#coa mini

Biting back a groan, Slate began to slide himself over to the ravine wall, and painstakingly pull himself up, arms shaking. His bad leg bumped lightly against the side, and he hissed in pain, sweat trailing down his forehead as he dragged himself upward.

The climb only got harder the longer he went, arms shaking and leg aching almost agonizingly, but he kept going, ignoring the hot pain rippling all along his side.

“You deserve this anyway,” Slate gritted out to himself, blinking back tears as his leg burned with pain. “You deserve this, it was your fault, and you completely—“

He bit off a whine, agony pulsing through his leg.

He pressed his face to the wall for a minute and gasped in a breath, then continued to pull himself up out of the small ravine, gritting his teeth against the white-hot pain wrenching through his leg.

“You’re the one who decided to storm off after a stupid argument,” he hissed, speaking aloud mostly to distract himself from the pain. “It’s your fault he was even mad, and he’s perfectly within his rights to be mad because it’s your fault he’s even here—”

His hold slipped and Slate gasped as he fell back to the bottom of the ditch, yelling as pain slammed up his leg so harshly his vision whited out at the edges.

All he could do was lie there for a long time, gasping raggedly as he tried not to cry out again. His leg hurt even worse than before, and he felt oddly dizzy as he looked down at it, something about the angle a little funny looking.

Stupid stupid stupid.

He closed his eyes and swallowed, thinking back to how he’d even ended up here.

An argument had started between him and Sprite, something stupid neither of them really cared about. But it had somehow escalated, until they were both just yelling at each other, ending with Sprite saying it was all Slate’s fault that any of them were here in the first place.

Slate hadn’t even known what to say, words dying in his throat as he stared at Sprite. He’d wanted to defend himself, but how could he?

Sprite was right. It was all his fault.

It was his fault they’d all been ripped away from their homes and families, his fault the Yiga had decided to exact revenge on all the heroes, his fault he hadn’t realized what they were up to and had allowed them to grow powerful enough to even drag all the heroes here to try and kill them—

He squeezed his eyes shut, and put an arm over his face.

He’d just run off after that. Everyone had been staring at him and Sprite, but he hadn’t said a word before taking off like the coward he was, ignoring the few calls of his nickname.

And then he’d been so caught up in his thoughts that he’d tripped on a root and gone falling straight into the ravine.

His leg throbbed again and Slate bitterly welcomed it, watching the shadows grow longer. It had been a while since he left camp and fell, at least an hour by his guess, and he wasn’t sure he was up to trying to get out again yet. Besides, lying hurt at the bottom of a ravine was no less then he deserved. It was nice and quiet down here at least.

“Slate?”

His heart sank at the voice, but he moved his arm so he could peer up at who had spoken. Light’s head poked over the edge above him, multicolored eyes wide with worry, and Slate averted his gaze. He wasn’t sure he’d wanted to be found just yet.

“Slate are you okay? Oh no your leg— don’t worry, we’ll get you back up!” His head disappeared for a moment. “Hey Mini, I found him!”

Slate let out a quiet sigh, and kept his arm over his face as he heard scuffing from the top of the ravine. A rustling noise sounded out, and then there was a hand gently tapping his arm.

“Hi Slate,” Mini said softly, and Slate let out a grunt in response. “Light’ll be down in a second. Your leg looks really bad, are you okay?”

“Fine,” he murmured.

He was sure Mini frowned at him, but then footsteps padded in the dirt and another hand was poking at his leg.

“Holy crow what did you do Slate? This is broken in at least two places,” he said in disbelief, and Slate finally looked at up.

“I fell, okay? I’ll be fine,” he muttered, then winced when his leg throbbed again.

Mini gave him a little pat on the arm. “You will, once you have a potion or two.”

“Yeah but I think his leg will have to be set before we give him anything,” Light said, sounding a little grossed-out. “Which means we have to get him back to camp, because I’m not doing that.”

“I wouldn’t trust you to do it anyway,” Mini teased, but Slate didn’t laugh like he normally would. He merely continued to look up at the sky.

It took some doing, and Slate nearly blacked out at one point when his leg was hit, but Mini and Light eventually managed to get him up out of the ravine, and without jostling his leg too much. They were both a little short to easily support him, but they did their best, and slowly walked back to camp.

Not that Slate really wanted to go, but he hadn’t exactly been given a choice.

They shuffled along in relative silence for a while, Slate occasionally letting out a hiss of pain, and Mini or Light offering quiet encouragement. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been going through the quiet woods though when Mini suddenly spoke.

“Sprite didn’t really mean all of that you know,” he said quietly. Slate didn’t reply, and he sighed. “I think he’s just still upset Era got so hurt yesterday.”

“Yeah, because a cult from my world dumped him in our group,” Slate muttered. “If I’d just realized what they were up to I could’ve—”

“How could you have possibly known, Slate?” Light asked in disbelief. “It’s not like you knew and decided not to act. And you’re being just as hurt from their actions as the rest of us, if not more. Don’t take on all that guilt, okay?”

What’s a little more? Slate thought to himself, but didn’t vocalize it.

“Nobody blames you Slate,” Mini said gently. “And even if Sprite says he does, I don’t think he actually thinks it’s your fault. He’s just... tired, I think.”

“Well he doesn’t exactly sleep very much,” Light snorted, but Mini just shook his head, looking a little sad.

“Not that kind of tired.”

Light looked at him, then nodded a little thoughtfully, and Mini met Slate’s eyes.

“Will you talk to him after we get your leg fixed up?” he asked with a pleading look. “He did look like he felt bad after you left. Plus Era was talking to him, I think he’ll make him see sense. And Slate?”

“Yeah?” he replied tiredly. He felt rather wrung out from the afternoon’s events, and wanted to just collapse by the fire for a while.

“I mean it. It’s not your fault,” Mini said sternly. “It’s the Yiga’s. And you don’t get to blame yourself for their actions.”

“Ap-ap-ap no arguments!” Light said quickly when Slate opened his mouth. “Or we’ll get Gloam on your case, and I’m sure he’s told you this before.”

Slate looked away. “...he has a whole speech,” he admitted, and Light and Mini laughed.

Their group went quiet again after a minute, but Slate felt a little lighter, though the knot of guilt and shame still hung on in his stomach. They needed to figure out how to stop the Yiga before any of them really were killed, but until then... he’d let go of a little of the blame.

But not all of it.

Mini could hear Cloud’s breath starting to rasp in his throat though, and his steps had slowed drastically in the past few minutes. He suddenly stumbled, and had to lean against a wall for a second, and Mini couldn’t stand watching him push himself any more.

“Cloud, I think we should stop,” he said quietly, coming up to his elbow.

Cloud swallowed and took a rasping breath, then pushed himself off the wall and kept walking. “No, we need... we need to keep going.”

Mini bit his lip and put a hand on Cloud’s arm.

”Cloud if you keep going like this you might hurt yourself more,” he continued, looking up at him worriedly. “I know you said it wasn’t bad, but...”

Cloud continued to walk, though it was more of a stumble now. “Mini... we’ve got to find Sprite and Hibiscus, or they...”

He stopped suddenly and hissed in pain, clutching at his chest.

Mini felt his stomach drop and darted around in front of Cloud, carefully pulling his hand off his shirt. He stared in dismay at the red starting to soak through Cloud’s tunic, crimson staining the green, and he gently tugged the hand still in his own.

“That looks bad Cloud.”

“N-no, I’ll be okay,”

Mini frowned. “Are you sure?”

Cloud winced, putting the hand not in Mini’s over his chest again. “We don’t have time to stop, we have to find, ngh, Sprite and Hib...”

Mini tugged on his arm. “Cloud, please sit down, it’s okay, they can wait a little longer.”

Cloud swallowed and looked down the hall, worry in every line on his face.

“But what if they can’t? W-what if we’re... we’re too—”

“Well you won’t be any use to them like this!” Mini cried, and couldn’t help the scared note that snuck into it. Cloud obviously needed to rest, why couldn’t he see that?! “I won’t let you push yourself until you drop, I don’t care what your reasoning is! You’re hurt!“

Cloud stared down the hall in silence for another few long moments.

Then he pressed his eyes shut and sighed heavily, squeezing Mini’s hand. His shoulders sank as the fight abruptly drained away from him, and he suddenly looked completely exhausted.

“You’re right Mini,” he whispered, then slid down the wall to land on the floor. “I’m sorry.”

Mini sat down next to him without a word, and gently began unbuckling his sword strap so he could help bandage the slice.

“We’ll find them Cloud, but we gotta wait and fix you up first,” he said, helping him tug his tunic off. He helped him get out of his under shirt and half-busted chainmail as well, then breathed out a short breath at the deep slice sluggishly bleeding across Cloud’s chest. “That doesn’t look even remotely okay,” he said quietly, and Cloud sighed again.

“I didn’t think it was that bad,” he said, voice taut with pain.

Mini didn’t bother arguing, and dug through his bag, sighing at the single measly potion he had left before handing it to Cloud. “Here. Let’s see if this’ll be enough.”

He was pretty sure it wouldn’t be though.

Cloud nodded then gulped down the potion, wincing as it began to work at knitting his skin back together, sealing flesh and fusing muscle back to how it was supposed to be. Mini leaned forwards once it was done, studying the slice. It wasn’t fully healed, but it was more of a shallow cut now, and a bandage or two would probably do it.

He sighed in relief and pulled out the roll, Cloud helping him where he could in bandaging it. They were both silent while he worked, and Cloud didn’t look Mini in the eye, only wincing a little as he was patched up.

“I think we should stay here a while longer and rest,” Mini said when he’d finished, sitting down next to Cloud. “We could both use a break.”

Mini looked up at Cloud, still staring quietly off down the hall. He knew mentioning directly they were stopping solely for Cloud’s sake would never go over with the other hero, but making it seem like they both needed the rest would hopefully convince him.

Cloud nodded.

Mini sighed in relief and settled in next to him, hoping his body heat would ward off the the chill from the stones they sat on.

The hall was silent for several long moments.

“I’m sorry for scaring you Mini,” Cloud suddenly whispered, and the small hero pressed himself tighter against his side. “I just... I hope they’re okay. I was late helping someone once, and she was hurt because of it. I... I can’t let that happen again.”

“It won’t,” Mini reassured gently. “The others are tough. They’ll be okay, I know it. And I know you weren’t trying to scare me. It’s okay.”

Cloud tucked the trailing edge of his sailcloth around him, and Mini leaned his head on his arm.

“...but don’t do it again, okay?”

Mini’s design is the most wip at the moment; I can’t quite decide if I want him to lean more Minish in his clothes or to ditch em’ and just wear the Roc’s cape over his regular tunic. But I’ll figure it out eventually, like I said: wip.

Kaleidoscope’s got the regular green tunic, but his game’s version of the Roc’s cape with some extra stuff. The edges, instead of just being the blue they are in-game, are the colors of the four sword. He also added a hood because hoods are cool okay he doesn’t need a reason... Wears the Pegasus boots and some gloves too.

Light’s got the regular tunic as well, but he sometimes puts on chainmail underneath (but not unless he really thinks he’ll need it). You know how in the manga his dad and all the knights of Hyrule have those cool capes? Well Light got his own, a bit shorter and black in honor of Shadow (with designs of all the 4sword elements).