If It Can Die, I Can Kill It
From my Feral Prompts, for @recalled11 Legend
Also on AO3, about 1200 words. Rated G, some injuries.
IIII
Feral 10: “If it can die, I can kill it” = Recalled Legend @ a Gleeok
Link could tell there was something more than just a storm under the cloud. He’d seen the flash, even if the thunder had been muted: it hadn’t been very strong, whatever it was, but it’d come soon after. Too soon. Ravio – seated between Malon and Fairy behind him – was watching him pace but not doing anything, not yet.
He wasn’t trying to worry him; he was fine. It was far away.
It was some-thing and it was moving.
When he turned at the next pace, Wild was there in his way, almost close enough he hit him. He restrained the urge – Wild was a bad choice to pick a fight with – and smiled unpleasantly instead. He waved one hand at the thing on the edge of their view.
“What is that, anyways?”
The other man had to spell it, six letters -- gleeok, then added, “It’s a thunder one, they’re not that hard.”
“It’s in our way.” He could tell that much already. They were on a road and that fucking thing was not that far off; they’d be getting closer to it every step of the way.
Wild nodded, and Link wasn’t fucking doing that.
“If its not that hard, we can kill it.”
Wild simply tilted his head and smiled. He gestured that way once more – almost as if to say, after you – and Link bared his teeth. “Can that flying thing of yours carry two?”
It could, and it did.
The gleeok noticed them in the sky. It took exception, as only a giant beast like it could. It was a massive kind of lizard, with three heads each with a fat, bulging eye under its shimmering gold horns. Wild kept moving even as one of the heads opened its mouth and spat a flash of lightning at them. Link’s heart nearly stopped in his chest, but Wild’s flying thing kept ahead with seeming ease. Link knelt and tucked a leg around Wild’s and over the standing platform to pull his bow from a ring.
There was always a target if something had eyes. Link clung to the machine with his legs and aimed.
His first arrow missed; his second, the dragon had snapped its wings forward and threw off the arrow’s aim; it grazed a different head than intended.
“Fuck it all, turn around!” Link snapped.
Wild tried. The flying machine did not turn quickly or easily, and Link dropped one hand to brace himself on the platform, trying not to knock Wild’s footing free with his awkward positioning himself. The turn meant he was facing the wrong way to aim easily again, and he twisted to aim back the way he came.
He turned, just in time to see it bunch in place and lunge.
“Wild!”
The machine’s engine cut. The fan under him went silent and they dropped from the air like a stone for a frozen second before it snapped back alive. The lizard’s gaping mouths went over their heads; the ground rushed up below and as the flying machine caught the air and slowed their fall again, a spear of lightning slammed into the front.
Green stone burst into nothing under his hands. Wild was thrown backwards, breaking his bow and tumbling into freefall, and Link hit the ground and rolled. His magic could take the teeth out of the fall, but he still came to, dazed and sore, several dozen feet away from the pieces of his bow.
Wild wasn’t in sight. Link’s throat choked, and he looked frantically for the other man. “Wild!”
He saw green, like his tunic, somewhere far – far too far away. How far had he been thrown? It wasn’t moving.
The air was thick with static, and green as soup and the gleeok slowly settled back on the high pillar of stone from which it had watched them before. It’s horns glittered with lightning.
Link licked his lips and checked the dot that was maybe Wild again. Far enough away.
Let’s see how this thing liked losings its footing too.
Quake was easy; the ground cracked and shivered, crumbling under the dragon’s claws. He tried to stand as the spell took, and realized his leg (the leg that had been between Wild’s feet on the flying machine...) was broken. He cursed at it and twisted it back into place before he drank a health potion to stop the screaming pain. As the gleeok staggered and collapsed in full, he stood and stalked to meet it. He didn’t need a bow; healed, he pulled his sword, snapping off three quick cuts.
Three beams, to each eye.
The creature slammed to the ground, stunned, and Link looked again at the still green.
Was that far enough away? Did he trust it?
The gleeok started to stir, and he realized he didn’t have much choice. This fight had to end now. (He was so damn tired of the constant storm, ever crackle in the air put his teeth grinding...)
But he had other spells, two more copper tokens. He wasn’t going to waste his time testing lightning against lightning: Fire rained harder than lightning ever could.
He put out each eye personally after that, before he dared walk away. Certain of its death, the stillness in the spot of green left him filled with terror greater than the dark skies could bring. As he came closer, and more sure it was Wild he ran to other man’s side.
When he arrived, he could see Wild had woken at least. The other man’s eyes rolled in his head, one hand dug into the dirt. The left eye – the damaged one – was shining, flashing brilliant blue light as he made a face before focusing on Legend. He half-smiled then and raised one arm, offering it to him.
Link took his hand, confused and watched him wince. Immediately he checked the forearm – fine – then upper arm – broken.
“You want me to set it?”
Wild nodded.
Easy enough. He could do it, although Wild hissed out something that could’ve been a swear. Seconds later, he grunted, his eye flashed, and he put weight on the arm and sat up. As he pulled himself together to stand, Link watched with morbid fascination. Every time he had to hesitate, that blue eye glowed again and he crouched himself.
“Are you just healing yourself as you go?”
Wild didn’t even look at him to nod.
“Sometimes I really wish I could do that.”
Wild paused, partway through checking his legs and looked at him. It was one of the darkest expressions he’d ever seen from the man – not the wild panic he sometimes showed around certain monsters, or determination. It was more like grief, and Link regretted saying that aloud.
He didn’t say anything else, but Link didn’t think he had to. It was plain as day what it meant.
‘No. You don’t.’
Link stood and looked back towards their camp. As he had expected, once his head cleared, he could already see a dark speck running and walking their way with two others behind. He sighed. Ravio was going to have so many words for him...
“Hey Wild, if its Ravio and Flower coming, who do you think is the third about to chew us out: Twilight or Captain?”
Bonus art:
This man absolutely did not set his own leg ten minutes ago, what are you talking about.
43 notes
·
View notes