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Wind’s era, Legend thinks with the kind of vitriol he’d never say to the sailor’s face - (Warriors, sure, but not Wind) - can kindly fuck right off.
He doesn’t even remember the moment he hit the water. He must have blacked out. Lucky he didn’t break his neck.
That might have been a kinder end than this.
Fire lights up every nerve. It seizes up his muscles, paralyzes him, means he can only watch the storm rage overhead. Watch as the bubbles created by his plunge into the water drift up towards the surface, leaving him behind. The lightning strike froze his lungs, too, so he hasn’t breathed in any sea water yet. Small mercies.
His back screams. He can’t twist around to look at himself, but he remembers well the smell of charred skin, the tattered clothes.
Another flash of lightning illuminates the blue-black gloom. Another boom of thunder barrels into the depths. Pressure on his ears muffles the sound, artificial distance that makes the storm rage all the more. As if it threw him in here and now tries to claw after him, not satisfied with tearing him apart only once.
Legend sinks. Bubbles drift by. Water swallows him, wraps him in a cold embrace. The sea around him goes darker.
Another flash overhead, farther away than before. Amid the fire in his limbs, lightning lingering in his veins, a burning in his lungs begins to grow as well. Just as familiar, just as unwelcome.
He thinks he can see something. The lightning lights up the frothy water in brief bursts, but it’s more than the stormy blue and black and green that spark to life around him. He thinks he catches glimpses of brighter colors too, shades that have no place in the old bruise of a watery grave.
Another flash, another glimpse. Visions, brought to him in his final moments? Hallucination? It doesn’t matter. Legend watches with a kind of mental numbness as blurry colors coalesce into scenes as clear as any of the records Wild captures of their journey. They ride the bubbles back towards the surface, away from him. His own memories escape back towards open air, leaving him behind to drown. Cheery homes and houses long lost or left behind. Glimpses of himself, not in battle as he so often was, but the good times. Fishing. Clear skies and warm sand between his toes, good company at his side. Watching the sunset from his front stoop after a long, satisfying day at the forge.
Is this what it’s like to have your life flash before your eyes? As many times as he’s stood on death’s doorstep, Legend doesn’t think he’s ever experienced it quite this way.
There are people, too. Ravio’s face floats by. Zelda, his uncle, Irene. Marin.
That last one drifts in right next to his head. Legend reaches up to touch. His hand jerks, not fully released from the lightning-tremors.
The bubble pops.
Legend wants to sob.
In a cruel twist of irony, the paralysis chooses that moment to let go of his lungs. Fire floods his chest, water rushing in where it has no right to be. Legend convulses.
Something closes on the back of his tunic.
The visions in the bubbles disappear, replaced by encroaching black and a rushing sensation. Legend wants them back.
His head breaches the surface just as thunder growls again, but the fire in his lungs won’t relent. Legend chokes. A wave crashes over his head. The grip on the back of his tunic changes to an arm across his chest. Legend manages to hear, between booms of thunder, the familiar sound of a hookshot firing.
Then the water falls away, the side of Tetra’s ship flying by as he and his rescuer ascend.
Legend lands on hands and knees, never so happy to have the rolling planks of a ship caught in the midst of a roaring storm beneath him. A hand slams into his back, a solid smack against his ribs. Agony screams all down his spine as the slap comes home on shredded skin, but his lungs shudder and jerk and remember what they’re supposed to be doing.
Legend coughs up what feels like half the sea.
“Get him inside!” Someone hollers through the storm.
“Working on it!” Twilight’s voice shouts back from very close. “Sorry ‘bout this, Legend.”
Hands scoop him up, and Legend’s still too busy expelling saltwater to protest. His muscles might be back under his control, but only nominally. Fire sings through his nerves from the lightning, burns blistering all down his back, branching onto his limbs. Legend doesn’t want to look at himself, to see his clothing in tatters, his skin red and black underneath. He doesn’t need to see. As soon as they get him a potion, or a fairy, or Hyrule, he’ll be fine.
He looks up at Twilight instead, his head covered in that stupid hat that he wears as part of his Zora armor. He looks at the sails, tossing and straining in the storm. Then he’s looking at a wooden ceiling as Twilight gets them both inside what appears to be Tetra’s quarters. It smells like candlewax and the oil in the lantern hanging overhead.
“What happened?” He croaks. Inane question. He knows what happened, he just can’t remember the exact moment of it.
“A barrel broke free. You were trying to control one of the sails and didn’t see it. It knocked you overboard.”
“What? No. What about the lightning? When did the lightning hit?”
Twilight’s nose wrinkles with confusion. Legend has a rather unflattering low-angle view of it. He’d look away, but even the thought of trying to shift his head from its uncomfortable pillow against Twilight’s shoulder makes the agony in his back multiply tenfold.
“What lightning?”
What? Legend stares at Twilight as if he’s most idiotic imbecille Legend has ever had the displeasure of knowing. “The lightning. That hit me.”
Twilight’s expression does something Legend doesn’t like. It goes all gentle and worried, in that way that says ‘you’re off your rocker but you’ve just had a bit of an experience so I’m gonna be nice about it.’ Legend loathes that look.
“No,” he says before Twilight can open his big fat mouth. Twilight’s still standing in the middle of the room. Fuck the pain: Legend kicks and shoves. Instead of letting him go like any other person of moderate intelligence, Twilight drops to the floor with Legend still in his arms. He’s far too close, and still wearing that awful expression. Legend rolls away, slides right out of his lap and onto his side on the floor. It’s cold and hard and the ship's sway leaves him lightheaded on top of everything else, but at least he’s no longer lying on the shredded remains of his back. And why the fuck is Twilight still not doing anything about that?
“There was no lightning, Legend. None that actually struck the ship, at least. Look.”
He slides around so he’s kneeling in front of Legend, and that’s only barely better. Isn’t at all better once he takes Legend’s wrists in his hands. Legend can feel the press of each individual fingertip, spots of fire on the back of his arm, encircling his wrists. Twilight’s thumbs come to rest over his pulse point, nudging up under the bracelet to rub dreadful comfort into the skin on both sides. The grip hurts, but everything hurts.
“Look,” Twilight insists, lifting Legend’s wrists towards his face.
Legend can’t help it. He looks.
His hands seem pale and clammy with cold. The ends of his sleeves, at least, are intact. Legend watches a drop of seawater peel free of the bracelet to join the puddle growing on the floor. Then, because he is not a coward, he returns his eyes to his wrists. Twilight’s hands are deeply tanned, firm and warm even though he took a dunk in the ocean too.
Legend follows the line of his sleeve reluctantly up his arm, looking for the place the lightning burns start, for the explosive damage to his clothing.
He doesn’t find it. Not anywhere on his arms, sleeves intact to the shoulder. His legs look fine. Everything he can see of his tunic looks fine. He finally works up the nerve to twist around and peer over his shoulder at what he can see of his own back. Nothing.
Legend turns back to Twilight. “What,” he says, in a voice that doesn’t sound like his. It’s far too small.
His teeth are chattering.
Twilight squeezes his wrists and lets go, steps around Legend to dig through the chest at the foot of the berth. He comes back up with a thin blanket bundled in his arms and sympathy painted across his face.
“Dont,” Legend says.
All in his head. All in his fuckng head.
His lungs burn.
“Legend.”
“I said don’t!” The yell sets off a fresh wave of coughing, too much for his battered lungs too soon. Twilight slings the blanket over him.
Footsteps outside. Legend jolts up into a sitting position as Hyrule appears in the door. He’s dripping, out of breath, holding both Legend’s pack and the bag that contains Hyrule’s own medical supplies.
Legend can’t. Not right now. Not Hyrule. He turns away, wraps his arms around himself. He’s freezing. The blanket lays in a useless puddle around his waist.
“Do you need me to take over?” Hyrule sounds hesitant, unsure of his welcome. Legend hates himself that much more for putting that tone in Hyrule’s voice. He closes his eyes.
“That won’t be necessary, Hyrule, I can handle this. He’s fine, he just needs to warm up. Are those his clothes? Thank you.”
The door shuts. Hyrule’s footsteps fade quickly amid the ship’s creaks and groans and the storm still raging outside.
“Legend…”
“Fuck off.” Legend staggers to his feet to snarl it in Twilight’s face, standing there all strong and fancy in his shining Zora armor.
Drowned. Legend almost drowned, and the paralysis was all in his head.
“Change into something dry, Legend.”
“Just go. I’m fine, aren’t I? Said so yourself.”
“I will, once you’re in something dry.”
Legend snarls. If that’s what it takes to get the big oaf to leave him alone, then fine. Fine.
Stiff fingers don’t want to work the clasp on his belt, so he yanks his red tunic out from under it, pulling it up and over his head and flinging it at Twilight once it’s off. It takes his hat with it. Twilight catches both with a stone face that wishes it was half as good as Time’s.
His rings and bracelet are freezing cold but easy enough to dry. Legend leaves them on. He pulls off his boots and peels off the sodden socks as well. Those he tosses into a random corner of the room. The socks hit the floor with twin wet slaps.
He tries again for his belt. Twilight watches him struggle, unmoving. “Let me know when you’re ready for me to get that off for you.”
Now Legend’s really not going to let Twilight anywhere near it. “Send Sky in here, if you think I need mothering. He’s good at it.”
Twilight doesn’t react to the dig. Not in any way Legend can see, at least. “I’m not going to send Sky in here to deal with you when you’re acting like this.”
With a snarl and a burst of effort that scrapes pain through stiff joints, Legend manages to get the belt undone. It joins his boots in the opposite corner of the room. The buttons on his undertunic are just as bad as the belt. The only thing that stops Legend sobbing in relief when he finally gets the thing off is his audience.
Finally down to just his shorts, Legend holds out an imperious hand for his bag. Twilight passes it over. Legend drops to the floor with it, digging for dry clothes and ruffling a corner of the blanket-turned-towel over his hair as he goes. He’ll need to change his shorts too but he’s going to put a dry tunic on first. Twilight doesn’t need to see that much of him.
He settles on a tunic that he usually reserves for sleeping. It doesn’t have any of the protective enchantments of his usual clothes, but also doesn’t have buttons.
He stands again once he’s done changing, whirls on Twilight with hands held out in a sarcastic ‘ta-da’ gesture. Twilight’s waiting for him with a fresh blanket in hand, this one dry. Legend glares at him, opens his mouth to give the meddling ass a piece of his mind.
“Legend. Sit the fuck down.” Twilight snaps.
Legend’s teeth click as his jaw snaps shut. Twilight never cusses. He spends a split second being stunned silent. Then anger floods him, bitter familiarity. “You don’t fucking get to tell me what to do, dogboy.”
Twilight’s lips curl. He stops himself halfway through a snarl, shakes his head. “Fine. Do what you want. I’ll be back with something warm to drink, and then you can stew in here all night for all I care.”
He shoves the new blanket at Legend’s stomach and marches out, steps stiff and angry. Legend stands in the middle of the room like an idiot, holding the dry blanket with his wet belongings scattered across the floor like ship-wrecked detritus washed up on some random beach.
Legend walks over to the berth. Legend sits his ass down.
By the time Twilight comes back, Legend’s settled down enough to feel guilty. He huddles into the corner of the bed, sitting upright with the blanket pulled tight around his shoulders, trying not to shiver and flinch at every last creak and groan and sharp sway as the ship rides the storm. He usually handles storms better than this. He can admit, if only to himself, that the whole thing rattled him. Maybe made him a little more snappish than he could have been.
The door opens. Twilight slips through it, back in his usual clothes, holding a bowl of something that looks and smells like soup fresh out of Wild’s slate. He meets Legend’s eyes and sighs.
“Look, Legend-”
“I’m sorry for being an ass,” Legend blurts before Twilight can say anything that’ll just piss him off again.
Twilight raises his eyebrows, but he nods and hands the soup over in blessed silence. Legend lowers his knees, embarrassed to realize Twilight just saw him with his legs pulled up to his chest like some kid after a nightmare. He resettles cross-legged instead. The warm bowl feels like heaven cupped in cold, stiff hands.
Twilight takes a step back from the bed. Legend thinks he’s going to do what he said earlier and leave Legend to stew alone with his thoughts and the storm. He swallows back the bile that wants to rise in his throat. It’s what he deserves.
Instead, Twilight reaches towards his own neck. Moments later, Wolfie stands in the middle of the room. One good leap carries him up onto the berth. Legend watches in disbelief as he sniffs the covers, tucks his tail, and curls up in the space between Legend’s knee and the bulkhead with a world-weary sigh. He only stays there a moment before further invading Legend’s personal space. He has to lift the bowl up out of his lap when Wolfie uncurls enough to nose his head and then shoulders too across Legend’s legs. He’s heavy. Heavy and warm and dry.
Wolfie did always like to butt in after everyone else’s nightmares.
“You should be out there, helping them get this ship through the storm. Not in here mothering me. We both should.”
Wolfie huffs at him. Legend tugs lightly at one of his ears, trying not to notice how silky-soft the fur feels. Wolfie twists his head away and snaps his teeth on empty air, an equally empty show. He growls once and puts his head back down, staring up at Legend with stubbornnes writ across his stupid canine face.
“Wolfie privileges don’t work when I know who you are, Twilight.”
Wolfie huffs. Wolfie doesn’t move. Legend doesn’t want to admit just how calming it is to have all that soft weight lounging across his legs. He definitely doesn’t want to admit how much he appreciates that Twilight didn’t just leave him there. In the ocean or alone in this cabin.
He sighs, breathing out as many of the memories as he can manage, settling into that strange post-stress place of calm. Legend relaxes into the corner of the berth, leaning back against the cabin wall with a dry blanket around his shoulders and a mutt who cares too much for his own good anchoring him to the present. Legend drinks his soup.