power, almost as if an electric current had charged the atmosphere. The dominating omnipotence of the triangles radiated from its broken vessel, and it assaulted the unsuspecting team with a nauseating wave of force. Owlan's eyes went wide and a strangled noise escaped his mouth as the hero tightened his grip. The doctor's fists beat against his patient's arm to no avail. Looking down at the metal protruding from his chest, the hero reached up with his free hand, yanked it out, and let it clang to the floor. Link brought his nose within an inch of the professor's and snarled in wrath, spittle spewing from between his bloodstained teeth. Skin sizzled, and the pungent stench of scorching flesh pierced the air.
Pipit was frozen in horror. Owlan's frantic eyes began to lose focus. With a roar, Link effortlessly lifted the professor into the air by his neck and flung him across the room. Owlan slammed into the bookcase and crumpled to the floor, coughing and gasping for breath. A few dislodged tomes pelted the professor as Link stalked towards his perceived assailant. Floods of crackling power shot out from the mangled vessel, washing the room's occupants with wave after wave of malice.
He's going to kill him, Pipit realized in dread. Adrenaline coursed through his veins once more. He couldn't just stand by and watch it happen. He had to act.
He had to do something.
Pipit threw himself between the wheezing teacher and his possessed brother. "Don't do this, Link," he pleaded.
As Link lifted his eyes to meet his brother's, Pipit's heart lodged itself in his throat. They were rolled back into his head, and they blazed with otherworldly light. A shining aura of gold fire licked the hero's skin. Complete with the seeping wounds, burns, bruises, and the filth smeared across his body, he could have been the herald of death.
This was not like what happened on the Surface. No, this was on a whole other level in comparison. The indomitable force, the unyielding power…it was unlike anything Pipit had ever seen or felt before.
It terrified him.
A chorus of unfamiliar voices flowed from the hero's chapped lips. They were drowned in hostility and fierce, divine justice.
"Step aside."
It was not a suggestion.
The order reverberated through him, compounding on itself as it replayed over and over with growing intensity. Obey. Obey. Obey! OBEY! Pipit shivered against the ferocity trying to compel him into submission, and truthfully, he did want to submit. Nothing sounded better than turning and walking away, pretending that none of this had ever happened. He wanted to run and never look back. The idea was so…tempting. To flee and forget about—
Pipit was jerked back to reality by a cacophony of hoarse hacking behind him.
Owlan.
These were the stakes. Submit, or be forced into submission. This time, Pipit would not be moved.
He trembled as his voice broke. "I know you're still in there."
"Yield!" the chorus commanded. Again, the urge to obey assaulted him, but he shoved it aside.
Pipit's lip quivered and he cracked out, "No."
Link's arm was a blur as the back of his glowing hand smashed into Pipit's sternum. He hurtled through the air and crashed into the wardrobe in a shower of splinters. The young knight gasped as his ribs contorted. The room twirled and waltzed to an inaudible concerto, and Pipit tumbled to the floor with a low moan. A swirled haze of colors swayed in his vision, but soon a golden glow encompassed his entire view. Just as everything came back into focus, a blistering vice clamped around his neck, hefted him into the air, and slammed him into the wall.
Pipit tried desperately to take in a breath, but with his airway constricted, he only managed a strained wheeze. Link was inches from his nose in all of his horrible, deific glory. The hand clenched around Pipit's throat seared his skin, and if he had had the capacity, he would have cried out in agony. His body tingled painfully in response to the overflow of energy.
"L...Link…please…" Pipit choked out. The grip tightened. Other voices in the room shouted, but he couldn't make sense of who was speaking or what was said. All he could focus on was the angry, auric face masquerading as his brother. Then even that was starting to go fuzzy as his brain was denied the oxygen it so desperately needed. His lungs burned, begging him to draw a breath, but the pressure on his trachea refused to surrender.
The screaming voices pleaded with the vessel in an incoherent jumble. It all started to slip away as a black halo appeared in the strangled knight's eyesight. Darker it grew, and deeper he sank into the blackness until the only things he could still see were the glowing whites of the hero's eyes. Just as the cold nothingness was about to claim complete victory, the sizzling clamp around his neck loosened a small fraction. It was enough to halt the progress of the all-encompassing black, but not sufficient to win ground back. Distant, distorted murmurs repeated a phrase over and over…a name, maybe? It wasn't his name. It sounded familiar, but Pipit's mind was quickly losing the ability to assign meaning to the slur of sounds. All he knew was that he desperately needed to breathe.
"It's working! Keep saying it!" he made out amidst the static.
Over and over the name was chanted. Link's brows furrowed in confusion as the golden glow dimmed a tiny bit. He shook his head, perhaps trying to sort through the conflicting messages roaring in his mind. Pipit didn't know. It was taking all of his energy to remain conscious. His eyes were starting to roll back into his head, and he tried to fight it, but he was so, so tired.
The hero's eyes squeezed shut for an agonizing moment, his hand still crushing Pipit's throat.
First, the air in the room lost its relentless pressure. Then the scorching heat dissipated. And finally, the divine glow faded into nothingness.
With a startled gasp, Link opened his glassy eyes, and they were bluer than the sky. Dazed and blinking hard, he squinted at the man he gripped by the neck.
"P…Pip…it?"
The hero stared at his brother for a fleeting moment before his eyes lost their focus and he pitched forward. The pressure on Pipit's neck released, and both men crumpled to the ground.
Pipit didn't know how long he laid there gasping, sputtering, and half-conscious before the weight collapsed on his chest was removed. All he could do was suck in the sweet, sweet air that he had been denied. Never before had air tasted so sweet. It was heavenly to his poor, deprived lungs. He didn't even care that each movement twisted a knife into his side. Goddesses be praised for the beauty that was air!
After a moment, his vision returned to him. Karane's face came into focus above him, looking down on him with concern. He let out a low groan at the pain in his ribs and the pounding of his head.
"Pip! Pipit!" she cried, one hand on his cheek, the other frantically stroking his hair.
"I hear you," he rasped.
"Oh, thank the Goddesses!" she sighed in relief.
Pipit eased himself into a sitting position, wincing as he shifted. To his left, the headmaster had recovered and was crouched over Link, who let out breathy moans as he lay only semi-conscious on the floorboards. Horwell helped Owlan emerge from beneath a small pile of displaced books, the latter gingerly rubbing his throat with a series of dry coughs before the two hastily joined their peer. A blistered, hand-shaped welt splayed across the professor's neck, and Pipit could feel the lingering sting of an identical mark on himself.
Instead of tending to Link's serious injuries, the men were staring at Link's arm. No, not his arm; his hand.
"Is that what I think it is?" Owlan asked, his voice hoarse from strangulation.
Gaepora had Link's hand in his own. Three golden triangles slowly pulsed upon it as the hero took in ragged, labored breaths.
"The Triforce…" the headmaster whispered in awe. The teachers gaped at each other, trying to wrap their heads around the significance of such a possibility.
"No." It was Horwell who spoke this time, breaking the long silence. His face was bleached with fear as he stood and took a few steps back. "No, no, no, no. I'm not going near that thing."
"You what?" Gaepora fumed.
"I said I'm done! Do you have any idea how much power that thing has?"
"How can you even—" The headmaster's face grew red.
"He could erase us from existence! He could erase all of Skyloft from existence with nothing but a thought!"
"So what, you're going to sit back and watch him die? Is that it?"
"If we try to take that arrow out again, he is going to kill us! He almost killed Owlan and Pipit just now!"
By now, both men were roaring. "Do you realize just how much is riding on Link? You know the prophecies! You know that he is the one they speak of!"
"Did you not just hear the part about how he is going to KILL US?"
"Even if he does kill us while we try to save his life, it will be worth it!"
"Worth it? WORTH IT? I have a family that I want to see again!"
"You won't for much longer if he fails! If WE fail! And do you honestly think that I don't want to see my daughter again? She's all I have left, and Link is the only person who can get her back!"
"Oh, so that's what this is about? You, putting all of our lives at risk," Horwell spat as he gestured around the room, "just so you can find her?"
Shaking with fury, Gaepora hushed his voice to just above a whisper. Through clenched teeth, he ground out, "Once again, you are allowing your fear to paralyze you, Professor Horwell."
It was not used as a title. It was an insult.
"How dare you…" Horwell seethed, his face crimson in outrage. "How DARE you bring that up!"
Owlan, who had previously been silent, spoke up. "Enough."
The other two men either didn't hear the soft order or blatantly ignored it.
The headmaster shouted, his flying spittle on the verge of froth, "Your selfish cowardice paralyzed you with my Ayla! Don't you dare—"
"You want to do this again? FINE! YEAH, I FUCKING FROZE WHEN SHE— "
"ENOUGH!" Owlan bellowed. All eyes went wide and snapped to the white-maned professor as the command echoed in the room. He glowered in silence from beneath his eyebrows at each person in the room, demanding obedience and respect. His voice quieted to a low growl as he slowly enunciated, "We are doing this, and we are doing this now." His glare snapped back to Horwell. "Got it?"
The flight instructor could only gape, still raging from the altercation but too shocked at his peer's uncharacteristic outburst to respond.
Owlan didn't wait for him to answer. He angled to the two young knights. "Pipit, Karane, brace his legs above and below the knee. Headmaster, Horwell, hold his arms down, one hand on his shoulder and the other on his wrist. Put a cloth between his skin and yours so it doesn't…burn you."
At that, Owlan scooped the arrow spoon up off of the ground, unceremoniously dunked it in the bottle of alcohol, and torched the still dripping tool above a lit candle. The metal flashed with a blue flame for an instant before he turned and knelt next to Link. Everyone scrambled to their positions above the delirious hero. Everyone save Horwell, that is, who remained frozen in place.
Owlan wouldn't even look at the brown-maned professor as he seethed, "Do it."
Horwell sucked in a breath, getting ready to launch into another string of excuses. But then his angry gaze met Pipit's. With that one look—that pleading look of fear and hopelessness and begging—his resolve visibly crumbled. Horwell let out an exasperated huff, his fear still boiling but no longer in control. He pinched the bridge of his nose with shaking fingers. Refusing to make eye-contact with anyone, he shook his head and whispered a resigned, "…Okay."
His lips were pressed into a thin line as he took his place. Everyone was in position. Owlan flitted his determined gaze to meet each person's eyes in succession. "Ready?"
Everyone nodded. Pipit was pretty sure he going to throw up.
Owlan took in a deep breath, hesitated for a moment, and plunged the arrow spoon into the wound.
Link immediately tensed up beneath Pipit's hands and let out a bloodcurdling scream. The hero's head slammed backwards, and he writhed against those that would dare restrain him. The Triforce flashed erratically as he bucked. Gold fire once again roared to life over Link's skin. Even through the canvas of the hero's pants, the scorching heat attacked Pipit's palms. Owlan gritted his teeth and stifled back a grunt as the metal tool grew hot and seared his hand.
Link thrashed as his hoarse cries of agony reverberated in the small room, shredding his vocal cords. Owlan was still fishing around for the tip of the arrow, and all of the movement was certainly not making his job any easier. Pipit and the others struggled to hold the hero down. Tears cleared glistening trails through blood and soot as they streamed from the corners of Link's eyes down to his ears. A concussive wave of pressure shot outwards from his broken body, slamming into the team trying so fiercely to save his life. They flinched but endured the hot blast as any settled dust in the room was displaced from its resting point. Another rush of force burst forth, but it was noticeably less intense.
Link's screams slowly devolved into strangled gurgles as Owlan pushed deeper, desperately attempting to locate the arrowhead. The hero's struggles grew weaker and weaker until he could only twitch and jerk against the team. One more wave of hot energy washed over them, but it was so feeble that it only rustled their clothing. The fire shining on the hero's skin faded from brilliant gold to sickly saffron, smoldering until it died out completely. Pipit's stomach floundered about, churning and flipping within his abdomen as he swallowed its contents back yet again.
"Come on, come on…" Owlan begged through clenched teeth.
He changed his grip on the tool, took a sharp breath in, and yanked it and the arrow free. Link's chest lurched upwards, and he let out a choked cry. His eyes rolled back and fluttered shut, his head lolled to the side, the once glowing Triforce melted back into his hand, and the broken hero went limp underneath their hands.
Maybe it was the stench of iron in the air, or possibly the wet squelch of pulling the arrow out of Link's warm chest, perhaps the bloody bits of flesh stuck to its tip, but at that moment, pungent bile was powering its way up from Pipit's gut, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
He swung to the side and was violently sick onto the wooden floor. Oh, Goddesses, he couldn't stop retching, and his ribs wailed in torment at the movements. He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't feel anything but pain as he vomited. His brother's haunting screams echoed in his mind, inducing another round of savage stomach inversions, even though it had been empty to begin with. There was nothing left to give, but his body gave it anyway. Images of the bloody spoon-turned-torture device flashed through his psyche on repeat, forcing him to relive the arrow extraction over and over. His eyes watered as he tried to suck in a breath between dry heaves, but they came in such rapid succession that a new one began before the previous one had ended. His ribcage contorted and shifted with each movement, and the resulting inferno in his side overrode any and all other sensations. All he knew was pain.
"Breathe, Pipit," he heard from someone, somewhere. "Just…breathe."
He focused on the soothing voice and prayed fervently that the attack would pass. The voice talked to him through the last couple of weakening heaves, murmuring words of encouragement before it was finally, finally over.
The first thing he became aware of through the assault of agony was that he was curled up on his side. He didn't remember laying down. His eyes were screwed shut in an attempt to block out the fire in his chest. Someone was crying. Was it Link? No, that wasn't his brother's voice. Whose was it?
"Deeper breaths, Pipit. You're hyperventilating. Deep breaths."
Oh. The airy whimpers were coming from himself.
Well, that would make sense, considering that each time he inhaled, his ribcage stretched and screamed at him. Therefore, he had resorted to taking rapid, shallow breaths that didn't expand his chest and cause him any more pain.
"…C-can't," he managed between superficial gasps, his rasping voice barely above a whisper.
"Why not?" pressed the voice—Karane's voice.
"…Hurts…" he moaned.
She let out a worried sigh. "Professor Owlan, he needs your help," she pleaded
"I can't. There's only one of me. You have a med kit in your room, right?"
"Me? But…but I'm just an apprentice! I don't know what I'm doing!"
"You know more than you realize, Karane," Owlan reassured as he worked. "You can do this."
Pipit heard her take a deep breath to steady her nerves before she was at his side again. She helped him slowly sit up and slung the arm on his good side over her shoulders for extra support. It was a good thing she did, too, because as soon as they stood, a fierce wave of vertigo crashed into Pipit and he tipped to the side. He would have fallen over had she not been propping him up.
"You alright?" she whispered with a surprised grunt as his body stumbled into hers and his head fell against her shoulder.
He blinked hard against the black in his vision, willing it to go away as the world spun. "…Yeah," he panted. "Just…gimme a second."
After the dizziness faded and the floor stopped dancing, they carefully navigated the trek down the hall to Karane's room in a meager attempt to minimize his pain. Pipit did his best to support himself, but his ankle threatened to give out any time he put weight on it.
He groaned as she eased him down into a sitting position on the pink bedspread and unyoked herself. As the strawberry-haired apprentice flitted around the lace-adorned room collecting medical supplies, Pipit leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, propping his head up in his hands.
So much had happened in the past forty-eight hours. Facing fear, danger, and almost certain death, he had snuck past pig-man scouts and ventured into a hostile mountain of fire on a suicidal rescue mission. He had shown bravery as they slashed their way out through horde after horde of monsters, risked his life to get Link's loftwing away from his broken friend, and shown courage as he and the team worked together to keep the hero alive. He should have been proud of himself.
So why did he feel so Goddess-damned empty?
Karane slid a chair up to the bed and shoved a glass of water into his hands. He hastily downed it and the second one she offered, murmuring his thanks. The liquid felt like sandpaper going down his damaged throat, but he was so thirsty that he didn't even care.
"So," she deadpanned as she raised her brows, "it looks like your 'required training' went well."
Pipit stared at her in befuddlement for a moment before he realized he had been caught in his lie. He sighed in defeat and his head drooped. "I'm sorry, Karane. I…" he breathed as he wiped a hand down his grimy face. He really did not want to hash through it right then. "Can we…can we just do this later?"
"What happened down there, Pipit?" she asked with concern.
Not meeting her worried gaze, he replied curtly, "I don't want to talk about it."
"Look, you almost passed out on me back there. You're exhausted, dehydrated, wounded…more so than we realized. I need to know what's going on so I can help you."
Scenes of blood and battle strobed in front of his eyes before he squeezed them shut with a slight grimace. A wave of grief threatened to wash over him, but he forced it back. He couldn't deal with anything else in that moment, so rather than facing a vehement onslaught, he locked all of his emotions inside a stone fortress of numbness.
Later. He would sort through all of that later. Right now, he needed to hold himself together.
"Let's start with why you were holding your side," she said gently. "May I take a look?"
He nodded and gingerly removed the belt around his waist. With a hiss, he peeled the fabric and mail up to expose the injured area, and she got to work assessing the damages. A bloom of black and blue snaked its way up his side, like the result of an overturned ink pot.
"Oh, Pip…"Karane whispered.
He attempted to remove his tunics and hauberk at her request, but any movement that shifted his ribcage sent an agonizing stab into his side. Karane ended up stripping his upper garments for him. As she gently prodded the area, she asked about how it happened, what the weapon was, if it hurt when she pressed on various spots, and if he had been coughing up blood. It was excruciating to endure as each tiny movement sent an electric current through his chest.
By the time her assessment was complete, Pipit was panting and slicked with sweat. The pain had stirred up a swirl of nausea, and he had to focus on his breathing until it faded.
"You're lucky you were wearing your chainmail, and that it was a blade instead of a mace. Otherwise, you'd be in a lot worse shape," Karane explained. "You have some broken ribs—three or four, maybe—but they don't need to be set. You might also have some minor pulmonary contusions, but I don't think there's any other internal damage."
Pipit stared at her in confusion as he took rapid, shallow breaths. "Pulma-whats?"
She blinked for a moment before realizing that she had drifted off into the unfamiliar language of medical terminology. "Sorry, uh…lung bruises. Point is, if you take it easy—and actually breathe deeply like you're supposed to," she added with a knowing look, "—then I think you should recover from this just fine."
Karane then launched into the finer details of his treatment plan. She explained various breathing techniques to ensure proper oxygen intake, how to hug a pillow to his chest so his required coughing exercises were less painful, which potions he could take to help ease the pain, and a whole string of other information he couldn't keep track of.
Pipit tried to pay attention, but his eyes were drooping. They felt so dry, and he was having a hard time keeping them open. He sat numb and unflinching as Karane cleaned and stitched up the laceration in his cheek. His limbs were heavy and leaden. Goddesses, he was tired. Would he ever get to go home and sleep?
As the medical assistant stood to grab a set of ointments for the weeping blisters on his neck, Pipit leaned forward and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. His mind wandered to his broken, beaten brother, and he couldn't help but worry. Keeping his eyes closed, he rested his elbows on his knees and pressed his palms to his temples in a vain attempt to ease their throbbing.
"Is Link going to be okay?" he rasped, not looking up from his hands as she sat next to him once again.
Putting her hand on his knee, she said, "We're going to do everything we can."
"Just tell me," Pipit whispered. The exhaustion in his body had seeped into his defeated voice as he sat hunched over on her bed. When she hesitated to respond, he dropped his hands and pried his bloodshot eyes open to meet Karane's sympathetic gaze. "Please."
She held his stare for a moment before she sighed and looked to the door. The mask of medical stoicism she had put on was chipping away. Chewing her lip, she reluctantly relented, "I don't know."
Pipit stared at the floor with his teeth clenched and his lips pressed into a hard line, wringing his grimy hands. Tears stung his eyes, and he struggled to keep them from spilling over. Besides his mother, Link was the only family he had left. Everyone else was gone. Without him…Goddesses, Pipit didn't even want to think what life would be like without his brother. Link was his best friend, the person he confided in, the man who knew all of his deepest secrets. Who else would be willing to sneak out of the academy and keep him company on his lonely night patrols? Who was going to be his sword brother when they were officially sworn in as Skyknights? Who else would help him process through the turmoils of his heart when he just couldn't take it anymore and needed someone to talk to?
His bottom lip quivered as his mind went to places he didn't want it to go. He needed to think about something else. Anything else.
Instead, Karane took his calloused, sooty hands in hers. "Hey," she murmured as she rubbed circles into the backs of his hands, "Owlan knows what he's doing. Link is in good hands. It would take a lot to knock him down for good."
His tone quavered as he answered, growing more and more hysterical as he went on. "A lot? You didn't see what happened down there. You didn't find him bloodied and strung up by the wrists." A tear broke free of its confinement and tumbled through the soot on his cheek. "You didn't watch him stumble and fall because the pain was too much for him to handle!" His voice cracked as he shouted, "You weren't there when he jumped in and took an arrow for me because I couldn't handle my own damn fight!"
He was shaking by the time he finished and was surprised at how loud his voice rang in the small room. Karane had recoiled in shock at the outburst, and Pipit tore his tearful gaze away from her. Trembling, he buried his face in his hands and tried to suppress the sobs choked up in his bruised, aching throat.
For a moment, the only sound in the room was Pipit's shuddering breaths. He hadn't meant to blow up at her like that. He had gone too far. Goddesses, he couldn't do anything right today. She didn't need to know about all of that, about the horrors he had seen, the massacre his own hands had caused, or any of the awful things he had gone through on the Surface. But in that moment, he couldn't control the rogue tsunami of despair flooding through him, let alone his interactions with other people. The combination of fear, worry, guilt, exhaustion, and pain wreaked havoc on him and left him weak in their presence. He needed to pull himself together, but the dam holding back his emotional storm was cracking, and he was too overwhelmed to fix it.
Karane hesitantly broke the silence. "I think it's wise not to underestimate Link. He's stronger than you know."
Pipit was hardly comforted by her words. He was too trampled to be able to process anything beyond basic human contact, so he just tightened his fingers in his hair.
A commotion arose in the hallway. A frantic voice rushed past the entryway, demanding answers to a string of questions.
Pipit knew that voice.
"Where is he?" she demanded. "Where is my son!"
"That's…" Karane whispered before she turned and cast the door open, rushing out to meet the woman.
A few seconds later, the door was flung back open. In the frame stood his mother, frozen in shock with dark circles under her eyes and wild curls askew. Her teary eyes gaped in horror at Pipit's sorry state. They roved over the film of ash and dried bokoblin blood blanketing his skin, the stitches sewn through his cheek, the blistered and seeping welt across his throat, and the expanse of purply-blue that ran up his swollen side.
"Pipit?" she choked out, covering her mouth with her hand.
"…Mom…" he whimpered, his voice distorted and uneven.
In an instant, her arms were around him, pulling him into a fierce embrace. His ribs compressed, and he let out a strangled cry at the sudden, stabbing pain. Mallara immediately loosened her grip and attempted to pull away, spewing apologies and begging forgiveness. However, Pipit only pulled her back into him. Right then, he needed someone to hold him and tell him everything was going to be alright, even though he wouldn't believe it.
He just needed his mother.
It started slowly, with quiet hiccups escaping without his permission. He tried to hold it back, but as his inner fortress crumbled, all of the emotions he had shoved away came crashing down on him, and his cries quickly ripened into convulsive sobs. He didn't even care about the excruciating pain from his ribs; the emotional blitzkrieg was in control now, and it hurt so much more than his battered, weary body. The waves surged through him without mercy: dread and overwhelming anguish, loss and piercing heartache, guilt and staggering shame. She stroked his hair, whispering soothing words to comfort him, but the empty phrases fell on deaf ears.
He could only clutch his mom tighter and break.
I'm so mean to my characters! D8
Yeah, I decided to keep this rated T. I figured that if PG-13 movies get one F-bomb then I do too. Believe it or not, next chapter will be the darkest one yet, but in a more psychological way. What do you think about that? Should I change it to M? Let me know your thoughts, because I'm still really torn on this one.
I hope everyone enjoyed this update. It's the longest and also, arguably the most action-packed chapter to date. Thank you to everyone who faved, followed, and reviewed. I might not have responded to each person this time, but know that I read (and read and reread) every word you wrote for me. I appreciate you guys so freaking much...which is why this next part is going to be hard for me.
I hate to leave everyone hanging like this, but I'm not even going to start writing the next chapter until after my MCAT is over (mid August). I have an obsessive personality, and lately I've been obsessing about this instead of focusing on the things I really need to be doing. If I remove this as an option for my attention, then I'll be able to focus more on my studying. It is going to be a while before you see chapter 6, but the wait will definitely be worth it, I promise. Your encouraging words and support have kept me going, and I'm definitely going to need the encouragement to write the next chapter. I have to relive a really dark time in my life to make chapter 6 what it needs to be. I actually explained everything that happened to a friend of mine, and by the time I finished, I was literally shaking. It's a rough thing to live and relive over and over.
But I'll tell you all about that dark time after the story is over. Right now, I need to go study.
Until next time!
Love love love, friends!
Shnarf