#I mean beedle's always at the stables so I feel like he could walk up on this convo and be like I heard the word bugs yeh Link has bugs | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

corpsentry · 4 years ago

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fandom: botw rating: t  pairing: zelda/link  notes: post-canon, getting together, mild descriptions of injury. cooking. dancing. crying. and so on. “Let’s say you’ve been asleep for a hundred years and when you wake up you’ve lost all your memories, but you defeat the big bad monster like you’ve been told to, because a girl told you to, and because you were in love with her. And after defeating the big bad monster she comes back, only she’s not the person she was a hundred years ago. And you’re not the person you were a hundred years ago. And yet every time you look at her, your chest hurts so bad you think you might be dying.” He looks up from his breadstick. “Am I dying?” “No,” Beedle says. “I think you’re stupid.”

All roads lead to hateno.

“I ate the frog.” Is the first thing he says to her in a hundred years, because he can’t stop staring at her hands, and his head isn’t working properly because he can’t stop staring at her hands, and he doesn’t remember what he had been planning on saying before he walked into the castle and killed two versions of evil incarnate in a room with a domed ceiling and a field with a domed sky, but he’s pretty sure. He’s pretty sure it wasn’t this. “I’m sorry,” Zelda says. “You what?” “I, uh.” He takes a step back, and then a step forward. Hyrule castle looms like a corpse behind her, hulking and majestic and dead. It distracts him, though not as much as Zelda herself, pale as winter and glowing behind a halo of sun. “There was a frog you wanted me to eat.” A hundred years ago. “You said it would be for an experiment.” A hundred years ago you told me to eat a frog and that’s all that I remember. That’s what’s kept me going all this time. When things got hard, when the weight of the curse you had given me grew too great, I cooked a frog in a pot over a fire. She stares at him for a moment, her expression unreadable. “You’re more talkative than I remember.” He panics. “Should I stop talking?” “Oh no! No, just— how do I put it—” This probably isn’t what she had in mind for their reunion. He feels the sudden need to apologize. He should have tried harder to hold onto himself while he was sleeping off the blood on his back and the world retreated into a corner to lick at its wounds, but it was hard. He didn’t know what he was doing. He doesn’t remember, actually. He doesn’t remember going to sleep, and he doesn’t remember what he dreamed of. That’s two question marks in one head, and only one answer to go around. There were two shadows on the wall, though they belonged to the same boy. Zelda twists her hands together, almost as if in prayer. Her white dress billows heavily in the wind, covered in wounds from another century. “I’m sorry,” she says to his feet. “Please keep talking.” He nods, though she isn’t looking. After a moment, they make their way across the trampled, dead-looking field to his horse, who’s had half of her mane seared off and looks like she desperately wants a carrot. He hauls himself onto the saddle, then holds out a hand to Zelda, who stares at it like he’s just offered her the rest of his lifespan. Then she takes it, letting him pull her up behind him, and her hand is so warm, and the sky is so blue, and everything is so strange, he almost lets go. Of the girl. Of the reins. Of his grip on reality, this new, unexplored reality, the carcass of the castle slowly growing smaller in the distance. When he walked into the sanctum with a plan to kill Ganon he had been thinking about how the stalhorses on Tabantha Snowfield run faster than the horses near Kakariko, how a bokoblin will choose a freshly roasted chicken over the skin of your teeth, how stables are a metaphor for family. Now all he can think of is angels. She asks him where they’re going a little while later, and it’s only then that he realizes he doesn’t know. It’s a cool, starless night. No moon, no blood. His horse snickers at a boar by the side of the road, and Zelda tightens her grip on his waist. God, what have they been doing for the last hundred years? “Home,” he answers. “We’re going home.”

 The house in Hateno is a small and modest affair. This is probably the only reason Bolson and his construction company were willing to sell it to him at an equally modest price, with modest display stands for his modest weapons, and a modest bed beside which he hung a framed photograph of him and his dead friends. He’s fine with it, though. The only thing that really matters to him is the photograph, though there are now two living people in it instead of one and a half, and if Bolson had not graciously included a bedframe and mattress in his modest homemaker’s package, then Link would have slept on the floor. He says as much to Zelda, who blinks at him sleepily and throws a pillow at his face. “Please don’t do that,” he says. “Sleep in your own bed,” she replies. He peels the pillow off the floor and pats the dust away before replacing it carefully on the bed. “I promised your father I would take care of you.” And Daruk. And Mipha. And Urbosa, who would kill me if she found out I let the princess sleep on the carpet. Like a dog, she would probably say, her voice low, her eyes slanted. How could you treat her like a stray dog? This is the princess we’re talking about. She deserves better. He opens his mouth to say as much, but Zelda gets there first. “My father is dead,” she says, her voice unexpectedly raw. She seems surprised at herself despite her best efforts, and clears her throat in an attempt to hide it. He finds himself overwhelmed with the sudden urge to hug her or blast a hole through the roof with his sword, but can’t decide on one, and ends up wringing his hands together behind his back while Zelda sits on the side of the modest bed in the modest house in Hateno, and presses the folds of her dress into a clump. There should be more he can do for her. What is it? If only Urbosa were here to tell him what it means when Zelda takes your hand like a promise, when Zelda pinches the side of your waist, when Zelda announces that her father is dead, has been dead for a hundred years, died a long time ago. But Urbosa is dead too. The old world is gone, though its survivors have finally emerged from the twilit field. What now? Zelda rubs her eyes. He picks at a cuticle and holds his breath. Despite her best protests, she agrees to the bed-floor arrangement. Zelda will sleep on the bed, because he didn’t think that far when he walked into the castle and defeated evil incarnate, and she doesn’t seem to care. Meanwhile, he will sleep on the floor. Which floor? The first floor, he decides, but when he tries to go downstairs he almost throws up. His heart’s uneasy, of course, but he had underestimated the side-effects of meeting an angel. Over the past few months, he had gotten used to getting mauled by things to the point where it had become part of his daily routine: get up, have a minor crisis about the fact that everyone you know is dead, have a minor crisis about the beautiful voice in your head, get mauled by a bear. Get mauled by a bokoblin who stole your spear. Get mauled by Mount Lanayru, which has a thing for spitting giant snowballs at him when he’s trying to talk to the Koroks in the region, pleading with them through chattering teeth to stop giving him more tiny golden shits and start letting him talk about his feelings. Zelda is not daily routine. Zelda was the girl in the dream, then a face in a photograph, and now Zelda is sleeping in the house in Hateno with her hands pressed up to her cheek, breathing softly. He’s overcome with emotion, though if you asked him to tell it to you, he wouldn’t know how. And as for the matter of her hands, were they always this lovely? Impa didn’t tell him what to do after he saved the girl, though he knows she’ll want to hear about it from him and not the Sheikah warriors she has spread out throughout the kingdom, keeping an eye on their dying gods. Impa wanted him to look forward, which meant knives and teeth and forests full of bodies. She didn’t tell him what he could or couldn’t do in the presence of the sun, and he, having spent his whole life sitting in a dark room, didn’t think to ask. In retrospect, he should have. In retrospect, he should have asked Bolson to build two beds. But the thought didn’t occur to him, just as it didn’t occur to him that his heart might not be the dead thing the world told him it was, and so he never did.

 “I had a dream.” He flips the eggs. “About what?” “About a world where I made it in time.” Zelda peers over his shoulder. “Are they done yet?” “Almost, if you could please—” “—Ah, excuse me—” She dances out of the way of the big cast-iron pan, which he holds in one hand while he reaches for the plates with the other. In her haste to create space she walks into the counter and winces, bending over to touch the side of her foot. “Oh. I stubbed my toe.” She sighs. After breakfast he goes to look for Uma. He finds her sitting under the same old tree beside the bridge, cradling a cup of tea and humming along with the cicadas. Uma is the only person in Hateno who remembers the Calamity as a name with a face, and not a dream. She also had a daughter once, whom she lost in the years after the Calamity, when the rice fields had not yet begun to flourish, and the winters were long and cruel. He asks her quietly about the weather, which she tells him is her favorite kind. Spring’s never felt quite so lovely, she informs him, as she pries open an old dresser and leans forward to peer inside. He holds her cup of tea with both hands, the mellow sweetness of chrysanthemum tickling his nose and making him sneeze. After a moment, she returns with a set of clothes in the signature Hateno blend of oranges, blues, and warm, earthy browns. She places them carefully on his head and then retrieves her tea before he has the chance to drop the cup. “I hope your friend is taking well to Hateno,” she says warmly. I hope I have a friend, he thinks with his heart stuck halfway up his throat. He’s barely keeping himself together, in pretty much every sense of the word, but he thanks her all the same, and means it.

 He did, in fact, eat a frog. Several times. Once on the Great Plateau, after the spirit of the old king had left him to fend for himself with a pickaxe and half an apple, and again while he was in the Hebra mountain range, because it was too cold out to hunt and one had hopped into his pack while he wasn’t looking and died there. Then there was another time, at one of the stables up north, where he met a traveling salesman who offered him a stamina-boosting trick for ten rupees. The first time he obediently closed his eyes, and could only describe the texture in his mouth as ‘soft, with hints of viscosity’. He returned several weeks later, ran away on his horse immediately after making payment, and was mildly alarmed to discover that he had not in fact been presented with a breadstick, but rather a leg. A very long leg. With joints. And skin. And a big, webbed foot. Once, while sitting on a raft headed out to sea, he considered hurling himself into the water. It had been raining for several days by this point, which itself wasn’t a problem as he had come to quite like the sound of rain bashing on the outside of his tent with bloody fists, but this rain was relentless. Like a ghost which tries to kill you and fails, and, in a fit of bitter resentment, resolves to throw rocks at your window each night for the rest of your life, the water got into his boots and it got into his eyes and then it got into his pack, which spoiled all of his carefully-preserved meat and caused the stopper in his bottle of milk to rot. Under the present circumstances, all the game had either gone off to find shelter or been washed away by the floodwaters. There was nothing for him to hunt, and nothing for him to eat. His stomach growled faithlessly. While stumbling along some beach or another, he bumped into Kass, who told him about some treasure further out at sea. He looked blandly in the direction that the parrot pointed out for him, and found his eyes drawn to the island that lay beyond it. “I’m going to go there,” he said. “I hope you find good treasure,” said Kass. “Yeah,” he said. So he hauled himself onto a raft (he was too shy to ask the people in Lurelin for help, and too proud to talk about his circumstances) at the crack of dawn and began to blast a Korok leaf at the sail. And then he got tired. He sat down. He leaned over the edge of the raft. His reflection in the water was gray, because the sky was gray, and the sky was gray because it was raining. He had begun to shiver again, but he had spent most of the week shivering anyway and so didn’t pay it any attention. His hair was matted to his forehead, and there were bags under his eyes. One of his piercings was smarting; it must have gotten infected. “What if I just stopped trying,” he suggested to the sea, which ignored him. What was the point of it all, anyway? All of his friends were dead and the girl in the photograph was stuck in a castle in the sky. He didn’t remember a single thing about the first seventeen years of his life. Only the things that happened in the last three months, only the things that were deemed important, and even those he remembered in fragments. Like what if he had a sister. What if his father had been kind to him, or doting, or an alcoholic. What if he had been in love with someone, and what if he had had a heart, and what if he had cared. It was hard to discern the world’s sympathies for him when he spent most of his time alone. Sometimes, at night, he drew a face on the rock-wall and gave it a name. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’m tired, and I’m hungry, and I feel more dead than alive, even though I’m the only one still breathing.” But the sea continued to ignore him. The wind continued to ignore him. The rain continued to ignore him, pelting at his wet shoulders with wet hands and wet teeth, clawing at the skin on the back of his neck, telling him to go to sleep and stay there. Eventually the raft drifted of its own accord to the shore of the island he had spied in the distance, and then some thousand-year-old mummy stripped him of all his belongings anyway, so it no longer mattered that he had nothing in his pack or his head or his heart, as long as he was able to replace it with something new.

 A few weeks later she’s standing in the kitchen and staring at the vegetables in the pot, humming to herself, while Link rearranges the condiments on the table. She’s swaying from side to side, holding up the ladle like a sword. She seems happy. He leans back in his chair until he can just about see the top of her head. “What song is that?” he asks, casual as a house on fire. A pause. Something clatters to the floor. Picture two figures in a forest full of thorns and teeth. Picture the knight carving a path through the trees, the princess stumbling behind him, his clammy hand tight around her wrist, their feet bruised and dirty. It’s raining, of course, because it’s always raining in the dream. They’re being chased by mechanical monsters with knives for eyes. And they’re tired, both of them, so tired they could hurl themselves into a pond and drown there, but instead she walks into a tree. The bark scrapes the length of her forearm like a kiss, tearing at her skin and pouring blood down the back of her hand. Something clatters to the floor. Something breaks. Picture the old dream, the one he knows like a memory, the reason he’s less afraid of bears than people. He whirls the chair around to the sight of Zelda’s hand in the fire, her posture rigid, her face hidden by a curtain of hair. “I’m sorry,” she says, crestfallen. “It’s just—” He’s on his feet and halfway across the room before she can finish her sentence, pulling her away from the counter, reaching for the faucet with his other hand. “—It’s the first time you’ve asked me a question since you found me,” she says quietly. The skin on the back of her hand is bright red. If Urbosa were here, she would tie his arms and legs to four horses and then ask them to run in four different directions, and he would die in such a memorable way, it would eclipse even the deaths of all his old dead friends, who were trapped in machines with voices for a hundred years while their bodies turned into dust. If Urbosa were here then he likely wouldn’t be, would be in the next room, his ear pressed to the door, his heart pressed to the roof of his mouth. It’s a good thing, then, that she isn’t.

 It’s spring, so the water from the faucet is cold enough to cut yourself on. The water from the faucet is cold, so it should sting on skin as red as this, but Zelda doesn’t say anything as he holds her hand under the stream of water, his thumbs resting on the curve of her wrist, his eyes searching her blank expression for. A sign? A reason? Why the ladle on the floor; why the hand in the fire? “It’s fine,” she finally says, brushing her hair behind her ear with her unhurt hand. “No,” he says before he can stop himself, bristling a little, feeling slightly outrageous. “It’s not.” Zelda looks somber for a moment. Then she hiccups a laugh. “We’ve had this conversation before, haven’t we?” Yeah, I remember when you [the path that leads to Hateno is wet and winding] and I [your hand on the back of my head was cold and dying], he wants to say. But he would be lying if he did, because he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember anything except the sixteen stories she left him, sixteen shards of a seventeen-year-old life. If she’s referring to something funny, then he’s missed an opportunity to make her laugh. If she’s referring to something important, then it’s no wonder he can’t seem to bridge the gap between the frog and the girl, no wonder his head hurts like someone stabbed it with a pitchfork and forgot to take it out, no wonder Hyrule still feels so far away, even as he milks the chickens and he chases the cows and he collects the eggs from the bears. He turns this thought over in his head as he goes for the medicine cabinet, which he had not asked for and Bolson had installed as a courtesy. Despite his best efforts, the blood on his back never quite washed away. She’s gone by the time he closes the cabinet, and he begins to feel that telltale sickness in his stomach, the sudden urge to throw up. He walks briskly out of the house in Hateno, salve and bandages tied to his wrist, his heartbeat ringing in his ears. The moon is a crescent tonight. Hateno rises and falls with each breath, pressing flowers into the palm of his hand. He folds each one unevenly in half. Zelda’s halfway up the ladder when he finds her. He waits for her to get onto the roof before he starts heading up, and is surprised all the same when he reaches the top of the ladder, and finds her face inches away from his. “I didn’t know you had a ladder,” she says pleasantly. “Why did you follow me up here?” She smells like Goron spice and sun. He is three seconds away from plummeting to his death. This is nothing he is used to, and a part of him thinks that if he knows what’s good for him then he will never get used to any of it. Not the silent, dead castle, not the long black shadow of the future, not the girl. She leans back after a moment. He breathes out. Half an inch of space will not keep either of them safe. Zelda watches him retie his ponytail expectantly. “So?” The ladder is from the Great Plateau. He found it at the back of the Temple of Time days after the old king asked him to climb to the top of the ruined structure and revealed to him that he was, yeah, the old king, and that all of his friends were dead, and that he would have to get the girl out of the castle before she could even think to save him, and by association, the rest of the world. At that point he was still naive enough to think defeating Ganon would take a stick and an apple and a really fast horse. He had also not yet learned of the myriad ways in which he had failed everyone he had ever cared for, and so spent his days wandering from place to place, pointing at bugs in the leaves and laughing. The ladder pissed him off. Who put it there? Why didn’t the old king tell him about its existence? What was the point of leaving a ladder behind the statue of Hylia when you could’ve put it in front, so stupid soulless people like him could use it to reach the end of the story faster? He returned to it much later, after he had purchased the house in Hateno, and yanked the whole thing down. Hacking it into four sections with a pickaxe he stole from a bokoblin (it had probably belonged to him first anyway), he piled all of them on his horse and then walked through Hyrule field, past Fort Hateno, all the way back to Bolson, who stared at him like he’d just asked him to kill a man. What do you mean you want me to fix this ladder, he asked. I mean I want you to fix this ladder, he replied. So Bolson did. Zelda laughs so hard she almost falls off the roof. She gets right up to the edge of it, leaning over the side with her face in her hands while he scrambles to keep her from toppling over. She only let him wrap up her arm because he was talking, because according to Zelda he never did much talking, but maybe he’s said too much. He’s embarrassed. Defeated, he lies down. There’s a star, just above the crown of trees at the other end of the village. He reaches out idly, trying to pinch it between his thumb and forefinger, but his fingers brush against skin instead of sky. Zelda, half-goddess, half-miracle, turns her face into the palm of his hand for the briefest of moments, like a butterfly alighting on the surface of a pond. The cicadas sing ballads. His breath stops in his lungs and dies there. “I like the ladder.” “Oh.” “Please keep it.” “Oh.” “You know,” she says, still leaning over him, close enough that if he gave her hand a tug, she might fall right out of heaven. Her head is tilted, her hair falling into her eyes, splaying across the tiles on the roof like a satiny strip of sun. “What?” he asks hoarsely. She smiles at him like a secret. “I—”

 He used to be in love with her. As each piece of his sixteen-part past was returned to him and the last day of his life emerged slowly into the light, it dawned on him like a horse falling out of the sky that he had been very lucky to be her knight, that he would have willingly given his life for her, and that he did. Only his final, heroic act of sacrifice failed to accomplish anything meaningful in spite of his best efforts. He had died with her hand cradling the back of his head, his tunic wet with blood and tears, believing that the ending could be salvaged still. Maybe this is what it takes to reach happiness, he thought dizzily. Maybe you have to be pushed to the end of the line, before you can start walking back towards the center. But when he opened his eyes, it was to a world which had not moved an inch from the precipice. His back was covered in scars, water streaming down his skin like blood, and his head was so light, he worried for a moment that if he stood up too fast it would float right off of his shoulders. The only thing that remained was old skin, the thin aftertaste of fear, and a bone-deep anxiety that wouldn’t come off no matter how many times he threw himself into the river. The only thing that remained was a voice in his head, calling his name through the dream, reminding him that there was still something that could be salvaged from the fire. He used to be in love with her, though it took him a while to admit it, because being in love with her meant admitting that he had failed not only on a prophetic level, but on a personal level that cut to the wound at the center of his chest. It was a matter of survival in those first few months. Him, or a kingdom. His selfish and worthless pride, or the world. Naturally, he chose the world.

 “Let’s say you’ve been asleep for a hundred years and when you wake up you’ve lost all your memories, but you chase after fairies and you dig up shrines and you defeat the big bad monster like you’ve been told to, because a girl told you to, and because you were in love with her. And after defeating the big bad monster she comes back, and you take her back to your house, and you fry eggs for her. But she’s not the person she was a hundred years ago, because she spent a hundred years in a dream. And you’re not the person you were a hundred years ago, because you forgot everything you could possibly forget, and then you got mauled by a bear. And yet when you look at her, every time you look at her, your chest hurts so bad you think you might be dying.” He looks up from his breadstick. “Am I dying?” “No,” Beedle says very seriously. “I think you’re stupid.” Beedle retrieves a string of petrified armored beetles from one of the pockets on his back, and holds it abruptly in his face. “You can fall in love with someone twice, you know.” Link wrinkles his nose. “How do you know?” Beedle sticks the lower half of a beetle in his mouth. “I’m five hundred years old.” He bites down. “I know things.” Chews thoughtfully. “I’ve eaten things, too. Things you’ve never even dreamed of. “Point is, Link, you’re being stupid. Get it together. The world’s not ending anymore.” “Oh,” says Link. He watches Beedle eat the rest of the beetles. There are five in total. He doesn’t have to chew very hard, which is weird. He turns Beedle’s words over in his head. Beedle has a point. The world isn’t ending anymore. The world isn’t hanging on by a thread, waiting for the boy in the story to haul it back up the side of the cliff. They hauled it back up, him and Zelda and their old dead friends. They hauled it out of the well. And now look at the flowers.

 Once, while sitting on a raft headed out to sea, he considered hurling himself into the water, but here’s the other half of the story. He had recently been into the castle again, up to the princess’ room, where he found, among other things, a moblin, a bow, and a single Silent Princess, growing at the end of the hallway. He also found a diary, which he really shouldn’t have read. He shouldn’t have read the diary. It’s common courtesy. It’s the mark of human decency, respect of personal privacy, respect for the dead, et cetera. But he did. So he hauled himself up to that tower in the sky, and he mistimed several guardian laser parries before finally getting one right and yelling in triumph and getting a beam to his ass for his efforts, and then he cried, standing over that tattered old book while a cold wind blew in through the man-sized hole in the wall. He had spent so long working towards the abstract idea of salvation, he had forgotten that salvation was also, inextricably, a person. A girl with the hands of Hylia, praying in a castle in the sky, stuck in a hundred year cycle from hell. She had thrown away everything so he would float back out of the water with his face to the sky, and he couldn’t even remember how to shoot a bear without getting his face clawed off. What had he ever done to deserve this? What had he done for her? The answer was he couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anything. The conversation they had about skin-deep secrets, the day it was raining and she told him about the hypothetical nature of failure, the morning of her seventeenth birthday, as she slid the gold cuffs onto her wrists and strode grimly out of the castle, her shadow clinging to the wall like it could keep her from leaving if it did. Did he even say happy birthday? Did anyone bring her candles? Did she make a wish, and if so, for what? He felt suddenly angry, and disappointed, and lonely. The fireplace was full of rubble and the table was covered in dust. The bed frame had collapsed, probably at the very beginning of this whole mess, and the mattress was sunken in like a face with no flesh, the sheets torn, the gold trim reduced to tatters. This place used to be a sanctuary. Now it wanted him dead. He wiped his eyes furiously, though there was no one there to point at him and laugh. He wiped his eyes with the back of his clumsy, scarred hand, pulled the diary shut, and walked back out, into heaven’s line of fire.

 He takes her to the Kochi dye shop on her request, but Sayge gives them a name and an address and herds them out of his store, and so they find themselves in Tarrey Town again, exchanging nods with the people he tricked into leaving their old lives behind while Zelda describes her old outfit to Rhondson, who takes notes on her husband’s arm in erasable ink. Several days later, a new set of clothes arrives in Hateno by donkey. He helps her do her hair, by which he means he holds a mirror behind her back and she does her hair, occasionally instructing him to tilt it several degrees in one direction or another, but it’s the most useful he’s felt in weeks, and when she’s pulled on her gloves and done up the buckles on her boots, she stands up and does a little twirl. It’s a perfect replica. She’s glowing. Rhondson is god. “I feel like I could defeat Ganon,” Zelda tells him. I already did that, he thinks. He nods. “You probably could.”

 “So, are you going to do something?” Beedle retrieves a string of soft-shell crabs from his pack. “Do I have to?” Beedle waggles his finger at him disapprovingly. “The question is, do you want to?”

 He has a dream where she falls from Shatterback Point. He runs as fast as he can down the side of the mountain, cutting his palms on coral and bruising his knees on the wet rocky path, but when he gets to the bottom, no one’s there. You were too late, Muzu tells him, stroking his beard somberly. You tried to reach her, but you let go, and then you were too late. The water in the lake is bright as blood. The sky crackles silently above Muzu’s vacant eyes. A voice emerges from the lake. You let me die, the voice says. I saved the world for you, and you let me die. He wakes up sweating. He curls up on his side, bracing for the cold, hard floor against his cheek, but Zelda’s slipped one of her pillows under his head while he was sleeping. She’s murmuring in her sleep, something about fruit halves and grams of sugar, her hand dangling over the side of the bed clenching and unclenching itself earnestly, kneading imaginary dough, cutting imaginary apples. “Zelda?” Too soft. He won’t call again. He refuses to. In a moment of weakness, he reaches for the side of the bed, but stops just shy of her hand. Beedle’s bright, angular nose appears before him, carrying with it the wisdom of his ancestors. What do you want to do, Link, Beedle’s Nose asks him. What do you want? I want to pull her out of the burning house, he thinks. Is that too much to ask for? Moonlight trickles down her throat and vanishes under the collar of her tunic. His chest implodes and his heart bursts into a thousand tiny pieces, as he wonders how it is that planets were made before people. Beedle’s Nose is indifferent. What burning house, it asks. Where’s the smoke coming from? Look around you, Link. There’s smoke, and fire, and windows with broken glass. But who’s still inside?

 Uma’s hundred-and-ninth birthday arrives on the coattails of fall. On her insistence, they keep the decorations sparse and the cake disarmingly large. Streamers are put up and butterflies corralled into glass menageries. A traveling band with a bit of a reputation further west is invited. There are three musicians with ocarinas and one with a cowbell, and all of them are wearing pink overalls and big yellow sun hats which hurt to look at for too long, unless you work for a construction company, in which case you want to look at them forever. After Bolson has finished taking down all of their contact information on his forearm (they prefer to be called for via messenger pigeon, but if you don’t have one then a snail is fine as well), Zelda drifts across the grass to stand in his place. She’s wearing a white dress, borrowed from Uma, who said it would complement her eyes. Uma was right. The dress is made from a thin, glittery fabric that billows around her ankles and makes her look like she’s floating. Like a fairy in a forest clearing. Like a cat perched at the top of a clocktower. Their conversation lasts for several minutes. She says something, and the others laugh. The guy with the cowbell pretends to look embarrassed. Everyone else at the party is dancing, including Uma, who is holding hands with a small child in a green frog-suit and swaying like a palm tree in the wind. While Zelda keeps the ocarina ensemble preoccupied, one of the adults in the village has gone and retrieved a guitar. He begins to play a warm, meandering tune that reminds Link, distantly, of grassy fields and white skies. “Are you not going to dance?” He looks down. Nebb tugs at the edge of his tunic with one hand, pulling him in the direction of the crowd. He squats down. “I don’t have anyone to dance with.” “You can dance with me. Duh.” “I don’t know how to dance.” Nebb looks at him like he’s stupid. “Then learn.” “What if I don’t want to?” “What if you meet someone who does, and you like them too much to say no?” He squints suspiciously at Nebb. Nebb’s atrocious bowl cut hasn’t grown any less atrocious with time, though it does have the effect of making him look far less menacing than he would be if he were bald or sporting a mohawk. The boy knows too much for someone so small. This cannot do. If this goes on, he will reveal a secret to the gods, and then they will kill him for his hubris. “Shhh,” Link says to him, holding a finger up to his lips. He digs around in his pockets until he finds a piece of honey candy, wrapped in a palm leaf and tied together with twine. “Take this, and go dance with someone else.” Nebb gives him the Stare of Judgment, but takes the candy. “You’re terrible, Link.” He sticks out his tongue. “Bye.” Then it’s back to demolishing the cake, which he’s still not convinced Uma didn’t order expressly so that he would have something to do with himself during the course of the evening, as the dancing progresses from cheerful to insane and a small group of guests begins to construct a spaceship out of empty wine glasses. No one else has gone for thirds, though a handful have gone for seconds. There’s a big fondant chicken perched on the highest layer. He sucks on his fork thoughtfully. He wants it. Last week they went up north, in search of forgiveness. Despite their best efforts and the gift of crabs and crocuses they brought along, their reception in Zora’s domain was cold and gray. It reminded him of the way they had received him when he first stepped out of the rain and into the blue glow of the domain’s hallways, armed with only the knowledge that he had been sent to prevent a tragedy that had already happened. He didn’t yet know that Mipha was dead. He thought he could still save her. They called him failure and fool and living reminder of Hyrule’s downfall, laughing at him in a language called mourning. He had thought they had forgiven the Hylians and their king for letting their Champion die, especially after he walked out of Vah Ruta with a black eye and a bloody nose to show for it, especially now that the evil had been defeated. Apparently the knight by himself was tolerable. The knight and the princess, together, made things too raw. Too immediate. “Mipha’s dead,” they said. It was a Tuesday. “I’m sorry,” Zelda replied. Tomorrow they’re headed for Goron City. He closes his eyes and wills away the taste of sweet cream and berries, tries to picture the winding path up Death Mountain, the grooves hammered into the ground, the rubies in their metal caskets. Flame-resistant armor is a given, so it’s a good thing he bought two sets on accident last winter. He wants to trap a few fire lizards in a bottle and bring them back for a friend. As for what he will say to Zelda before he hands her off to the city’s protectors, their hands half an inch apart but not touching, never touching, there isn’t much. Goron City will be better, he thinks. He licks the cream off his fork. It’s sweet. “What are you thinking?” He opens his eyes. Zelda looks at his plate, then the cake, then his plate again. She points at the chicken. He shrugs. “I was thinking that I hope Uma lives forever.” Someone has invited the dog onto the dance floor. He isn’t trying very hard to keep to the beat of the guitarist, who has been joined by two of the ocarina players with brown hair and blue eyes, but he doesn’t have to. Spinning very fast in a circle is actually the smartest dance move of them all. There’s no beginning, so there’s no end. Zelda plucks a berry from his plate. “It’s not very fun, to be honest,” she says, chewing thoughtfully. “Living for that long.” He watches the dog chase its own tail and she watches him watch the dog, though neither is aware this is happening. “Sorry, I didn’t know. I was asleep.” The dog is easily the best dancer in the crowd. He experiences neither shame nor hubris, and is thus freed from the stresses and seasonal anxieties of being known by others who might fear him or like him. He also runs very fast. Zelda punches his shoulder weakly, her hand lingering, her eyes soft. “That’s a terrible joke, Link.” He pinches the inside of his wrist. “I’m trying my best.” “So am I.” After a beat, the dog who has been invited to the party to spin in tight circles on the dance floor and be a nuisance to the other guests goes careening into the rotisserie chicken. In a wondrous, gravity-defying moment, the chicken sails not away from the dog, but towards him, flying in a swooping arc over his head at a height of several hundred feet above the ground. The plate clatters to the floor before the chicken can find its bearings and, awoken by its war cry, people scramble into action, evacuating themselves to the other side of the buffet table or under the veranda with their legs between their tails, until Uma is standing alone on the grass, still swaying to a song only she can hear, still smiling. The chicken reaches the highest point in the sky, pauses for a heartbeat, then pitches downwards. She catches it. The crowd goes wild. And then Zelda is tugging on his sleeve, like Negg, but not like Negg, because Zelda walked out of the mouth of the monster, because Zelda left her hand in the fire, because Zelda looked at the miserable, vulnerable world that he had yelled at until his voice was hoarse and dying and even the pigeons were something fiercer than him, that he had tended to with clumsy, scarred hands in spite of all the dead things on the ground, and decided to stay. “God,” she says, her eyes bright. “Link, look. In the sky.”

 Picture two figures in a forest full of night. Picture the princess carving a path through the trees, the knight stumbling after her, her hand tight around his wrist, their feet fast and flying. The sky is clear, of course, because someone pulled the mourning veil off its head and threw it in the river. They’re chasing after a column of light, poured by the hand of Hylia from the heavens. And they’re tired, both of them, so tired they could hurl themselves into bed and lie there, half an inch apart, watching each other in the dark with waiting on their tongues, but instead he trips on a branch and goes down, face-first, into the dirt. She doesn’t realize he’s let go until he lets go, but when she turns around he’s already pushed himself off the ground. Hands and knees and boots digging into the grass. The woods outside of Hateno are still teething. The princess gives him her hand, and he stares at it for a moment like she’s just offered him the rest of her lifespan, and then takes it. He’s fine; of course he is. It would take much more than this to kill him. It would take another hundred year cycle of pain. She points at the column of light. It’s still there. Still glowing. So they keep going, picking their way through the undergrowth, climbing over branches and pushing boulders out of harm’s way, doing what ghost children like them do best, which is pointing at something in the distance, and then chasing it. Chasing hope. Following it back to the center. And when they reach the place where the sky has spat out the blood in its mouth, the knight gets punched in the face with nostalgia. He caught a falling star once, when he was all alone and the world was grim and unknowable. Then he gave it to a fairy, in exchange for less blood on his tunic, in exchange for stronger teeth. He approached heaven from afar once, a solitary figure burning darkly against the pale yellow water, but there was no way for him to go home when all was said and done, so he pinched the inside of his wrist and kept walking.

 The thing is you can’t go from swinging a sword around and dreaming about dead people to waking up and frying eggs and searching for ways to heal the cracked earth beneath your feet. Not that fast. Not that goddamn fast. You can’t just flip a switch and not be scared anymore, not wake up sweating anymore, not wake up wanting to hold her hand. Fear is a country and you’ve lived in it all your life. There’s a reason kingdoms keep such a close eye on their borders. You’re either in, or you’re out. Make up your mind. Pick up your sword. Save yourself.

 The star fragment is stuck in a tree. Zelda wants to climb it and he wants her to stop; naturally, she wins. She hauls herself up the trunk while he circles the bottom like a hawk with an anxiety problem, waiting to catch the star, or the girl, or both. But neither comes pitching out of the sky. The dream stays just out of sight. “So that’s what star fragments look like,” she says later, her voice muffled by the sound of crickets. She turns it over in her hands, running her fingers along each point and indent. “They’re warm.” Smells it curiously, then wrinkles her nose. “No smell.” Tries to break off one especially thin-looking point with little success. “Sturdy.” She spends ten minutes staring at the star. He spends ten minutes staring at her. She gets bored, puts the fragment on the ground, and looks up. He looks away. “The party’s probably over now, huh.” He nods to his left. A sigh, very small, very lovely. Like a firefly under a bridge. “I didn’t get the chance to dance with anyone.” Beedle’s Nose is staring at him from a gap in the trees like the red eye of the devil. It’s singing a nursery rhyme he doesn’t remember learning. What do you want/what do you want/what do you want. Link! Link! Open your eyes! He has to break every bone in his body just to turn his head three inches to the right, but for the first time in this life, this new life, this second chance at everything, he gets it right. Zelda’s knees are drawn to her chest, her head pillowed on her arms, her gaze heavy on his face. He sucks in a breath. “Do you still want to?”

 Dancing without music sounds reasonable in theory, but generally requires one party to be exceptionally good at keeping count while the other has to be in possession of at least a rudimentary grasp of the steps. This is, of course, assuming that there are redeemable qualities to both parties. For example, if one is the knight from the fairy tale who has spent his whole life swinging sharp objects at people, and the other is the princess from the fairytale who has spent her whole life praying sharp objects find their way to the right people, then there may not in fact be anything redeemable between them. Her counting is off, his hands are clammy. Her voice is wavering, his feet are too slow. It’s disaster after disaster after disaster, first the champions in their divine beasts, then the castle, then the king on the Great Plateau, a knife through the heart, et cetera. Dancing without music sounds reasonable in theory unless you’ve spent the last three months of your life chasing angry moose down mountains, so it’s a good thing no one’s here to laugh at them. It’s a good thing they’re alone, surrounded by starlight, half an hour by foot from Hateno, village of lights and wonder. Spring has come and gone without them. The night is young and the air is cool and the forest is sweetly indifferent to his tendency to crash into inanimate objects. This would be embarrassing if he left himself think about it, but more importantly it’s unfair, how neither of them knows what they’re doing but Zelda can smile her way out of a clumsy turn, how he has to keep his hand on her waist but hers is doing an elaborate dance on his shoulder, how every time she leans in and her hair parts down her back, a sliver of neck peeks out and steals the lungs right out of his chest. He is going to die trying to keep his hands to himself or they are going to fall off the edge of the forest and into a ravine with no bottom. There is no option to walk away. “You’re a terrible dancer,” she says, smiling up at him from under her lashes. He chews on his lip. “I’m sorry.” “That’s fine.” He twirls her and her dress floats up past her ankles like a cloud of tiny stars. “I like you anyway.” He walks into a tree. Decides that’s not enough. Slaps himself generously across the face, hard enough to leave a mark. Decides that’s not enough. Kneels on the grass, letting go of her hand, to look for a stick that might help him end things faster. “Link?” It is too much and too little all at once, and therefore unbearable. He is going to fall off the edge of the forest right now. He tries to stand up just as she begins to bend down, reaching for his shoulder. They fall off the edge of the forest together. Oh god. Oh fuck. Oh no. They’ve fallen off the edge of the universe together. Her face is in the crook of his neck and her hair is stuck to his clothes. His skin is on fire and his butt is sore and he’s dying. Hylia, can you hear him? There’s a name for the place children go after they leave this world. He’d like to know what it’s called now. “Hey,” comes the small, muffled voice. Her arms are on either side of his waist, and they’re trembling. “Can you say something?” He looks up. Always up, always forward, towards knives and teeth and forests full of bodies. Always past the blurry face in the dream, to the nightmare that follows after. Someone will tell you when to breathe. Someone will tell you when to swing your sword. Someone will tell you when it’s all right to stop being scared of everything, and start looking for angels. Like right now. Like right-right-now. Your heartbeat fluttering in your throat. Your throat an ocean of knives. Eight weeks and three days after he walks into the castle and defeats two incarnations of evil, first in a room with a domed ceiling, then in a field with a domed sky, he steps out of the burning house, and finds himself face to face with the sun. He presses his cheek against her hair. “Do you want me to?” “Yes,” she sighs. “Yes, I do.”

 He tells her about the way the world looks from atop the back of a bear and the gray of the ocean from a raft and the conversation he had with her dead father about how cooked apples taste sweeter. He tells her about the first time he shot an arrow at a bomb barrel and the second time he shield-surfed down a hill and how Urbosa made him promise to take care of her, even in death, even after it. He tells her about being so lonely it hurt to breathe and being so bad at breathing he passed out in a river, and being so hurt he had to be saved by a stranger on the road, tied to the back of their donkey like a piece of merchandise and carried to the nearest stable to be burnt back to life. He tells her how no one believed he was the boy in the story, even when he pulled out the sword, even when he showed them the blood on his back. He tells her about how the stalhorses on Tabantha Snowfield run faster than the horses near Kakariko, how a bokoblin will choose a freshly roasted chicken over the skin of your teeth, how a sword is a metaphor for forgiveness. He tells her how a hundred years ago she told him to eat a frog, and he never forgot about it. Not once, not ever. Walking through the Breach of Demise, looking for Koroks in Fort Hateno, praying for her heart at the Spring of Wisdom, he never stopped thinking about the damn frog, and by extension, the girl. The first thing she says is why didn’t you tell me all of this earlier? The second thing she says is why the hell didn’t I ask? She presses a hand to his forehead, pushing his bangs out of his eyes and glaring at him. The third thing she says is that she really wants to see a stalhorse, and the fourth thing he says is he’ll take her there one day, and the fifth thing she does is cry. Big, heaving sobs. Arms tight around his shoulders, tears smearing the front of his shirt, while he pretends he isn’t half as insane, gives up, and resolves to hide his face in her hair forever. And it’s dramatic as hell, it’s an ancient tapestry on a wall in Kakariko, but hasn’t it always been that way? Haven’t they been through enough shit to justify the heartfelt reunion, the face full of tears? If the conversation they had in the field outside the castle was a blueprint for what it looks like to meet someone you wanted a hundred years ago, then this is the aftermath of that war. Do you remember me? Of course I do. Do you love me? Of course I do. Ask me a question, any question. Crack my chest open. “To make things very, very clear,” Zelda says, wiping her eyes furiously. She’s pushed him flat onto his back and the light’s not hitting her face so he can’t make out her expression, but he can imagine the pinched brow, the bitten lip. “I didn’t fall in love with you because you were conveniently there, like, I don’t know, an armchair when you’re tired, or a glass of water when you’re thirsty.” Her hands on his chest are very beautiful, even in the moon-lit dark. “I didn’t take one look at the prophecy and think to myself, well, if I’m going to tie my happiness to someone then it might as well be him.” Now he’s the one who’s embarrassed. He brings a hand up to cover his face but she tugs it away. Takes a deep breath. Counts to ten, probably, maybe fifteen, maybe a hundred. “I fell in love with you,” she says, softly, each word falling from her lips like a star, each star plucked from the highest point in the heavens. “I don’t even know why I fell in love with you.” She fists her hands loosely in his shirt. “It just happens, you know? One day you look at the boy with the stupid pretty hair, and you think to yourself, oh no.” His head is spinning so fast he feels like the dog at the party. Maybe he is the dog. Maybe he finished eating the cake and shoved the fondant chicken in his mouth and then he passed out, and had to be carried back to his house, and had to be laid gently on the unmade covers. He gathers his thoughts. “I’m not a very good person,” he says quietly. “But if you would have me, I would gladly give you my life.” “You’ve already done that once, Link,” Zelda says, laughing with the sun in her mouth. “Do something else.” What do you want, Link? Open your eyes. Save yourself. “Okay, then. Can I kiss you?”

 His name is Link, and he died once when he was seventeen. It was pretty traumatizing. He got slashed several times across the back with some very sharp weapons, and then he got mauled by a forest full of screaming metal, and then he collapsed, right in front of the person he was supposed to protect, who ended up protecting his dead body by the skin of her teeth. Because he died. Somewhere between the laser on his chest and her hand pressed against the seal of the sky, his body made one last stand against the stark inequalities of the world, and he died. The only reason he knew his name was Link when he woke up was because it was the first word she said to him. “Link,” she said. “Wake up.” He concluded through logical reasoning that “he” must be “Link” and that “Link” had to “wake up”. So he did. He went traipsing around Hyrule with a ladle and a pot lid, seeking out places from a photograph and trying to find ways to bring every four-legged animal in the land to a stable, but he never really felt like “Link”. He felt like a corpse that had received a very shiny, very thick coat of paint. Half-here, half-there. Half-me, half-something-else. What else? A bird, maybe. A horse. One day Link got bored and decided that he was going to defeat all the forces of evil. He fought his way into the castle, where the guardians shot lasers at his earrings, and he fought his way past the lynels, who hissed fire and called him rude words, and he fought his way into the sanctum, where he met the asshole who had put him through all this shit in the first place. And he kicked his ass. And he kicked his other ass. And the asshole died. His name was Ganon. Ganon dying brought Zelda back to life, because the law of equivalent exchange governs half of the children in this world, while the devil gets the rest. The devil got to him: his life will always carry the weight of hundreds of thousands, he will always feel like lead for the first three seconds after he wakes up. But it didn’t get to Zelda. Zelda got the other bargain, the one where your dead father dies but you get your knight back. One or the other, left or right. In the end, you always have to choose. And he’s still pretty traumatized. And dying at the age of seventeen with a sword still stuck in your hand is pretty traumatizing. And the Zora are still mourning and the Gorons are still eating rocks and the Gerudo still think he’s just a really short girl, which he can live with, which he doesn’t particularly mind, but the trauma has a place on the shelf now. And the shelf is in his house. And the house is a modest one, with modest display stands for his modest weapons, and a modest bed beside which he’s hung a framed photograph of his friends. But some things are different, even if the foundations stay the same. No more rafts on gray seas. No more sleeping on the floor. No more standing in the burning building, and wondering why the shadows aren’t moving. No more shrines full of dead monks. No more monsters full of dead bodies. No more waiting for someone to tell you when to breathe, when to stop, when to get mauled by a bear. Pick up your sword, boy. Now put it down. Now pick it up. Now put it down. You’re going to be doing this until the day that you die. Are you all right with that? Are you all right with your god? [Thank you for helping my sister.][They say the leviathans died thousands of years ago.][Get me a horse. A big, strong horse. Any horse.][BROTHER. THE ROCKS ARE READY.][Find me someone whose name ends with ‘-son’.][I’ll sell you rushrooms for diamonds. Fifty-five for one.][Have you heard of the story of the bird on the mountain?][Do you already have someone special in your heart?][They say if two people visit this pond, they’ll be together forever.][Do you believe in miracles?][Do you believe in magic?][Do you believe in me?] [I believed I would see you again.]

It’s a cruel, unforgiving world. People die and don’t come back. But you did. Now get up. Someone’s waiting for you.

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myssamyss · 5 years ago

Text

Everything Stays, Part 4 of 6

Featuring Jojo’s comic, “Malink past” Part 4: When You Turn It Around

The next morning, Link woke before the sun, readied his gear, and crept out the door. He made his way to the stable as dim light began to color the ranch. A mercifully cool wind swept in from the fields; the heat had finally broken. Link reached the large stable door and pulled at the latch, only to haul the door open and freeze in surprise.

Malon stood in the middle of the stable, running a coarse brush through a spotted mare’s mane.

She turned and gave him an accusing glare that made his limbs turn ice-cold. They stood there, still and staring, neither speaking. Link swallowed in the back of his throat, but he didn’t back down. Malon broke the silence first.

“You’re up early,” she told him dryly.

“So are you.”

Malon gave him a strange look and he sucked in a breath, but then she turned back to the mare and continued brushing. The stable was quiet but for the slow, rhythmic rustling of brush against mane.

Taking her silence as understanding, Link exhaled and strode into the stable. Straw crunched beneath his boots, and the sound of Malon’s brushstrokes was drowned out by his swift steps. He began readying Epona’s tack.

“So you’re just leaving?” she asked him after several long minutes. A half-hidden hurt laced her words.

He turned back to her. Her hands gently stroked the mare’s muzzle, but her blue-eyed gaze was sharper than any sword.

“I’m not ‘just leaving’,” he replied, taken aback.

She shook her head and her bangs went flying. “Really? Because it seems to me that you were fixing to leave here before we had a chance to talk.”

Link felt stunned. He’d been trying his best to do right by her. At least, he thought he was.

“We did talk. And I even stayed for dinner. I came here to give a proper goodbye, like you deserve.” And I didn’t have to, Link thought to himself bitterly as he mounted Epona. Maybe coming to the ranch had been a mistake. Maybe this was the problem with long goodbyes and explanations. Maybe they only made things worse. Just leave, he told himself.

Her voice rose. “Why though? Why are you leaving now? I thought we were finally getting, well... close.” She glanced away with her last word.

“I don’t get close to people,” he said sharply. She winced.

“But if there’s anything I’ve learned,” he continued, “it’s that there’s always a parting. Nothing ever lasts.”

Malon stared past him to the open stable door with a silent frown. Link nudged Epona’s side with the heel of his boot, spurring the horse to a walk.

“You’re right.” Malon’s quiet voice cut through the air. “We’ve been friends since childhood, yet there’s very little I know about you, or even the world. What does a dumb farm girl know?”

What? He pulled back on Epona’s reigns and turned back to Malon, shocked. “Malon, no, I-I didn’t mean…”

Her face softened and her voice grew sincere. “But I’d like to,” she said with a small, hopeful smile. “I’d like to know... Ever since that day you played my mother’s song, I’ve wondered.”

She stared at him with deep blue eyes full of such care and longing. His resolve melted away. Because anything was worth this—the way she was staring at him now, shoulders squared with passionate hope and her bottom lip held half-open in plea. His chest ached at the few meters of distance already between them. Maybe... he could turn back. Maybe he could explain things and let her in. Her honest, fierce need for him was worth abandoning his self-imposed rules.

He nodded to her slowly and her face brightened with joy, encouraging him. He swung a leg over Epona and dismounted. The aching in his chest faded, and an intoxicating warmth rose to take its place.

“I’m not sure where to begin,” he admitted. He sat down on a nearby hay bale.

Malon waited a few quiet moments, then she came to sit by his side. She smoothed her long purple skirt over her knees, tucked her red bangs behind a delicately pointed ear, then met Link’s eyes with a disarming stare.

“Why does nothing ever last?” she asked simply.

“Well…everyone leaves...even you…” he murmured.

Malon’s brows drew together in confusion.

“Well, not you,” he backtracked. “Another you. And I suppose I’m the one who left then... I’m sorry. I’ve never really tried to explain it all before, to someone on the outside.”

She placed her hand against his arm just beneath the sleeve of his green tunic. Link started. He knew she was trying to comfort him, but her gentle touch felt like an electric shock. Though unlike real-life electrocution (which Link was too familiar with), the feeling was admittedly pleasant, and the memory of danger primed his mind, emboldening him. He looked down at the straw-covered floor and gathered his thoughts.

“You remember the first time we met? I was going to the castle?” he asked.

She nodded, enthralled.

“Well,” he began. “I broke into the castle, and there was this prophecy…”

***

Wild trailed behind the other heroes as they walked along a wooded path. He didn’t often take up the rear, as he was well-accustomed to walking long distances (unlike poor Wind). But today he craved the familiar comfort of solitude.

He kept a handful of pleasant memories in relief to fall back on when he felt overwhelmed, a collection built before the Calamity’s defeat when thoughts of failure and Zelda’s long-suffering threatened to overwhelm him. As he walked, he shuffled through the series of memories, imagining himself darting after little Cottla through cool grass above the hills near Kakariko, trading iridescent insects with a wide-eyed Beedle in a warm stable, or standing in the golden Tarry Town sunshine during Hudson and Rhondson’s wedding. He enjoyed escaping to these moments when he’d been nothing more than himself, without expectation or prophecy.

Wild’s thoughts were interrupted as he noticed Time falling back in their group’s walking order. It wasn’t unusual for him to double back to chat with Twilight, but Time didn’t pause beside the fur-clad hero now. Instead, he kept his pace suspiciously slow, until he was nearly even with Wild. His armor clanked with each step.

Wild fixed his eyes just above Wind’s crop of bright blonde hair ahead of them.

“Wild,” Time began, his voice quiet. He slowed his pace even further, widening the gap between Wind and the two of them. Wild matched him, but said nothing.

“I wanted to apologize,” Time said. He sounded sincere. Wild turned his head to show he was listening.

“I’m sorry for coming down on you at the pond, over the kid. I was just…worried. Lately you’ve been…” Time searched for a word, but seemed to think better of it. “Anyways. I know you can handle yourself. And if you want to talk, about anything...” Time shrugged.

Wild nodded. He wasn’t angry with Time. The man just made him uneasy, and Wild wanted to be left alone. Still, he appreciated Time’s willingness to humbly apologize, even if it took clear effort. Wild pushed back against his own annoyance and resolved to make an effort, too. Besides, Wild thought, if he couldn’t be alone, then maybe he ought to face his simmering unease head-on instead. He was good at throwing himself into the thick of things.

“Why’d you get married?” Wild blurted, hurling himself into the very subject he felt so keen on avoiding. He didn’t dare look over at Time. But the older man surprised him by taking the seemingly random question in stride. From the corner of Wild’s eye, he saw Time cocking his head and considering his answer carefully.

“Hm,” Time mused. He gave a small, uncharacteristic smile. “I guess… I got married… to share trust with someone.” He paused. “It wasn’t easy, at first. I mean, none of us are big on talking.” Time threw a glance toward the rest of their party. “Well, maybe Legend. But never about anything real.”

Wild nodded, listening guardedly.

“But having someone to listen? It keeps you sane.”

He heard a bite in Time’s voice. Wild’s gaze flicked to the red and blue marks that flanked the ruined eye.

Time caught the quick glance. “She knows about all of it.”

Wild let his head fall down toward the ground in minor embarrassment. He of all people knew the discomfort of a curious gaze. He resisted the urge to scratch at his scarred ear.

He kicked a rock instead and thought about Time’s answer. True openness sounded very difficult to put into practice. Wild might have once shared that kind of trust, that kind of love with another. ‘Might’ being the key word, as he could never be completely sure. A vision of Mipha’s delicate face swam in his mind. They might have been planning a life together...

Hard to share my honest thoughts when I can’t even remember them, Wild thought coldly.

“It wasn’t easy,” Time added softly, breaking the silence. Wild had barely noticed the long pause between them. Damn, still rusty at carrying on a conversation. Monologuing in his mind certainly didn’t help. He focused in on Time’s words.

“And there were bumps, she isn’t perfect. And I’m not either. I wasn’t sure it would last,” Time said. “But she hasn’t left yet.”

Wild nodded. “Thank you,” he told the older man.

Time clapped him on the shoulder, then began humming a vaguely familiar song as he picked up his pace and made his way to the front of the group, leaving a relieved Wild behind. The older man respected solitude, and seemed to understand Wild’s own need for it.

***

Malon knocked twice on the door to Link’s room, but there was no answer. Maybe he was sleeping again? He’d been taking on more than his fair share of ranch chores lately, she figured he was bound to be exhausted. Didn’t he know that his work ethic already far outstripped her father’s expectations without any of the added effort? She knew her father was already impressed. Link didn’t need to prove himself further. He was easily their best ranch hand, and he fit well in their little family. Besides, Talon had apparently already given Link his blessing years ago. Link needn’t be nervous now.

She pushed the door open quietly, but was met with an empty, neatly made bed. No sign of her Link.

Her eyes fell to something lying on the bedside table, an item that she had only seen a handful of times before: the ocarina. The ocarina whose notes had first sown the seeds of adoration deep in Malon’s heart as Link had impossibly played Malon’s most treasured song. For years she’d believed that Link’s unexplainable knowledge of the song was a sign from above, perhaps even from her own mother, that she and Link had a future together. Now she knew his true past, and the instrument had taken on an entirely different legendary nature in her mind. She crossed the room and ran her fingers across its glazed surface without thinking. It was smooth and cool to the touch. She gathered it in her hands—

“What are you doing?”

She spun around to see Link standing in the doorway. For the first time in many months, his face was a closed door. A painful lump caught in Malon’s throat as she realized her grave mistake. She carefully returned the ocarina to the bedside table with a small clink and stepped away as hot embarrassment rose in her chest.

“Link, I’m sorry...” she began. Link crossed the room to place himself between her and the ocarina. She glanced up into his eyes and found deep pain staring back. The few inches of space separating their chests felt like a vast distance.

“Please go,” he told her quietly. She nodded solemnly and left his room, easing the door shut behind her. As the latch clicked, despair welled up inside her heart. She had repaid his trust with unchecked curiosity, and all the sorries in the world wouldn’t take back her trespass. --------------------------------- Author’s Note: thanks as always to @clumsydarknut for beta-reading.

#Linked Universe #linkeduniverse #LU #Time #Wild #Malon #MaLink #Breath of the Wild #Ocarina of Time #Majora's Mask #Legend of Zelda #LoZ #Hero of Time #Hero of the Wild #Everything Stays

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themostcleverandwittyname · 5 years ago

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There’s Power in Pain

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Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

(LinkxOC)

Summary:

A farmer with a troubled past had found a fallen hero on a riverside and makes the decision to take him in. With Ganondorf gathering power by the minute, there is no time to delay in his defeat however there is a time and place for everything as well as a lesson to learn. Link will have to do the hardest thing he has ever done and that is wait until he is ready to defeat Ganondorf.

But will Link ever truly be ready to rely on help to do the impossible? To accept that even heroes need support even from the most unlikely of people?

Meanwhile, a group of thieves organize to steal the sacred sword of the Hero of Destiny for themselves.

Chapter 12: Canteen

Chapter 12 on AO3

Annette was laid over her horse, her arms dangling at the sides. The sun had set and they had been on horseback for over an hour. She was certain that a bruise had already formed on her back from being slammed into the table. Link hadn’t said much after that, quietly playing his flute on the ride, exploring different songs that he knew. Several of them were so unique and she had never heard them, but when she asked where he learned them, he just responded that his mentor taught him and went back to playing. She had hoped that their outing would be a good one, and for several reasons it was.

Link had gotten his clawshots back, crossing off another item from the list. Seriously, she wished she had half his luck. They had no hitch in running errands and she was able to hustle some arrows out of Beedle, something she counted as a personal victory. But at the same time, the ache she felt from their little tussle in the cafe was enough to sour just a part of her day and she was certain Link was no happier about it than she was. She was still impressed that he knocked that guy out with a punch, yet she hoped for Link’s sake that he hadn’t overdone it.

One of the worst things, if she had to categorize, was learning that Ganondorf had not fully been vanquished. She almost felt silly, naive for thinking that such a hateful man could be snuffed out so soon. Yet, she believed the worst part of it all was the guilt smeared on Link’s face as he had told her. As if he were to blame for the return of Ganon when no one else dared to do anything about it.

It made her think on the horse ride, her doubts coming to full circle. Link’s behavior was now fully explained.

What if, by insisting that he rest up and being concerned for his health, she was tampering with fate. Was his fate just to be a tool? A weapon? She wondered if she was doing the world an injustice by treating him like a person instead of a hero. Was that so bad? Still, she would feel to blame if he ran off and fell in battle because he didn’t fully recover. She began to wonder if anyone from his home urged him to rest, insisted that he stay safe. He had never mentioned anyone and she realized that she had no clue what his life was like. She didn’t know who his friends were or what he did outside of hurting himself. He had mentioned a friend once, but he never went into it in any depth.

The soft notes of the pan flute ceased and Annette looked up, seeing her house in view around a bend of trees, the gas lantern that she kept lit outside glowed a dull yellow. A beacon in the night. She was grateful to Cordial, who knew the way home and had led them there even in the dark. She was a smart horse and sometimes Annette wondered if she took her for granted. Evidently, Epona was equally as loyal, following along without diverging. Link hadn’t exactly been tugging on the reigns, but his horse still knew where to go.

Putting his flute away, the blonde gathered himself and was ready to dismount his stead as they came to the small stables. Straightening up, Annette prepared herself to hop down and take care of both of the horses, but Link had beat her to it. Although the crescent moon didn’t offer much light, she could still see the firmness of his face. He didn’t look particularly happy.

“Let me board the horses. I’ll be inside in a bit.” He spoke quietly, and Annette could already tell that no argument could be made. He probably wanted alone time and she couldn’t say anything against it. Without acknowledging his words, she took a breath and hopped down from her saddle, taking the accumulation of bags from the day’s shopping as Link took Cordial’s reins. With another glance at the blonde, whose back was turned as he headed towards the stables, she walked inside and set the bags down before she lit a lantern to illuminate the kitchen.

Busying herself with putting away the various bread, farm-fresh veggies, and smoked meats, she felt the exhaustion fall onto her shoulders and each movement strained at her sore back. She scowled to herself and put the kettle over a new flame, cherishing the heat of the burnt-out match in her fingers. Some tea and the cookies she had bought would help her to relax, she concluded, and sat at the round table waiting for the familiar whistle of her kettle, having to sit at an odd angle as to not hurt her sore back. Thoughts of the day spun through her mind as she got lost in thought.

Her heart dropped when she recalled the conversation at the restaurant, despite wanting to shake it from her mind. It wouldn’t help her relax but no matter how she tried, it resurfaced again. Everything Gerudo had worked for in the past fifteen years to renew what had been destroyed by the evil king and now there was the possibility he could come back and finish his wreckage. It was the decision of the Gerudo people to ultimately have him executed, and she was sure that a betrayal like that wouldn’t leave his mind.

She jumped when she heard the side door shut behind her and immediately felt silly for being startled. Under normal circumstances, in her fright she may have uttered some smart remark or insult but her scare drew attention to her back and she instead bit back a groan. The blonde gave her a look and glanced over at the kettle. Hoping that he wouldn’t say anything, she opened her mouth to ask him if he wanted cookies, but he was quicker.

“Your back hurts doesn’t it?” He asked, but from his inclination, she could tell he already knew. There was no way he could watch her get shoved into a table like that and not wonder if she was sore afterward, but she was surprised he brought it up. She looked at him in contemplation on whether or not she should admit that it hurt or just chalk it up to being nothing more than a little bump.

Scoffing aloud, she got to her feet and slid the chair under the table as she headed to the counter to fiddle with a teacup, as if preparing it further.

“Of course it hurts. It will be sore for a few days, but I’ll be fine. Now, do you want tea and cookies or should I count you out?” She answered short and anything but sweet, but she didn’t want sympathy for it.

There was a moment of silence and she wondered if she should have been more sensitive, yet the blonde behind her spoke again, her focus on the teacup.

“At least tell me why those guys were looking for a fight. It can’t be just because they were bored and “asses”, as you put it.” he asked, folding his arms and wincing a bit at the movement, his broken arm still bothersome to him. Annette shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. What was she gonna say now? After a deep breath, she began to give her vague, detached response.

“There are a lot of things in Termina to do and it is more dangerous than Hyrule is, especially Clock town. Let’s just say that along with an unhealthy obsession with swords, my brother also had bad friends who unfortunately thought that by extension I was also their friend. Nothing more than a conflict of interests.” She explained and was ready to shoot down any further prodding. She didn’t want to get into it this evening and she was sure Link didn’t want to hear it either. Their day had held enough bad news and foul situations.

“A conflict of interests, huh? I know about that but none of mine ever ended with smashing a teacup on someone’s head.” he said, and she could tell he was trying to deflect the mood. He gave her a little smile and then motioned with his hand. “Can I have a look at your back? It’s only fair considering you’re always on my case about my injuries.” He said softly and she looked away, feeling guilty for being so harsh with him about his concern. It wasn’t a bad thing that he wanted to make sure she was okay, so why was she so defensive? She couldn’t answer it for herself. Since when was it okay for her to worry about him but be mean when he did the same? Under any other circumstances, she would be quick to accept her own hypocrisy, but she was too tired and felt they both needed to relax. Arguing over letting him help her wasn’t on her agenda this evening.

“Fine, if you must. It’s hardly an injury so you can’t compare it to you.” she began and then mentally scolded herself, finding herself do it again. “Thanks for your concern anyway.” she concluded, hoping the addition would soften her statement. The swordsman approached and taking a cue, she folded the back of her shirt up for him to take a look. He hummed to himself in his inspection. “What’s the status back there?” Bruise?” she asked, not really liking the uncomfortable judgment of her injury.

“Bruise.” He confirmed. Before anything else was said, a prodding finger poked at her back and the pressure was a little more than uncomfortable. She took in a breath and was about to say something scalding before a question fell from him, “Does that hurt?”

“Of course it does! What did you thi-” she was cut off with another question, her sarcastic remark stunted before she could get into it.

“Do you have a canteen?” his question left her dumbfounded for a moment. Letting her shirt fall back over her bruise, she gave him a look.

“Canteen? What do you want that for?” She asked, as he looked over her shoulder at the countertops for what she assumed was a canteen. He, still searching, gave a small response as he stepped forward and began to rummage through the cabinets. She stood back and watched as he explained himself.

“For your back. Filling it with hot water and pressing it to your back will help some. I used to do that when I would go on journeys and got hurt. You’ll see.” he stated, things that he moved around clinked and clanged in the cabinets and Annette herself was trying to recall where she would have put a canteen.

“It’s not really worth all the trouble, but I admit it is a nice thought. Knock yourself out.” she resigned, giving an unseen wave of the hand as the kettle whistle began to rise in volume. As she pulled the kettle from its perch, she heard a quiet aha from Link. He had found a canteen. As soon as he had found it, he spun around and took the kettle from her, not asking for it by any means. She huffed and waited for the kettle to return so she could make her tea, Link focusing to pour the boiling water through the mouth of the metal container. She was half expecting him to miss the mark and spill hot water on his hand, but he was accident-free.

With the canteen filled, he handed her the kettle and took a step back to secure the cap nice and tight. Without a word, he left the room to go fetch something and she, having never gotten an answer on whether or not he wanted tea, waited for his return as she stirred sugar into her drink.

Returning with a towel wrapped canteen, he presented it to her and all she could offer was a small thanks. With his care done, he tried to subdue a yawn and she knew what he would say next.

“It’s been a long day, so I’m going to bed. What about you?” he asked, stopping in the kitchen doorway. Balancing her tea, cookies, and warm canteen in her hands, she shook her head.

“I don’t believe I can sleep yet. You were up early so I bet you’re beyond sleepy. Goodnight and thank you for the, er, canteen.” she said, setting her cup and saucer down with a clink next to her armchair. He hummed in acknowledgment and almost looked as if he was going to ask her why. She settled herself down in her comfy seat, paying more attention to the call of her cookies than to whether or not he’d ask.

“Don’t stay up too late.” He said, finally, slinking off to bed, the sound of the door clicking behind him left her mind to shift into her thoughts. With some inspection of the canteen, the warmth nicely insulated in the towel, she decided it was worth a shot and placed it under her back, letting the warmth dwindle there.

Cherishing the tea and cookies, she could now cherish the steady warmth of the canteen as it helped her soreness fade. It was a different kind of warmth than that of evening tea because this time she hadn’t done it just for herself.

...

The soft chirps of birds outside greeted Link as he stretched, pulling himself up to sit on the bed. Rolling his shoulder, he had decided that after some time of lying in bed and soaking in the comfort of the pillow it was time to get up. His injured arm was stiff and sore, but it was no where close to as painful as it had been the previous morning.

In his time of lying around, he had heard no clinks or thumps from Annette in the other rooms and he wondered again if he had woken before she had. Judging by the light that streamed in through the windows, the clear and bright light was not golden enough for it to be dawn. In other words, he had slept late. Taking to his feet, he continued to stretch his arms and the pain of his left was more bearable. A good sign.

Taking his arm as a signal, he pulled his shirt over his head and unraveled the bandages around his torso. Slowly but surely, they came off and he used the mirror to help him inspect his chest. The gashes were now healed and only in smaller, diminished spots were streaks of scabs. None that would be affected by movement. The bruises from the bublin incident by the creek were faded, yet still tinged his flesh blue and purple hues. The only thing that remained so clearly was new, pink scars and older, lightened scars from previous injuries. Part of him didn’t mind so much the scars that littered his body, yet some of them still felt painful through the memories he had with them. They were earned out of dark times and harsh battles. One scar, in particular, was particularly soured by memory, as it was at Ganondorf’s hand. A paled scar just under his collarbone.

Trying not to dwell on it too much, he happily threw the bandages aside and looked through the dresser and scrutinized the many shirts he had pushed aside of Annette’s brother. Some of the things didn’t match his style, if Link even had a style. He wore what he liked and it was that simple. Finding something suitable for his taste, he pulled a sleeveless blue Hylian style shirt on and brushed his fingers through his hair before casting a glance to his sword, which lay atop the trunk in the room. He had never opened the trunk, as he didn’t feel like sneaking around when the brunette woman had trusted him without much effort. Taking his sword in hand, he made his mind up how he’d spend his day if he were stuck here until his tunic was tailored.

Stepping out of the room, he looked around the living room and peered into the kitchen, finding no trace of the brunette. He stepped to the window and looked out to where the stables were, her horse was present. Scratching the back of his neck, he stepped over to the door to her bedroom, where he had never entered. Giving a knock, he heard no response. After not enough deliberation, he cracked the door open and looked inside to find her bed absent. It was the first time he had ever looked in her room so he took a moment to give it a fair sight.

Her bed had not been made and she had an abundance of pillows. It was not a traditional bed, with a frame and bedposts like Nal’s old room was, but rather more of a large round and fluffy cushion that was perhaps twice the size of a normal bed and it was decorated with pops of color and woven blankets. A yellow and red quilt covered most of it. If he had to guess, it was a Gerudo thing. He noted that with the number of pillows and cushions, it had to be cozy. Among the very odd bed, she had a vanity with loads of golden jewelry, wooden knobs held necklaces and earrings. Given that the odd bed took up nearly half the room, it was understandable that she didn’t have more clutter, but he supposed that what the bookcase in the living room was for.

He reasoned that if she were not inside and had not left the property, she must be just outside. Stepping into the kitchen, he found a handwritten note on the kitchen table along with a cake in a glass cake stand. He picked it up and read the writing to himself.

This is a gift from my mom. You can help yourself with a slice for breakfast or you can attempt cooking again with the smoked sausages that I bought yesterday. Of course, I trust you can make yourself tea or coffee if that’s what you’d like.

That was all that the note said and he was unsure if she was away or close by, as the note had not provided any answers. Maybe she had gone out with her mom for the day? But if that were the case, he would think that it would be in the note.

Taking it upon himself to figure it out, he placed the paper down and with his sword slung over his shoulder, he headed out the side door and into the side garden. Immediately, he was greeted with voices from a conversation just around the corner, but the tones were not friendly and mirthful. Given this, he felt more inclined to be careful and not just jump out and ruin an important topic between Annette and whoever it was she was talking to.

“But vabai , that’s the problem. Apparently, it’s not that easy. He described it as a “phantom”, like some kind of spirit. I don’t think that a normal army could do much.” Annette’s voice rung out and Link peered around the corner of the house to get a quick peek at the brunette. She sat at and ironwork metal table with a very tall and muscular woman. Her skin was darker than Annette’s and she held her arms over her chest, a scowl on her face. She looked twice as tall as he was and her blazing red hair was pulled into a high ponytail. The oddest thing, if he could pinpoint, was the mundane and average Hylian style clothes she wore, a simple skirt and a loose top with flowing sleeves. She was scary looking and immediately the resemblance was clear. She was Annette’s mom and they both had the same angry face.

Ducking back behind the corner of the house, he thought it best to turn back and go back inside, that is, until he became interested in what the larger women had to say. The rose bush provided a proper shield from anyone’s eyes.

“Gah, how do you even know that boy tells you the truth? He may just be telling you that to escape responsibility. There is nothing that a well-aimed Gerudo spear cannot pierce.” she said and he could hear the signature sigh from the brunette.

“No, mom, I don’t think it’s like that…” she trailed off before the topic shifted. “My main concern is our people. What if he comes back to ruin everything? He’s not above holding a terrible grudge and if someone who has that sword couldn’t stop him outright then… what are we going to do? I doubt the queen will listen to any warning like this, especially from an outsider like me.” she said, her voice dropped.

Link knew exactly what they were talking about. He knew her reaction to him admitting Ganon’s return wasn’t as explosive as he thought it would be. He understood now. She didn’t want to discuss it with him. Her worries were kept to herself. Taking a deep breath, he listened on.

“Oh, vehbi , don’t worry about that. If he comes back, Gerudo can handle him this time. You should worry about the more pressing things, like that boy you have harbored here. He’s too dangerous and he needs to go.” she said, sharpness in her voice. Link held his breath. Was that true? He hadn’t thought of it that way.

“Harbor? He’s not a criminal. It’s Link. I’ve only known him for a week, sure, but he’s not dangerous to me. Every time I yell at him he looks like he’s about to cry.” she said, a chuckle from her pushed her point. That also wasn’t true...was it? It was nice to hear her take up for him, but not like this.

“It may not be him personally that is dangerous, even though I still wouldn’t trust him an inch, but it’s what he has that’s dangerous. That book is enough to keep in your home, but that sword? Honey, do you realize what Volmar will do it he finds you with it. I don’t care how much of a soft spot he has for you, he’ll kill you.” her words were laced with a stern warning. Volmar? He didn’t recall Annette ever mentioning that name. The thought of someone killing someone over his sword was awful and he felt his heart drop.

“He won’t find out. Besides, Link will be leaving in a few days when his armor and tunic are restored and all I’ll have to conceal is that book.” Annette said matter of factly, but her mother continued on.

“I say you should burn that book and kick Link out as soon as you can. Don’t speak to him after this, if you know what’s good for you.” she advised and he could visualize Annette’s face, even though he couldn’t see her.

“I can’t just kick him out. Besides, it’s just a few more days and-” her mother interrupted her

“Oh, you think he’s your friend, huh? Friendly or not, boys cannot be trusted and he’ll disappoint you one day. They all do.” she stated and there was a small period of silence. What would Annette say to that? Link closed his eyes and listened extra hard.

“Yeah, I kinda see him as a friend, but I don’t think I’m being careless. He’s… not up to anything bad and I don’t think he’d ever betray my trust.” she said finally and her mother scoffed aloud.

She thought he was her friend? The thought had never really occurred to him, but he considered her a friend too. He certainly wanted her to be safe and feel content, so he wasn’t surprised that she was a friend to him. However, he had a small impression that he was a bother to her and all she wanted was for him to leave. Not all of her actions said this, of course, but she may have just been nice about it, despite her usual rude exterior. He wasn’t sure if it was reassurance or just the thought, but it was warming to hear that, even if he had to hear it from behind a rose bush.

“Oh, but you’re not sure? You don’t think he’d betray your privacy either do you? But let me tell you, I know he already has for sure.” the woman paused and he could hear the sound of the chair slide back from the table.

What did she mean by that? Before he had a chance to figure it, a sharp and directed remark broke out from the woman.

“That Link is an eavesdropping little rat!”

...

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#loz #loz fanfic #loz twilight princess #loz link #loz fanfiction #legend of zelda #legend of zelda fanfic #legend of zelda tp #Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess #legend of zelda link #twilight princess #link x oc #link fanfic #link x reader

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lizziebearfanfiction-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Puppy Love

Inspired by this post.

Author: Me (Lizziebearfanfiction) Rating: PG Genre: Romance Pairings: Zelda x Link

Disclaimer: I own none of Nintendo’s characters, locations, etc.

Description: “Just until the next stable!” Zelda insisted, but judging by the way that Link and that puppy were looking at one another, there would be no separating them. Her resolve melted as the two turned their big, innocent eyes onto her. “Fine,” she said, after a moment of (pretend) deliberation, “but if that cute little thing wets on any of my clothes-” “I won’t,” Link said with a grin. She rolled her eyes. There was no point in arguing with him. She was never any good at it, anyway. He didn’t ask for much, but when he did, how was she supposed to say no?

Puppy Love

In one graceful motion, Link raised his bow and readied his arrow, his eyes dark, narrow, and set on the rustling brush. Whether it was an enemy or their dinner, it would be struck down swiftly. Zelda held her breath. There was a long pause, and then, the foliage shifted again, and the beast leaped out, fangs bared- And then, it plopped down, its entire body wriggling. Link slowly lowered his weapon and dismounted, approaching the tiny creature. It was about three pounds of brown and white fur, with the only discernable features being a tiny black nose with a pink dot, four oversized paws, and one feverishly wagging tail. Link’s serious expression melted like icecream in the Gerudo desert. “Zelda! It’s a puppy!”

“Oh.” She dismounted and walked over to take a closer look. The little thing, excited as it was, was clearly suffering from exhaustion. As far as she knew, there was no stable or village nearby. “It’s so small… Why is it all the way out here?”

“I think it followed us,” Link said, hoisting the brown and white ball of fur up into the air for her to see. “There were puppies at the last stable. Look at him!” The tiny pup’s tail was going a hundred miles a second. She gazed at it doubtfully for a few seconds. “Link… He’s too young to be separated from his mother.”

“Well then, I guess you’re his new mother!” Link’s grin was infectious. Her horror at the idea of being responsible for such a delicate creature was in direct contrast with her delight at Link’s endorsement. Did he really think that she could be a mother?

“I… Well, I suppose… I mean… We don’t have any options, I suppose. But... just until the next stable!” Zelda insisted, but judging by the way that Link and that puppy were looking at one another, there would be no separating them. Her resolve melted as the two turned their big, innocent eyes onto her. “Fine,” she said, after a moment of (pretend) deliberation, “but if that cute little thing wets on any of my clothes-” “I won’t,” Link said with a grin. She rolled her eyes. There was no point in arguing with him. She was never any good at it, anyway. He didn’t ask for much, but when he did, how was she supposed to say no? “But what are we going to feed him?” She wondered if her blush was visible. If it was, Link was as clueless as ever. He was too busy tickling their newfound companion’s belly. “I have some milk from Hateno, and I’m sure he can handle a little bit of meat if we cut it up small enough. Can’t you, buddy?”

She sighed. Did they really have room to carry a dog around with them? As if on cue, Link leaped back onto his horse and plopped the wriggling, barking puff into his saddlebag. It poked its head out – a perfect fit. Well, that answered that.

They rode on for a little while, about half an hour, before the puppy grew restless. “It’s time to eat,” Link decided. He jumped from Epona’s back, lifted their newfound friend up, and handed him off to Zelda. She accepted him cautiously, and was rewarded with a bombardment of kisses and nibbles. “He is cute. What are we going to name him?”

“Sidon,” Link said. She shot him a sideways look. He didn’t meet her eyes, but she caught the shake of his shoulders as he laughed silently. She slid from Iydla’s back, still carefully cradling the pup, and walked over to where Link was building the fire. “Seriously.”

“I don’t know.” He looked up this time, a thoughtful expression on his face. Her breath caught in her throat. His eyes were so bright - cerulean, and flecked with darker blues around the pupil. The softness on his face as he looked at the puppy was rare - there were always hard lines around his eyes from years of stress and vigilance.

“Patches?” She offered, with a bit of hesitation. Link laughed, and she blushed again.

“A little cliche, but sure. It does suit him.”

She scowled and set Patches down. “Well, you were no help. Besides, I-” “Shh.” Link was suddenly alert again, his eyes trained on the road. “Someone is coming.” Those lines reappeared on his face, and she resisted the sudden urge to reach over and smooth them out with her fingers. Patches looked between them and sat down, fully relaxed.

“Just Beedle,” Link exclaimed. Zelda felt the tension melt away, and she laughed softly. “Of course it is. How does he manage all this traveling?”

“Beats me. I just used the shrines to get around until you came along and slowed me down.”

“You didn’t have to come rescue me, you know. Sometimes, I wish you didn’t.” She smiled at him to lighten the words. He smiled back at her, but she saw sadness flicker across his eyes, and guilt crashed over her like a wave. “Link, I didn’t mean... I know what you sacrificed for me.”

“I know you do,” he responded cheerfully. “Come on, let’s eat!”

A few hours later, Zelda leaned back against the trunk of the tree shading their campsite and watched as Link surveyed the road a few feet off. Patches was fast asleep in her lap, his belly round with the fresh poultry they’d cut up and given him. “I wish you would sleep,” she mumbled. “I can keep an eye out.”

He shook his head. “No, you should sleep. I don’t like being so close to the road. Yiga like to wander around here.”

“There have been less and less Yiga ever since we began retraining guards for each village, Link,” she said gently. “Come here. At least sit with me.”

Link hesitated, but for some reason, she didn’t think it was from reluctance to leave his post. After another moment, he walked over and sat down. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, just inches away. Zelda slowly lifted her head to look up at him. “Link...” He gazed at her for what felt like an eternity, his expression unreadable. Finally, he said, “You took really good care of Patches today.”

She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Thanks. I never really had pets when I was Princess. It’s nice to know I’m doing it right.”

“You never got to do a lot of things when you were Princess.” His voice was soft, his tone low. She stared at him. “What-”

Suddenly, his fingertips caught her chin, and his lips pressed against hers. Zelda froze. Her heart fluttered and beat, hard, against her chest. Her thoughts were racing. What did he mean? Did he feel the same way she did? What was he thinking? Hylia, what was she even thinking? It felt wonderful. It felt right. Every emotion she had ever experienced toward him since the final battle with Ganon came back like a flood. Gratitude, affection, admiration, and...

He drew back, and she was seized with panic. She hadn’t done anything! Hadn’t returned the kiss, hadn’t pulled away - she had just sat there like a statue! Say something! “I, um...”

“It’s okay. I know,” he murmured. “I love you too, Zelda.”

#the legend of zelda #zelda #breath of the wild #botw #zelink #zeldaxlink #link #fanfic #fanfiction #romance #prompt #zelda x link #short #LinkxZelda #Link x Zelda

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thegeminisage · 8 years ago

Text

hella spoilery zeldablogging from earlier tonight

feel kind of bad cause i had to look up the gerudo maze desert thing but i was SOOO close on my own

oh my god there's a lady over here by this shrine failing at cooking and all the recipes she teaches me give me dubious food

there are PILES of rotting garbage that have flies around them and the thing in the pot is sending up this black cloud of smoke lmao

wow the blood moon came in the middle of me clearing out an enemy camp :/

good god there's a stable out here in all this deep snow? how?? would the horses not, like, die?

aww beedle's here but he's cold ):

WOW you can upgrade the boy gerudo clothes but not the GIRL ones? that is SEXIST

oh noooo shield surfing DOES damage your shield i hate this i love my current shield what if i can't find another!!!!!

lol the ridge tower si surrounded by water and electric enemies. Great

omg i found the royal lab ruins ):

ok, i gotta begin prioritizing here

while i'd LIKE to complete all 120 shrines before i beat the game just for the armor, i don't think that's going to be possible - i haven't even unlocked some of them yet bc i don't have the snowballs or the quest takes so long

but the most important thing to me is memories

so after i check out all the ridge shrines on this map i'm gonna get the hyrule field map as well and get those memories

and i'll just save a lot and if i fuck something up and trigger endgame stuff i'll reload

god idk how to do this trial on the thunderplanes so like...im gonna let it be

see? i could never do all 120 before tmrw night

PLEASE this memory i just got was so cute zelda was being a nerd over plants and caught a frog she wanted link to eat :')

i love this zelda like i'm super not crazy about her voice actress sounding much older than i think of her as, and the fantasy british accent, but she has so much more personality than many of the others

ah, and i see now why she loved the silent proncess so...can't be grown domestically, only thrives in the wild

much like herself if you watch some of the other memories haha she feels trapped by her own destiny that's easy to see

i think it's super clever how even with a map you still have to look around for shrines bc they are hidden semi-underground

and i wish i had more time to stop and enjoy the little things like that, but i CAN come back and explore later, i can't unlearn a plot point

this spoiler fear might be a little baseless...tbh i also want to finish the main story tho bc like

i want it to be something i play in my free time, not something i obsess over 24/7 and HAVE to play and think about all the time

it's been a beautiful fun and absolutely life-changing experience but also it's been two weeks and i gotta get back to my actual life, i can't be Like This indefinitely

i'm kinda stunned that it took me this ling tbh? like, even skyyward sword was like a week and a half the first time iirc and i did that at like, a pace where i could stop and explore, i remember thinking how huge skyward sword was

omg im so glad i decided to ride epona down to where i need to go next rather than fast travel + walk bc 1. faster maybe? and 2. THE MAIN THEME PLAYS WHEN YOU'RE ON EPONA OVER THE NORMAL HORSE THEME i could weep

KASS IS BY THIS BRIDGE HI BUDDY I LOVE YOU

i solved the puzzle! this time im talking to him BEFORE i go in

he told me it was stupendous ;_; thanks pal

aw dude another memeory and it played the trailer music but

is zelda really only SIXTEEN about to turn seventeen? how old is link?? i guess under 21/18 if they wouldn't let him drink...

jesus, they're just babies ;_;

also, she quoted link's horse advice so like

this + the dialogue options gives the feeling that he does actually speak, you know? so as much as i love mute link i also like these glimpses into his personality as well, bc he's always been such a blank slate

he's empathetic, playful, sometimes downright goofy, and very tenacious - confident, but not in a cocky way, and obviously always a bit shaken when he gets a memory back

it's nice getting to know him a bit, even if you have to patch most of it together - kinda like narrachara lol

;w; it's so nice to have epona gallop over when i call her again

omg i think i found kass's house! i see his journal :3

haha i got this song "when the blood moon rises stand naked on that platform" ok nintendo

i wonder if you get all the puzzles do you get to tell him who you are ):

im tempted to unlock this one now lol

like, it takes a long time to get here and it's almost the blood moon

SIGH this is gonna take awhile but it'll save me time later

oh lmao it was JUST the blood moon so i'd actually have to wait a SUPER long time nvm tbh

well. welp. welly well well

i guess.......its time for hyrule field tower

Im Scared

wow. holy shit. i can see the great plateau from here...and it looks so small. i can see the temple of time, i can see the tower from which i first saw hyrule castle. i can even see the little path i nearly followed, when catching sight of my first moblin and becoming curious, before i got myself back on track. damn. Damn. i have come FULL CIRCLE, holy shit

and like, it's just the way i played it. hyrule castle for last. but you know? i love that shit. journeys ending the way they began. gets me in the feels every time

i'll be honest, THIS i could really stop and explore. forget those awful snowy mountains. this is where the #history is

oh god. i see a guardian down near that tower. please god don't let it be a mobile one

FUCK

i saw two still ones and relaxed and a mobile one snuck up RIGHT FUCKING BEHIND ME

[wheezing]

i don't wanna stop and grind but i worry i might HAVE to get some guardian armor before i can do this, even just one piece...!

i have a diamond circlet so all i'd need from the prof is the chest and/or legs........oh god. jesus fuck

motherFUCKER the range on those still ones, i wish i had been able to take them out...!

oh jesus i made it

this is it. final tower. thank fuck

there'll be more guardians, way more. i gotta at least check and see if i can afford some arrows without setting myself back further for the armor

i think i had all the mats i needed actually i just needed cash...maybe i can cook to earn some since i sold my monster parts

k, i only have enough gears for the chest OR legs, and i don't have enough rupees for either... :/

i COULD buy some arrows and still have enough mats for the armor but then i'd be setting myself back HUGELY re: rupees

ok, i FINALLY got the chest, jesus, now i can go back to hyrule field

altho it doesnt have any def and without even going to the fountain i know i cant upgrade it so rly is it worth it at all, but w/e

also, i read online that if you can learn the timing of parrying their lasers they go down REALLY easily but i suck so much at combat

i guess i'll just wear my anti-guardian stuff, i have daruk and mipha's abilities and fairies AND FAST TRAVEL if anything goes wrong

YES i did it holy FUCK

oh my god! three-shotted!

i just climbed a small hill and got my first look at the rolling green plains...i missed you

no, no, i gotta go get epona to make this perfect, there's a stable i can warp us both to

omg it's the very first people i ever encountered outside the great plateau again

NOOO i hit epona when i was aiming for a monster baby i'm sorry!!!

i gave her an apple and some pats to say sorry ;w;

"legend says that an ancient voice resonates inside that sword...can you hear it yet, hero?"

frankly i'm glad they finally got their timeline shit together bc even tho the games are SO far apart im LOVING these continuity nods

yeesh, only two memories left but they're both RIGHT at the castle...im scared LOL

): i wouldn't feel right taking epona any further

reasons i never have money: cannot physically stop myself from buying arrows

oh, hyrule field is just beautiful ;___;

ohh god im scared

its fine its fine they wouldnt put a memory that close to the castle and then make you go back to impa if hat wasnt POSSIBLE its gonna be ok

awww no zelda sees link as a living reminder of her own failures?? whyyy

ha i love fighting guardians for the first time in ages im like COME TO ME LET US BATTLE

im uh. still working on the timing, but

oh JESUS

my mouth fell open in horror i climbed over a wall to get to the outsideish of the castle (castle town ruins, so says my map) and

the music was already creepy but jesus CHRIST

there's no color except for that blight evil goop stuff...no life...it's awful

poor hyrule, oh god

it's a lot like finding hyrule castle town devastated in oot when you first wake up, except of course this time we've nothing to compare it to visually, only emotionally...

i see a fuckton of guardians too so its a good thing i learned not to be scared of them

ok, god, i can do it, just one memory, i know RIGHT where it is

apparently the hylian shield is in here too and i am sooo sorely tempted

i mean if i have to get that fucking close anyway...

lord i googled it and apparently this memory is super hard to get you gotta Activate some shit but they did it this way they made it so you have to go back out i know i'll be able to come back out i WILL

ah, apparently you need to fight a stalnox for the hylian shield.ok. ok. good, great, Nice, Perfect

haha im soooo scared ;_;

ok, apparently the two paths are COMPLETELY different, so One Thing At A Time

we'll start with the memory, it's more important

tbh, i can't even bring myself to go in. i gotta go around anyway to get to the starting point of this path so i will

lmao i am almost PHYSICALLY ILL with dread this is SO stressful

JESUS

the music went all scary and the map is in 3D like a beast!! which i knew but it's so Much

and i got a cutscene of the calamity screaming with the Classic ganondorf theme i'm Dying how the fuck does anyone just get this memory and LEAVE holy shit

oh my god the main theme comes in!!! jesus

even ballad of the windfish a little?!?!

oh FUCK and ofc with the lightning

haha aww there's a "leave area" button on the map i can bail whenever i guess tat's reassuring

not yet!! i'm gonna have Courage

ohhh i dipped into a doorway just to wait for revali's thing to recharge and the music changed!! so i got scared and went back outside lol

oh god the higher you go the oranger the sky turns it looks like the blood moon jesus fuck

I MADE IT INSIDE

oh god, zelda's STUDY, the rooms all have names bc ofc they do

holder of the triforce of wisdom of COURSE she had a study she's such a nerd im crying i bet she loved it here and it's totally decimated

a silent princess sprouted in her study too ;_;

HER LULLABY IS PLAYING IN HERE IM GONNA CRY

oh good there's the memory!!

ohhh this picture of how it used to be is hurting my heart it was BEAUTIFUL

holy FUCK dude

ok old man is struck from my heart forever he was such a DICK to zelda no wonder he called himself a fool

link knelt right away but god damn i would have interjected on her behalf

you can't expect a person to pray 24/7!!!!

and deny her her passions, which are obviously machines and learning!

omg she has a journal in here and i almost missed it jesus

TODAY SHE MET WITH IMPA im cryin

omg this is her finding the sheikah slate!!!

jesus, and she found the shrine of ressurection too and hoped she'd never have to use it, and Yet...

oh GOD i hit leave area and it plucked me down in the middle of castle town nope nope nope fast travel outta there

ok to impa and then last memory i can do it and then do stream

and for once not play again afterwards bc to be quite frank i could never stress myself out this bad right before bed again, FUCK

hylian shield and all the rest of it tomorrow

h o ly fuck

he DIED protecting her, or he was going to, but she stood in front of him for once and finally unlocked the power, that's how she unlocked it, for HIM

i'm WEEPING and the sword made the fi noise from SS

even the sheikah warriors ran like sheik in smash bros

im gonna cry that was so much!!! there's so much continuity

fi is in TWO GAMES like...that was such direct referencing!!!!

SHE HAS BEEN FIGHTING ALONE FOR 100 YEARS jesus CHRIST she is SEVENTEEN

ok, im gonna watch all the memories in order and then quit for the night

i just realized the ceremony scene is where she mentions embers of twilight and adrift in time - putting us on the mm/tp timeline

aaaah im sad

god and i LOVE her princess dress i wanna see it in her classic pink why is everyone in this game blue??

so like, despite me not being crazy about zelda's voice ACTRESSS and the VOICE she's using, she actually does the best ACTING out of the entire cast

high key loving this zelda who is smart but has trouble with feelings, also

holy SHIT

ok so one of the first memories i got was of zelda coming down mt lanayru

amd it was badass and i enjoyed it

but there's SO much in there once you know more context

mipha was highkey about to spill to zelda that she was in love with link

revali's distain for link

urbosa seems less stern and more caring now that i know her better

now i know what zelda was trying so hard to do

"we have to keep trying until we find the thing that unlocks your sealing power [long shot of link]"

and "i'm not a child anymore" ofc it's bc she just turned 17! like link in oot!

oh man oh man

i love so much link's expressions in these serious moments especially that very last look into zelda's eyes before he "died"

it feels a bit like, with the other stuff i was talking about, i'm getting just a hint of character

and it's kinda close to My Headcanon but even if it wasn't i just like getting to know him

warped back to the temple of time & i'm leaving it there for the night

tomorrow: The End

(and my shield)

#personal #loz blogging #botw spoilers #I Am Not Kidding So Many Spoilers #god why am i still awake i wanted to be in bed literally two hours ago while stream was still on

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thelastpitchbender · 7 years ago

Text

The Bone Merchant

Summary: When Beedle isn't busy selling quality arrows and insects to the good citizens of Hyrule, he dreams of founding a glorious business empire and publishing a bestselling book. It just so happens that an angry, shirtless kid with a bag full of monster parts might be able to help him out with that.

Notes: A goofy BotW oneshot, written because I love Beedle and because I’m a sucker for fics from NPC POVs that feature Link acting like a total nutjob. Did I mention that I love Beedle? Because I love Beedle.

Read on: FanFiction | AO3

The Bone Merchant

It was a pleasant walk from the edge of the Great Plateau to Riverside Stable, so long as you ignored the monsters.

This was something Beedle was very good at doing. You couldn’t just casuallywander Hyrule for several years without getting good at avoiding them, or sneaking past them, or running away from them. That was no small feat with the amount of goods he was carrying.

Beedle suddenly gasped. How had he not thought of that one before? Coming to an awkward halt, he fumbled around in a front pocket of his pack for his notebook and pencil, then flipped it open to the last page he had written on. He scribbled down a sentence while grinning like a maniac.

Rule #57: Get good at running. Especially with a really big backpack.

Beedle snapped the notebook shut in satisfaction. Beedle’s Guide to Modern Hyrulean Commercewas bound to be a bestseller, once he had the capital to print more than seven copies.

And once he had the book finished. That would also be helpful.

But really, the universal and pragmatic advice contained in the finished product would be invaluable to any traveling salesman –

A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he flipped the notebook back open.

Addendum: Also get good at running with a dumb horse or donkey or whatever.

Yes, that was important. Beedle was somewhat unique in that he didn’t have an animal with him, but many other traveling salesmen did. He thought some more.

Note to self, he scribbled. Find someone who knows about horses and/or donkeys.

Satisfied with his progress, he put away the notebook and pencil.

He wandered down the road with his massive pack, humming an indistinct melody under his breath. It was a little after noon and the sun was beating down on him, but a pleasantly bracing breeze was coming off the Hylia River and cutting across the road. Not to mention that he wasn’t facing that eyesore of a Malice-infested castle, which did a lot to make his day better.

It was a beautiful day, really. There were a lot of people out on the roads, taking advantage of a day without rain. He recognized many of them as traveling salespeople and waved a greeting at them as they trotted by on their horses.

Beedle liked his pack better than horses. It made him look more distinctive and gave him a sort of brand, if you will. He liked to think that one could recognize his beetle-shaped pack even in a Hebra blizzard –

A sudden cacophony of noise sounded behind him. The ground shook under his feet.

Beedle turned around and peered at the ashen cloud cresting the hill he had just passed. Birds flew from the trees, the fluttering of wings fading as they left the area far behind.

Explosions. Probably coming from the East Post Ruins, he mused. Exactly what did those monsters think was going to happen if they kept explosive barrels lying around their camps? He rolled his eyes and kept on walking.

It wasn’t long until he reached the stable. Ember, the owner, called out a greeting from behind his counter. “Good to see you again, Beedle! Hylia knows I need some arrows to fight off the monsters.”

Beedle automatically smiled and waved at him, setting his pack down with a thunk, but beneath his mind was whirring. This stable was never threatened by monsters. Unless… He glanced over at the East Post Ruins a little nervously. He’d heard the rumors about monsters getting more aggressive in the past few weeks.

But regardless of his feelings on the matter, Beedle did what Beedle did best: sell lots of shit.

It was nice to finally sit down in front of his pack, shaded by the eaves of the stable. He folded down his colorful makeshift table, and soon enough the denizens of the stable lined up in front of him to stock up.

The pragmatically-minded bought bundles of arrows (at quite a bargain!) and the adventurous selected from a wide variety of quality insects (very cheap!) to cook elixirs. Well-worn rupees changed hands with one of his trademark excited hoots for every transaction, and Beedle soon found himself in possession of a very small fortune. He grinned delightedly, sifting his hands through the pile of rupees when he thought no one was looking.

Unfortunately, someone had been looking.

“There you are, you greedy-guts!” the Annoying Traveler yelled, stomping his way over from where he’d been in the stable. Beedle suppressed a scowl. That snake.That stupid weedy man with his dumb greasy black hair. Beedle didn’t even know his name, and he was sure the stable dwellers didn’t know it either. All he knew was that the traveler was, to put it nicely, the worst.

The traveler shook a bundle of arrows right in Beedle’s face. One end of an arrow that had snapped off but was now dangling by a thin strip of wood whacked him in the face. To Beedle’s infinite credit, he did not flinch.

Definitely not because the traveler was intimidating. It was his iron willpower. Definitely. It was one of his rules, even.

Rule #15: The modern Hyrulean economy is cutthroat, sometimes literally. Get good at standing your ground.

“I don’t see anything wrong with the arrows,” Beedle lied.

The traveler scowled, which made his stupid face even uglier. “Can. You. Not. See. What’s. In front of. YOUR FACE?” He punctuated this last shout by throwing the bundle of arrows dangerously close to Beedle’s feet. Upon hitting the ground, the bundle rudely broke apart, broken arrows rolling everywhere. Beedle grimaced at the mess.

Thisjerkfaceprobably broke the arrows on purpose, just to demand a full refund.

“I tested them all myself,” Beedle lied again. Well, it wasn’t entirely a lie – he’d once watched his Rito supplier test them. He was very…thorough about it.

“Well, I demand a refund,” the traveler said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Beedle pointed to a small sign at the corner of his table. ALL TRANSACTIONS FINAL.

“They’re broken! They’re defective!” the traveler spluttered indignantly, his face going darker red by the second.

Beedle just sighed. It was too bad he had to follow his own cursed rules.

Rule #2: The customer is always right. Always be a paragon of excellent customer service.

Instead of arguing with the traveler, he rummaged through one of the front pockets of his pack, pulled out an inkwell and a quill, and then grabbed the sign. When he was finished writing, he put the sign back with a delicate yet deliberate motion.

THAT MEANS YOU, DEAR TRAVELER, it now read. Beedle gave him a guileless grin.

Rule #3: If customer service is not enough, strictly enforce store policy. (If you know what I mean.)

Ah, yes, Beedle reflected as the traveler stomped away, leaving the arrows at Beedle’s feet. His book would be quite the bestseller.

The traveler was now sitting by the cooking pot, able to shoot the occasional venomous glare over at Beedle. Ha! If he thought that was going to faze Beedle, Hyrule’s greatest traveling salesman…

Then Parcy walked out of the stable, and Beedle hastily scooped up as many of the broken arrows as possible and dumped them behind the pack before she noticed him. She looked rather severe, but she was much, much nicer than the Annoying Traveler, thank the Goddess.

She finally noticed him and strolled over, and Beedle laid on the charm. “Hello, hello! How’s my favorite treasure hunter doing? Find any good royal guard gear?”

Parcy smiled. “Not yet. Actually though, I wanted to talk to you about these arrows.” She pulled a bundle of broken arrows from behind her back.

Noooooooo, Beedle whined internally. They were actually bad?

“Did you shoot these at something?” he asked.

Parcy shrugged. “I broke a lot of them by shooting at hay targets. I don’t think they’re supposed to be that brittle.”

Beedle grimaced. He would have to have some strong words with his Rito supplier. “Ah. Well. I know I’m not supposed to do this,” he said, voice dropping conspiratorially low, “but I’ll give you a refund. I feel bad about selling things of poor quality, you know?”

Parcy’s gaze darted to the traveler for a brief instant, and Beedle knew that she’d heard the entire exchange earlier.

“I’ll do it because I like you so much,” he said, sending a wink at her.

Beedle was gratified to see a slight blush dust her cheeks. “Oh,” she said. “Well, I don’t need the refund. Can I just get a new bundle of arrows instead?”

“Sure can,” he said, gleefully noting the piercing glare he was getting from the traveler.

Things were going just the way they should be. Beautiful, sunny weather, flirting with Parcy, sticking it to the Annoying Traveler, getting filthy stinking rich –

“Hey, why don’t you put some clothes on before you start shoving people around, you little creep?” Parcy snapped.

Beedle blinked. “What?” he asked, startled by her sudden outburst.

But Parcy hadn’t been facing him. While Beedle had been totally zoned out, a kid had run up and tried to squeeze past Parcy. The kid shot her an irritated look.

That took a lot of guts, considering that he was wearing absolutely nothing but a pair of shorts.

What in the name of the good Goddess Hylia…?

The kid was now bent over and gasping, hands on his knees. He had dropped a suspiciously large burlap sack and a boko bow in front of him. He was covered in scrapes, cuts and bruises. His hair might have been blond, but it was hard to tell, messy and streaked with dirt and soot as it was.

“Mister – “ Beedle tried, determined to seem unfazed. He couldn’t deny service to anyone, suspicious or shirtless as they might have been!

The kid held one finger up while still catching his breath. Beedle waited patiently.

Rule #24: There will always be a customer weirder than you. (Beedle always debated whether or not to put that one in the book, because he couldn’t have potential customers thinking he was weird, after all.)

He finally straightened up and looked at Beedle, who immediately had to choke back a laugh and then feel terrible for having that impulse in the first place. His gaze was sharp, intense, and forbiddingly angry, but the effect was ruined by the fact that one of his eyebrows had been singed off and that he was shorter than Parcy. And also by the fact that he wasn’t wearing any clothes.

The kid seemed to realize that he wasn’t getting the reaction he wanted because his expression shifted into something almost indignant. He planted his dirty, burned hands on his hips and continued to glare at Beedle.

Parcy was backing away slowly, reaching a hand behind her in an attempt to feel out where the stable wall was. Her brows were still furrowed, but she was rightfully being cautious about someone who looked insane. Ember was nowhere to be seen, and the traveler seemed frozen in alarm by the whole situation.

Ah, well. It seemed it was all up to Beedle now.

“I don’t believe we’ve met before,” he said, letting a smile plaster itself onto his face.

“I’m Link,” the kid replied. For a brief moment, Beedle caught a strange look of uncertainty in his eyes, but it was gone so quickly he brushed it off as his imagination.

“Link,” Beedle echoed. “Pleasure to meet you. The name’s Beedle, but you can call me – “ He chuckled a bit awkwardly. “Actually, let’s just stick with Beedle.”

Beedle desperately wanted to give his whole explanation about traveling around Hyrule, even in these very dangerous times, and offering a high price for gemstones, the quality insects, etc. etc., but now really did not seem like the time. The kid – Link – was puffing himself up, like he was holding in a torrential outpouring of words, or maybe just a really, really big breath.

Either way, the stiff, wide-eyed look on his face was funny, and Beedle’s smile grew more genuine again.

“Sell me arrows,” Link finally blurted.

Now this was something he could deal with. “How many?” Beedle asked, leaning forward in anticipation.

Link thought for a second, then answered decisively. “All of them.”

Beedle raised an eyebrow. He kept a list of people who liked to buy up his whole stock of arrows, and he wasn’t sure that Link would want to be on it. “I’ve got…three bundles of five arrows left. Then twenty more arrows,” he said, rummaging around in his pack for the arrows and doing some quick math in his head. “That’ll be…210 rupees.”

Link frowned. “Rupees,” he muttered, looking down at the ground.

“Yes. Rupees,” Beedle said, feeling his smile freeze on his face. He considered himself to be a pretty easygoing guy, but if this kid was trying to buy up his entire stock without actually having any money…

After what looked like some careful deliberation, Link scooped up the burlap sack and dumped its contents out in front of Beedle, who immediately did a double take. In the corner of his eye, he saw Parcy clap a hand over her mouth.

There was a massive pile of monster parts sitting in front of Beedle now. The blocky shapes of bokoblin fangs, razor-sharp lizalfos talons, and the spirals of moblin horns, all gleaming bone-white in the midday sun.

“Um,” Link said, bringing a hand up to his mouth in thought. “How many…?”

Arrows? Rupees? Fangs? Monsters murdered in cold blood? Aghast, Beedle glanced from the pile of bones to the scrawny, short kid behind them, then back to the bones.

Then an idea wormed its way into his mind. A wonderful idea. A glorious, insanely profitable idea.

“Let me sort these out so I can get you your rupees,” Beedle said while reaching out for the monster parts. He ignored Parcy’s alarmed glance in his direction.

Beedle also ignored his vague nausea at the idea of touching fangs and horns from dead monsters, overcome by visions of the fortune he could make. Piles of shimmering gold and silver rupees glimmered beneath his eyelids when he blinked.

Thiswas what he had been missing this whole time, he thought. As much as he loved his insects, the elixir market was in desperate need of sellers. So many missed opportunities to harvest the requisite raw materials just because traveling salespeople weren’t usually handy in a fight, especially not Beedle –

He abruptly realized that Link was now bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet, eyebrows drawn together again. “How long is this going to take?” he asked, aggrieved. Link glanced over his shoulder quickly. Toward the East Post Ruins, Beedle realized, suspicion dawning in his mind.

“I’m sure you realize that all these different parts have different market values,” Beedle said with a frown. “I have to sort them out and then do the math.”

Link hesitated, then nodded, but it was clear by the brief surprise on his face that he hadn’t known that before. By Hylia, this kid was a bad liar. What kind of rock had he been living under?

After a couple of seconds, Link glanced up, staring out into the middle distance, tense as a bowstring. Beedle felt a sudden uneasiness sweep over him at Link’s change in demeanor. He couldn’t hear anything. Why –

He couldn’t hear anything. No birds were singing at all, as if something had scared them all off. Had Link…pissed some monsters off? Who were now coming for him? To this very stable?

“Can I just take the arrows now and do the whole other thing later?” Link pleaded, reaching for the boko bow at his feet.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

“If you’re going to bring monsters right to this lovely stable’s doorstep, I feel compelled to warn its owner,” Beedle said while lifting up the table in front of him and crawling out from under it.

Link’s eyes widened in alarm. “I never said – “

“You’re a bad liar, kid,” Beedle cut in, not unkindly. “I’ll get you the arrows when I come back out.”

No guarantees on how long it would take him to inform Ember, he thought, twisting his hands nervously.

A quick glance at the counter inside the stable revealed it to be empty. The traveler had fled, too. “Ohhhhh,” Beedle said to himself, quietly, more a groan than his usual declaration of excitement.

How? Why? Just – how? Why did Link have a bow but no arrows? How did he amass such a large collection of monster parts without any functional weapons? Where did all those burns and cuts come from? And why was he running around in his underwear?

Beedle’s private moment of panic was interrupted by a high-pitched shriek of “IT SET ME ON FIRE HELP – “

Beedle froze for a second, somehow thinking nothing but how can Link be on fire? He’s barely wearing any clothes!

Shortly after, Parcy yelled, “Beedle!” She sounded like she was calling for help while staring down an angry lynel. At her shout, Beedle ran back outside and gaped at the scene.

Well, it wasn’t a lynel, but it wasn’t pretty either.

Link was rolling around on the ground, swatting furiously at his shorts. A red bokoblin was looming above him, stamping its feet and shrieking in anger, looking for all the world like a child having a tantrum. It was hefting a heavy moblin club, which was currently on fire, just like Link’s shorts were.

The situation was so stupid that Beedle was immediately irritated rather than scared. For one, it was now clear to him that Link had been responsible for the explosions at the East Post Ruins and that these monsters were angry enough to chase him.

“Is this some new teenager thing?” he asked Parcy, who was pressed up against the wall of the stable and staring at the bokoblin with very wide eyes. “Sneaking into monster camps and throwing around explosive barrels? I bet it’s a stupid teenager thing.”

Parcy ignored him, which was uncharacteristic of her. While still flat against the wall, she slid down a bit and dragged Link’s boko bow toward her with her foot until she could scoop it up without having to get any closer to the monster. “Link!” she called out.

Link finally stopped rolling and scrambled to his feet. Parcy tossed him the bow, and he fumbled at it a bit before it was secure in his hands.

“That’s nice of you,” said Link while ducking under a mighty swipe from the bokoblin, “but I kind of need arrows!”

Parcy glanced at Beedle, imploring, and he groaned in frustration. Math. How was he supposed to do mathwhen a bokoblin was in the middle of attacking his customer?

This wasn’t in any of his rules. Any of them. They all stressed the utmost importance of not being around monsters at any time!

Well, when life gave you spicy peppers. Time to throw the rulebook out, Beedle thought with a huff.

“I’ll make you a deal, Link,” Beedle yelled at him. “I’ll trade you one monster part for one arrow.”

It was brilliant. Most of those monster parts were worth more than a single arrow. Now he just had to hope Link wouldn’t catch on –

“I’ve been asleep for the last hundred years, so I might be wrong–“ The bokoblin smacked Link in the back with its club, and he sprawled face-first into the dirt. “–But aren’t they each worth more than a single arrow?” he finished while rolling away from another strike.

Goddess curse him. He was insane and knowledgeable about the elixir trade.

“The bokoblin horns are only worth 3 rupees each,” said Beedle, no longer feeling bad about watching him get smacked around. “So essentially you would be getting two arrows for the price of one. Can’t beat that deal!” If Link played his cards right, anyway. Beedle eyed the pile of monster parts greedily.

The bokoblin was now straying a little too close to the very flammable walls of the stable, and Link said, “Fine, fine! Give me one!” He snapped his fingers at Beedle and held out his hand, the expression on his face suggesting a mix of irritation and determination.

Beedle deliberately picked a lizalfos talon out of the pile and deposited it near his pack. Ha. That was two and a half arrows right there. That would show him to be rude to Parcy.

No sooner had Beedle pulled an arrow out of his pack and placed it in Link’s hand did Link nock it, draw the string back, and let the arrow fly right between the bokoblin’s eyes. The monster spun around and staggered back while screaming.

Parcy and Beedle both gaped at Link. He moved with a warrior’s grace and brutal efficiency, the likes of which Beedle very rarely saw. He wordlessly held his hand out for another arrow, and Beedle complied, pulling a bokoblin horn out of the pile. Half price for an arrow.

Boy, had he made a mistake in assuming Link was just a short, scrawny kid.

The second arrow hit in almost exactly the same spot as the first and felled the monster. As it vanished in a sickly purple cloud of smoke, Link picked up the fang and horn that was left behind and dropped it into the pile. “There’s more,” he said quietly.

“What, more monsters?” Parcy’s disembodied voice sniped. Beedle looked around wildly before realizing that she had hid behind a crate after seeing what Link could do. “What did you do to them?”

Beedle was about to point out that his comment didn’t necessarily mean there were more monsters coming, but he shut his mouth at the gloomy look on Link’s face.

“For starters, I blew up their camp. But they started it!” he amended hastily, eyes wide and innocent.

Normally that would have been true, but Beedle somehow doubted that Link hadn’t provoked them in any way. “So where’s all your clothes?” Beedle asked, as nonchalantly as possible.

Link had the grace to look embarrassed. “They stole them. While I was swimming.”

“Right. And where did that bow come from?”

Beedle half expected Link to say something like, Oh, I just clubbed a bokoblin to death with his dead buddy’s weapon, then I took the bow, but he chimed in with, “Oh, I had it with me.”

“With you. While you were swimming,” said Parcy from behind the crate.

“For target practice,” said Link evasively.

“In the middle of a river – “ Parcy shouted.

Beedle cut her off before she could strangle Link. “With no arrows?” he finished.

Link’s brows furrowed in faint indignation. “Well, I realized that, but by the time I got back to shore they were running off with all my stuff!”

“I still don’t understand how you thought you were going to be able to shoot a bow in the middle of the Hylia River, but okay,” groused Parcy.

Link ignored her comment, turning to Beedle. “Give me…” He frowned. “How many can I fit in my mouth…?”

It took Beedle a second to realize what had been said. “What?”

“Five arrows,” Link decided.

Beedle decided that it was nothis business to know what sort of weird things his customers were into. He shrugged and counted out five random monster parts (with an aggregate value of…36 rupees, so worth six arrows, his mind automatically calculated).

He handed the five arrows to Link, who promptly tried holding them between his teeth.

“Ohhh,” Beedle said, feeling a bit stupid. What else was he going to do, stick them down his shorts?

He noticed that Parcy was snooping around the crates for something. She was looking for weapons, he realized. He paled.

Parcy hefted a double-headed axe and said, “Hey, Link – “

“I think you should keep that one, Parcy,” Beedle interrupted. “Two people fighting is better than one.”

Parcy glared at him and opened her mouth, but Link cut in. “He’s right. I’ll be fine with just a bow.”

Beedle’s knees weakened with relief and he let out a breath. There was still time to get more monster parts…

“If you’d let me talk, you’d know that never have I ever been in an actual fight,” Parcy grumbled, but she grudgingly held onto the axe. It wasn’t particularly surprising that Beedle had managed to convince her, what with her constantly going on about the royal guards’ weapons.

“There’s more of them coming up the road,” Link suddenly said, exasperation edging his voice. He put the arrows in his mouth again, then took one and nocked it. Parcy shuffled over to where he was, hefting the axe in an awkward ready stance.

Beedle backed up to his pack. Someone had to keep an eye on the arrows and bones, after all.

A sudden faint screeching sounded in the distance, accompanied by dust clouds rising from the road ahead. Beedle shrank back. This went against everyinstinct he had. Don’t get close! Don’t fight them! Don’t die!

Fat lot of good his instincts were doing now, Beedle thought wearily. He absently sorted arrows and monster parts into piles, ready for the inevitable trades. He ignored the way sweat slicked his palms and the things he was touching.

Curse that Link. Stupid kid.

There were now a group of bokoblins running at full tilt toward them. Some were twirling their clubs above their heads, and some were sending very poorly aimed arrows at the Hylians clustered by the stable. There would be a lot of screaming involved in the fight, Beedle thought with ill humor. At least he could brew himself an elixir to cure his inevitable headache with all his own monster parts.

Oh, but his rules. Rule #9: Never get high on your own supply. (He really did have to change the wording there. He wasn’t a Goddess cursed drug dealer, after all.)

“Damn you to hell, Link,” he hissed under his breath in extreme irritation. “If we don’t get out of this, I’m having some strong words with some of my friends. You won’t even know what’s coming.”

The threat hung in the air for a brief second before the first bokoblin reached Link’s firing distance.

Link’s infallible aim got the bokoblin stumbling back, clutching its face, and Beedle had instant second thoughts. Again.

Parcy’s arms were shaking. She shrieked and took a wild swing with her axe as a monster lunged for her. Beedle cringed as she missed and the momentum of her swing spun her around. The bokoblin screamed and hefted its club. Parcy could do nothing but stare in terror. Even Beedle shot to his feet, pulse racing.

The bokoblin suddenly fell to the ground, an arrow sprouting from its eye. Link was giving its corpse a ferocious stare. The first bokoblin he had shot ran at him, and he immediately pivoted and felled the monster.

Parcy was poking at the fallen bokoblins with her axe to make sure they were dead, Beedle noticed with no small amount of amusement.

Then a shadow fell over her, and before he could stop himself Beedle yelled, “Behind you!”

Parcy whipped around with a shriek, and the force her spin gave her axe swing was enough to send the bokoblin flying to the side. Beedle whooped, feeling secondhand euphoria at her victory.

Link, who had also turned around at Beedle’s shout, scowled at him. “Hey, where’s my warning?”

“You don’t need it, pal,” Beedle said, not unkindly, while Link finished off the monster Parcy hit with a well-aimed arrow.

“Sure I do!” Link still managed to sound indignant while ducking under a boko club and edging his way over to Beedle. “I’m fighting with a bow that’s basically a twig with delusions of grandeur!”

Beedle cast a critical eye at the boko bow, which was starting to show the strain of its use. Some bark was peeling off it, and the bowstring was starting to fray. It really was just a glorified stick, wasn’t it? So it would take more arrows to kill all the bokoblins. Oh no.

Link was holding his hand out for arrows. With the practiced ease of a merchant, Beedle scooped up a bundle of five arrows in one hand and five assorted monster parts in the other.

Fireproof elixirs, hasty elixirs, elixirs that renew your very soul and grant you a new lease on life…

Beedle suddenly had to flinch out of the way of a bokoblin’s club. Parcy chased after it, screaming like a banshee with her axe held over her head.

“You go, Parcy!” Beedle yelled giddily. Link frowned at the lack of attention he was getting, but it couldn’t be helped. This was a special occasion for Parcy! It was obvious Link had been in many fights before.

Before long, there was only one blue bokoblin left. It was the one that had set Link on fire earlier, and its club was somehow still on fire. It stamped its feet and screeched at Link, who hopped on top of a crate and yelled back, “I’ll set your houseon fire!”

Eh. Beedle didn’t need any more proof that Link was certifiably insane, but there was some more anyway.

“Do you have any fire arrows, Beedle?” Link shouted. Beedle resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Not because of the question, which was perfectly legitimate. He wished he could carry them, but he was always nervous about putting that sort of stuff in his pack.

No, he choked back a snort because Link was being absolutely melodramatic. If that Kass guy were around, he doubtlessly would have said something about how Link’s shout rumbled with the thunder of vengeance. But really, Link was doing the thing where he was puffing himself up again, and it looked just as stupid the second time. At least he was standing on a crate now.

Beedle sprinted over to another crate on the other side of the stable, ripping a blanket off of it and clumsily tearing a strip as he ran back to his pack. He tied the strip just above the arrowhead, then stuck the end under the still-lit cooking pot for just a brief second.

Ugh, I hope this works.

The strip of cloth was aflame, but there was no telling how long it would take for the flame to spread to the shaft of the arrow. He knew it was treated with some sort of lacquer, but he had no idea exactly how much fire protection that afforded.

Oh, wait. This next part was even worse.

Link had seen what Beedle was doing, and beckoned him forward impatiently. But how was he supposed to get around that big flaming moblin club?

His brief giddiness faded when he realized that now it was histurn to get involved in the fight.

“Parcy,” he hissed.

Parcy seemed to know what he needed without saying a word. She nodded and ran to the bokoblin’s other side, hollering and waving her axe around.

For an instant, Beedle was frozen. The heat of the burning arrow scorched his hand and forearm. Sweat ran down his forehead.

Move.

The bokoblin was distracted. Link was shouting something at him that he wasn’t quite comprehending. The path he needed to run was clear.

Just move, dammit.

He heard Parcy’s scream, and a ball of terror formed in his gut. She had fallen backward and the bokoblin was raising its burning club above its head.

The moment broke, and Beedle ran.

He passed the burning arrow into Link’s outstretched hand and immediately ran back to his pack, gasping for breath and shaking his hand out.

Link nocked the arrow, drew back, and fired. The bokoblin fell forward, and Parcy narrowly scrambled out of its way. She stood up and landed the killing blow on its skull before it could get up.

They all stood there for a moment. Beedle was nursing his hand by his new large pile of monster parts. Link was rolling his shoulders, apparently still comfortable with being nearly naked and filthy, besides. Parcy was staring down at the blue bokoblin’s body in faint wonder. Sweat stuck her dark hair to her face, which was almost prettily flushed. She looked up at Beedle, and he grinned at her.

Link ruined the moment by hopping down from the crate and loudly declaring, “I am going to go find my stuff.”

Beedle could only find the strength to nod before he plopped down by the fire. Hylia, sprinting a little bit and trading for arrows during a fight was exhausting. Parcy clearly had the same thought. She joined him by the fire, letting the bloodied axe thud to the ground.

They sat in companionable silence, watching the sun slowly slip over the horizon and paint Hyrule with brilliant orange, pink, and red. Beedle loved a lot of things about Hyrule, but one of the things he loved most was how the Hylia River became a ribbon of fire at the end of the day. The temperature was rapidly dropping, but it felt strangely welcoming after the fight.

Like most peaceful moments of this particular day, it was interrupted by Link. He was coming back up the road, genially calling out, “Hey, anyone want some food?”

Beedle wanted badly to say yes, but he was momentarily startled by Link’s appearance. He had clearly taken a bath in the river at some point, as Beedle could now definitely tell that yes, Link was blond. He no longer looked so small when he was armed to the teeth, either. He had amassed quite the collection of wooden clubs, along with a broadsword and a knight’s bow, all of which were strapped to his back. He carried the weight like it was nothing.

But Beedle was most interested in his clothes. Not his trousers or boots, which were torn and muddied garden-variety clothes that one could buy at any town in Hyrule. It was his tunic. It was as blue as the sky, and although it looked to be in fantastic shape, the tunic had clearly been meticulously, even lovingly mended many, many times. Maybe by Link himself, Beedle suspected, noting how clean it was compared to everything else he was wearing.

He really did not mean to dwell on the tunic, but it was some of the finest tailoring he had ever seen in his journeys around Hyrule. Rito craftsmanship, perhaps? With a visit to Kochi Dye Shop? Wherever it came from, it had to have been exorbitantly expensive. Beedle leaned forward and eyed the pattern of white embroidery around the neckline with great interest.

Then an elbow caught him in the side and he cringed.

“Stop being rude,” Parcy snapped. “Of course we want food.”

Food. “Yes, definitely,” Beedle said hastily. “Thank you.”

Link merely looked amused. It was amazing what a proper bath and some actual clothes had done to make him look like not a lunatic.

He pulled some foraged ingredients out of his bag – Beedle saw some prime meat, what looked like wheat, and a bottle of milk – and dumped it in the pot, humming cheerily as the ingredients sizzled. Beedle watched the pot closely, suspicious that just dumping it all in would do anything.

But once Parcy emerged from the stable with bowls and spoons in hand, Link’s creamy meat soup was finished. By Hylia, was it better than anything Beedle could ever manage to cook up. Link looked far too pleased, almost smug, about how much Beedle and Parcy were enjoying their meals.

When they were all finished, the sun had almost set entirely. Parcy went around and lit all the exterior lamps of the stable, which cast a warm, golden glow on the cooking pot.

“Sorry I was rude to both of you earlier,” Link said, not quite making eye contact. “I was really hungry.”

“Just hungry?” Parcy deadpanned.

Unexpectedly, Link laughed, and the other two cracked a smile as well.

“So do you travel around Hyrule?” Beedle asked, his curiosity about the tunic still not satisfied. “I wonder why I haven’t met you before.”

“Hyrule is a big place,” Link said, sounding curiously unsure of himself.

Beedle shrugged. “You seem like an avid traveler. Where else would you have gotten all those weapons and that really nice tunic?”

Something in Link’s expression shuttered. The temperature seemed to drop just a touch. Beedle immediately shut his mouth, feeling acutely aware that he had made a grave misstep in some way.

“A friend made it for me,” Link eventually said, staring off into the distance. The look in his eyes wasn’t cold, exactly, but it was stony, intent, and suddenly very, very old.

Beedle swallowed, suddenly understanding. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Link shook his head. “It’s alright. I can still save her.”

Beedle and Parcy exchanged worried glances as Link stood up and began collecting his things. “Wait, you’re leaving now?” Parcy asked with a frown. “We have plenty of beds.”

“I’ve slept enough for a lifetime,” Link said, and his smile was too full of melancholy for Beedle to make fun of him for that statement.

“I’m sure I’ll run into you again on the road,” Beedle said. “And bring me more monster parts next time!”

Link grinned and nodded. Then he waved goodbye and started walking north, along the river. Beedle watched until he vanished into the twilight.

“Goddess, he was weird,” Parcy muttered.

“Maybe, but I get the sense he’ll be a regular customer,” Beedle absently replied. Glancing at his pack, he realized that Link had left him all of the monster parts. He shook his head in exasperation. He somehow didn’t think Link would make a good business partner, but at least these monster parts would get him somewhere.

Suddenly, the Annoying Traveler burst out of the trees, out of breath. “Is he gone?”

“Who, nutjob shirtless kid?” Parcy sniped. “Where were you all this time?”

The traveler gave her a condescending look. “Well, when the kid mentioned that he was leading a whole cohort of monsters to the stable, I did what any saneperson would have done and got the hell out of here,” he said loftily.

“No need to be such a jerk about it,” Parcy was muttering, but Beedle was again concerned with the rise in monster activity. In the day’s excitement, he had forgotten just how unusual it was for monsters to have chased Link all the way from the East Post Ruins to Riverside Stable. There was that rumor he’d heard. Yeah, that the monsters were more aggressive, but there was a reason for it. What was it? Something about…uh…

“Apparently, our lives were in danger because the Champion of Hyrule has ‘awakened,’” the traveler said, with exaggerated air quotes and a copious amount of eyerolling. Oh, yeah, that was the rumor.

“It’s just a dumb story,” said Parcy. She was clearly losing her patience with the traveler.

Beedle agreed. It was a dumb story. The Calamity was dangerous, but only if you got too close to the castle. It showed no signs of budging. If it hadn’t destroyed Hyrule yet, was it reallyever going to?

And the stories everyone told their kids about how Hyrule’s valiant princess awakened her sealing power with her love for her appointed knight was clearly romanticized drivel. No one really believed that the princess was still alive, or her knight for that matter.

But maybe…

Link’s fighting skills were unparalleled, and his tunic certainly befit a Champion of Hyrule.

“What if…” Beedle began, but Parcy cut him off.

“Yeah, I really don’t think so,” she scoffed, but he saw the trace of doubt in her eyes.

The traveler scowled. “Oh, no. No way.”

“That’s what I said– “

The traveler kicked Beedle’s pile of monster parts, scattering them about. “There’s no way that kid could be the Champion,” he furiously hissed. “Master Kohga is going to kill me.”

“Hey, take it easy,” Beedle said indignantly, scooping his fangs and horns up while shooting a glare at the traveler.

The traveler completely ignored him. He walked back into the trees from which he came, muttering darkly under his breath.

“Well, good riddance.” Parcy stuck her tongue out in the direction he went, and busied herself cleaning out the cooking pot.

Beedle just sighed and started stowing all of his new supplies in his pack. His fingers brushed against his notebook, and he hesitated for a moment. Throughout the day, he’d totally forgotten about his rules. Certainly none of them had really applied to Link’s insanity.

Was his guide to commerce just a pipe dream? Was his elixir empire just a far-off fantasy? Everything felt like such a long way off. He felt like he would never be able to write a good book if people just kept showing up and throwing his rules out the window.

And he loved his insects. He hated fighting monsters. Today had certainly proven that. How would he ever feasibly be able to make and sell elixirs? Link was clearly a warrior, not a salesman. He doubtlessly had better things to do than be Beedle’s errand boy and bring him monster parts.

In that moment, Beedle felt strangely lonely. He sat down and pulled the notebook and quill out, hesitating over a blank page. What did I learn today?After a moment, he decided.

Rule #58: Don’t be afraid to adapt to new, bizarre circumstances or realizations.

And like that, Beedle had a new business idea.

Totally unrelated to the notebook, but no less brilliant. If he couldn’t bring himself to grind up his insects, why not have other people do it? Make-your-own-elixir gift packs. People would eat that up.

Beedle grinned and was about to pitch the idea to Parcy when suddenly he spotted Ember almost at the stable, leading a horse loaded with saddlebags.

Ember blinked at the absolute mess the fight had left his stable in, nonplussed. “Um. What did I miss?”

#fanfic #legend of zelda #breath of the wild #botw #the bone merchant #link #beedle

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