A Wounded Friend

 Link tumbled to a stop beside Vah Medoh's claws, strands of blue light still clinging to his Zora armor as he lay on the rocks atop the hard pillar. He coughed and pushed himself to a sitting position, breathing deeply as he worked to get his heart rate down. He tried to stand but gasped, falling back on his knees.

"Well, well," a familiar voice said. "Back so soon?"

Link rolled his eyes but didn't respond. He rarely spoke in the best of times, when he was with friends and feeling the most comfortable. Right now, he didn't think he could get any words out even if he tried.

"You don't look too good," the spirit continued. "Bite off more than you could chew, did you?"

Link ignored Revali's needling and inspected his leg. His Hylian trousers, which he had dyed black, were ripped just below the knee. The broken off shaft of a Shock Arrow jutted from his calf, and blood coursed down from the wound to soak into his socks.

"That looks bad," Revali said, his tone suddenly more serious. "You should head down to the village and have someone check you out."

Link huffed and started dragging himself to the edge. The meaning was clear. Why do you think I came here?

"Well," Revali said, a little defensively, "excuse me for not knowing everything at once." He watched Link haul his bloody and bruised body to the edge. "You know, you could use Revali's Gale. It'd be easier than... that."

Link stopped to glare at him, then at Vah Medoh's wing, which was outstretched and stood between him and the sky. Whenever he tried to gale upwards from this spot, Vah Medoh had a fit and barraged him with warnings about it 'not being safe' to fly too close. The bird was temperamental and paranoid. Anyway, the last thing he wanted to do right now was smash his head against the mechanical bird's wings. He continued to pull himself along the rocks, trying to ignore the chill that was quickly creeping through his clothes. The Zora armor did nothing to keep out the cold, and his Opal Earrings, while great at helping him swim, were completely useless up here. Normally he would have taken the time to switch his clothes out for something warmer, but with his leg bleeding like this, he didn't want to take the time to change.

He made it to the edge of the rock pillar. Hyrule stretched out before him, but while he normally took a moment to appreciate the view, now he didn't spare the mountains and fields more than a cursory glance. He pulled out his paraglider, took a deep breath, and pushed himself off the side of the pillar. The flight down to Rito Village wasn't bad. He'd done it a hundred times. It had been the first village he'd stumbled across, and Vah Medoh had been the first Divine Beast he'd freed. He had a special attachment to these people of the sky, perhaps because he too felt the joy of being, for at least a moment, untethered to the ground and free to roam the open air. He glided past the tops of their simple huts, so different from the buildings in Hateno or Kakariko, and polar opposites from the grandeur of the Zora's architecture. Perhaps this was why he liked the Rito so much; their sense of clean simplicity, with an emphasis on appreciating and being close to nature instead of their own creations. It appealed to him, since he too spent most of his time wandering the wilds of Hyrule.

Several of the Rito spotted him and waved familiarly. He nodded to them, but inwardly, he was gritting his teeth as the ground grew ever closer. Flying was no problem, but landing with his leg like this....

He'd been right to worry. When he touched down, the world exploded in pain, and his vision went dark for a moment. He sucked in a few sharp inhalations, breathing through the pain, and eventually it receded. He pulled himself to the closest hut, that belonging to Kass and his wife, Amali. He could smell dinner still lingering in the air, fried fish with light notes of lemon juice. Salmon meunière. Of course.