#catch me once again only hinting at emotional closure but not actually providing it :D
Note
Fierce deity wars aftermath? :o (I'm sorry if this comes across as demanding or rude, was just excited to see the fic and was curious how what happened after might go, it was really good!)
this isn't rude at all, my friend! i'm flattered you enjoyed my fic enough to ask for a follow-up! thank you ;w;
this picks up right where the previous one left off (here's the first part)
"Injuries?"
"Nothing major."
Voices drift through the dreamless void, which clings to Warriors like cobwebs: wispy, malleable, adhesive.
"Is he awake?"
"Maybe. Not aware, at any rate."
The words seem insubstantial, impossible to grasp, like specks of light.
"Captain? Can you hear me?"
"Time to wake up, Pretty Boy."
Like a borealis, the voices shimmer above him. Though tangible, they shy from his reach.
Warriors concentrates on forcing his eyes open, and his lashes scrape against red cotton.
"Hey, Captain? You with us?"
The stench of death saturates the air, so he must still be on the battlefield. He tries to lift his head, to see his surroundings, but all he glimpses is red.
"Hey. Pretty Boy. You awake?"
Still, he pieces it together by feel. His side is pressed against someone. His head is lolling on their shoulder. Their arm is around his back, fiercely gripping his sleeve.
"Captain, can you look at me?"
He's being held. Huh. That's a nice feeling, being held. Safe. His eyes begin to slip closed again.
"No, Captain. Stay awake. Look at me."
Always one to obey orders, he drags his head around a fraction, searching for the source of the voice. His vision is blurry, but he can see a green tunic, brown hair. The Traveler.
Something cool brushes against his hand. Glass. A bottle. His fingers automatically hook around it. Something warm wraps around his hand, affixes it in place.
"Drink this for me, okay?"
Warriors' bones are infused with lead. He watches the Traveler guide the potion to his mouth, but his body won't cooperate. His throat muscles seize, and he coughs out the liquid. It speckles across the red tunic he's cuddled up against.
"Don't make him choke!" someone outside his line of vision squawks. That's the Sailor. He knows the little Sailor's voice.
"Sorry," Hyrule laments, and cups a hand under Warriors' chin, tilts his head back. Tries again with the bottle.
This time, Warriors downs two gulps before his throat locks up and he coughs out the rest of it.
"You're getting my tunic wet." A gripe, but the grip on his arm tightens, protective. The Vet. That's the Vet, holding him. Red tunic. Right.
A thought emerges from his mental haze. Twilight. Hadn't he been with Twilight? Warriors wishes he could ask, but he's so tired. He closes his eyes again, sinks back into the void where his friends' voices echo around him. It reminds him of being trapped in the Great Fairy's bottle, the way everything is muffled and obscured and looming.
Warriors lets their voices wash over him, idly picking out words when he can and examining them like puzzles in need of solving.
"There's caves that way, half a mile or so."
"He can't walk."
"I can carry him."
"No. Traveler's magic may have stitched your wounds up, but your body still needs time to recover."
"Here, I can do it."
There are hands on him, and he's getting shifted around, and he wishes he could move. Instead, he completely retreats to the empty dark space in his head.
Then the concept of time becomes as ephemeral and elusive as his friends' voices around him.
Sometimes when Warriors opens his eyes, there's sunlight, and sometimes there's only the hazy glow of embers or the flicker of a lantern. He can't shrug off the mental mire that pins him down, can't ever keep his eyes open long enough to fully process where he is or what's going on.
That would feel more disconcerting if not for the constant, comforting presence of his friends. One of them is always right at his side when he wakes. The little Sailor, snuggled against him. Sky, carving wooden figurines. Four, polishing weapons. Even as he slides back into the dreamless dark, he feels safe.
That is, until the dark stops being dreamless.
Memories begin to unravel before him, unspooling into formless shapes and colors. At first, all he can see is blood-drenched chaos; he hears dying screams and clanking weapons, smells copper and iron. Slowly, the memories come into focus, draw together into distinct scenes. He can distinguish certain moments: a lizalfos sliced in half at the waist; a darknut's chopped-off head thunking to the dirt; a bulbin slipping on spilled moblin guts as it tries to run, then shrieking as it gets skewered.
These memories aren't his, per se; they belong to his body. His body, which he can see morph into someone else's. His hands, which are someone else's hands, brandishing a double-helix sword that cuts through monsters with no resistance.
Although Warriors has witnessed much more gruesome atrocities, these memories steep him with burgeoning unease. The violent images burrow under his skin like termites, boring tunnels into him from the inside out, as he watches them play in a loop, over and over. They continuously reignite in the dark like poe lanterns, haunting and undead.
Oblivion shifts from a refuge to a prison. Warriors starts to jolt awake with startled gasps, his terror wrenching him back into consciousness. In these moments, he often finds Time next to him, stroking his hair, murmuring soothing platitudes that Warriors can't hear over his pounding heart.
Once, he lurches awake with a shout, wide-eyed and shuddering as detailed visions of massacre still float through his head. Time gently shushes him, tucks him back into his bedroll, and pulls out the banged-up wooden ocarina he used to play as a child.
Warriors curls up on his side, hearing the distant whispers of rainfall beneath the unfamiliar melody that Time plays. The tune is wistful and haunted, layered with tragedy, like its player. But it massages away the tension rigidifying Warriors' muscles, calms the frantic adrenaline buzzing through his system. When he falls asleep, he doesn't dream anymore.
- - -
Sighing with relief, Warriors slumps back against the door. The past few days, he's managed to stay awake for longer and longer stretches, but constant fatigue still holds him hostage. Finding a town with an inn feels like a miracle, and even though he could easily collapse right here on the floor, he is eager to finally sleep in a real bed.
With effort, he straightens and shrugs off his shield, sword, and bags, depositing them by the nearest bed. The weight of his equipment has never felt so burdensome before; he's concerned that this debilitating exhaustion is atrophying his muscles and permanently docking his stamina.
But like every thought lately, he can't keep hold of his concerns for too long. They slip away from him, and he gladly lets them go, concentrating instead on the unnecessarily arduous task of shucking all his armor.
As he loosens the leather bracers on his arms, Warriors absently scans the compact rented room, which only contains two twin beds and a shabby dresser. He blinks at the dresser mirror, freezing as he registers his reflection.
Armor temporarily forgotten, Warriors strides across the tacky rug and splays his hands on the dresser. Most mornings, he spends what the others consider an unreasonable amount of time fawning over his hair in his hand mirror—personally, he thinks none of them spend enough time on making themselves presentable—but lately, he's forgone that ritual, only casting cursory glances at his reflection to ensure he's not overwhelmingly unkempt.
He hasn't gotten a proper look at himself in days, which is why the sight of the mask's red and blue brands give him such a shock.
Though their colors have already begun to fade, the sharply angled lines remain prominent. No wonder the other heroes, who have been treating him delicately, like he's liable to break, can't look at him without staring at those marks. What do they think, when they see them?
Warriors find them abhorrent. Finds that looking at them triggers unease and discomfort and nausea.
He turns away from the mirror and resumes removing his armor, gracelessly dumping it on the floor and topping the pile with his sloppily folded scarf. As he flops onto the bed, he sighs again, the relief of getting off his feet immediate and encompassing. The mattress is thin and there's a rogue spring jutting into his lower back, but goddesses, does it feel good to lie down.
Lazily, he drapes an arm over his eyes to block out the afternoon sunshine filtering in through the flimsy curtains. He doesn't feel sleepy, exactly, doesn't feel like he'll get dragged into unconscious oblivion like he was for several days right after donning the mask, but he truly is exhausted.
Physical exertion, sparse as it's been, contributes to Warriors’ fatigue. Progress across this Hyrule has been slow; the distance the heroes have covered over the past few days could be crossed, under normal circumstances, in half the time.
Warriors didn’t even walk for much of that distance. He couldn’t. Along with his sluggishness, his legs wobbled like a newborn deer’s and his sense of balance was skewed. Wind continually remained next to him, catching him when he stumbled and preventing him from toppling over.
When walking became too infeasible (and he was too tired to care about pride and dignity), he'd ride Epona. By that point, he'd usually feel so weak and shaky that he would require a boost from Twilight just to mount the horse, and from there it was a perpetual struggle to stay upright.
Fortunately, he's steadier now, able to walk without feeling constantly on the verge of collapse, but the fact that he is not okay is tremendously self-evident.
He hears the door to his room open and close, but he doesn't bother uncovering his eyes. He's certain it's just whoever decided to room with him this time—probably Wind or Legend—dropping their belongings off before venturing into town.
A lengthy moment passes before he recognizes the sound of heavy plate armor clinking. Moving his arm a fraction, he peeks out to see Time shedding his armor, setting it aside with more care than Warriors had mustered.
Warriors blinks in surprise. Time is the last person he expected to see here.
The other heroes' behavior around the Captain is subdued, and they speak to him quietly, like he's an animal prone to startle. They act so sad, he thinks now. Like they're grieving. Like they've lost something.
But Time... He was there for those horrid days when Warriors was drifting in and out of consciousness, trapped in nightmares, but ever since then, he's kept a distance. He won't even look at Warriors most of the time.
It would be unfair for Warriors to be bothered by that, though. Like a coward, he's been reciprocating the cold shoulder treatment, because he can't bear it.
He can't bear thinking about his little Sprite using that cursed mask. How old was the kid when he first used it? And what was the aftermath like for him? Was he alone? Did he have someone to comfort him through the nightmares? To help him walk or tend his wounds?
How many times has Time used this mask for those marks to permanently smirch his face?Is the aftermath of using the mask always this dreadful? What if it's not, because Time has gotten used to the effects of the damn thing?
And if Warriors feels so strange after what must have been mere minutes with the mask on—if he feels like his very essence has been ripped apart and reassembled—if he feels like some of his pieces are missing, or that now there is something new inside him, something he can't quite identify or describe—then how must Time feel, having used the mask for decades?
How does it feel to sacrifice yourself over and over, to let an inconceivable power destroy and rebuild you however it pleases, and then carry that weight alone?
With his armor off, Time turns around and catches Warriors' gaze. His neutral expression doesn't change. "I thought you'd be asleep by now."
Warriors breaks eye contact, repositioning his arm over his eyes. Coward. "I thought you'd be making sure the kids don't set the town ablaze."
"I'm sure the Rancher can handle it."
For some reason, this statement pricks at Warriors' heart. "I know he's your favorite, Old Man, but don't misplace your faith. He can be as much of a troublemaker as the rest of them."
After a long stretch of quiet, Warriors feels the thin mattress sink. He peers under his elbow to see Time sitting at the foot of his bed, leaning forward, elbows on knees. Hands folded, he's looking at the opposite wall, expression still deliberately blank. "Is that what you think?"
"Yeah, I do. Didn't you hear his arson story?"
Time huffs a soft, startled laugh. "No, I meant...you believe he's my favorite?"
Warriors shifts, pulls his arm away from his face. "Well, yeah? It's not up for debate, is it? It's obvious."
"Hmm." Time looks down at his hands, and his mouth flickers between a slight smile and slight frown before settling on the latter. When he speaks again, it's stilted, like a formal recitation. "Captain, I owe you an apology. I've left you to deal with the mask's effects by yourself."
Dragging himself to a sitting position, Warriors says, "That's not true..."
He's suddenly struck by a vague memory of a recent night where he fell asleep as soon as the heroes found a campsite. Tired beyond caring, Warriors had promptly slid off Epona and settled in the dirt a few paces from the horse. Prone on his stomach, he pillowed his head with his arms, despite his bracers digging into his cheeks.
Later, Time roused him, herding him upright. He was still half-asleep, struggling to keep his eyes open, as Time worked on taking off his protective gear piece by piece. Warriors' chainmail had pressed grooves into his torso; it was a relief to have someone else guide the heavy armor over his head and set it aside.
"Come to your bedroll," Time had said softly, and he ushered Warriors into his sleeping mat, which lie ready and waiting. Exponentially more comfortable now, Warriors had dropped off to sleep almost instantly, but still, he registered Time gently tucking the blankets around him.
Weary, Time sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. "It is true. I've been selfish. I shouldn't have left you to figure this out on your own. I know how it feels. How...confusing it is. How strange it is, like your body isn't quite right anymore, or like you're not quite the same. How..."
He flexes his fingers, searching for his words, and a mournful look breaks through his stony facade. "How...broken it makes you feel."
After a silent, somber moment, Warriors shifts to sit next to Time, dropping his bare feet to the warped hardwood. The mattress creaks. He feels another damaged spring jabbing into him.
"I'm sorry that you've always had to handle this alone," Warriors says. A lump hardens in his throat, and he swallows. "I'm so sorry, Sprite."
Time looks at him then, really looks at him. Slowly scans the red and blue lines before re-locking eyes. He smiles, sad and small but genuine, and sets a hand on Warriors' shoulder. "I'm proud of you, you know. I've always been proud of you."
Warmth blossoms in his chest at the unexpected words, and Warriors has to turn away.
"Perhaps you should get some rest." The smile lingers in Time's voice. "We can talk when you wake up."
With Time's hand still on his shoulder, Warriors says, "I can stay up a little longer. I think we have a lot to talk about."
#catch me once again only hinting at emotional closure but not actually providing it :D#i gave time and wars a cute moment though#oh yeah ps. i like the idea that wars is a lil jealous of time and twi's relationship#like idk how true to character that is#but i like it#linked universe#linkeduniverse#lu#lu warriors#warriors#lu time#time#fanfic#anthem answers#anthem writes
87 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
