Chapter Text
Warriors had always admired Sky.
The Hero of the Skies—the founder of Hyrule as they knew it, the first of the reincarnated Heroes of Courage, the first of the Royal line. Furthermore, he was the forger of the Master Sword—the tool that had protected and guided the generations of heroes after him. He was a legend, a myth, the gold standard that came to life from the storybooks to stand right before Warriors’ very eyes.
His admiration had only grown as he’d come to know Sky as a friend, a comrade, a fellow hero in arms. One of the eight sharers of his soul that he had the privilege to call a brother. He was unflinchingly brave, endlessly kind, steadfastly level-headed and calm.
Well, Warriors didn’t see a trace of those qualities now.
“Stop, stop!” Warriors cried uselessly. “You’re going to hurt yourself!”
Sky’s crazed eyes flashed at him through the shadows driven back only by a weak lantern’s flame. He reared back, turned his shoulder in, and again, like he was able to break through the solid stone like sheet wood, rammed into the dungeon wall with a yell of effort. There had been a door there, all of two minutes ago when Warriors and Sky had stepped into the circular, low-ceilinged dungeon room. Sky had been nervously hanging at Warriors’ side; he'd said something about dungeons not really being his favorite thing, and Warriors had laughed and dragged him along, saying that he’d make a seasoned adventurer out of him yet. That meant that they’d ventured too far ahead of the others when the door slammed behind them and the room—a makeshift arena—was cast into a Keese-filled darkness. They’d dealt with the monsters handily, but the door hadn’t reopened behind them. And Sky had, for lack of a better expression, lost his mind.
Warrior’s heart thudded unsteadily in his ears, driven by unease. He needed to get this situation under control now, before Sky hurt himself. “Hang on, hang on, Sky! We’re not trapped forever, it’s probably just another task the others have to complete outside—!”
Reaching for Sky was a mistake. In a moment, Warriors found himself flat on his ass. Sky didn’t speak, didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t spare a single glance—he merely gathered himself up and charged again. A crisp crack! split the air, and Warriors was pretty sure it was not the wall giving way, but rather a bone or two in Sky’s shoulder. And yet, the scream he let out was not one of pain or even determination; but something nearing desperation and raw panic. With a growl of annoyance, Warriors dusted himself off, eyeing Sky as he gathered himself for another charge.
Even in the flickering light, Warriors could see that his fists were clenched, his ears pinned all the way back. Further, Warriors could see the gleam of exertion on his face, which was twisted into a frightful scowl. The uncharacteristic expression made Warriors' skin crawl. He shoved himself up.
“Sky! Sky, listen to me! What’s going on? Talk to me!” Warriors pleaded, fumbling to stand. In the dark, he couldn’t see Sky all that well—maybe he was being haunted by some invisible enemy that was hurting him, or maybe he’d been possessed by a Poe, or— “Sky, you’re going to hurt yourself! What’s—? Sky, listen—!”
Sky slammed again into the wall with a horrible crunch! and the yelp he let out this time was one of pain, echoing around the enclosed space and driving into Warriors' skull. And Warriors decided, as he watched him gather himself up for another go, that he could figure out what was tormenting him later; for now he just needed to stop him before he did himself any more damage.
Sky threw himself at the wall. Warriors lunged and caught him before he made contact, wrapping Sky in his arms. They both slammed against the rocks, and Warriors banged his elbow so hard that it went numb as he cushioned Sky’s impact. Still, Sky scrabbled at the wall with his fingernails, a sort of feral whine leaving his throat, until Warriors managed to wrench him away. They went sprawling to the floor; Sky instantly began to try to squirm out of the Captain’s grip, throwing elbows and twisting viciously.
“Damnit, Sky!” Warriors shouted in his ear. “What’s going on? Talk to me—snap out of it!”
“Let me go!” Sky howled back. Some tightness in Warriors' chest eased—even with his panicked, inhuman strength, his voice didn’t warp or deepen with the influence of a Poe’s possession. And there were no enemies that Warriors could find on him, even at such close proximity. “Let me go, Captain! What are you doing? We have—we have to get out before—!”
An injury then. It had to be. Warriors grit his teeth—he knew how to deal with those, if only Sky would calm down and hold still. “What’s hurting you? Where are you hurt, Sky?” Warriors demanded with the most authority he could muster. “We can deal with it; you just have to calm down and—!”
With a brutal strike to Warriors' solar plexus, Sky broke free. The bright stab of pain knocked the breath out of the Warriors, and he curled onto his side, groaning and fighting for air as he pressed his face into the dungeon floor; Sky, meanwhile, scrambled up, and he began to pace in panicked circles around the dungeon chamber—in their fall, he must have mixed up the way to the door, and its smooth surface had melded seamlessly into the ill-lit surrounding rock.
Warriors was certain, he thought as he crawled up onto his knees, gasping for breath and spitting dirt from his mouth—what a dirty hit from their sweet Sky—that it was just to the left. But he wasn’t going to point that out and set him after it again. Instead, Warriors sat back on his heels and just watched Sky in the dim light, trying to puzzle out just what in the world is wrong?
He wasn’t possessed, no invisible enemy had attacked Warriors as of yet, and he was just too strong to be suffering from some injury that caused this fevered panic—he should have been flagging by now, if so. Besides, Sky wasn’t one of the heroes prone to foolishly hiding injuries like some of the younger boys. But his breathing was labored—even more so than Warriors', who he’d knocked the breath out of, and that wasn’t fair—and a sheen of sweat that Warriors could only just get glimpses of in the lamplight shone on his haunted face.
Haunted like—
Like the faces of his men after the war, when the battlefield followed them home and clung to them years after. That expression of resigned, hopeless horror when a fear that should’ve been gone came back and there was nothing to be done to escape it.
Their conversation outside the dungeon earlier hit Warriors like a wrecking ball.
“C’mon, it’ll be fun!” Warriors cajoled, extending his hand to Sky. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a few measly monsters, Sky!”
Sky shuffled his feet nervously, just at the edge of the shadows cast by the dungeon’s towering entrance. “No, it’s not that,” he answered, holding his elbow shyly. “Just wondering about the structural integrity. The others said that this place only has one door in and out? Shouldn’t some of us wait outside, so we aren’t cornered if some monsters happen upon us? Wouldn’t want to be stuck in there.”
“No need to worry about all that—that wolf of Wild’s scouted around, there aren’t monsters for miles. It’ll just be some quick, painless fun.”
“I don’t know…” Sky’s eyes lingered over Warrior’s shoulder, peering towards the dark entrance of the dungeon. “It just seems… rather cramped of a space to fight in. Something happens and—”
“Oh, stop being such a worrywart! I’ll make a fine adventurer out of you, yet.” And with that, Warriors took Sky’s hand and dragged him into the depths of the dungeon after him, ahead of the other heroes. “Dungeon diving’s good experience for a hero—look, Legend’s nodding, even our veteran agrees, you won't believe how much he nagged me about it at the beginning of this adventure—and it sounds like you haven’t had a lot of that. You'll learn fast, just like I did. C’mon, stick with me, we’ll have some fun and maybe even find some trinkets to send back to your dear Sun, eh? Time may not have had much luck with Malon, but surely you could find a good ring for your girl.”
Sky let out a tight, nervous laugh at that, and he followed even if his feet dragged. Warriors chalked it up to nervousness, and nothing more. He put his arm around Sky, yelled an acknowledgement back to the others, and dove into the shadows.
More instances flooded Warriors' mind: Sky’s general flinchiness around enclosed spaces, his uncharacteristic quiet in the closed forests or caves they camped in, even his tendency to linger in doorways or sneak outside when they stayed somewhere for the night.
All of it led to the same conclusion:
“Oh, good Goddesses above,” Warriors said aloud, “you’re claustrophobic, aren’t you, Sky?”
