she

bursts into the room, red-painted nails digging into her palms, her hands are balled into desperate fists and she only clenches them harder, almost drawing blood but she doesn't care, because zelda is crumpled in the corner, on her knees, bent into herself, hands covering her mouth, eyes wide with shock and terror and desperation, she looks at midna, and tears escape down her cheeks, and finally midna notices, notices the bloodstains covering the carpet and the furrows dug into the splintering doorframe.

and she stops, feet planted there, her body keeps moving with its momentum, and she wheels her arms to keep her balance, her hair falling into her eyes, and she looks at zelda and her own horror is mirrored in the other girl's eyes.

zelda fights against her pain to speak, her face contorting into a fierce expression, and she lifts her chin and says as solidly as she can, a single word:

"go."

and midna runs.

follows the sidewalk where blood paints red smears on the concrete. follows the erratic path of a boy-wolf in pain. follows him as stormclouds loom above her in the gathering dusk, as the telephone lines loop up and down beside her as she runs, until the poles turn to trees, growing ever thicker as she goes, until she's fighting through thorny underbrush, and there's fur caught in the branches.

she runs until she can't run anymore, every breath dragging dry from her burning lungs, and her feet are weak, she stumbles on a jutting root, and it's getting darker now, and there are fireflies bobbing pale on the breeze that cuts through her, cold.

she shouldn't have worn sandals here, her feet are cut in a thousand places but she ignores the pain and keeps moving, following the crimson path, and there are holes in her jacket from where it snagged on grabbing limbs, and her hair is tangled and filled with leaves and twigs. her vision blurs, the darkness steals her sight, and she fears every shadow will prove empty. but then she can feel it, he's close, and she pulls the hair tie from around her wrist and ties back her knotted hair so she can run again, and she does.

runs.

trips on everything, she can't see anymore in the dark but for the reflected eyes of deer who catch the slightest sliver of moonlight in their eyes as she runs past. follows their forgotten trails to where a creek rambles past, quiet and thoughtful, through a little grove where the moonlight cuts shafts through the branches, and that's where she finds him.

his teeth are clenched in pain, his face human and hurting, but his fingers are claws, trembling and tearing at the fabric of his clothes, and fur pokes through, and there's blood all over him, and she trips as she bends over him, and she lurches, she can see the bite, the horrible bite burning red on his neck, his neck, and his eyes flash open, feral, and she jerks backward, and the hair tie snaps, breaks, and her hair is all over her face, she backpedals on her hands, and he slowly, painfully, leans up and watches her, eyes narrow, claw-hands still clutching at himself.

then his eyes fly wide, and he realizes.

his voice is not a growl. it is a whimper, a whisper. "midna?"

"god, link," she breathes, and he opens his mouth to speak but can't, just lets out a noise animal and broken, and she rights herself and grabs his face in her hands, gently, runs her thumbs over his cheeks, and he slowly, carefully, lets go of his torn clothes and looks at her.

"i," he says, and then his eyes are wide and his hand flies up to his neck but doesn't touch it, he remembers and he looks at her with desperation, "you need to get out of here," and his voice is a broken whisper, a plea.

"i," she says, and she fumbles with her jacket, her torn jacket, but it's soft, and she wraps it gently around his neck (he winces and she bites her lip, sick) and she leans back and looks at him. "no," she says.

but then she notices the wolf.

it's dead, lying there bloated and angry and red, its jaws parted in death, foaming with rage, its eyes open and mad, and there's torn fabric between its claws. link raises his claw-hands and looks at them, and they're covered in blood. he makes a noise, a choke, a sob, a whimper, a cry, and he looks to midna so broken she grabs him, heedless of the danger or the pain, and hugs him, and she can't keep the sob from escaping in her throat.

"you can't, you can't," link's protesting, but his hands scrabble at her back as he holds onto her, gingerly as he can. but then the moonlight breaks through the trees, silver, and the moon's at its height now, its light burning into him like a siren song, and he cries — it breaks in his throat, ripples like a snarl, and midna's too afraid to let go. his bones shift in her embrace and he's hardly even a little human anymore, he's like a dog, like a dead animal, heavy and limp in her arms, her jacket looped stupidly around his neck, and she slowly releases him from her embrace when she feels him move, breathe, then — stiffen.

his breath heaves, his eyes flash feral, gold where blue was, once. "get out," he says with the last of his humanity, and then the softness is gone from his eyes, his limbs are splayed, and the skin on his nose slowly furrows, his teeth glint in the moonlight, and the fur on his ruff rises until he's huge and dark and filled with rage, and she can't remember what he used to be as she runs.

she runs, and she runs, choking on her breath, she loses a sandal in the leaf litter and she kicks off the other, stumbling, not daring to look back, just runs, her hair in her face and in her mouth, and the taste of fear sings like a sob on her tongue. and she runs, she runs until the trees turn to telephone poles looping silver lines against the blackest blue sky where a full moon hangs, suspended like a silver pendulum in a grandfather clock that no longer ticks.

she runs, she runs, and she

bursts into the room where zelda was, once, but now there is only emptiness and bloodstained carpet and yellow eyes once blue burning in her mind, and the princess is gone, she's gone and the hero in his haste to save her life has become a monster, and she collapses on the floor, the door swinging on broken hinges behind her, and she sobs in a silver square of the same moonlight that damned him.

.

.

.

A/N: Don't ask.

I guess now I can cross off "werewolf AU" from the list of things I haven't written. Never thought that would ever happen, but then again, I never thought I'd write a romance between Link and Ilia, and that happened, so. Who knows what will happen next?

Reviews are much appreciated. Let me know if you enjoyed this practically incoherent amalgamation of words and emotions!

Love,

godtierGrammarian