Stargaze

He coughs. Blood splatters into the snow.

The wolves surrounding him prowl closer, growls deepening. They sense weakness. They smell death. He cannot bring himself to care.

They have already torn him apart, ripped a hole in his abdomen, scattered his blood across the frozen ground. What more can they do?

He raises his head, with an effort, peering up at the crimson moon shining above them. It looks like the Blood Moon from Wild’s Hyrule. But it can’t be. He is not in Wild’s Hyrule.

Regardless, he hates it.

Usually such a sight fills his heart with dread. Now, it only seems to mock him.

I have won, it says. At last, I have won.

He lets his head droop again. Somehow, the crimson snow is easier to look at than that cursed thing in the sky.

A shiver runs through him. More of his life force drains away, soaked up eagerly by the unforgiving ice. Time drags in a breath.

He should rise, he should walk, attempt to find some way back to the camp, back to the warmth and company of his brothers, back to the ranch where Malon waits to welcome him home. He longs to do so. But he lacks the strength to move.

One wolf drifts towards him, eyeing him with something like curiosity. Perhaps, it is wondering how he is still breathing? Perhaps, asking how he got into this situation in the first place?

The Hero of Time, felled by a pack of common wolves. Time laughs and the sound is a bitter choked thing, soaked in sorrow.

It had not been so simple as that, however.

He had been wounded when he had fallen upon these icy slopes, plunging through one of the Shadow’s many portals. And when he had risen, dizzy from blood loss, weak with fatigue, and lacking either of his two prized swords…the wolves had been here to greet him.

His fallibility had drawn them like ravenous desbreko.

Wolves are mighty beasts, feral, and brave. But even they cannot resist easy prey now and then. And in the state he had been in, he had certainly been easy prey. Especially to wolves such as these. Though they do not look quite the same as the wolfos in his own era, they had been just as strong.

With their powerful paws, they had pushed him to the ground. With their sharp teeth, they had torn his flesh.

They had stopped only when his breathing became shallow, his vision dull and clouded. They had stopped only when he had stopped trying to fight back.

Perhaps, it just wasn’t fun for them anymore, at that point, no longer the sport they were hoping that it would be. Or…perhaps, these animals possess some strange sort of mercy.

Maybe they had looked at him, pathetic, gasping, and bleeding in a time that is not his own, separated from those he loves…and they had felt pity.

Time blinks, sluggishly attempting to clear his fading vision. The night that had once been so vivid, is now grayish and lackluster. The deep blues of the sky and distant pines, the reflections of navies and crimsons on the snow — none of it seems all that striking anymore.

The wolves’ eyes, however, those terrible blood-red orbs — those are still as piercing as ever. And when the curious one comes even closer, his gore-tinged muzzle almost touching Time’s face, a shiver runs through him.

Though, perhaps, that is only because of the cold.

It is within him now, rather than merely a product of the harsh elements. The fingers of death clutch at his heart. His strength has fled completely.

When he slumps sideways, when his cheek connects with ice, he hardly knows it.

The wolf nudges him. The movement is so different from its vicious attacks previously.

Get up, it seems to say, come on now, hero, rise and soldier on. Your regrets are many. They must be put to rest.

He gazes at the proud beast. It has kind eyes, he can see now, almost like his pup.

How very strange.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. Because there is nothing more he can say to those who he loves, those who he is leaving behind.

Those who are far away, unable to hear him.

Time breathes and the exhale is hardly enough to create a cloud in the bitter air.

“I’m sorry.”

…

The wolf remains by his side through the bitter night. It and its brethren stand watch as the Hero of Time grows cold and stiff. As the blood he shed on the icy ground crystallizes beneath the assault of icy wind.

He has perished, after a lifetime of escaping death. But he has not done so alone.

His attackers guard him, never touching his body, never trying to tear the meat off of his bones. They merely remain, stalwart and strong, gazing into the endless expanse of snow.

And when a figure of gold, with a single eye of red, appears as though he is a product of the wind itself…they welcome him as they would their own kin.