#The Lost Woods are technically alive and I intend to explore that concept for as long as I can

[summertimemusician]

Linktober Shadow, Day 4

Lost

I feel like we really need to talk more about how the Lost Woods are a concept as beautiful as it is terrifying actually.

Wild/BOTW/TOTK Link fans, this one's for you and brought by my severe sleep deprivation, enough caffeine to kill a grown woman with less spite and my medieval literature/narrative/poetry teacher who motivated me through the entire creative process via helping me throw ideas at the wall even as all of the essays I gotta turn in are going to make me late in posting Sage. *laughs hysterically, immediately collapses*

As always can be read as romantic or platonic, and it's up to interpretation what's going down on this one. And can also be read in or outside of an LU context, I'm leaving it vague both on purpose and because of sleep deprivation lol.

Of all places you could say you most intimately did not wish to be alone after being separated from the Chain, the Lost Woods of literally any era but specially Wild’s would definitely be on your top three at a pristine number one.

Really, if you weren’t currently being stalked through the darkened, shadowed weald of the once welcoming evergreen home of both the Minish and Kokiri, whom you knew could be much, much more beautiful lovely (it did aid in raising a good chunk of your beloved heroes, after all) and with your heart working with all the urgency of a wounded deer being chased by a wolf. You’d almost commend it for it’s choice in setting this time.

Keyword being almost, for it compared naught to the sheer and utter terror that burned through your every sinew, marrow and veins at the accuracy of that statement, and the implication that your nebulous and hauntingly familiar current hunter grew ever more clever each passing second of your adventure.

You ran, ran and ran through the living woods, trying desperately to find any possible landmark, an oddly shaped tree, one of the torches or the remain of the skeletons from the old, ruined iterations of the Temple of Time from long bygone eras that the forest had reclaimed, or the hint of the breeze soft whispers from the echoes of the Kokiri or the elated branch rattle giggling laughter of the Skull Children. At this point you’d take even the the mad, beast like howling of the Stalfos or the tortured wailing of Poes, somewhere between vesania tainted laughter and the primal, feral pleading for one’s survival that shook you to the marrow.

There was no such symphony now, the woods as silent as a grave.

(The hauting ground of so, so many that it did not love or could not hold onto anymore, whispered a corner of your mind, and it sounded like the Shadow, with it’s ominous phlegmatic hissing, twisted amusement and sadistic brutality all in one.)

Your arm had long gone numb, broken under the impossible force held by the beast of sulfur and obsidian that the world itself rebelled against warring at it’s very existence as it roared it’s wrath back at it, the Goddesses, Hylia and Demise and your heroes and princesses caught in the middle of divine design, your legs giving out under the weight of your exhaustion, you tasted copper from the wound on your head dripping down your lips but that did not stop you. Would not stop you, couldn’t stop you.

You grit your teeth so hard against the shout that wanted to tear it’s way out of your throat as you barely kept yourself from hitting your head, diverting your momentum against an old, lonely tree. Your blood sinking into the wood, good, better it than Dark Link.

You were tired, you were exhausted, you swore you could hear a growl among the melancholy of the mist. You hoped the shade did not manage to track you down as you made sure not to leave a trail of blood, but something tells you that it wouldn’t need it to track you even with the faint moonlight barely giving enough aid in your own quest to find it before it found you with your only, laughable weapon being an old arrow you’ve pilfered from a long decomposed corpse almost falling from your white knuckled grip.

You didn’t want to die, you needed to survive.

You though of the Chain, your lovely, chaotic, kind boys, of Sky’s ever ecompassing kindness and Four’s brilliant cleverness, Time’s quiet comfort and Legend’s fierce hidden gentleness and Wind’s trailblazing joy, Hyrule’s tender sweetness and Warrior’s warm protectiveness and Wild’s beautiful adoration for life.

You missed them, and it was likely you wouldn’t see them again, that more than anything hurt more than all of your wounds combined.

You try to push yourself up, to move, to live, to keep moving forward, caring not for the stillness of the glade. Barely noticing the sudden silence as you almost pitched forward once again, stumbling onto the earth as your grip onto your makeshift weapon finally gave out-

Only for a pair of arms to catch you, steady, magnolias and rosemary, petrichor from untamed, ancient Hyrule. A bright Sheikah cerulean tunic and a navy cloak falling over darkned boots.

You freeze, hands twitching, it couldn’t be an illusion. You’ve seen plenty in the corner of your eye as you traversed through the woods, attempting to lead you astray. None of them were solid, many of them weren’t quite as cold as this, whoever was holding you.

But it couldn't be real either, it shouldn't.

“Link...?”, came your tired rasp, you felt as if you’ve swallowed sand (briefly, you wondered if the taste of flowers on the back of your tongue mixing with the copper of the liquid of life in your veins was the reason. Then resolved yourself not to think about it), your traitorous body succumbing to exhaustion as the stranger gently held you up (friend, friend, but it couldn’t be, Wild tried to hold onto you, the memory of his desperation scorching under your eyelids like a brand and his howl of denial mixed with self loathing would haunt your for days to come, maybe months, he was far away and hopefully safe, it couldn’t be him).

The figure merely steadied you against themselves, silent as they swung you into their arms, you briefly struggled. It was instinct to put up a fight, to push against the liminal illusion cruelly meant to haunt your possible last moments as another soon to be lost souls chest, or heck for all you knew it could be the Shadow, dragging it out, playing with your torment as it gave you scraps of hope before taking it away. The figure paused, only to gently readjust you -painfully careful as the memory of the gentleness belonging to your Champion but oh so wrong made your heart ache-, the figure lowly speaking, their tone the emerald eternity of the kingdom’s fields and like setting stitches against your wounded self, like the soothing nature of early autumn rain. Almost a whisper, cracked like the wind through the leaves.

“... Rest. You’ll be alright.”

You wanted to protest, wanted to claw and fight and bite his throat off just in case even if you weren’t sure it would take, as with your head in the crook of his hood you couldn’t hear a heartbeat, but your exhaustion won out in the end. Held in the warmth of the sun over Faron Woods with the glimpse of fierce cerulean blue, the gaze of a reynard whom a part of you knew wouldn’t give you up without a fight and safer than you felt since getting pounced through that cursed portal.

When you next came to, it was to Wild’s frantic worry at the edges of camp, his hair like a frazzled shroud as he dropped everything in hand of his watch to check on your now wrapped wounds. Hugging you tight as you held him just as close back.

This time, you found a heartbeat, and you could almost weep with relief, and in the darkness of the woods a shrouded shade smiled.

Returning to the mist unseen and unheard. But content you were home.