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There’s barely any time to move. No time to think. A warning shout will be useless, when the sound will fail to reach its intended destination fast enough, and then it will be too late.
But Wild leaps forward in the moment he sees the attack hurtling toward Twilight’s back unnoticed, and the seconds slow down for him, and suddenly there is enough time, just for him.
This has always been something that Wild is aware of. That in crucial moments of stress he finds that he can move faster than a cry, leap through space swifter than a drop of rain abandoning the heavens. That when he truly needs it, the minutes will warp and seconds will stretch themselves out for him, allowing him to slip between their beats.
It grants him opportunities to avoid damage and better land strikes on his enemies. The people who witness Wild fight like this have told him that in moments like these, he moves so fast his limbs become a blur in reality.
He focuses, now, the effort he expends in expanding the rhythm of time so minimal it is instinctual by this point – and the sounds of battle abruptly drop away. The world sharpens in focus like the whirring lens of a camera. Colors bend around him, and now he creates enough time for him to travel the distance, slotting himself between the bolts of magic and his friend’s unguarded back.
The first hit breaks his already over-taxed shield. The bolt ricochets to safely scorch the earth instead, but it’s the breaking of his shield that flings his arm wide out and almost knocks his balance off. While his ears fall deaf with the sound of glass splintering, Wild has a rather offhand thought to himself that he really should have listened to Hyrule’s nagging about keeping better track of the durability of his weapons.
The light emitted from the shards of his ruined shield also happens to blind him, but Wild has already inscribed the trajectories of the last two bolts into his heart, and he doesn’t require his eyes to guard someone he cares for. Without missing a beat, he twists in midair to catch them, sightless, so that the second strike is met with the blade he braces out in front of him –
Which holds for a miniscule, trembling moment, before giving out under the force. His gut plummets when he feels the weight suddenly drop away, the salvaged metal snapping in his hands, and there isn’t another chance to improvise. The bolt continues, forging onwards its path of destruction entirely unhindered.
His chest, fortunately, takes the impact better. Something crunches in his abdomen, creasing around whatever warning he could have sputtered out to his teammates. The spell punches through something soft, he thinks, and the rest of the energy disperses through him with an electric crackle, trapping the air in his lungs before he can gasp it out.
A dull ringing starts up in his ears. A gentle, all-consuming whooshing of static that wells up in his brain like the distant call of an old friend. He becomes aware at that moment that this is something that will be very difficult to mend.
The last bolt rams into him just as he reaches that conclusion, before he can brace himself for how it chews mercilessly through his body. The force sends him crumpling backwards, but most importantly, it spares Twilight behind him.
Having completed its purpose, his focus breaks apart. Time is allowed to resume its natural pace. The seconds pull themselves back to their correct spots, and – Wild chokes quietly, feeling a deluge of warmth soak through his front.
His legs fold beneath him, strength departing from his limbs so abruptly it was as though someone had pulled the plug on him. He ends up crashing into Twilight’s side, enough force in the attack that the momentum carries him, and manages one shaky grab for his friend’s gear straps before he continues on to hit the ground.
A strong arm wraps around his waist, halting his progress before he can make the painful impact with the ground. Wild thinks that Twilight must have finished with his portion of the enemy monsters, to have the free hand to catch him like this, but there doesn’t seem to be enough strength in his neck to lift his head and check the situation for himself.
“Wild…?” The confusion and horror in Twilight’s voice is painful to hear.
However, Wild finds that he’s far more occupied when the next inhale he tries to take comes in as a gurgle instead. He realizes belatedly that he has folded over Twilight’s arm like a dangling ragdoll, head hanging low and heavy so he can only watch his shirt and pants quickly become saturated with blood. It… hurts. Some sort of dull survival instinct pings in the back of his head. He has to put pressure on the wounds to staunch bleeding.
“Why, Wild… why–” Twilight is saying now, the sound of his voice warbling in and out like a radio inside a dream.
Even lifting his arms feels like a chore now. He can’t quite feel his legs anymore, but when the cool, uneven surface of the ground presses into his back Wild realises he must have been lowered to the ground. His concerns about staunching blood flow are shortly alleviated by Twilight when he does it for Wild, with the pelt of fur he rips from his shoulders to plug up Wild’s deeply bleeding wounds.
Wild makes a raw, throaty noise at that, seeing stars eat up his vision like greedy maggots. It hurts, it feels like his chest is being ripped apart. He wheezes, gurgles out something even though he doesn’t have the concentration to form actual words with his clumsy tongue, and convulses against the dirt.
Twilight’s eyes go red-rimmed and damp. “Please don’t move, please Wild, I’m sorry – just –”
His hands have found the tenuous strength to make scrabbling motions at Twilight’s wrists, but Twilight has the sturdy, corded arms of a farmhand who wrestles oxen-goats as a pastime and Wild’s own are cold and shaking too hard. His hearing severs itself. His vision comes apart. He feels like he’s about to throw up.
There’s a burst of noise right above his head, and it takes a moment for Wild to pinpoint the sounds as Twilight’s voice. He’s never really heard the older hero sound like that before. All grief, all desperation. It sounds like Twilight is yelling for help.
Wild’s thoughts scatter when the pain swells and crests for a grey, staticky second. It stretches, like how the seconds do when Wild dodges attacks, but this time he isn’t prepared for how long it lingers, how long he’s left hanging in that deafening, obliterating agony. When he comes out of it, sweat is dotting his hairline and there’s cotton in his brain, something sticky bubbling up the back of his throat.
Someone brushes the hair back from his face – not Twilight – and Wild groggily shifts his eyes over to where Hyrule is, kneeling by his head with healing magic sparking at the fingertips.
Twilight’s hands are replaced by Hyrule’s smaller, daintier ones. There’s an awfully determined expression on Hyrule’s face as he begins to cast his spells. It’s a sort of determination fueled by desperation. Twilight stares at his shaking palms, soaked to the wrist in the blood of his comrade.
Wild’s eyes roll in their sockets, feeling weirdly loose in the aftermath of tensing up so much in pain. He registers belatedly the identifying signs of his other comrades gathered around the vicinity. The bright tones of Wind’s voice, filled with alarm. Four’s colorful tunic. Light glinting dully off Warrior’s armor, Sky’s quiet gasp. Though he isn’t sure when they’d gotten there, their presences are always a comforting thing.
He wants to tell Hyrule not to waste his magic on this. Wild knows already what kind of damage this is, and it isn’t an amount Hyrule can heal without burning himself out on an empty meter first.
Snippets of a frantic conversation catches on his flickering hearing, a few words managing to come through here and there.
“– so much damage–”
“– potions– … – can he even…”
“– a fairy–”
“– haven’t seen one since…”
The first ream of Hyrule’s spells sinks in, and it’s like a handful of raindrops in a vast ocean. Hyrule is going to spend everything on him at this point. Worried, Wild makes a grab for Hyrule and succeeds in loosely wrapping a few sticky fingers around his wrist.
That’s right – he’s never told them about Mipha, has he? Then again, it isn’t really something to bring up in casual conversation, nor a gift Wild makes a habit of taking for granted. Still, he should have told them, if only to spare his friends this panic.
Breathing is hard, his lungs refusing to pass anything but shallow, wet breaths that sounds more like he’s gargling something than actually taking in much-needed oxygen. Every laborious pull for air burns like broken glass is shredding up his insides. Hyrule looks to him for his actions and Wild wheezes pathetically, struggling to communicate his thoughts. It would’ve been easier, he thinks, if his hands weren’t so numb.
“D-dunh,” is all he gets out before that bubbling stickiness catches in his throat, and a cough bursts out of him.
Stars, but that hurts.
What’s worse, that first one sets off an escalating series of hacking, chest-rattling coughs he has no choice but to suffer through. Wild all but writhes in agony on the ground, feeling like a dying animal. Hands close over his arms and legs – the others must be holding him down so he doesn’t hurt himself even more by thrashing.
The world looks distinctly grey when it finally stops, not so much resolved the problem as Wild’s body had run out of energy to keep the fit going. Hyrule’s eyes are wide, now filled with distress, and also tears. Wild seems to have thoughtlessly coughed specks of blood all over his face and neck.
Things are blurring at the edges, losing definition. The taste of warm metal pools in his mouth, slipping out the corners when it overflows.
Someone has grabbed his hand and he feels them putting rings on his fingers, bracelets on his wrists, precious metal already warmed by another’s palm heat. “Live, you daisy-brained imbecile, keep breathing,” Legend is telling him scathingly, all the meanwhile continuing to transfer the HP-boosting, durability buffing relics on his hands over to Wild’s possession. “Don’t you dare…”
It’ll be okay, Wild tries to reassure him, blinking hazily. Things are starting to lose weight, slowly drifting further away from him.
Someone is shouting in his ears. The noise buzzes vaguely in his ear like a pigeon’s coo. Small calloused hands grab at his face, his collar, his hair, shaking badly. Wind’s tear-stricken face fills his vision. The young hero is yelling in his face, cursing at him not to close his eyes, stay awake, don’t even think about giving up on us –
Everything will be okay, Wild thinks fondly again, affection swelling in his chest even with a shattered rib cage, please don’t be scared.
Hyrule’s magic sputters out, someone yanking him away before he scrapes the bottom of his reserves and begins pulling from his own life force. The hero’s labors have yielded little change in the grand scheme of Wild’s injuries, but Wild appreciates the effort anyway, because Hyrule will always be kind in this way.
Ultimately, he is still dying, and all they need to do is let it go through. It will be a waste of resources if they draw this out longer than it has to. Afterall, it’ll only take a moment. A heartbeat, then he’ll be back, all fixed. He knows this with the confidence of a hundred deaths laid behind him in his path.
Unfortunately, the others fail to pick up on his contentment with this outcome, and Wild feels himself get gathered up from the ground. The deadened nerves in his body, which has long ossified into horizontal placement against grass and pebbles, reawaken with excruciating vengeance to cry out in protest. There is no way he has the ability now to express this as his wrecked nervous system seems to want him to, however. All that comes out is a thin whine, pushed out around the blood in his throat as he’s supported against an armored chest.
“I know, Wild, I know, I’m sorry it hurts,” Time murmurs softly to him, looking so terribly sad as he braces Wild’s neck with a hand behind his skull. In his other hand is a small glass vial. “I need you to try to drink this.”
You don’t have to, Wild tries to tell him. Don’t waste it on me, you can just let me go. I’ll take care of the rest.
But all he seems to be able to do is wheeze weakly into Time’s shoulder and let the man wipe the red drool from his chin. His face is cupped by gentle hands and though his eyes seem to be slowly failing him, Wild will recognize Sky’s tenderness anywhere.
“Just try, okay? Please–“ Sky’s voice wavers unsteadily. “We don’t – we don’t know what else to do.”
Glass is brought to his numb lips and liquid pours in and Wild tries. Even though it’ll only drag the agony out longer he tries because he doesn’t like to hear that fragile tremble in Sky’s whispered words, nor see the expression on Time’s face with all its pretty curse markings as he holds Wild like he was going to shatter into a million pieces.
Why his friends believe Wild is currently capable of such a monumental task as swallowing, he has no idea. But it is their way of showing how much they want him to live, how much they fear they’ll lose him, and he can’t really refuse that. Wild begs the fatigued muscles of his throat to obey the signals of his brain, and he manages one measly sip of the heart potion, esophagus burning as the liquid travels down, and then –
Then his throat spasms, gets caught on a gulp, and he coughs the rest of it right out onto his lap. The world narrows down to a needle’s point, as the bottle slips from his lips and cool liquid soaks his neck, down his already ruined shirt, as he’s assaulted by another fit of coughing.
He can’t breathe. Survival reflex pushes him into drawing in air but all that does is make him choke on it more, spluttering and shaking apart at the seams as Time’s big arms barely manage to hold him together. Wild groans -– great constellations, why does it hurt so much – and the next delirious breath comes in as a shuddering sob.
The end of it sees him tucked halfway into Time’s armpit like he’d been physically trying to get away from the pain, blinking sluggishly at a dark world with half his face buried into the uncomfortable chainmail at Time’s neckline.
Minute shivers rattle through his body. Stop, just… stop. Another choking, gasping sob tears itself from his slackened mouth. It’s hard to even think. He doesn’t want to do this anymore. He just wants to go to sleep.
Gloved fingers card through his hair, a warm palm presses to his cheek. Recognizing the paternal affection, Wild leans further into his burrow inside their eldest hero’s embrace, eyes slipping closed. Nothingness gnaws at his thoughts. Numbness spreads.
Only one second, he thinks. Only for a moment. Only…
There is nothing in the world that will ever come close to watching one of your friends die.
Wild isn’t really someone people would describe as being tall or large, but he’s never looked so small lying inside the circle of Time’s arms, shivering as his blood slowly paints Time’s armor red.
The man himself has this look of total sorrow none of them have ever seen before either, not even when he’d told them about some of his harder memories over the campfire. Time is the oldest of them, the one most of them look to for wisdom even if only subconsciously, and for that, Time has always tried to fulfill the role of being their pillar of support. Putting on a brave face, showing maturity and strength amidst hardship, providing a steadiness they need in their chaotic lives.
To see Time like this – it’s like watching a parent break down and realizing that they, too, are only human in the end.
“Goddesses, please,” Time whispers, pressing his nose into Wild’s tangled hair. His hands shake visibly where they grip Wild, like he is afraid of hurting the younger hero even more but just maybe he can keep him from slipping away if he just holds on hard enough.
Perhaps it is arrogance they all had possessed, when they refused to believe that their number would ever decrease. They’ve all had brushes with death before, and had escaped with nary a slap on the wrist. They’ve all faced certain doom, rose to the impossible challenge, and came out successful. Heroes always survive at the end of the day, don’t they?
Wild lies limp in Time’s arms, covered in blood and looking too young.
The taste of failure is heavy and bitter, and it sounds like the slow, labored gurgling of a teenager’s best attempts to breathe.
They’ve tried everything they can think of and it still isn’t enough. A few paces away, Hyrule is still struggling against Four and Legend to return to his patient’s side, determined to burn himself out in a futile effort to save Wild’s life. The potion had been a last-ditch, desperate measure. None of them had much hope in Wild being able to ingest it, and watching him cry while choking on his own blood made every one of them regret the attempt.
(“A fairy,” Sky had tried earlier in their frenzied discussion, the note of desperation all too obvious. But the last few worlds they’ve traveled through have all been barren of the natural wellsprings of magic that would denote the presence of fairies, and as strong as the heroes’ tendency to hoard resources may be, their penchant for attracting life-threatening danger is stronger still.)
The earlier expression of pain has been replaced by an exhausted contentment that hurts to see. It appears that Wild no longer has strength to keep his eyes open… and, it seems, not even enough to continue struggling for breath.
Wild’s breath cuts off, and so too does Twilight’s. Twilight watches for another inhale, for the next movement, he can’t let himself think about the stickiness covering his hands and forearms. When Wild’s chest fails to move again, it feels as though his own is being ripped open.
Wind makes a hurt, raw-sounding keen, and turns to bury his face in Warrior’s shoulder.
It’s Legend who catches the gentle rising of energy in the air first.
Next to him, Hyrule goes still, and they both look at each other in varying degrees of confusion. “What’s –” Hyrule starts, but the sudden magic blooming in his face cuts the rest of the question off.
Four thinks in a daze that even the most mana-unattuned civilian should be able to feel something this strong –
A great swell of cool, soothing magic. It is so pure, so good, so ineffably benevolent that none of them even think to be wary of it. No time to react.
Blue fog gathers around Wild’s lifeless body, pale ghostfire lights like that of a specter. A young woman’s voice echoes somewhere in the distance. (He’ll be fine, she tells her champion’s friends, though it’s hard to understand words spoken from across life and death.)
Time’s hold has slackened in his shock, in his regret. Someone shouts out loud, and like a bubble bursting, Wild opens his eyes with a gasp.
A deep, clean gasp of air, through unflooded airways and healthy lungs. Color has suddenly returned to his skin, his lips no longer pale from pain and blood loss. He looks clear minded and, disregarding the remaining blood caking his clothes, in peak condition. None of them can seem to believe what they are seeing.
The spirit-flame light in Wild’s eyes is only just starting to fade, when he seems to register his current position and who is holding him. “Time?” He frowns, then reaches up with a hand. “Who made you cry?”
The man sucks in an unsteady breath, uncaring of the tears slipping down his cheek. “You scared us, Wild,” he whispers, too relieved to be upset and too thankful to question anything. He chokes out a watery chuckle. “You gave me such a scare that my eye started leaking water all by itself.”
Wild accepts the hug he’s pulled into, patting Time’s shoulder with dull little thunk thunk thunks on the metal pauldron.
A moment later, a weight throws itself over Wild’s lap.
“How?” Wind exclaims into Wild’s stomach, then changes his mind right away, “No wait, I don’t care how! Just don’t die again!”
“You’ll get blood all over your face like that,” Wild pulls him up and tries to wipe the flakes away. Wind’s cheeks get squished in the process of it, not because it’s productive to the cleaning of his face, but because the boy let out a little sniffle like he was about to burst into overwhelmed tears. “I got… a gift,” Wild tries to explain despite Wind’s words. “She – was a very good friend. Always gave me the best.”
“That didn’t feel like healing magic. Not even like a fairy bringing you from the brink,” Legend says slowly. “You were… you were gone.”
Legend can always sense things like that, after years of practice identifying the enchantments in all the relics and treasures he collects that he can now tell just by a touch. Wild nods. “Revival,” he defines.
Hyrule sucks in a breath. “Powerful friend,” he murmurs. He kneels and runs a brief examination of Wild’s state. “Incredible. You’re perfectly healthy. There must be a catch, this surely can’t make you effectively unkillable.”
Wild shakes his head. “Needs to recharge. But she made sure I could keep fighting right after.”
“A second chance,” Hyrule says in understanding.
Someone grabs the back of Wild’s shirt like a puppy and hauls him into their arms. Wild finds himself squished into a brawny chest, wrapped in arms carrying the comforting familiarity of the hero he’d (temporarily) given his life up for.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Twilight growls, but the way he holds the younger hero in his embrace is too gentle to match his tone of voice. “Never, you got that?
“It’s useful, though,” Wild protests, a little muffled.
“No! Not for me. Not for any of us. I will never, ever ask you to die for me.”
“But… now you know. So you don’t have to worry next time.”
“We’ll always worry, nothing can change that. What do you expect us to do – sit back and let you bleed out, easy as they come? Watch you take hits for us and think, ‘oh, he can just come back to life?’” Twilight nearly snarls, baring those unnaturally sharpened canines of his at the simple thought of it. “How can I do that? How can I forgive myself for that?”
Wild begins patting Twilight’s back. “Sorry,” he says softly, “You really don’t like it that much?”
“Do you really like dying that much?”
Metal gauntleted fingers catch the hair falling into Wild’s face and tucks it delicately behind his ear. Wild turns his head to blink at Warriors, who smiles and tugs on a strand playfully.
“We can’t quite reject something as powerful as an on-hand resurrection,” Warriors clarifies for their resident farmboy. “Superbly useful for the battlefield. But I believe I can speak for all of us that we’d much rather you stay alive in the first place.”
Wild nods slowly against Twilight’s shirt, considering. “Okay,” he mumbles in an uncertain tone that says he still doesn’t really understand.
Warriors sighs, because out of all of them, Wild’s self-sacrificing streak is infamous and has a historical record. “Maybe someday you’ll see,” the man says wistfully. “But I’m glad you have so many friends, near and far, looking out for you in the meantime.”