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summertimemusician · 8 months ago

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WIP Snippet of the First x Prisoner Reader Vision I've Had Recently

It was dark, as it had been for a long time now.

How long has it been, since he was thrown into this dark cell with accusations of treachery and left to rot?

Days?

Weeks?

Months?

(He didn’t entertain the possibility of years. It slithers and bites cold and cruel like the metal around his wrists, it hisses mockingly in his ears like the demon’s, like snakes twining over his throat.

If he did, he’d think of Orville, of a demon desperately wanting to be granted rest, of deity’s with pale eyes and summer sunlight hair of golden Hylian wheat fields and blue skies. Of a world outside the prison cell.

He can’t afford to falter now, would not give the lord the satisfaction of thinking he’d successfully tamed a lion.)

It was quiet in the dark, if he did not move, nothing but his own breathing and the dizzying, choking dread over what he still saw every time he closed his eyes, over the threat of furious tempest and the burning greed stoking the flames of malice. His perceived betrayal and the injustice of being defanged when his only wish was to protect his people was more agonizing than any wound inflicted on him on the day of his imprisonment, festered like the untreated cuts and bruises, burning through his mind constantly like the tight strain of the chains, digging and pulling into at what was once strong flesh.

The silent isolation could drive any man insane, only stubbornness and determination kept him strong.

…

Suddenly, something changed, enough to make him stir, head hung low but ears twitching with interest. A familiar sound that made him bare his teeth with the most minute of flinches.

Shouting.

Angry yells and outraged howls, the type belonging more to a wild fox’s throat than that of a human’s.

Yelling was never a promising portent.

The metallic screech of an old rusted door being opened reverberated through the dungeon halls, thankfully not his own, a voice’s strangled cry cuts through the silence, more pain than rage, punctuated by the indifferent snapping of cold, twining chains and the slam of the prison cell’s entrance giving it a sense of finality.

‘... Why would someone else…?’

What kind of deeds did his apparent cell neighbor commit to get locked in the most deserted part of this place? He knew there was a cell by the side of his own, from what little he could recall before being imprisoned himself, but it made no measure of sense to chain someone else nearby.

(He knew what the lord was doing, keep him quiet after he'd spoken up about the threat, keep him isolated, drive him mad, slowly but surely chipping away at his will to live-

Even if he was released, who would believe the words of a madman?)

Link thought about his own circumstances, of how he had been branded of ill mind and opportunistic intentions, and ultimately decided it did not matter.

After all, his motives didn't matter either.

Soon enough there was banging on the metallic doors, then cursing, then yowling, then hoarse cries, and then nothing as the silence returned once more to stifle the atmosphere with its oppressive, suffocating weight. Clamping down like a lynel’s fangs upon his mind again.

Link’s ears twitched as he briefly flinched into consciousness, shuddering from both the deep aching in his bones and the cold of the cell, something whispering beneath the silence of the cell. It was subtle, a quiet little clink, clink, clink against the walls like a bird sharpening their beak on stone, his eyes snapped open, eyes darting about the darkness, squinting and straining his ears, the chains rattled with the suddenness of the movement and he gritted his teeth as each muscle screamed in protest, almost gagging at the metallic sweet smell mixing with the sourness of old sweat and the stale air of the cell. He really didn't want to dislocate one of his shoulders again, once was enough.

Link closes his eyes, and sends a quiet prayer for his fellow wayward soul.

...

At first, he thought he imagined it. He couldn't hear the firm footfalls of the guards, the main indication of their patrol routes, nor the confident stride and rankling jewelry of the lord, and he was sure his cellblock companion had gone silent after a quite a few possible weeks of putting up one impressive fight, he doubted they would have left anything much for them to work with.

(If his lips curved a little at the blood coating the lord’s fine sleeves after one of his visits, well, that was between him, the darkness and the goddesses, if they were listening at all.)

And still, the sound persisted, clink, clink, clink.

Then-

Clack.

He lifted his head with a wince, it throbbed but Link couldn't care less about it, he had to find the source of the sound. He squinted at the wall, finally hearing something new, the clanking of heavy chains and heavy, strained breathing, a voice growling in aggravation and strain, raspy in a way he was sure his own would match. A scraping against stone.

“Well… Not much of a breeze from there, great.”

He swallowed, throat suddenly dry as lightning lanced through his spine, a tension seizing his frame, the words came out before he could fully process them, “...Apologies to disappoint.”

“Oh goddesses-” There was a faint sound like something being dropped and the clanking of the chains alongside a faint, muffled thud.

“No goddesses to be found, not here. Just me.” He spoke, some amusement creeping into his voice.

A pause, the faint shifting of metal on stone, and then, “... Did you just- no, nevermind that, this is-” A faint, incredulous chuckle, teetering on the cliff of hysterics, still, they had a nice laugh and suddenly, Link briefly wondered what the shape of a smile would look like on their face, “I know this is probably an awful thing to say, stranger, but it’s so, so nice to know there’s someone else in this awful place other than that pretentious jerk.”

“The lord?” He inquired, more of a statement than anything else.

“That’s the one.” They confirmed, no small amount of bitterness coated their voice with the same sharpness found in the thorns of briars, “Barely a full year in the kingdom, and he’s got his people hauling me to the slammer.” They scoffed, their worn down voice carrying quietly through his cell, “And here I thought Hylia’s people subscribed to her ideology that all life is to be preserved and just judgment above all, guess the joke’s on me.”

Link hangs his head in resignation, something like loathing scraping at his throat, trickles of guilt swallowed down like blood, “... As someone once in his servitude, I offer my apologies on behalf of my people.”

“Oh.” The voice exclaimed, shifting in place, before speaking hesitantly, “Hey now, you don’t have to apologize. It’s got nothing to do with you, the idiocy of one man shouldn’t fall on your shoulders”

A part of Link would like to differ, maybe, just maybe, if he was still free then, he could have done something, anything to help. The prisoner’s howls still ring in his ears.

Remembering his own predicament makes him hold his tongue. If he couldn't even convince the lord that what he saw was the truth, he doubted he would actually succeed

“So…” They start, his ears flick at the light, metallic click, from the corner of his eye, he sees a piece of the wall fall away from a very subtle crack, the shattered stone dropping against the ground of the cell, mixing with the dark stains of old blood, “You seem like a decent enough guy, and you don't sound too hot there so I won't ask what you're in for, care to give me something to call you other than stranger? I'll give you my name in return. Doesn't look like we're going anywhere any time soon, may as well get used to one another.”

He blinked slowly, taking a deep, trembling breath.

When was the last time someone had treated him with any shred of sympathy? When was the last time he had someone to talk to?

(The lord didn't count, it was less a conversation and more so being talked at, urged like some sort of reluctant pet, degraded like a feral dog-

“Take it back.” The lord had spoken, his face impassive and eyes cold, as one of the guards held his head in a grip hard enough to rip the hair from his skull, he hisses, both from the concussion, his back open like a blooming flower and from the blood dripping into his eye and down his cheek like a faux tear, “You may have failed me, may have consorted with demons and dared to renounce our golden goddess' mercy. But so long as you agree to say that all you've told me is a lie, I'll let you go. You will live a normal life, all of your blasphemies will be forgiven.”

He gritted his teeth, it would be so, so easy. It was always that easy.

Except he remembered the thing he sealed in that mask, that even it seemed afraid of what was to come. How it shrieked and yowled and screamed and roared and pleaded to either be slain or sent back to where it belonged just so it would avoid getting involved. Of having nightmares of the sky set aflame for as long as he could remember, of a man with pale hair and crimson garments cackling as he tore his comrades limb from limb, of a woman with golden hair and impossibly seating sapphire screaming with the sound of shrieking birds behind her voice as crystalline wings were torn from her back by a man with hair the color of the fires of war, eyes alight with fury and hate-

He spits at the lord’s feet, snarling like the lion he was often compared to.

“Never.”)

What did he have to lose as he was now, defanged and declawed?

“Link.”

(You pause from the other side of the wall, freezing in place. The short, rusty dagger you had nicked from one of the guards scratching violently against stone as your broken hand shakes, an already unsteady grip sustained only through spite and desperation made lax with shock.

Link, says the man on the other side of the wall. The man whose voice is like gravel, like ashes after a forest fire, but still kind, a little awkward but who immediately apologized for something for harm he didn't even inflict upon you.

You had hoped the Hylia and Hyrule thing were coincidence at best , but now-

Mentally screaming into your own mind, you give him your name, the knobs of your spine prickling with a cold other than the metal collar around your neck.)

#lu first x reader #or if you prefer #first link x reader #for those who want to separate it from an LU concept #'Oh it's just a WIP it doesn't have to be good-' Me: *repeatedly double checking everything while struggling through essays #even though it's not complete*#told ya'll I'd write it out lol #or well in the process #Summer stop putting the Links and Reader through the horrors challenge: impossible #and failed sucessfully #Reader who is just trying to mind their own business and in denial: Alright so the whole fantasy settting #surely the Hylia thing is just a coincidence-#*gets sent to the slammer for perceived blasphemy #hears their other cellblock company is named LInk #flashbacks to the SS prequel manga* Nevermind I need to get outta here STAT. And maybe take this guy with me #summer writes #Summer Writes LU #Summer's WIP's

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