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The first time it happens, it’s with a gun pressed under his chin. Father’s gun, and father’s hand bunched in his shirt, lifting him up against the wall, the gun forcing his head back. Father is saying something but Link can’t hear over the static in his ears, the pitiful words he can’t quite force out. His nails make bloody furrows up father’s arm, one knee raised in an ineffective bid for distance. There’s the sharp scent of metal, of blood, of whiskey, and his eyes burn blurry as the gun presses harder -
The shot echoes through his bones, too loud, too close. The bullet goes up, up through his skull and it’s not pain exactly but it’s not correct, a cold wrongness washing through him and he shivers once and -
- and there’s a floral scent in the air, and grass under his fingers. He breathes in sharply, like he’s never breathed before, the scent taking hold of his mind. Familiar, very familiar. The most important thing in the universe right now is this scent and it’s vital he puts a name to it. He takes a few more shuddering breaths.
It’s not even a nice floral, halfway to rotten - pear, the white pear trees that line the walkways at school, that blossom first thing every spring and can’t be bothered to produce actual fruit. His eyes blink open.
He’s still at home, still inside. But there’s clover growing up from the floorboards, and little violets. Spring green and purple. A small pear sapling sprouts to his left, the floorboards cracked and warped around it’s trunk. He plucks a pale blossom, gently rubbing velvet petals between his fingers.
There’s a hole in the wall, haloed in blood.
A drop meanders its way onto the chair rail.
Gingerly he presses his fingers under his chin. The skin is sticky but unbroken. He stares at the blood on his fingers, on the wall - his blood, but there’s no wound - there’s a pear tree growing in the family room -
A crash, followed by a long string of swears. Tools. The garage. Father -
Link jerks into motion, thoughts empty, limbs electric. He’s in his room, upending his backpack, shoving in whatever clothes he can get his hands on.
A pause, considering, listening - silence.
Father’s room - the machete under his pillow, the wallet from his nightstand - and he’s out the back door, running full-tilt into the woods.
***
The second time he doesn’t see it coming. It was a good day, cold and icy, but good. He and Zelda had gone into the city to see the new mummy exhibit at the museum, the one she’d been waiting on for months and months. She’d fawned over figurines and wrapped birds and whatever else was on display and Link did his beat to pay attention, despite the very distracting way her eyes shone in the low light. She kept taking his hand and tugging him over to new display cases and he had to keep desperately reminding himself that museum tickets were Zelda’s idea of a normal friendly outing.
He didn’t want it to end, but the museum staff were very insistent on closing time. But he didn’t want to go back to camp. He suggested a walk through the park. She made a face but agreed.
The park was cold, of course. Zelda grumbled about the wind rattling through the trees, about how poorly salted the walkway was. Her hands were shoved deep in her jacket pockets but she kept walking into his side, like she was subconsciously seeking out his warmth. It was nice. The cold and the dark gave them privacy, and the lights strung up in the trees made the frost sparkle. He almost felt brave enough to link his arm with hers.
Then he lurched forward. Three points of impact. He saw the metal protruding from his chest - a trident? - before he was jerked back. The barbed tines did not want to let him go, and he let out a gasping wheeze as they tore through his lungs. A scream - his name, maybe? - but he was down, the frozen ground offering no relief from his burning chest, from the hot blood forcing its way up his throat -
He breathes in and it’s loam and fresh grass. His fingers dig into moist soil and he pushes up just enough to see.
Zelda is there. Link blinks up at her, and she stares at him wide-eyed, her face blotchy and red but it just makes her green eyes more stunning -
“Link?” there’s a wobble in the word and he realizes she’d been crying. She has his sword in one hand - oh good, she found it, her training must be going well, she’s so smart, he knew she could pick it up quickly - and her other hand hovers over his shoulder like she’s afraid to touch, which won’t do at all.
He takes her hand and helps her up - she’s more unsteady then he is. The sword slips from her hand and oh, they’re standing in a little patch of springtime. There’s grass in about a ten foot radius around them. Red and yellow tulip beds have sprouted, an azalea bush is in full magenta bloom, and the maple trees sport small pale leaves. He’s gotten a lot better at identifying plants. He picks up his sword and collapses it back into his pocket. Overlaying everything is the shimmering golden dust of a dead monster, and that tells him plenty.
He tries to speak, but there’s something in his throat. He hacks up a clod of blood and manages to rasp out, “Are you okay?”
She’s looking at him like he’s stupid, which is fair. “Link,” Zelda says again, and she’s touching his chest - no, touching his jacket, which has three large bloody holes that will make getting a ride back to camp absolute hell. “You were - are you -”
He needs her not to ask any questions, because he doesn’t have any answers and would rather not have any thank you, but keeping Zelda from asking questions is like keeping a sprout from seeking sunlight. He takes her hand and drags her back down the path, back into winter. She stumbles a little behind him but seems to have picked up that he does not want to talk about it, because she says, “You made the flowers grow.”
It’s a sore spot, and something that had endlessly fascinated Zelda when he first came to camp. Demeter claimed him as her son the first night, but not once has he ever made anything grow. The satyrs say they can smell the nature magic about him, but he can’t seem to harness it. He’s never told anyone about his father, not even Zelda. He does not want to talk about it. He falls into silence for the entire trip home.
***
The third time is the worst, because there are witnesses.
They’re at camp. They’re in the woods. It’s just standard capture the flag. He’s wearing armor and everything. There shouldn’t have been any problems.
Except someone thought it would be fun to summon a pack of hell hounds. Someone else had recently been gifted an electrified spear and hadn’t quite figured out how to wield it.
The lightning jumps from the spear point to his bronze breastplate. He jolts, paralyzed, his sword slipping from his fingers as he’s thrown across the clearing and into a sturdy oak tree. The call of “Sorry!” is muffled, far away. It’s hard to tell if he’s actually spasming or if he just believes he is, because the burn is eating through his chest. He’s going to hunt down that sorry and snap their spear and grind it up and force-feed it to them.
Then the hounds are are on him, and he catches a flash of glistening yellow teeth before they tear out his throat.
He comes to on a bed of sweet moss. Tangy wood sorrel. Some fresh seedlings and a few different kinds of mushrooms he doesn’t have the mind to identify at the moment. It’s already summer, it’s a bit difficult for the woods to be more verdant than usual.
Zelda is beside him again, her bow cast aside on the moss. She’s shaking his shoulder and hissing his name, and he blinks up at her.
She turns away and flashes a bright, too bright, smile, and that’s when he notices the others. At least two dozen other campers, a few dryads and satyrs, all staring at him. Zelda is smiling at a boy standing beside her, and Link can’t make out his face for the glare of the sunlight above him, but he must be from Apollo’s cabin. A healer, probably.
“See, he’s fine,” Zelda says, “he just hit his head. He just passed out for a moment, he’s fine.”
Link never answered any of her questions about the evening in the park. She never told anyone else about it, not even the camp director. And now she’s lying for him, like she’s not burning with curiosity herself. He could kiss her, except there’s lots of people watching and he can still taste the blood inside his mouth and he’s a solid 70% certain she’d never talk to him again.
Someone in the crowd says, “The hounds tore his face off.”
Zelda starts, “I’m sure that in the heat of battle it may have looked -” but she’s cut off with a cry of “No, it tore his face off, there was blood everywhere, it’s still in his hair!” and “He started glowing and his face was just there again!” and everyone devolves into a mess, talking over each other, trying to pull together a proper story. None of them sound particularly afraid because they’d all definitely seen weirder, probably. He hopes. He’s already a defective child of Demeter, he doesn’t need any more points against him.
He catches a hissed “That’s not a Demeter power,” and he’s suddenly standing, startling both Zelda and the Apollo kid and shocking the crowd into silence. He turns sharply on his heel and walks quickly away, definitely not running, he’s perfectly calm and in control and he is not running. He’s going deeper into the woods and into potentially more danger but that was fine as long as it got him away from all those eyes.
The Apollo kid calls out to him but it’s Zelda’s footsteps crushing the underbrush, Zelda’s hand hesitantly falling on his shoulder. She doesn’t say anything or try to lead him back to camp. Her thumb rubs a gentle pattern against his shirt.
That helps, just a little. He hadn’t realized how he struggled to breathe until it suddenly became easier.
He owes her something. An explanation, except he doesn’t have that. There’s an apology trying to claw it’s way out of his chest, but she won’t want that. He flounders mentally, steps over a protruding network of tree roots, and manages a quiet, “I’m a child of Demeter.”
“I know.” Her voice is carefully neutral.
“She claimed me, she said I was hers.”
“I know.”
“The gods don’t make mistakes.”
She’s silent for long enough that he glances over. She’s looking at him, her brow creased like she’s dealing with a particularly difficult puzzle. They both know the gods make almost exclusively mistakes.
She says, “I know. She wouldn’t make a mistake, not for something like this.”
The words are a lie, but he wraps himself in them.