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undertheopensky · 5 months

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Life First

Whumptober Day 23: Alt #12 Broken

Characters: Four, Sky

Trigger warnings: Broken bones, violence to a child, (if you personally consider Four a child)

Read on Ao3!

Merry fucking Christmas.

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It sounds like a stick snapping beneath a thick layer of mud.

Four’s back arches, a high, wavering shriek caught behind his teeth. When he slumps, gasping and whimpering, only the whites of his eyes are visible below half-closed lids.

If there wasn’t razor steel at his throat Sky would have already lunged. As it is, he can feel his lips peeling away from his teeth in a snarl, and the tension running through him is definitely making the Yiga at his back sweat a little.

Good. They deserve much worse.

In a flash of red smoke the two grunts pinning Four down vanish. The blademaster, boot still pressed to Four’s thigh, remains, surveying his handiwork. “It’ll do,” he says at last, and steps back.

Four keens combined relief and agony. Sky twitches; feels hot blood run down his collarbone as the sickle grazes skin.

The blademaster laughs.

“Worry not - this is merely insurance. You’d never leave your friend behind, but there’s no way he’ll be able to keep up with you now. If you choose to carry him, you won’t be able to evade us, nor fight should you happen to come across your weapons. Can’t have you leaving before the real Hero shows up.”

Behind the featureless mask, the blademaster gives the impression of a self-satisfied smile.

“And if you do choose to abandon him… well. At least one of you will live to regret it.”

The next instant, he’s gone, along with the blade at Sky’s throat.

The choking clouds of scarlet don’t slow Sky down in the slightest. He ignores their acrid tang in favour of getting to Four, dropping to his knees so fast he nearly skins them, and fumbles for his hand, for some way of helping when he knows there’s nothing he can do.

Incredibly, Four clings back.

“It’s okay, I’m not leaving you, I won’t, we’ll be fine,” Sky says, over Four’s harsh panting.

Four opens his mouth, maybe trying to speak, but all that comes out is a strangled whimper.

“It’s okay,” Sky says again. Useless isn’t a feeling he appreciates; the Yiga had taken Fi, his bags, everything he could potentially have made a splint out of. They’d even taken his fucking sailcloth. “I’ll figure something out. You’ll be okay.”

Scanning the cell, he has to hope he’s not making a liar of himself. Unadorned stone blocks and heavy wood don’t offer much opportunity. Even if it didn’t look like it weighed as much as Koloktos, the gate had ‘clunked’ into place with the resonance of a lock sliding home, and Sky doubts either of them could fit through the narrow spaces between its palings.

He’s not gonna let that stop him, though. He squeezes Four’s hand again. “It’ll be alright. I won’t leave you. I won’t leave you to - whatever the fuck these fuckers -”

“Wha-wha-what’s stopping them, stopping them from doing it anyway? You-you-you need to get-get out of here, S-s-sky.”

Sky ignores this completely in favour of pulling off his overtunic. The white face, the chattering teeth, the stammer - was Four going into shock? Wasn’t there a massive blood vessel right by the bone in the leg? Fuck, he hopes Four isn’t bleeding out right in front of him, Sky thinks. Laying the tunic over Four’s torso as a makeshift blanket, he glances fruitlessly around the cell again, praying for inspiration.

“R-rope.”

Heart lurching, Sky quickly turns back to Four. “What’s that? I’m sorry, did I pull on you?” He starts trying to disentangle his hand, but Four’s tight grip doesn’t falter.

“N-no. The rope. Cut - cut the c-crossbar free.” Four points with one shaking hand.

The crossbar - on the gate, of course. The palings are held together by a long beam near the bottom, if Sky can cut it loose he might be able to force a gap wide enough to escape. Except -

“I don’t have anything sharp, they took all my weapons.” He scans the floor for loose rocks he could shape into a cutting edge.

“I - I do. Boot knife.”

That’s honestly not surprising. The smithy keeps half an armoury tucked away in various pockets; it would have been weirder if the Yiga hadn’t missed one. It sure as hell works in their favour now. “Where is it? Which foot?”

“Luh-left.”

Because of course the knife has to be in the boot on the broken leg. Sky grimaces. “Okay. I’m gonna move slow, okay?”

Sky definitely jostles him more than once working the knife free, though Four doesn’t so much as squeak through Sky’s whispered apologies. Sky squeezes his hand one last time before turning to the gate.

The rope is coarse and heavy, but any blade owned by Four is kept razor-sharp, and Sky makes steady progress sawing through key points. Near the edge, so the shadows half-hide it, in case of someone walking past - not that there’s been anyone since they were first dumped here. It seems like this area of the Yiga’s base isn’t well-travelled. Lucky for them.

Sky gets two logs free of the bar and starts wedging his foot and leg between them. If he can just work them another couple of inches apart -

But they’re thick and solid and not particularly given to movement. He has to stop, gasping for breath, before trying again, the force of it burning through his calf and his hip where his leg is cocked awkwardly out to the side. “Who designed this thing,” he hisses to himself, and braces for another go.

“S-sky,” Four gasps, and he abandons the attempt immediately in favour of scrambling back to him.

“What’s wrong, are you okay -” how can I help, he means but doesn’t ask, because how can he help, with no potions and no supplies?

Four takes a moment to gather himself, breathing shallow and hitched. “Luh-leverage. Y’need… leverage.” Struggling for words through the haze of pain. Sky takes a moment to check his pulse - a little fast, still strong, not too bad. “Th’ crossbar - use it - as a pry. Too strong.”

Sky considers. He’s making no progress as it is. And if he keeps enough of the rope intact -

Aha. “Got it,” he breathes, and moves back into action.

It’s a damn good thing no one’s come down here, because there’s no way they’d miss the mess that he makes of the gate - crossbar down, shreds of rope everywhere, and one serious trip hazard poking out the bottom while Sky wrestles it into place. At one end of it he’d left the rope and bulky knots attached so he can do what he’s doing now: throw his whole body weight into the other end of the rope, looped just once around a paling further down. As Four had said - he needed leverage, and this makeshift pulley system is going to give him that leverage.

Apparently he’d picked up more from Groose than he’d thought.

The rope groans worryingly. Sky hadn’t been entirely successful in leaving it undamaged as he pried it out of its knots; a couple times he’d had to shave the edges a bit to convince it to come free. He can only hope it holds long enough. It’d be a pretty useless pulley system without a connecting line, and he’s not quite ready to sacrifice his belt to the cause.

(He will, if it comes down to it. He’d just rather keep his pants on if at all possible.)

There’s another groan, and then a crack. Swearing, Sky falls back on his ass as the tension goes out of the rope - fuck, he’s gonna wind up doing this escape in just his tunic, isn’t he -

Wait, no. The crack had been the paling giving way. Eager and apprehensive in equal measure, Sky studies the new hole.

It’s… not ideal. The log had broken low, less than a foot off the ground. If he crawls, gets his shoulders low where the gap is widest, Sky can just make it through. But there’s no way Four will be able to do the same, not with his leg busted up. Sky will have to drag him. But would he survive that?

In truth, Sky’s been trying not to think about it. As he worked on the door he’d been wracking his brain for what he remembered about broken legs, and it had just made him more anxious. He’s sure that Four is okay right now - he’s in pain, but breathing steadily, shock staved off temporarily - but that’s going to change as soon as he moves him. In fact, without a splint or something to keep his leg steady, moving him could well kill him.

(But leaving him here would be worse.)

“Four,” Sky says, slipping back to his prone form and taking his hand, “Four, I cracked the gate, there’s a hole now.”

“G-good. Get out of here, S-s-sky.”

Despite his stubborn words - Four’s frightened. It’s in the white of his eyes and his gritted teeth and his knuckles where he clings to Sky’s hand. As his mouth says leave me and everything else says don’t leave me.

“Four, I need you to listen to me, and listen all the way through,” Sky says, unyielding. “Can you do that?”

If Four’s in too much pain to focus – if Sky has to make this decision and then live with the consequences –

Four grunts and cracks one eye. Still clear, still alert.

“Your leg is bad, but holding for now. If I move you, it could kill you. If you don’t want to risk it, and you can swear to me that’s the only reason, I’ll leave you here - briefly - and come back with healing supplies as soon as I can.”

Four opens his mouth, probably to argue; Sky ploughs on.

“If I carry you out of here, it’s a straight run to the exit, as fast as I can make it - we’ll have to come back for our gear, because as soon as I disrupt whatever’s going on in there –” he waves a hand at Four’s leg, disconcertingly swollen – “we’re on a time limit. And if we don’t make it out within that time limit, and find help, you’re going to die. I won’t do that to you without your say so.”

“S’not safe,” Four says. “I’ll just – s-slow you down. Be quicker – if you run without me – an’ get help.”

“There is no option that involves me leaving you behind in this hellhole,” Sky says frankly.

Making a frustrated noise, Four thumps his head against the floor. “Why not – jus’ carry me – t’our gear – an’ heal up there? I know – I’ve got – ‘nough potions – t’ deal with this.”

“Because I remember the way out, but I don’t know where they took our things,” Sky says. “And I don’t know if I could find them in time before –” his throat closes over. Before you bleed out.

Four grunts again. He doesn’t say anything this time, though, and seems to be genuinely thinking it over. Heart in his throat, Sky waits.

He tries one last time to convince him. “S’not safe. Y’d have a – better chance – if y’left me – behind.”

“You know damn well that’s not gonna happen.”

Four whines and flexes his hands like he’d like to strangle him. Then, finally:

“F-fine.”

He takes another shuddering breath; Sky squeezes his hand.

“Take me with you. Let’s get the f-fuck out of here.”

“You got it, buddy,” says Sky.

First is the awkward operation of getting them both out. Sky has to move Four to the exit, as close as possible, then wiggle through himself before reaching back to drag Four through. “This’ll hurt,” Sky warns him.

Four’s already shoving his leather-covered forearm in his mouth, so his response comes out slurred. “Jus’ ge’ on wi’ it.”

Sky grits his teeth, makes sure his hands are secure in Four’s armpits, and heaves.

Four’s howl is muffled by the bracer.

It’s not far to go, thank the goddesses. Sky tries to make it happen in one smooth motion and doesn’t quite manage. But he gets Four’s shoulders close enough to the gap, then very awkwardly crawls over the top of him to wiggle through first. Four’s too preoccupied with trying to breathe to notice Sky doing his best not to knee him in the face.

Time or even Warriors would not have fit through the hole – even Sky had had to worm his shoulders through at an uncomfortable angle. It’s a good thing Four’s even smaller. Sky rolls out his shoulder, grimacing at the twinging complaints – nothing pulled, just cranky. He’s fine.

Now for the hard part.

Sky gets back down on his belly – there’s no other way to reach in – and touches Four’s shoulder. Damn, how is he going to get a decent hold from this angle? “Hey. Brace yourself.”

Again, Four’s scream of pain is stifled in thick leather. Sky cringes, both at knowing he’s causing his brother such agony and at the way the noise echoes off the stone. They can’t stay undetected forever, but the longer they can go –

No use worrying about it. They’re both out of that cell, even if Four’s weeping through gritted teeth at what it took to get them there. Sky gently tugs Four’s wrist free of his teeth to start pulling him over his shoulder.

Shuddering, Four tries to wave him off. “S-stop, wait, gimme a minute –”

“We don’t have a minute,” says Sky, implacable, and hauls Four up.

This time, his shriek weakly peters out. He’s still breathing – Sky can feel the unsteady puffs against his shoulder – but that last effort had been too much for Four. He’s out.

In all honesty, it’s probably best this way. Sky can pin Four’s broken leg against his chest to minimise jostling, without worrying about if it was hurting him.

He just hopes he stays unconscious until they’re well clear of the hideout.

With Four’s body locked in place over his shoulders Sky sets off. He doesn’t know what’s down the corridor to the left and can’t risk it being a dead end, so he heads right, back the way they’d come. Even then, his anxiety rises – he can see the end of it from here, blank and shadowed and featureless, but he swears they’d come this way, there has to be a door or something.

Then, as he comes level with it, a gap in the stone opens up. There’s nothing – magical, or mechanical about it. It was just hidden by perspective and the careful shadows. If it’s all like this he’s going to have to be so careful –

At the peak of the stairs, Sky pauses.

Here the passage turns from stone to wood, wrapping around the second floor of a cavernous room like a balcony – and he can hear metal on metal and grunts of exertion. Cautiously, he peers over the railing.

Down below, half a dozen Yida foot soldiers are sparring. They’re using the sickles Sky is already familiar with and another, full-circle spiked razor of a thing to practice lethal-looking strikes. Even as he watches, one of them muffs a parry and yelps when blood is drawn.

None of them are looking up, and he’d like to keep it that way.

There’s no way they can look like they’re meant to be here, so their best bet is to not be spotted at all. Fortunately the balcony is heavily shadowed, and by sticking to the far wall and moving in a low profile, Sky can avoid attracting notice. He creeps along the edges, trying not to flinch at every crash and ‘ha!’, and nearly has heart failure when an archer teleports onto the top of a nearby platform. Luckily, their back is turned, and they just fire off a few arrows for their fellows to dodge before vanishing again. Sky breathes a sigh of relief and slips out the door.

This next set of stairs, he remembers, open up straight onto the floor of another room. A single, central pillar built up out of wood sits in the middle. He has no idea what it’s for and also doesn’t care, except that he can’t see if the room is clear, and he can’t exactly stand around waiting. Sky gets as far as the pillar itself and cautiously peers around it – and scrambles back just in time to avoid the huge katana that slashes down.

Sky backs away as the blademaster rounds the wooden tower. “You know, I was just thinking to myself,” he remarks, almost conversationally. “If we’re being technical – we don’t even need you alive, really. Your bodies will make a good enough lure.” He raises his weapon for a strike.

Sky can see the path the greatsword will take – observes the ripple of magic along the blade – sidesteps, and lets the razor’s edge of both blaze past him. He doesn’t give the blademaster a chance to recover – as soon as the blow passes he’s racing forward. If he wasn’t carrying Four he’d use the solid force of his shoulder to drive the wind out of them, but instead he sidesteps a grab, feints back, and as he darts back the other way to get past he slams his leg up.

He’ll have a bruise later – his shin had made contact with something too solid to be anything except a protective cup – but for now it doesn’t matter. The blademaster crumples and Sky has a clear shot to the stairs.

No point trying for stealth anymore. Sky takes them two at a time, feeling the burn in his thighs, and hits the landing at a dead run. Round the corner, over the bridge, flashes of colour through the railings –

Hanging floor to ceiling, a tapestry blocks the corridor. For a second panic wells – had he forgotten a corner, gotten turned around, were they lost trapped captured again – before Sky spots the edges fluttering in a breeze he can’t feel and the faint glow of firelight from behind it and remembers –

He doesn’t hesitate, just ducks to the side so the brocade can’t tangle around them, and they’re in a circular room lined by stairs and identical tapestry-covered passages and which one which one he remembers a shift to the right and angles left and thank the goddesses the first tapestry he pulls aside has dunes of gathered sand and the taste of desert ozone.

Scarlet smoke and laughter. Out of time. But – if it had to be anywhere –

Sky leaps back from the exit in time for the heavy fabric to flap back in the face of an archer who’d just teleported in. Others poof into existence, strips of paper fluttering down, and start to circle, to cut off any escape. Backing up, step by step, Sky passes through the line of braziers, and hesitates on the central pedestal as if realizing he had nowhere to run. The raised platform gives him a good vantage point, lets him count masked faces peering up at him – at least eight, maybe more, jeering gleefully as they crowd closer.

Sky waits, tense and ready, until one draws their bowstring back – then he whirls, one leg extended, and sends embers scattering all around the room.

There are screams of surprise and pain. The effect is the same: every Yiga scrambling away from the bite of the flames, while Sky runs through them, unafraid.

The base itself is hewn from stone, but there are enough flammable objects in the antechamber alone to keep them busy. Sky’s gone to the chill place in his heart where only the next few seconds matter, the place that had kept him alive when all he wanted to do was lie down and die. It doesn’t matter that the fire is a short-lived distraction, doesn’t matter that they’ll catch up all too soon – for the next few seconds, all that matters is there’s no hands reaching for him, no weapon’s edges near enough to harm.

The searing heat of desert wind has never felt so much like triumph.

Stone floor gives way to sand. Sky takes a moment to be thankful the Yiga had left them their boots – they’re not even in the sun yet and he can feel the heat of it even through the leather.

Though burning hot, the sand’s not as deep as he’d expected. There’s even bare patches where rock’s been blasted clean, presumably by the wind screaming through the canyon. Darting between them gives Sky a brief reprieve from trying not to slip on the sand, gives him a solid platform to push off from and gain a few precious yards of distance.

As the canyon narrows and closes in Sky’s showered with grit from above – more sand, tossed off the peaks by the wind. He’s got no hands free to shield his eyes so all he can do is duck his head and run through it. Then the path diverges and Sky has to hesitate because he doesn’t remember this, the trip had gone in nauseating flashes of teleportation but he only remembers long and near-featureless stone walls so which way which way –

Down, it had to be down, the left is too open and flat and he’d remember passing quite so many creepy frog statues on their way in, and there’s the slim possibility of cover in the various ledges and outcrops. Up til now the canyon’s offered nothing, and while Sky can’t risk stopping and hiding, he’ll take the opportunity to break line of sight.

He heads down.

Four stirs as he passes the first ledge. His head tilts against the pull of gravity as Sky stumbles.

“Sorry, sorry,” Sky whispers, and his footing fails again and they both jolt with it. “I’m sorry, Four, we’re nearly there, just a little longer –”

He just makes a noise too soft to be a groan and goes still again.

Sky wishes he could spare a hand to check Four’s pulse.

There’s no bare spots now. The sand’s gotten deep, caught between the tall stone walls, and it’s real work for Sky to keep up the pace. At least this is mostly downhill, he thinks, though the slope is too shallow for – oh, nice, as they pass under an outcrop the rock walls start to drop away, and the sand does too. There must be a supporting shelf underneath that the cliffs spring up from, and without it, sand tumbles away in a steep dune that would be awful to climb in this heat.

But Sky’s not climbing today. Making sure Four is still secure, still breathing, Sky steps forward onto the looser sand. One leg stays loose, to push and to steer; the other he locks at the knee, and slides down the sand like his own foot is a sled. The more distance they can get the better – without supplies, the heat of the desert will wear him down fast. Not to mention the still-pursuing Yiga.

A flash of smoke; Sky’s duck sends him skidding forward and the sickle aimed at his shoulder misses completely. The sand makes him fumble. He tries to stand, slips and falls to one knee, stands, takes two sweeping strides and almost falls again. Fuck sand.

Fortunately it’s also hampering the Yiga. The one he’d dodged is still tumbling down the sand dune some fifty yards away now, and a second who’d teleported in had, after firing a poorly-aimed arrow, immediately fallen over with a shriek when gravity reasserted itself.

Sky would probably find it funnier if not for his brother potentially bleeding out over his shoulders.

Still, their inability to find their feet means they’re following the slope of the dune. Sky angles off, pointing himself in the direction of a stone pillar-monument looking thing. Even a few seconds out of the sun will help though nothing can be done for the way his heart is thundering –

He’s far too close when a silhouette separates itself from the shadows at the base of the pillar. Sky kicks up a whirl of sand, hoping to blind them for a few precious seconds –

His eyes catch on blonde and indigo and his brain goes !!!

“Wild!” he blurts out, coming full circle and blinking in disbelief. Wild isn’t wearing the heat-resistant silks – it’s a dark-coloured bodysuit similar to the Yiga, which was why Sky’s instincts had reacted the way they did. His silhouette is near-identical, except his hair is pinned in a bun instead of a scruffy topknot. “You, what, how did you find us? No, wait, nevermind, we need to get to Hyrule now –”

Say what you wanted about Wild’s recklessness and mischief. In an emergency, he’s all business, and quick on the uptake besides. He hooks an arm around the spot Sky is gripping Four’s wrist, so they’re both in contact with him, and taps at the Slate.

They dissolve into blue light.

#whumptober 2023 #linked universe #lu four #lu sky #lu fic #skies writes #featuring first aid for complete fucking morons #DO NOT DO WHAT SKY DID HERE #if nothing else he should have torn up the tunic and used it to tie four’s legs together #not ideal but definitely better than what ACTUALLY happened #if you spot any typos please tell me bc i typed most of this on my phone with no formatting #tumblr ate my formatting and i’m cranky

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