atlas

"Look who's talking, Mr. I-Have-Seizures-and-Don't-Tell-Anybody," Sky grumbled as he was manhandled to sit between the other two.

"Well, everyone knows now."

Hyrule and Sky gave Wild a scalding look. Adequately apologetic, Wild shrugged sheepishly.

"Anyway," Hyrule sighed, shifting his focus to Sky. "Assessments come in different forms. You've got a primary and a secondary assessment. Primary is kind of a general overview and checking for life threatening stuff, secondary is in-depth on what the issue actually is. Make sense?"

Wild nodded.

"Great!" Hyrule continued with a smile. "Okay. Sky's our patient. Sky, you got shot once, right?"

Sky nodded, and Wild balked. "He what?!"

"It was a long time ago," Sky waved a dismissive hand.

"Okay, so that's our scenario," Hyrule said, standing. "We're dispatched for a 21-year-old male with a GSW--"

"That means gunshot wound, right?"

"Yeah. GSW, conscious patient. That's all we've got. So, you get on scene, and the very first thing you do is check for scene safety. If the scene isn't safe, we're not going in. First thing you're taught in EMS - your own safety comes first, because if you're shot you can't help the patient. It's you, your partner, then the patient."

"How often do you actually listen to that rule?" Sky asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That's not what we're learning today," Hyrule waved off easily. It was pretty common knowledge that while he would never put his partner's life at risk, he'd gotten himself into dicey situations before. But he knew how to get himself out of those situations too. "So, we determine the scene is safe. Next, is our primary assessment. The purpose of this assessment is to check for life threatening things, and an overview of major body systems. Neuro status, bleeding, and your ABCs: Airway, Breathing, Circulation.

"The situation is pretty dynamic, like sometimes you walk up and somebody's got an arterial bleed and spurting blood everywhere, your assessment stops right there and you go fix that bleed. But generally you'll have time to do the entire primary assessment."

"Okay, so neuro and ABCs?"

"Yeah. And the good thing is that most of it happens all at once, you know? You walk up to Sky and he looks at you, then boom, you've got a good neuro - he's awake, he's alert. He may not be oriented, but you can figure that out by just talking to him. And by this point you can tell if there's life threatening bleeding. Then it's ABCs - is his airway patent, or open? Is he breathing, and is he doing so normally? Is his skin warm, dry, and normal tone for him? You can literally do al these things by just walking into the room and looking at him for five seconds. The primary assessment is done really fast and, the more times you do it, basically automatically."

"What would be an example of something being wrong?" Wild askd.

Hyrule glanced at him. "When I got on scene for your crash, you were unconscious and unresponsive--in other words, you were not only unconscious, but nothing would wake you up--and your breathing was gurgling sounding because you had blood in your airway."

Glancing at Sky, Hyrule said, "Sky can give us an example of a not great primary assessment, I'm sure."

Helpfully, Sky immediately flopped off the chair he was sitting on, collapsing to the ground with a crash. Wild laughed, and footsteps rushed from upstairs into the living room.

Twilight immediately froze in the entranceway, eyes wide and fixed on Sky. "Sky, what the--guys what the hell is hap--"

Sky perked up immediately. "Oh, sorry! I'm just helping Hyrule teach Wild!"

Twilight froze a moment and then sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose and grumbling under his breath.

Hyrule smiled, pointing at Twilight. "He just perfectly showed a good primary assessment looks like! He walked in and saw the patient down on the ground, tried to figure out a neuro by calling out to him, and when Sky woke up he immediately could tell he was fine. Neuro intact, not bleeding, had a patent airway because he's talking, breathing normally, and skin looks normal."

"I hate all of you," Twilight groaned, walking out of the room.

"Okay, but by skin looking normal... what does it mean when it doesn't?" Wild asked.

"Your skin can tell a story," Hyrule explained. "If you're diaphoretic, which means sweating, something is likely wrong. Though it depends on context - if your patient's sweaty but they were just exercising, it makes sense. If Sky's sweaty on the ground after being shot, he's in shock. If the skin is cool, the body isn't circulating well - that can sap the color right out of your skin - the lighter your skin tone the more notable it is, but darker skin tones can become paler too. A lot of times with darker skin tones you'll want to look at their palms or their lips, that'll help you determine it. Another color is grey - that usually means cardiac and it's bad. So skin can tell you a lot!"

"How did my skin look?" Wild questioned, curious.

"Pale," Hyrule immediately answered. "Anyway. Sky's your patient. Look him over."

"Okay," Wild blew out a breath, approaching Sky and kneeling beside him. "So he's unconscious, that's my neuro so far."

"Can you arouse him at all?"

Wild poked Sky in the neck. Sky flinched. Wild poked again and Sky giggled. Wild's eyes widened in realization, and a mischievous smile crossed his face.

"Wild, wait--"

Sky started laughing hysterically as his friend tickled him, wiggling and trying to shove him away.

"Get--off of m--Wild you jerk--"

“Magic,” Legend says when the sun is high and the heroes prepare for battle, “can it harm you in ways it doesn’t others? Mortals, I mean.”

“What about salt?” It is Wild who asks, when they have set up camp for the night. He peers at the rock salt in his hand as though it is liable to attack. “I’ve heard fairies don’t like it.”

“Can fairies die?” Wind asks with eyes so large, Time imagines he can see the Great Sea roiling within them. “In ways humans can’t?”

Iron, curses, traps to ensnare — they have heard of them all. And now, they wonder about them all.

It’s touching, Time decides as he and Hyrule respond to their queries. Or attempt to. It is difficult to reply to things that spear their deepest worries, their most intimate wounds. That dredge up memories long thought buried and fling them into the light of day.

But yes, this protective instinct, this reckless kindness is touching. Knowledge is power, especially where Hyrule’s saviors are concerned. Obtaining it can be the difference between success and defeat.

From anyone else, such queries would be little more than flaming arrows, flying towards the heart. And truthfully, Time must shove aside that soul-deep instinct to hold up his shield to stave them off. The words that usher from his lips, the answers he gives, could very well doom him.

They have — unspoken though they were — many times before.

“Iron is the fae’s greatest weakness,” he whispers, a secret that burns like the material he references. “However, spells, when properly cast, are just as dangerous.”

“Salt doesn’t harm us though,” Hyrule clarifies, his voice a summer’s day breeze. “And neither does your cooking, champion.”

Wild laughs at that, a sound like water singing over river stones.

Wind’s question is the hardest to answer, though. In a way, the reply is cloaked within the others, enveloped in the unveiling of their deepest frailties.

Iron will sear a fae’s skin clean off their bones, mangle their wings into masses of excruciating matter.

Spells will enslave them, transform them into monsters that devour their own kin. Or simply wipe their minds clean, enslave them to a purpose they can no longer remember to resist.

Yes, many things can kill a fairy. But the thing that truly does them in (the thing Time sometimes wonders about whether it will do him in) is not unique to fae-kind.

Fairies, like mortals, care deeply.

(Though, perhaps that care they hold inside goes further than even mortal capabilities. Perhaps, the protective instinct, the need to guard and heal and care for is unnatural. Perhaps, it always has been and Time has only failed to notice it.)

(Perhaps, the love he sees in Malon’s eyes when he wraps his arms around her waist and holds her close, the teasing affection in Warriors’ when he claps a hand on Time’s shoulder, the vulnerability in Twilight’s when Time admits his pride…perhaps, those are not quite the same stuff as the emotion in his own heart.)

(He will never know. He is content with that.)

Regardless, this love is the greatest danger fairies face. For when their loved ones are in danger, when evil threatens the people whose caring hands embrace their very souls, a fairy is helpless to stand back and do nothing.

This was a 2-year old WIP and I finally, f i n a l l y finished it. Huzzah!

I wasn't even gonna bother, I just wanted to add some color before sending it off but then I ended up completing it lmao. It never goes according to plan.

The anatomy really fought me on this one. Just couldn’t get them to look quite right for the longest time. Funny how randomly opening the file again after a half-year hiatus knocked the answer out of me. There's still some flaws in the form I'm sure, but that's ok. I'll let 'em be.

This is actually the result of a redraw. I was very attached to the idea, but the original attempt looked less like the cute duo I was envisioning and more like a cursed couple image. That version can stay lost in the void of no return ha ha, but I did want to share some of the other portion of its evolution.