The Bleeding Effect
Chapter II
Kakariko Village was burning.
Link swung his leg over Epona so he was properly seated. He scooted up a little, patting behind him.
"Jump on!" He shouted.
Sheik didn't protest this time. Instead he lifted himself gracefully onto the horse, and the second he was secure Link tapped Epona's flanks, urging her into a gallop. Navi's tiny wings beat furiously to keep pace with them. Link's leg protested with every shift of the horse, but the pain was soon forgotten as they entered the village.
Only one or two buildings in the entire village seemed to be untouched by the blaze. The townspeople were tripping over themselves and each other in their haste to reach Link and his companions, to reach the entrance of the town before the flames engulfed them, too. Link watched helplessly as a roof slid off its frame, collapsing on top of a cuccoo pen. A young woman, sobbing and screaming, tried to run towards the wreckage, but a violet-haired man restrained her, leading her back towards the retreating crowd of people. A door slammed open and a large ginger-haired family scuttled out. To Link's confusion, he saw two of them carrying a deformed skulltula between them. A rather large woman wobbled away from her home, a small mutt yapping at her side. The handful of soldiers the town had were divided and disorganized; some went to rescue people from their homes, whilst others cried for water to quench the flames, their pleas swallowed by the smoke and pandemonium.
"It's Link!"
"Help us, please!"
"Link's here!"
"It's Link, the hero! He's come to save us!"
Several villagers managed to recognize them amidst the frenzy of activity, and came surging towards them, talking over each other with requests for aid.
"We and the soldiers shall take care of this!" Link commanded, dismounting. Sheik followed his lead. "All of you, go further away to the village's entrance, where it's safe! Epona, go with them." The horse whickered and refused to budge from his side, so Link gave her a smack on the rump to galvanize her into action. Once she trotted away towards the location he had dictated, Link pushed through the throng of people, squinting and coughing in the smoke, searching desperately for—
There is was. Thank Farore, the town well was just up the next hill. He half-ran, half-stumbled to the well, before bracing himself on its stone surface to peer down into it. His heart sank. The well was bone dry. What could he do now? Link turned from the well, blindly searching for the soldiers. He needed to know if there were any additional reserves of water stored up someplace else. If they did not act swiftly, Kakariko Village was finished.
Sheik suddenly gave a strangled cry.
"Get back, Link!"
Before he could reply or react, the ground beneath him started to shudder and shake. An earthquake? Now? Misfortune was clearly smiling upon this poor place. Link squatted and braced himself against the well, gripping the stone tightly. But to his surprise the stone itself began to rattle, and he had to duck as the well's wooden components splintered off and were flung into the air. Link opened his eyes again once he heard the beams fall to the ground. It was hard to make out through all the chaos and gray smoke, but from what he could see, the beams missed hitting any of the villagers. A minor relief.
Sheik had reached Link just as the latter was attempting to stand up with the assistance of the ring of stone. Sheik grasped the hero's wrist forcefully before trying to pull him away from the well.
"You need to get away from it," He hissed, tugging so hard Link had to fight to keep his balance.
"What's wrong? What are you—?"
Link's questions were halted as Sheik was violently wrenched away from his side. Link watched in horror as his ally was jerked around, whipped savagely up, down, left, right, by some invisible force.
"Sheik!" He tried to grab for the man, but he didn't even come close to reaching him. Link could only watch, loathing his inability to help, as Sheik was tossed here and there like a child's ragdoll before at last being thrown to the ground. Sheik was unable to suppress a cry as his body made contact with the earth. Link was by his side in an instant, gently rolling him onto his back to ascertain if he was still conscious. Link brushed away the hair from his closed eyes, then felt for bumps. He found one, and his fingers came back slickened with blood.
The hero swore, and threw his pouch open before digging through it hurriedly, pushing past some strange and some familiar weapons, searching for a potion, bandages, anything. His chest was tight and he could barely suck in air, but the cause wasn't the smoke in the atmosphere. Though Sheik seemed to be quite aloof, he obviously cared for Link's wellbeing. His first day in the past had not even ended yet, but already he was starting to consider Navi and Sheik his friends. He prayed to the Goddesses that the injury wasn't too severe. Finding nothing of any practical use in his pouch, Link unsheathed the Master Sword, determined to at the very least wrap a makeshift bandage from his tunic's cloth around Sheik's head before moving him.
As he bound the wound securely Sheik finally began to stir.
"Hero, what…"
"Look, Link, it's coming back!" Navi warned.
Link wondered how she could know, but when he looked up, he saw that the beast had at last revealed itself to them. A huge cloud of black smoke, somehow more sinister than its gray counterpart, twisted and writhed in the air. It soon noticed it had drawn Link's attention and then it began to charge at him, diving so fast the wind screamed around it.
The hero rose, stepping away from Sheik to spare him from the crossfire. He brandished the Master Sword threateningly. This was a very bad idea, and probably hopeless—but he had never let that stop him before.
Out of the corner of his eye Link spotted Sheik reaching for him. The hero would never know what Sheik had intended to do because at that moment the black smoke engulfed Link, cutting him off from Sheik, Navi, Kakariko, everything.
All sensation in his body slowly leeched away. The scratch of smoke in his throat, the spiked warmth of his skin from the fire and activity, the press of cool metal in his hand, the thudding pain from his leg, all gone. His legs would not support him; he went down hard, but he was far beyond pain. He was far beyond anything. It was as if the creature was nothingness incarnate; a shadow, in denial of the light. In denial of existence. And Link was trapped inside of it. He felt his lungs quiver and fail, his heart giving a few sluggish throbs before it gave up. Dimly he felt that he should be very afraid, but he couldn't muster up enough willpower to care.
Wetness dripped onto his face. Tears? Why was he crying?
Link opened his eyes, not knowing when he had closed them. The sky over Kakariko Village was dark, but the rain seemed to be helping quench the fires. Not tears, then. Rain. The soldiers were working together now, snuffing out the now significantly smaller flames with bedcovers, rugs, and horse blankets. A windmill spun in the background. Link stared at it, watching as it twirled in an endless, frantic circle.
"…It looks like you're coming around." Sheik was sitting beside him.
He then stood, offering his hand. Link accepted the aid wordlessly, and together they hobbled towards the edge of the village. Two or three buildings still stood, one being Kakariko's inn. Unlike the homes and shops closer to the well, where Link assumed the monster had emerged from, these buildings were miraculously all but unscathed. It seemed that the people had all elected to remain together inside the inn; even from this distance Link could see the candles burning in the windowsills, hear the chatter leaking out from under the door. Someone had thought to tie Epona's reins to a nearby trough, though the water it had once housed had been used to fight the fires earlier that day. She perked up and neighed at their approach, before bending her neck back down to nibble at the grass.
When Sheik, Link, and Navi entered the inn there was a brief, shocked silence, before the villagers erupted with a barrage of questions, everyone talking at once, struggling to have their question heard above all the others, just like when they first arrived.
When Link remained silent and numb, Sheik took over, explaining that the monster had been driven back for now and that they would deal with it for good on the morrow. That seemed to satiate most of them, and they returned back to their respective meals and conversations. Once they knew the hero was on the job, they were able to relax. A few people still lingered, demanding further information about the monster, but Sheik dismissed them with a glare. He led Link over to a table near the back, away from most of the others. Link's body and mind felt as if they were stuck in molasses; his limbs were slow to respond, his thoughts gooey and incomprehensible.
A barmaid approached them instantly, and burdened their table with a hearty meal and mead. The food looked fresh and wonderful, but Link's stomach roiled with nausea. He took a few small bites of the mashed potatoes and nibbled briefly at the beef—it all tasted like ash in his mouth—before giving up, pushing his plate towards the center of the table.
But Sheik wasn't having any of that.
"You must eat." He insisted, pushing the full plate back towards Link.
Link pursed his lips and shook his head, and began to stand up. Sheik was fast, though; before Link was even fully out of his chair Sheik was firmly forcing him back into it, unrelenting hands pushing down on Link's shoulders.
Sheik returned to his seat as well. The two of them glared at each other, neither willing to give in.
"Eat." He ordered, again. Link denied him with a shake of his head. "Stop being such a child. I do not doubt that what that shadow did to you, whatever it was, was terrible, but dwelling upon it serves no use. Now, eat. Or am I going to have to force feed you in front of all these people? I am not bluffing; I will, if I must."
Sheik's eyes glinted, and Link knew the man was not lying. He struggled to clear his throat. Monsters that he had faced during his own personal quest rarely provoked quite a strong reaction from him. If he could just explain what that creature was, how it thought, Sheik would not find him childish. He would sympathize, he would understand, if only Link's damned vocal chords would start working again.
"What is that monster doing in here?" A man thundered, his anger punctuated by the crash of his chair to the floor as he stood. The entire inn froze, watching on as the man stalked over to a secluded table, one of the few not illuminated by the candlelight. The man grabbed one of its occupants by the scruff of his shirt, dragging him into the light. It was one of the red-haired boys Link had seen earlier. The lad trembled in the man's grip. Some of the boy's relatives came up to flank him, all rather small and unimpressive. Nevertheless, they drew up their fists without fear. The remaining family members placed themselves protectively in front of the table.
"Listen to me, please, he's not a monster, he's not a monster!" The first boy babbled, his hands held up in surrender. "He's just been cursed, our whole family was cursed for our greed, but we've learned, we know better now, but the curse just hasn't been lifted from him yet. He just needs some time. Please, I'm telling you, it's not what you think."
"That's just what you want us to believe. How stupid do you think we are? I saw that thing—" He stabbed his finger towards the table. "—over there with my own two eyes. You thought you were very clever eh, very clever indeed. Thought if you just kept quiet in the corner no one would notice the monster you had on the table. But for all we know, that thing probably helped that smoke bastard destroy our town!"
The people started to mutter amongst themselves. The boy tried to twist out of the hold, crying denials, to no avail.
"And furthermore," The man continued, cords standing out on his neck, face flushed with fury. "I want to know exactly how those fires got started. The smoke monster didn't emerge from the well until well after the fires destroyed almost all the town! It had to have some spies on the inside!"
"Let us see the creature!" Someone cried.
"Why are you hiding it, if you're not working with the monster?"
"Where were you when the fires started?"
"Yeah, yeah, let's see the thing on the table. If you're telling the truth you've got nothing to worry about, right?"
The crowd was starting to turn nasty, and Link needed to stop this altercation before it got any more out of hand and blows were traded. He started to stagger towards the front of the inn, Sheik coming to his side to support his steps.
But before Link could get too far, one of the red-heads tried to grab for his restrained family member, and the villager snapped out a mighty punch, hard enough to send him stumbling back, hard enough to draw blood.
Green blood.
Oh Din.
"They're all monsters! All of them!" A woman's shrieks were the catalyst for an all-out brawl.
The family did their best to dodge the onslaught of attacks headed their way, gliding across the room like nimble spiders on their webs. But soon enough they were caught and captured, pummeled viciously to the hard wooden floor. A few men had managed to secure the half-skulltula, half-man, and were yanking at its legs, the poor thing's scream like a dagger through Link's mind.
"Enough!" Link ordered, shaking off Sheik to place himself in the thick of the chaos. "Leave them alone, now."
The townsfolk obeyed slowly, begrudgingly, and Link felt his right hand prickle at the surge of power, but he chose not to dwell on it. Right now, controlling this crowd and fixing the damage that had been done took priority over all else. How had everything managed to get so out of hand in a matter of minutes?
"These people are Hylians, just as you and I are. The only difference between us and them is that they were unfortunate enough to be cursed, like one of you might be unfortunate enough to catch a cough. They have lived peacefully beside you for years, I'm sure, and have never attempted to harm you in any way. I understand that you are angry. I understand that you are afraid. Your homes and livelihoods have just been wiped out by that foul creature, and you're trying to place the blame upon someone because you cannot confront the monster itself. So please, calm down. This is not how civilized Hylians act. Now someone please get some bandages for these people."
Throughout his speech, Link watched with relief as the villagers' anger gave way to awareness and shame. Some people started to lift the family members up off the floor and into booths, and several of the women had scuttled away to who knows where to locate medicines.
Link approached the disfigured skulltula, who had been gently placed back on top of the table. The hero frowned at his harsh breathing, the streaks of green running down his body like tiny rivers. The skulltula-man's eyes flickered up to him, questioning.
"I will heal you," Link vowed, nearly overcome by emotion. He understood the misery of being cursed, the pain of being cast out from the presence of others.
"Thank you, oh thank you, bless you, may the Goddesses bless you." The cursed man started to weep.
Some of the family members approached them then, drying the skulltula-man's tears, tending to his wounds. Link left them in peace and rejoined Sheik, who had by then returned to their table.
"Why didn't you intervene?" Link's tone wasn't accusatory, simply curious.
"Because you needed to."
"I…" Link bent down a little to give him a grateful side-hug. Though Sheik stiffened and didn't reciprocate, he didn't pull away either. "Thank you, Sheik. Truly. I know it has been a long day, for all of us, but would you mind filling me in with what I've forgotten?"
"Only if you eat."
Link laughed, and picked up his fork. "Of course."
-TBC-