Whumptober Day 29
all work and no play
“you’re still not dead?” | too weak to move | overworked
warnings: falling, passing out
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There’s a certain kind of exhaustion that the human mind simply cannot fathom. Link’s always been a sleepyhead at heart, but those hours he once spent sleeping for comfort were so silly to him now. He hadn’t known how it felt to be truly tired then. It was nothing like this. Nothing like the bone aching, deep desire to fall into the hands of sleep and never again awaken. It feels like so long ago that he was being stirred from his rest by his best friend’s Loftwing and her morning letter bidding him to meet her before the ceremony. Maybe it was long ago. He cannot not, in honesty, say he knows how long he’s spent chasing after her. Every time he thinks he’s gotten closer, there’s a new, unshakable task handed to him by fate, and it feels almost like he’s starting over again.
Link does not sleep. Not voluntarily, in a comfortable bed surrounded by blankets. He’s more likely to pass out against his will, hunched over a table in the Lumpy Pumpkin, on the cold floors of a temple, near the low burning embers of a camp he cleared out–anywhere but where he’s supposed to, because he doesn't want to sleep. Sleeping takes time. Time he doesn't have. The less time he’s moving, the more time he’s away from Zelda; the more time that flamboyant and infuriating demon lord has to get to her before he can.