Chapter Text
Honestly, Wind hadn’t expected to wake up again. He can’t exactly say why he thinks that but he does, and he can’t exactly say that he’s glad he has either given how uncomfortable he is. His head’s pounding, his thoughts are all foggy and his skin hurts where it’s touching bars; he knows he should be panicking, but he’s mostly just confused. Wild’s stood in front of them all, back to their too-small cages (Time looks really uncomfortable), as he stares at these three ugly hag-like people who look more dead than last nights dinner. They also look kinda tickled but whatever it is that’s funny, Wild isn’t laughing. He’s shaking a little bit. His hands are bloody, nails broken like he’s been trying to break something.
It should mean something to him, Wind thinks. He should be doing something. Instead he gets caught up in watching the blood drip drip dripping from his brother’s fingers to splash across the rusty dirt floor in patterns he can almost see meaning in.
Oceans, his brain feels weird.
Wind jumps when Warriors makes a weird noise (his cheeks are shiny and his eyes are dark and something isn’t right) beside him. Wild whirls, panicked blue eyes shining in the teal lights surrounding them all. He crouches in front of Wars’ cage almost close enough to touch (Wars doesn’t react, he just stares like a stunned animal and Wild looks so upset at the sight) before he turns on the hags. Three wicked grins split across three weathered faces.
“Enough,” Wild spits, stepping forward with intent. The sharpness of his voice is a life-raft and Wind’s confused brain clings to it. He’d not realised they were talking. “Enough. Please. You’re demanding a sacrifice, yes?”
“A life lost for eight to leave,” the hag in front nods like it’s perfectly reasonable.
Wild flinches and Wind flinches too, and through the panic trying to rise but suffocating under heavy weight and the sensation of off-ness, he wants to skewer her. He doesn’t like killing people, never has, but he’d make a happy exception for her. He bets she’d look just as nice with a sword stuck in her face as Ganondorf did. This is a shitty ass wake-up call.
“Right. Right. And you’ll let us take the body of the person who– who died, you only want them dead.”
“We want their death, yes, little one. They’ll be returned whole and– well, not exactly hale, but it’s still a fair exchange no?” She cackles like she told a joke. Wild smiles slightly. Wind doesn’t get it.
“A fair exchange,” Wild nods. He sounds so tired. “Very well then. I’ll do it if you swear it. In blood, if you please.”
The hag grins smugly. Warriors gasps like he’s just been healed by a fairy and when Wind looks his eyes are blue and so so terrified looking. His big brother doesn’t, he's never looked–
“Tricky boy, tricky boy,” the two other hags croon in delight. Wild, for some stupid reason, looks flattered.
The strange heavy feeling is a little lighter and Wind can almost think almost-clearly. Almost. Everything is still a little far to make much sense yet.
The metal against his arms is trying to say something. It can't though, or maybe it’s his brain that doesn’t understand, but he’s more important things to worry about like the dozen or so spirits floating around the room that he doesn’t recognise, or the fact that Wild just acted like agreeing to die is a clever thing to do, or that in the cage across the room Four is sobbing.
The main hag starts writing something out on what doesn’t look quite like paper and Wild steps away from their cages to read it. They fuss over it for a few minutes; Wild’s arguing like Warriors does with his “colleagues” back in his Era, and the longer it goes on the happier the hags look. Has Wild learnt from Wars? They’ve never “quite seen eye-to-eye” as Sky would say, but he’s acting like him, like he’s…
Wind’s sight blurs. Everything becomes a bit more real the more he watches Wild. Around him the others have started screaming through their gags, fighting against the ropes cutting into their skin, but Wind can’t hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears. He’s so confused. When did they get here? Why didn’t he wake up before? Why is this happening, why is Wild agreeing to this?
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t think he could ask, even if his voice wasn’t stifled and his lips weren’t raw from the rough gag forced between his teeth. There’s a weight in his head and a tightness in his throat, a hangman’s noose Wild’s arguing him out of. He wants to close his eyes and cover his ears and drown out the sight and noise and smell and whispers that are battering nails into his brain to make it bleed white-hot pain down his face. He wants to go away, he wants to be anywhere but here, and the sound of waves starts to sweep against his ears. It’s…
If Wind pretends, if he closes his eyes and insists that the sharp scent of blood is just the ocean, Wind can almost send himself back home. His skin is just sore from strong tides and whipping winds; there’s a seashell to his ear and his sister is spinning another spooky tale about the sound being the call of an old god bewitching souls into drowning she’s picked up from some passing sailors; the cries around him are seagulls and nothing more. He’s home!, his heart laughs, he’s home he’s home! — except he isn’t, is he? Not really. Wind can’t pretend, he can’t close his eyes and sink into the waves, not when Wild is in front of him saying he’ll sign his own life away for the sake of theirs, not when his brothers are screaming, not when Wild is smiling and Wind doesn’t understand why.
Why are they here?
He doesn’t know. The only answer he gets is the rushing sound of the ocean (an offer, a bargain, a stupid temptation he mustn’t take) and the feeling that everything is about to go terribly, terribly wrong.
The hags, ‘all three of you, please’ Wild insists and gets three rotting grins in return, prick their fingers and smear it across the page and Wild does the same. Simple. Nothing fancy, nothing special, just four drops of blood on a paper and just like that, Wind’s brother has agreed to die. It suits him, he thinks a little blankly. Wild never likes a fuss.
Wind’s eyes burn, his heart is racing, and his brother is smiling at the deal he made to die for them like it’s perfect.
“Let’s get them out then,” Wild says easily. “And then we can get on with it.”
The hag tilts her head curiously. There’s an odd look on her face. The moments before Wind’s fight with Ganondorf spring to mind. In any other situation, he’d call it regret.
“So eager to die, little one?”
“Eager to get them home is all.”
Time chokes.
“I’m going to get you all home,” Time had promised once when Wild woke them all up screaming from nightmares about them all being dead. It’s the first time Wind realised that going home isn’t a guarantee. The thought’s kinda lived in his head after that. He just never, ever considered it’d be Wild who’d be the first to go down. He’s crazy and clever and fucking terrifying with far too many tricks to be fair and– and he’s already died once. It doesn’t seem right for him to have to do it again. It doesn’t make sense for him to. Wild’s– he’s invulnerable, almost. He pulls crazy stunts, cracks jokes about him ‘living on borrowed time’ when people get mad, says he has to make the most of life before it’s over, swears he won’t die when bleeding out from injuries that should’ve rightly killed him and he’s been right every single time and he drives Hyrule mad over it and he’s– he’s an asshole, sure, with how he frightens Wind something awful with his nonsense, but… he’s his brother.
Wind’s eyes are stinging but he can’t look away from him. He’s walking toward them all calm, that gentle smile on his face like nothing is wrong when everything is and isn’t that awful? Wild’s blood-sworn he’ll let himself be killed and he doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with it.
(What the hells happened when he was unconscious?)
Wind’s cage gets unlocked first with a loud clack! that pounds in his head and Wild helps him, gentle and patient like he always is when he knows someone’s hurting, find his way free. It’s difficult. His arms are tied and his legs are numb and his head hurts and he doesn’t know when exactly he last ate, but he’s dizzy as hell and it feels like it must’ve been a long time ago because standing up makes him black out a little… though that might just be the headache trying to push his eyes out of his head. Wild catches him when he stumbles. Wind hates him for it. Tipping forward into his brother’s chest, familiar soft fabric scraping against his face, he tries to hug him, to make him swear not to do this, but Wind can’t. Wild couldn’t even if he did. Not anymore.
Instead Wild shushes him like Wind does with Aryll after a nasty nightmare. The lump in his throat hurts. His arms are freed, the gag pulled from his mouth, and calloused fingers from two lifetimes spent fighting (one for duty, one for love) are pressed to his lips to keep him quiet before he can even say anything. Wind swallows, fighting back the burn in his eyes. He’s not even sure he could speak right now, but he feels like he should be.
“Don't sacrifice yourself for me,” he begs with his eyes instead. “Get out of here.”
Wild closes his eyes and presses a kiss to his forehead in return. His lips are warm. The spirit of the Zora girl and the little girl who is always close by look broken.
“It’s going to be okay–”
He’s interrupted by the hag nearest to them bursting into cackles as she undoes the spell keeping the other cages locked. Wild rolls his eyes, tugging Wind against him to whisper into his hair and Wind clings. His finger might be broken but he refuses to let go. He can't.
“It’s going to be okay,” Wild repeats softly. “In a moment you need to get the ropes off the others, and that’s you done. The others will get me, m-my body, out of here, okay? All you need to do is keep your eyes closed. When it starts, you just close your eyes and don’t look, okay? Just… just don’t look.”
Wild pulls away and he looks kinda like Wolfie over dinner, all sad tilted ears and begging eyes but so much fucking sadder, and all Wind can do is nod. His eyes burn worse and he loses sight of his brother in the distorted waters that fill his sight. His finger hurts when he rubs at them, but he doesn’t care. He needs to see him.
Wild sighs, patient and sad and sounds a little like Time. Wind gets another hug, tight and squishy and warm like Wild’s always are, and he’s gone before Wind can so much as hug him back. He’s already walking back to the hags and their fucked up bloodstained rock. Wind is left with seven caged brothers, a cooling gap where the eighth should be, and the sinking realisation that (whether he understands why or not) he’s never going to get another one of those hugs again.