#look everyone's kinda there

[undertheopensky]

Portals Do Not Like Four (the feeling continues to be mutual)

Whumptober Day 14: Water Inhalation

Characters: Four, Legend, Warriors

Trigger warnings: Drowning, vomiting

Read on Ao3!

Missed the first instalment? Read here!

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Warriors’ shout of surprise nearly drowns him.

There had been a moment of freefall and then impact, cold and stinging. Water rushing up his noise and into his mouth and eyes; he has to clamp down on the instinct to cough, instead struggling up towards the weak light of dawn against the weight of his mail.

Warriors breaks the surface and starts to cough.

He’s not the first one up - with no deadweight armour Wind’s strong swimming skills probably granted him that win, with Twilight and Wild close behind. And Wild - has a grip on Hyrule’s collar, good, the traveller is their weakest swimmer and could use the help. Sky surfaces nearby, spluttering and suffering the same weighty problem as Wars. Goddess, mail makes swimming so much harder.

Legend’s voice is somewhere behind him bitching continuously about getting wet and some warning would have been nice. Wind chimes in with loud agreement. Finally, Time pops up, half-drowned and armour missing - they’ll probably have to retrieve that later, damn -

Wind Twilight Wild Hyrule Sky Legend Time -

Seven.

His heart goes cold.

No no no no no -

“Four!” he shouts. “Does anyone have eyes on Four?!”

Complaining transforms into cursing as they all realise the same thing he had.

Four’s reaction to portals has not gotten better. He and Hyrule have been experimenting in hopes of finding a way to reduce the effects, with little success. Every trip is punctuated by Four collapsing insensate for at least twenty minutes, locked in his own mind by something none of them understand. They’ve resorted to having someone keep a hand on him as they walk through portals so they can catch him, since Four refuses to be carried like an invalid.

But this portal had taken them utterly by surprise. One second they’re walking down Batrean Lake trail, the next they’re materialising ten feet above Lake Hylia.

Four is a competent enough swimmer, not as fast as Wind or even Time. But with the abrupt portal switch, into deep water?

Four will drown, unless they can find him in time.

He’s hit with the image of Four sinking slowly through dark water, eyes blank and hair drifting, vanishing forever into the mud.

Warriors shakes himself, takes as deep a breath as the weight of the water will allow, and dives.

The water is dark and murky. All he can see are blurs: the shadow of a rock, a blob of tightly-clustered water plants, a flash of brighter blue that was Wind struggling to keep himself underwater and search. The mail is actually helping with that, Wars realises with grim humour.

Red and gold and streaming pink; the colours can only be Legend, and of course the vet has something for underwater speed. Wars feels only vague envy and hopes it helps them find Four. Too blurry to make out more than his outline, too-large and shimmering at the edges. He’s out of air - he needs to breathe -

Fuck Four’s been under so much longer -

You can’t help Four if you need rescuing yourself, he reminds himself, and kicks upwards.

At the surface he takes a moment to scan around in the hope that someone else had found him - but all he sees is Twilight coming up for a brief gasp himself, and Hyrule very slowly doggy-paddling himself towards the shallows.

Wars takes two quick, deep breaths, and dives again.

His eyes sting. Water burns in his sinuses, making it even harder to focus. Wars swims, scanning the lakebed for colour and movement and catching sight of the others doing the same, spread out to cover more ground. He’s not finding anything, and the stress is making his chest tighter than the lack of air, and he’s not losing someone now, not over something so stupid -

Then he spots the pink and gold of Legend streaking for the surface, dragging a bundle of jewel-bright colour in his wake. Desperate hope buoys him upwards to break the surface one last time.

“I’ve got him!” he hears Legend shout, and his heart leaps. “Everyone head for shore!”

The vet kicks off, still with that amazing speed. Pink and gold flashes above water for a second, presumably his item; Wars isn’t focused on it. He’s too busy counting heads as they pop back up, calling to let them know Legend had found Four, and making sure they don’t lose anyone else to the depths of the lake, chivvying them along to the water’s edge.

By the time they make it there Legend and Four are out of the water. Warriors staggers out of the lake in time to see Legend slam his joined hands into Four’s back.

Four chokes, and vomits a truly astounding amount of murky lake water. Then he starts to cough.

Near-drowning is never pleasant. Warriors still remembers, with chill horror, falling off a collapsing bridge into a river in full plate, and being fished out by Impa with half the river in his lungs. Four’s at least somewhat aware when he drops into these fugue states, and that’s even more horrifying - to be aware of the danger, of your own death looming, and unable to so much as hold your breath to stave it off.

And the after is almost worse. Struggling to pull in air and having your lungs viciously reject it because it’s laced with water. Needing air for the next cough, and not getting it, chest pulling tighter and tighter as more air wheezes out, knowing the whole time it would be fine if you could just get one good breath.

Wars staggers over and drops to his knees, planting a hand on Four’s back to feel him breathe. Thank the goddess, they’d been in time. Legend had been in time.

Four chokes up another trickle of water. “Can’t -” he wheezes between coughs - “can’t breathe -”

“I know, I know,” Wars says, rubbing his back. It’s something of a lie: in fact, if Four has the breath to speak, even barely, he’s not in danger. He’s getting enough air, however unpleasant the experience. “Keep going, you’ve got this.”

His next inhale catches on the wetness still in his lungs and Four convulses, gaping like a landed fish.

Wars’ hand comes down and thumps him hard across the shoulders. Four coughs and gasps and he’s back to squeaky, desperate breaths but he’s breathing.

Wind stumbles out of the water. He has to shake off the stringy plant still clinging to his foot before he trips over it. “You got him? Is he okay? Can I help?” Right behind him is Wild, half-dragging Hyrule, and Sky, all anxiously trying to check on their little smithy.

Wars has to surreptitiously wave them off. There’s nothing they can do to help, and Four won’t like being stared at. Sky, desperately needing something to do, starts organising the strongest swimmers to fetch Time’s armour, abandoned at the bottom of the lake. Time tries to help.

“I have a tunic to let me breathe,” he says, “once I change I’ll be fine. The more hands the better for a search like this.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t wind up like Four, old man, now sit down,” Sky orders.

Time sits down.

Hyrule also sits down, because he’s not an idiot, and starts checking his bag to make sure the waterproofing held. Time, after a delay, follows suit, fumbling at the buckles with hands that shake.

Wars makes a note to check the old man’s breathing, too, once Four is out of danger.

Slowly, Four’s coughs start to ease. He can take a gasping breath or two before being overcome by another brief fit. Wars sits with him, hand on his back, murmuring soothing nonsense, until his breathing settles into an actual rhythm. His face is wet with lake water and tears. He still looks dazed, and Wars honestly doesn’t know if it’s a holdover from the portal or he’s just exhausted after almost-drowning.

Twilight drops a muddy pauldron at Time’s feet for cleaning and heads over to Wars. “How’s he doing?”

Wars waits a moment, hoping to see a flicker of response from Four, and is disappointed but not surprised to see nothing. “Alive, but shitty.”

Twilight huffs. “How many people you think are gonna get pneumonia after this?”

“At least three,” Wars mutters, and immediately hopes he hasn’t just jinxed them. Then he looks properly at Twilight. “What the fuck are you wearing.”

“Zora armour,” Twilight says. “Lets me breathe underwater to hunt down the shit Time dropped.”

“Did you wind up finding it all?”

“Yeah, between me, Wild, and Sky. Coulda used an extra set of eyes and whatever your swimming item is, though, vet.”

Legend doesn’t answer. Actually, Legend hasn’t moved since he’d first ceded medic control to Wars; he’d just sat on the other side of Four holding his hand, and looks a little blank. Fuck, he better not be having a panic attack.

“Well,” Wars says loudly, “I dunno about you, but I’m tired of looking at this lake. Everyone ready to pack up and go find somewhere to build a fire and dry off?”

And that? That does get everyone moving, even Legend. And Time, who’s not nearly as okay as he’s pretending to be over there.

This time, Four doesn’t so much as squeak in protest when Twilight picks him up.

[rdps01]

close enough

[chloesimaginationthings]

William Afton winning that “idgaf” award in FNAF

[spoopdeedoop]

WYD WHEN MY GANG PULL UP !!!

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo learns something about himself 🏳️‍⚧️

Based roughly on this old post.

Bonus:

[Leo is taking the fact that he was born biologically female simultaneously very well and also not so well but overall he’s mostly coping with the fact that it was Draxum that just essentially gave him the turtle equivalent of ‘The Talk’.]

[secretly-a-trekkie]

me when yellow lighting

[lylahammar]

Falin isn't comfortable in these kinds of clothes but I'm a big fat Falin kinnie so I had to draw her in some of my outfits anyways ✌️😗

[iliothermia]

[anxiouscaretaker]

me when the character canonically gets little to no rest

[missmisnomer]

The standard @drawfee experience ❤️

Saw that meme going around from Myszka on Twitter and knew that I had to render the gremlin crew. Original under the cut

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[sheikfangirl]

"Keep it."

Just a little post- Echoes of Wisdom scene from my headcanon ❤ This game is a GEM! I loved every second of it!! You guys had fun playing Eow? Cheers!

[clouvu]

Cooking up an older Clervie outfit design so I don't have to keep drawing her looking like her child self but Long

[drenched-in-sunlight]

mom vs dad incantation class

(also no thought… just Marika with her little daughters)

[puppyeared]

horrible truth bomb dropped on my head 20 min ago

[theoldkyokodied]

One wedding and three funerals

Background paintings under the cut