Chapter Text
Wild felt like death. No, having cheated death hundreds of times, he could safely say this felt much worse.
Wild had the last watch of the night, the rest of his group snoring peacefully, even those who usually had trouble were overtaken by exhaustion. It had been a few days of hiking and constant movement, so much so that even Wild could feel exhaustion in his very bones. Although this was more than exhaustion, it had to be.
He sat perched in a tree that overlooked the area surrounding them. As hard as he was trying to focus, to protect his friends, everything ached like a Moblin had slammed their fists into him a thousand times over. He was absolutely freezing, no matter what doublet or jewelry he called from his slate, he still trembled and shook, numb fingers barely able to hold his bow. Wild prayed that a monster didn’t wander into camp, because even if he moved a single inch he felt he might throw up or pass out from the pain in his head. Overall he was absolutely miserable… but he had a job to do, and people to watch over. The others deserved rest after the week they had all had, and Wild wasn’t keen on waking anyone up to replace him. Besides, moving seemed absolutely impossible. Why did Wild have to climb all the way up here? Oh yeah… watching the area. Wild shook his throbbing head, ignoring the spikes of pain shooting through his temples.
As time passed Wild only felt worse, and looking forward to another day of travel in his Hyrule only increased his misery. His head felt full of amoranth, leaving no room for clarity.
Watch for monsters, watch for monsters, watch for monsters
The only thing keeping him mildly alert was that repeated mantra. Anytime the fire flickered, or the leaves rustled, his heart jumped, his brain seeing shadows and monsters with red eyes. What if he missed something, what if they got the group? He had to watch, he had to listen.
Wild briefly considered waking someone else up to take over his watch. As much as he didn’t want to wake another member, he certainly didn’t want them all to get killed for this. However even shifting sent waves of shivers and pain to roll through his body. So Wild continued his watch, and forgo focusing on anything else besides his mantra.
Watch for monsters, watch for monsters, watch for monsters
As the rays of dawn arose from the horizon, a wave of relief washed over Wild that turned to despair. Wild knew he would soon have to make his way down the tree and cook breakfast. He loved cooking and was happy to ensure he gave his friends a proper meal after so long of them somehow living without being able to even fry an egg, but he didn’t feel like he could move a single limb, but he had to hopefully make his way down the tree before anyone saw his pain. They would worry, Twilight especially, and although that gave him a soft and warm feeling in the center of his chest, he didn’t need to slow them down, didn’t need to be a burden. He couldn’t just stop and lay down or sleep off the sickness. In the wild you had to keep moving.
Taking a deep breath he began to scootch back to the center of the tree in order to make his descent. All of his limbs felt like lead. He put his first leg down and crawled backwards slowly down the tree. Usually he would hop from branch to branch or do a flip, or if he was high enough take out his paraglider, missing leaping off the tallest cliffs. The very thought of any of those made his stomach turn, so he did his best to take it slow.
Already he couldn’t seem to breath, and he only grew more nauseous. He felt himself grow dizzy and everything around him began to swirl into a kaleidoscope of color. His grip lessened and his brain didn’t care for the consequences.
He forgot everything in that moment, where he was, who he was, what he was doing. Black started to cloud his vision and he let it, he just wanted the pain to be over. Unaware of it, he slowly let go of his branch completely and began to tumble to the ground, a yelp leaving his hoarse throat without his permission. He felt a sharp and sudden blow in his ribs, and he felt himself gasp as the darkness overtook him.
~
Twilight awoke to the sound of a rough yell and an odd thud within the camp. Instantly he leaped up, sword in hand. Eyes darting quickly around the camp, he could see Time, Legend and Warriors on their feet, and the others starting to wake as well thanks to the commotion. No monsters in sight, Twilight shifted his mind to look for anything suspicious.
Twilight’s eyes darted around camp and landed on a sight that made his blood freeze and skin turn cold in horror. Laying on the ground on the other side of camp was Wild, face down and not moving a muscle. Twilight bolted over to his cub and slid to his knees in front of him. His logic overtaking his worry for the moment, he checked for neck and back injuries. Finding none, he slowly turned over his protégé. Wild let out a pitiful whine deep in his throat that made Twilight’s heart clench. He barely noticed Time and the others circling around in confusion and worry. He only saw his protégé laying stone cold on the ground.
“Hyrule!” Twilight snapped at Hyrule to get over to his cub as quickly as possible. He would apologize later. Time kneeled and gently laid his hand on Twilight’s shoulder, and placed the other on Wild’s forehead. A frown appeared on Time’s normally stoic and mischievous face.
“He’s burning up.” Time tried to keep his worry under control, as he always did. Hyrule arrived at the scene and also felt Wild’s forehead, wincing in sympathy, but the most immediate thing they had to worry about was Wild’s fall. He slowly felt Wild’s body for any injuries. He luckily didn’t seem to have any broken bones from his apparent fall. Hyrule then felt his ribs and panicked slightly before pushing his dread down.
“It feels like he has some broken ribs. I need a red potion and someone needs to help me lift his tunic above his chest so I can see the damage.” Hyrule commanded in what he hoped was a steady voice. Warriors and Legend both ran off to their bags to get potions, while Four watched them to make sure those two idiots didn’t get in a fight somehow.
“I’ll help.” Stated Twilight, desperate for something to do, something to focus on besides Wild’s pained expression.
“Okay lift him up so I can get his tunic up to his arms.” Hyrule said as he had already begun bunching up Wild’s tunic. Twilight nodded as he gently lifted Wild up so his chest was off the ground. Wild’s face scrunched up in pain and few tears released with a whimper. Twilight and Time felt their hearts break, along with everyone else in the circle and a recently returned Legend and Warriors.
Wild tried to never show his pain, and must be in a large amount of it to do so because of a simple movement. After what felt like hours yet twilight knew was only seconds, Hyrule got Wild’s tunic as high as it would go and he gently set Wild back down. He heard Wind let out a soft gasp and Twilight had to refrain from doing the same. Wild’s rib cage was covered in black and purple with many painful-looking scrapes. He looked like he had taken a million hits with clubs directly to his chest. But most prominent of all was a stab wound that appeared a few days old that had turned sickly shades of greens and yellows, obviously infected. Twilight heard Legend curse at the fact the cub had obviously hidden an injury from them, and now it had been infected.
How long had he suffered? Did he even notice the infection? Why didn’t he tell Twilight? Didn’t Wild understand he could trust him? Could trust all of them? They were friends, no more than that. They were brothers. They had progressed so far, why would Wild hide it now?
Hyrule began to press into his ribs to see the damage done as Wild continued to groan and whimper, and tears continued to fall. Twilight ran his hands through Wild’s hair and whispered words of encouragement.
“It’s almost over.” Twilight told both Wild and himself.
“Okay there doesn’t seem to be internal bleeding. This wound is obviously infected though and he has multiple broken ribs. I need potions.” Hyrule gave his diagnoses and no sooner that he got his final words out did Legend and Warriors kneel beside Wild. Twilight had to force himself to move to Wild’s side as Warriors took over, gently lifting the teen’s upper half into his lap and opening a bottle, trying to ignore Wild’s cries of pain. He slowly poured some of the bottle down Wild’s throat to prevent him from choking, but Wild was refusing to drink it. Legend sighed and rubbed Wild’s throat to coax the potion down, careful not to press too hard. Legend soothed his hair as Wild slowly whined and drank the potion through his sore throat, leaning into Legend’s hand as he did so.
Wild began to slowly heal, his broken ribs becoming bruised, and the infection raging through his body was calmed as much as a potion could physically accomplish.
“That’s all the potion will heal with the infection running through his body.” Hyrule sighed as he stroked Wild’s cheek to try and calm him.
“But will he be okay?” Wind cried out. Four put his hand on his shoulder in silent comfort, anticipation for the answer in his eyes, and Sky wrapped his arm around Wind’s small shoulder.
“He should be fine.” Hyrule stated to the huge relief of the group around him. “But potions won’t heal the sickness and infection running through him, the infection had already taken hold by the time we healed them. As for his ribs, any healing items or magic would focus too much on the infection, and that won’t do anything. Not even my own magic can help right now. We have to let his injuries and infection run their course. It seems severe, so we should probably take turns watching him so that we know for sure his body is healing properly. And no, Twilight, you are not going to stay with him all day and all night.” Hyrule looked pointily at Twilight, who was about to protest if not for Time’s steady look in his direction that promised a lecture if he disobeyed. So he resigned to simply nod, looking down at his cub, who despite the healed ribs still seemed like he was struggling to breathe.
~
Wild was floating.
Usually this would be calming, yet everything felt like it was on fire, most of it raging in his chest. He didn’t know what happened or why he was in so much pain, but he didn’t seem to know anything at the moment. His brain felt covered in fog in between passing out.
Suddenly he was moving, rolling over with no control and everything in his body flared. He heard a sound vaguely and could barely recognize it as himself. All he felt was pain, nausea, and weightlessness. Everything went black again before he felt himself being lifted up. He cried out in pain, and his face felt wet but he didn’t understand why. What was happening?
Once again Wild drifted away until he felt pressure on his chest. Hylia everything hurt so bad. What did he do to deserve this? He vaguely felt someone running hands through his hair and whispered something he couldn’t hear. Everything seemed to echo and die out around him. He felt himself being lifted onto something warm as something was pressed into his mouth. His throat hurt so bad, maybe if he didn’t swallow the pain would go away. That choice faded out of his mind as something pressed gently into his throat, forcing him to swallow before he could think twice about it. He felt something run through his hair and he leaned into the touch. He was burning and whatever it was, was so cool…
He could feel his chest mending, as some conscious thought came back into his mind. But it was still so hard to breathe. He could hear voices above him, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.
After some more time in the void, he felt himself being lifted into someone’s arms. He groaned and felt his head loll into a cold shoulder, it felt like armor. He sighed and leaned into this person’s touch more. Said person tightened their hold on him as he could feel them begin to move.
With that, he felt himself drift back into the comfortable darkness where nothing could hurt him.